Revelation Space (The Inhibitor Trilogy Book 1)

by Alastair Reynolds

“I am Daniel Calvin Lorean Soutaine-Sylveste,” he said, using the form of his name so rarely employed that it almost took an effort of memory to bring it to mind. He went on, “The only biological son of Rosalyn Soutaine and Calvin Sylveste, both of Chasm City, Yellowstone. I was born on the seventeenth of January, in the hundred and twenty-first standard year after the resettlement of Yellowstone. My calendrical age is two hundred and twenty-three. Allowing for medichine programs, I have a physiological age of sixty, on the Sharavi scale.” “How do you knowingly manifest?” “I knowingly manifest in one incarnation only, the biological form now speaking.” “And you affirm that you are not wittingly manifested via alpha-level or other Turing-capable simulacra, in this or any other solar system?” “None of which I am aware.” Massinger made small annotations in the book using a pressure stylus. She had asked Girardieau precisely the same questions: standard parts of the Stoner ceremony. Ever since the Eighty, Stoners had been intensely suspicious of simulations in general, particularly those that purported to contain the essence or soul of an individual. One thing they especially disliked was the idea of one manifestation of an individual—biological or otherwise—making contracts to which the other manifestations were not bound, such as marriage. “These details are in order,” Massinger said. “The bride may step forward.” Pascale moved into the roseate light. She was accompanied by ...