PodCastle

* Author : Eric Schwitzgebel
* Narrator : Tatiana Grey
* Host : Graeme Dunlop
* Audio Producer : Peter Wood
*
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First published in Unlikely Story


Rated PG-13.
The Dauphin’s Metaphysics
by Eric Schwitzgebel
“—which suggests possible applications, if the cobbler is much younger.  Don’t you think, Miss Professor?”
The Dauphin sat twelve rows back—teenage heir apparent to the throne, playing at Academy student—smug smile, a ring of vacant seats around him, his speech casually slurred, ostentatiously humble with plain quill and standard-issue student gown (expensively pressed).
I intended my gaze to crucify him.  Softness to students is a graybeard luxury; a young woman can only be hard.  All the more so, I was sure, in this particular case.  I nursed silence to the edge of discomfort, coiling the spring.  “It is a thought experiment that depends on immaterial souls transferred by miracle,” I said.  “There can be no practical applications.”  I paused again, as if gathering my thoughts.  “Or do you perhaps mistake yourself for God?”

The class sat stunned.  Just two months ago, Distinguished Professor Li had been dragged through the streets of Beijing by his scholarly pigtail for having insulted the King.  But I had chosen my moment carefully.
The Dauphin gazed steadily back at me.  Though I didn’t look at his guards standing by the rear door, I knew they would be ready for his word.
Finally, the Dauphin shrugged.  I resumed the lecture.  Word would spread.  Only my reputation for exchanges like these prevented me from going the direction of all other women.

High Table.  I sat halfway toward the head, among middle-aged men with stalled careers, my rank but not my equals.
“I’ve heard the Dauphin is eagerly attending your course on metaphysics,” said one of them—the gentle one, the one who smiled, Extraordinary Professor Ran Yong.  Eyes turned toward us from all directions.  The Dauphin’s choice of classes was the perfect gossip magnet.
“He might earn a 2nd, if he doesn’t decide he’d rather bowl at lawnpins.”  Then, as if this were an ordinary conversation which I could easily divert, I said, “Tell me more about your research on eleventh-century hypnotic techniques, Yong.”  I speared a wet mushroom with a ridiculously small silver fork.
“He can’t care a devil’s arse about abstract metaphysics,” said another of the men—the one with red ears and big eyebrows, Extraordinary of, right, Politics.  This one could tell the Dauphin all about constitutional monarchy, if the Dauphin cared to listen.  “The Dauphin longs to bask in the flowering wisdom of the lady Extraordinary—so young, so deliciously swift!—whose atheistic Treatise on Human Nature has been the buzz of the Court as much as in the Academy.”
“He would be putting his immortal soul at risk, if immortal souls existed,” I said—the only possible reply to that inane trap of a remark.
“His father will have you hanged.”  It was the sour, unmistakable voice of Ordinary Professor Zeng Shen, one rank higher up the Table, just below Distinguished and Rector.  “I speak, of course, strictly Chemically,” he said.
“Then I should fail the Dauphin straightaway,” I said.  The Chemist’s long, elegant fingernails were tapping the table linen.  “I will request you as outside examiner, Professor Zeng, so that you too may test your integrity against royal power.”