by Tony Daniel
And then she slammed into the back wall, felt herself sink into its pulpy mass. But the pressure was lessening. She was no longer in any danger of blacking out. That is, if she could breathe!
She forced air out of her mouth, sucked in. It worked. She did it again, and again, fighting for each breath. But she could breathe! And suddenly, all the fear left her, and she began to get into this wild ride. It was fun, and nobody she knew—notone of the kids at school—had ever done anything like this before.
Then, quickly, the pressure subsided and Aubry was floating in free fall. If the sticky pulp hadn’t held her to it, she thought she might go flying about if she moved.
“We’ve reached maximum acceleration!” she heard Leo call out. “It’s all speed now!”
And Aubry could see. The red had not been within her eyes—or within her eyes alone. Falling through the mass seemed to have activated some luminescence mechanism in the pulp. The entire transmitter pod glowed with a low red-orange light, exactly as if they were inside a Halloween pumpkin. But a pumpkin from which the goo hadn’t been removed.
Leo maneuvered over to her, floating in the air. “Is everyone all right?” he asked.
“I’m here,” said Jill. “Wherever here is.”
“Hair of the dog that bit you!” yelled Tod. “Slice an apple and out comes a worm!”
“By the way, Leo,” Aubry said. “How do we stop?”
“Same as we started, only backwards,” answered Leo. “But we have a ways to go yet.”
Nine
They met in the virtuality, in a construct of an oceangoing ship deck sailing under a fine blue morning sky and upon a calm sea. The two men met, shook hands, and took seats forward, where a cooling breeze was blowing. A white-jacketed attendant got them refreshment: ice tea for Tacitus, water for Sherman. Tacitus lit a cigar and offered one to Sherman, who declined. He quickly got to the point of the meeting.
“What I want to know,” Sherman said, “is how the cloudships stand.”
Tacitus chuckled and examined his cigar to be sure it was evenly burning. He appeared in the virtuality as a man of medium build, somewhere in his late sixties or early seventies, with long gray hair that fell to his shoulders. He wore a simple gray-brown robe of a stiff material. Sherman wondered if this convert avatar bore any real resemblance to what Sherman had looked like when he’d been only a bodily human being.
“The cloudships can be a pretty inbred and petty lot,” Tacitus said. “They have a rather complicated social order set up out there among the Oorts. It’s anarchy, and at the same time, it’s pure incestuous self-involvement with one another.”
“Do they even know there’s a war going on?”
“Oh, trade has been disrupted. They are aware of it in a general way.” Tacitus took a sip of his tea and a puff of his smoke. “But they think it can’t come to them personally. They figure they’re too powerful for Amés to attack.”
“From what I understand of them, they may be right about that,” said Sherman sourly. “I suppose they could remain neutral.”
“Now think about that a moment,” Tacitus said. “You’ve been making energy here around Neptune for nearly ten years now. Saturn and Jupiter have been selling themselves to the Met as building material. Uranus . . . well, Uranus is kind of a backwater still. But my point is:Where do the proceeds from all this go? Into the bank. And who is the bank in the outer system?”
“The cloudships, of course,” said Sherman. “There’s nothing like a safe in interstellar space if you want security, and there’s nothing like a traveling entrepreneur who gets around the entire system if you want investment.”
“Exactly,” Tacitus replied. “The cloudships are in direct economic competition with the Met. The market on Ganymede is just a front for a cloudship consortium. Everybody knows it if they think about it. That’s who the ultimate enemyis in this war, and Amés knows it, I can assure you. I’m not so sure that my peers are completely aware of the fact yet. In fact, there’s talk of reaching a separate peace with him.”
“That’s what I’m afraid of,” said Sherman.
“A few of my friends and I have been stirring up sentiment against such a thing,” Tacitus continued. He chewed his cigar for a moment, then stood up and faced Sherman, his back to the sea. “While I’ve got you here, I wanted to run a little idea past you, to tell the truth.”
“What would that be?”
“I believe that the only way to oppose Amés’s political attempt to divide the outer system successfully is for us to get together in a way we never have before.”
“We are together. The old Republic is still the government I answer to.”
“Colonel Sherman, you know as well as I do that the Republic never did exist in the outer system. The Federal Republic is just a name that the several local governments use to justify their actions and defy the edicts from the Met that don’t suit them.”
Sherman drank half his glass of water. It was still cold even though it had been sitting out in the “sun.” “What do you suggest then, Tacitus?”
“A new outer-system government that formally renounces all ties with the Met. The Federal Army would become the army of this republic—or whatever we decide upon as a form of government. We would hold elections, I suppose, make laws. We would unify those opposed to Amés and give him a real fight instead of a bunch of half-assed last stands . . . no offense—”
“None taken,” said Sherman. “And I agree. But how can it be brought about?”
“There’s the rub,” said Tacitus, and took his seat in the deck chair once again. He considered the ash on his cigar tip, now in danger of falling off at any moment. He neglected to flick it away, however, and took another pull. The ash fell into his lap. He didn’t seem to notice. “I suppose we can start where such things always start: with the few, the proud, et ceteras, doing the spadework.”
“What I really need at the moment,” said Sherman, feeling distracted by the thought of all the politics that might lie ahead for him, “is a navy.”
“That might be easier than you think to acquire,” said Tacitus. “I have a few students back in the Oorts who are itching for a big adventure.”
“Students?”
“I’m a history teacher by trade, of course,” the old man declared serenely. “We cloudships have our university for our young.”
“Yes,” said Sherman. “You would.”
“It is not snobbery, it is just that our young grow up in such different stages from a regular biological child. But my students are the equivalent of college age—each is about twenty-five years old—and they have full freedom to join whatever foolhardy venture presents itself. Serving in our new republic’s navy might be one of these ventures.”
“When can you have them here?”
Tacitus laughed. “In good time,” he said. “In good time.”
Sherman drained the remainder of his water and set the glass down beside him on the deck. The porter immediately appeared and took it away. “All right,” Sherman said. “What is your proposed plan of action?”
“Now we’re talking!” said the old man. “A plan of action! Just the thing.”
“Well, what is it?”
“I go back to the Oorts to drum up support, and maybe come back with a few ships, or at least send them your way. If I’m right, it won’t be long before this blockade begins to take its toll on the cloudships. Ships are being turned away from Jupiter, access to Met energy is being cut off. Amés wants to blackmail the ships into signing a separate peace and staying out of the fighting, but it’s pretty clear that his intentions are to take everything eventually.”
“That’s my assessment,” said Sherman. “What we have here is the economy of the Met versus the emerging economy of the cloudships and the outer system. We have taxation issues that come down to issues of freedom to submit or not submit to an authority whose legitimacy is unacceptable. And we have free-convert rights.” Sherman touched his beard. Tacitus had thought
fully filled it in for him, here in this location in the virtuality. “And we have Amés.”
“Who wants what all dictators have always wanted,” said Tacitus. “He wants to rule the universe.”
“Is there anything I’m missing?”
“It is just this,” Tacitus said, stubbing out his cigar on the deck rail. “I believe that what we are really fighting over is the question of what the next stage of human evolution will be. Free-convert rights and Amés’s ambition are inalterably opposed. It is a fight of unity versus plurality. Will humanity go forward as a ‘one’ or as a ‘many’? Technology has made it possible for the human race to unify into one mind. It was only a matter of time before an Amés came along and seized this opportunity. But what I believe is that humanity is better served by a division of thoughts and thinkers. The individual, however strangely transformed, has not been transcended. I admit that sometimes my evidence for this conclusion is a little shaky, but nonetheless, I cling to it. Because the alternative is that the temporarily strong will exercise eternal tyranny over the temporarily down-on-their-luck. And who is to say if we won’t one day need for our very survival those traits we consider weak or recessive at the moment? One look at history will show that the dominant and recessive are continually trading places according to the needs of the moment, and our perceptions about what is the greatest and what are lesser virtues changes just as radically. Amés is going to try to absorb every mind in the Met into his own. That is, I believe, his ultimate aim.”
“Will he really go that far, though?” said Sherman.
“Hecan ,” Tacitus replied. “The technology is there. And he is the sort of man who takes everything he can get his hands on. I have a bit of material on his childhood that might serve to support this contention.”
“You have found something out about Amés’s childhood?”
“The world is a library,” Tacitus replied. “It’s just a matter of figuring out the filing system.”
“And you think free converts are the ultimate threat to Amés?”
“They represent the proliferation of the individual. Can you imagine what would happen if the copying safeguards were taken off, if the combinatoric edicts were lifted? Do you have any idea how many individuals the merci could sustain?”
“Hundreds of billions, I suppose,” Sherman said.
“There is no limit,” Tacitus said, “with time-sharing of grist, there could be more individuals than there are atoms in the solar system. And if we expand . . . there is an infinite possibility.”
“Can that be good?”
“Amés does not think so. He is convinced that the opposite is true.”
“What do you think?”
The steward walked by, and Tacitus hooked another cigar from him. “And please bring me a brandy,” he told the fellow. Sherman waited patiently for Tacitus to light up. He took two great puffs, then looked down at his cigar, twisting it between his fingers. “I think,” he said, “thatI like very much being my own man.”
“As do I,” said Sherman.
“It is an existential question that each must answer for himself. Should I go on living? Should I have children? What right does anyone have to tell us what to do in these matters? Individuals acting individually arrive at the best solution for the whole group.” Two more puffs. The white smoke blew out to sea. “Of course, I will defend to the death your right to hold the opposite opinion,” he said. “But I believe that the fight we have entered into is a fight for our veryminds . I think Amés means to have them. It is the last test for democracy. Is this the system of government we will take to the stars, or is Amés’s way the better one?”
Sherman stood up and gazed out across the virtual sea. “Well, you had better go and get me a government, then,” he said, “so I can be a soldier of the people. Otherwise, everybody’s going to get mighty tired of dying just because I ask them to. I lack Amés’s charisma.”
Tacitus smiled benignly. His brandy came, and he took it to the rail to stand by Sherman. “The Mediterranean,” he said. “I used to live in Italy when I was doing studies on the Renaissance.”
“So you are one of the original cloudships?” said Sherman.
“I’m an original.”
“That would put you at five hundred e-years, at least.”
“Oh, I’m older than that. I was one of the lucky ones in the first half of the millennium that the primitive rejuvenation methods worked on.”
“So how old are you?” said Sherman. “If you don’t mind my asking.”
“Old enough to know how to keep a secret,” Tacitus answered. “And when to tell it.” He went back to smoking his cigar. Suddenly, two bells rang on the ship. The steward appeared and made a deep bow.
“Begging your pardon, gentlemen,” he said. “We are shortly expecting company.”
“What the hell?” said Sherman, but Tacitus put a steady hand his shoulder.
“Not to worry, Colonel, not to worry,” he said. “They are friends. Allies. Refugees from the fall of Titan.” He pointed toward the rear and two men, one short and muscled, the other tall and thin, walked toward them.
“We’re looking for Colonel Roger Sherman,” said the taller one. “We were told we might find him here.”
“I am he,” Sherman said.
“Good, good,” the tall man continued. “I am Gerardo Funk. This is Thomas Ogawa, my partner. We’re both late of Titan. Brought along five hundred of our brightest minds and a little fleet of merchant ships. We’re looking for refuge, or at least a place we can stop over before we head on.”
Sherman looked the two men over. “We’ve had a rough time of it ourselves,” he said, “but I believe we can take you in.”
“We’ll work for our keep, Colonel,” Ogawa said. “We’re not asking for handouts.”
Tacitus smiled. “The government seems to be forming itself,” he said. “Welcome aboard.”
Ten
They were on Pluto.
Charon hung in the sky. It always did, taking the same amount of time to orbit Pluto as Pluto did to turn on its axis—about six and a half e-days. Much of Pluto’s surface was covered with grist, and the two men could walk along in a virtual re-creation as if they were two ghosts, traveling across its wasteland. Pluto was mostly ice water in the dark band around the equator, methane at the poles, exotics mixed throughout. Sublimation was constant, and drifts of vapors wafted about. It really was“where the stones go to die,” as Beat Myers had described it five hundred e-years before.
Alas, poor Myers, C thought. I knew him, Horatio.
“We have the planet and the moon,” Amés said. He was beside C, using the icon of the sun. “It was a pushover, really. TheStreichhöltzer showed up in the sky, and the locals promptly surrendered. Well, a few radical elements made trouble, but we subverted all the grist on the planet. Imagine—the very land rising up against you and swallowing you up.”
“Not a pretty picture,” C replied.
“You think not?” Amés said. “There was a beauty to it.”
They were instantly in Day, the port city. Gangs of local workers, space-adapted, were unloading transport craft recently descended from theStreichhöltzer . There were barrels and barrels of military grist.
“This will be a supply depot,” Amés said. “For when we strike the Oorts. We can also use it for operations against Neptune.”
“A nasty business that,” said C, and immediately wished he hadn’t. Amés was known, at times, to kill the messenger. But he was merely irritated at the moment by C’s words.
“Yes,” he said. “We’ll get to that later.”
They were in Pluto staff HQ, now inhabiting bodies in the virtuality. Amés elected to allow them to be noticed and General Blanket immediately shunted over to the virtuality to greet them.
“Director Amés,” said Blanket. “This is a surprise.” He was Asian, with jet-black hair worn severely cropped.
But you’ve neglected to give your eyebrows a crew cut, C tho
ught. They were thick and unkempt, and the effect was not pleasing.
“Surprise,” said Amés. “Now tell me about your security arrangements.”
Blanket pretended to look down at a readout on his virtual desk. Amés waited patiently for the man to collect his thoughts. “I’ve released three thousand soldiers into the grist,” he said. “They’ve got the local free converts well in hand. There will be no shield code foul-ups.”
He’s talking about Saturn, thought C, and Haysay’s blunder on Titan.
“Good, good,” said Amés. “Are those soldiers interleaved?”
“Yes, sir. I’ve got a controlling a.i. right here in my headquarters time-sharing between them. Nobody takes a shit without his say-so.”
“And that a.i. would be?”
“Me, sir. One of my converts.”
“Excellent, Blanket.”
“TheStreichhöltzer ’s in an ellipse around the planet and the moon. I’ve established constantSciatica patrols. TheSlong is sharing the carrier’s orbit at the opposite side. We’re laying mines and establishing a safe harbor for the fleet.”
“Anything else?” said Amés. “What about the local populace?”
“They have graciously volunteered to turn all product sectors to the war effort,” Blanket replied. He smiled, and his eyebrows formed into small arches, like hanging masses of creeper vines.
Amés turned to C. “Suggestions?”
“There’s a woman here I once knew,” said C. “Her name is Shanigan Moth. Best grist hacker I ever met, and I happen to know she’ll sell her services to the highest bidder.”
“Moth, you say—” Blanket again examined his desk readout. He looked up with drooping eyebrows of doom. “She’s, er, dead. Killed in the first wave.”
“I thought you said they surrendered without a fight,” replied C softly.
“They did,” Blanket replied. “But we had already sent in an advance team, so I had them . . . show our stuff a bit. Let the locals understand who they were dealing with.”