He stirred in his seat. His muscles ached to smash something, anything, but this was the only motion allowable here; and he'd better keep speaking low, too. "Who is it?"
"Registered name—two names, actually—Pedro Dover."
Memory surged. "Slag and slaughter, I've met him! He was inciting mayhem on a sophotect in Mondheim, during the riots after the Prefect's speech about Centauri. I left just a few daycycles later, but supposed they'd soon hook the scumhead."
Georghios nodded. "Oh, we did. Caught him here in Tychopolis. It took awhile, because there was so huge a mess to clean up and so many mixed into it. Afterward the courts, the evaluation centers, everything was swamped with cases. Pedro Dover and other Gizaki members had sharp counselors, who twisted the 'speedy hearing, determinate finding' rule in knots around the adjudicators. The upshot was that he got six months' detention for 'emotional instability.' Clear to see, whatever therapy they gave him there was superficial and didn't take. The offense·· wasn't such as to permit deep-going treatment when he didn't want it. After release, he continued in his marginal style, doing odd jobs for money— he is good with his hands—and spewing his notions at whoever would listen. He didn't seem of any particular account." A big fist knotted, helpless on the desktop. "Too late now."
Too late indeed, sighed through Fenn. He'o lay dead, frozen till he could be brought home to his people for their rites fhat would pive him to the dolnhins. Revival was hardly possible, or if it was, it would be a cruelty, considering what had been destroyed. No, let the sea remember him.
Fenn scowled. "Gizaki. I've heard about them, but not much. A dement cult, aren't they?"
"One out of too buggering many. I recall how when I was a sprout, my father told me how we finally had an adult civilization and in the course of time it would make all of us individually sane. But it's been changing faster and faster.... Well." Georghios straightened and spoke in a monotone. ”Gizaki seems to have started in the Pyrenees Mountains region of Earth. The word means 'human' in a forgotten local language. The founder wrote and talked about blood rights, organic life, the heroic Lyudov Rebellion, which was tragically crushed, that kind of junk memes."
"Yen, we're hearing a lot of them these days, aren't we?"
"The Gizaki are at the far end of the spectrum. I looked up the history of the Lyudovites, trying to see where this attack today comes from, and found that they weren't totally unreasonable. They feared what effects sophotectic intelligence, and the general robotization of things, might have. They called for a moratorium on its development while society decided whether to go ahead with it, and they said the decision should be no. But it began as a legitimate argument, mistaken or not. Matters did get out of hand, uprisings followed, casualties were high till order was restored. But that was centuries ago, for cosmos' sake. The Gizaki don't just say we should stop entropy, they say we've got to reverse it, and if we don't choose to—like maybe because several hundred million people would die when the cybercosm collapsed—why, at their appointed hour they'll show us the error of our ways with guns and bombs."
Fenn nodded. "I see. Human trash, knowing they're meaningless, useless, and blaming it on technology. Put in ifs nlarp anrl humankind will flower, especially their glorious selves. Meanwhile, preach hatred of it and all its works, including metamorphs. Who're a safer target than the machines." Grimly: "The Lahui Kuikawa will have to start taking precautions."
"Careful," Georghios said. "We can't let violence run loose, no matter how good it thinks its cause is."
Fenn curbed a rebuttal. He was having matters explained to him at length and in private as a courtesy, because he had served in the force. No doubt the fact that it had been a close friend of his who died, and he would carry whatever he heard back to a large and influential polity on Earth, was also a motivation. But he'd be a fool if he antagonized the police ... or warned them.
"The murder weapon," he asked instead. "What was it? How the flame did Pedro Dover carry a firearm through a Lunar city without being stopped?"
Always outside waited the vacuum, the radiation, space.
"It wasn't a firearm when he carried it," Georghios replied. “It was only a couple of ungainly metal objects. The witnesses told us they thought it might be a half-finished hobby project. But it was memory metal. When he'd established himself in that room—he must have known you two would come down Tsiolkovsky, and approximately when, which suggests the Gizaki were systematically tapping datalines, same as the newsies—he applied heat, and the things sprang back into the original shapes they'd been deformed out of: a harpoonlike missile and a strong spring-powered launcher. He added a photonic sighting mech, which he'd probably had in his belt pouch along with the little heating torch and the sermon 'caster. Then he was ready for action."
Fenn nodded. "Yes, we will have to take care on our islands and our ships. We are, you know, trying to lift a venture that'll involve robotics, and dealings with Lunarians on Mars, and maybe with Lunarians on Proserpina and at Alpha Centauri—not to mention that more than half of us are metamorphs, seals—We'll only take care, you understand. Nothing aggressive."
He lied, and refused to feel guilty. . Oh, the human Lahui would be law-abiding enough; armed conflict was foreign to them, and the issue was fairly irrelevant to the Keiki Moana. Besides, Fenn doubted that the Gizaki were a serious menace, especially when two tightly integrated worlds had gone on watch against them—a watch that the cybercosm would keep unflagging.
But He'o lay dead.
He, Fenn, was shortly going back to Mars. (Even amidst his grief, it thrilled in him.) If the police had not found Pedro Dover when he returned, he meant to instigate a search program of his own. It would be more intense than they could maintain, they who had an entire civilization to protect and were bound by procedural rules.
He well-nigh hoped they would have failed. The Synesis, the entire dispassionately merciful system, would try to rehabilitate the killer.
Why? To what purpose?
Vengeance made more sense.
14
CHUAN BOWED IN the manner of his forefathers, then offered his hand in the manner of Selenites. "Welcome back," he said.
Fenn took it, briefly, and tried to match the smile on the round, amber-brown countenance before him. He must look down; the synnoiont was a short man. The implications were what towered. "Thank you," he replied.
His glance flickered around the room. When he was on Mars before, last year, two Earth-years ago, they had met just once in person, in a downtown office, and otherwise talked by phone. The invitation to visit Chuan at home had come as a surprise, very soon after this arrival. Fenn supposed it was an attempt at human contact, a touch of warmth, in hopes of making him a little more open to persuasion.
It would hardly work. The austere room, the changeable fractals in the walls that were the sole decoration, reinforced his impression of alienness. Or did they, really? The floor was aflow with colors, the furniture was obviously comfortable to the point of sensuality, and the viewport revealed flower beds close by, above a downward sweep of craterside toward Crommelin city and the great red basin. Music played softly, nothing complex or abstract, a simple and rather sentimental melody for strings that Fenn didn't recognize but that must be ancient. Almost subliminal, an odor as of new-cut grass beneath a summer sun tinged the air. If those touches were meant for him, they at least showed that Chuan could think in ordinary terms and cared about his guest's feelings.
Also, Kinna was fond of the man, and he had often been kind to her.
Nevertheless—
"I trust you had a pleasant voyage," he was saying.
Fenn shrugged. "Routine."
That wasn't quite true, when such flights occurred only as Earth began to overtake Mars and passengers were a rarity. But, yes, the days of transit at an energy-parsimonious one Lunar gravity had been dull enough. Attended merely by a couple of specialized robots, he had had nothing to do but exercise, read, watch recorded shows, play games agai
nst a computer, and pursue his studies. Seen from inside that box, even the stars gave no particular sense of being in space. Not until the destination loomed gigantic against them did the old thrill come alive again.
"You have been well received?" Chuan prompted.
"Yes, everybody's been cordial and helpful," Fenn said. No wonder. They would be for any outsider, but his errand was special indeed. He appended deliberately: "And now you."
"You are good to come. I know you are extremely busy."
"Well, I'm about to be. Tomorrow I'll commence inspecting the moonjumper. We've been warned it needs work, after standing idle for many years. I don't yet know how much work."
Chuan gestured at a lounger. "Forgive me. My hospitality fails. Please be seated. What would you like to drink? I have tried to lay in a variety."
Fenn settled himself opposite his host and, somewhat experimentally, named beer. Chuan spoke into the air. Almost at once a servitor appeared with a tray bearing a quite decent local brew, tea for him, and assorted small foods.
"I gather that you have become the Lahui Kuikawa's chief expert on space operations," he said.
“Gather'' was probably a classic understatement, Fenn thought. But doubtless it was best for him too to keep the tone as unemotional as possible for as long as possible. "In a way," he answered. "With my background, I had a head start. Since then, I've gotten more experience whenever I could, and they've paid for my training—you know, recorded instruction, simulators, dreambox, everything that once instilled those skills in humans who were to practice them. I'd be a qualified pilot by now, if ships still used live pilots."
"You are personally going up to Deimos?"
"Of course. As soon as the spacecraft's ready. I hope to find out in the next few days exactly what needs fixing, and hope that then the robots and human technicians can get it done quickly." Those arrangements had been made in advance over the interplanetary beams. "After all, the ferry goes back to Luna in about six weeks."
"What else will you be engaged with while among us, if I may ask?''
"More of what I did last time. Talk with people. Run through databases. Visit prospective sites for operations— mining, manufacturing, whatever we'll need. If all this proves out, I'll prepare a report that may be the last push necessary to convince the Lahui councillors to go ahead with the venture, and enough foreign investors to give it support." Fenn decided to stop playacting. He stared at Chuan across the rim of his beaker. "But you must know this already."
The synnoiont frowned the tiniest bit. "Yes. 1 cannot pretend to be delighted."
No, Fenn thought, that'd be hard for you. We faced down some of the top trustees of the Synesis, and the cybercosm behind them, to acquire two old, unused torch ships at Earth and one moonjumper on Mars. We bluffed them into approving the sales with the threat of the stink we could raise if they refused. We, Manu, He'o, lokepa, me, and others, we found individual donors and scraped together credit for the purchases, and then deeded the craft to the polity so no one could invent a reason for confiscating them back from us.
For an instant he wondered: Were we being paranoid? Are we?
As if to disarm him, or maybe sincerely, Chuan went on: “But you, are you going up to Deimos alone except for a few robots? Isn't that dangerous?"
"Not if I keep my wits about me and nobody, uh, interferes. It'll be public, everything scanned and transmitted in real time straight to the news net."
Chuan showed no sign of insult. "Is this effort necessary? Wasn't everything about that moonlet, every characteristic and component of it, studied and recorded centuries ago, when it was mined for its water?"
" 'Centuries ago' is the operative term," Fenn said. "Things may have changed since then, while nobody was navine anv attention. For instance, a meteoroid impact may possibly have scrambled some rocks, or added some useful ore. Anyhow, those early surveys were for different purposes from mine. I'm going to look the body over with an engineer's eye, as orbiting raw material for a habitat."
"No offense, but could not a sophotect, perhaps with several different specialized bodies, do that more thoroughly as well as more safely? I can assure you the service will be available if requested, like any other lawful and feasible service people cannot well provide for themselves."
"No, we want the job done by a human."
Chuan raised his brows. “You do not trust the cybercosm?" he murmured.
"No offense," Fenn gave him back. Draw your own conclusions, he did not add. "Let's say it'll feel better to us this way. Getting live beings back into space is the whole aim. Here's where we start."
Chuan set his teacup down and leaned forward. “That is what I wished to talk about today. Your feelings. The imponderables."
Fenn grew ill at ease. "Stuff that doesn't fit well into a socioanalytical matrix," he tried to parry.
"Yes," Chuan agreed. "The magnificent and terrible irrationality of organic life." He sighed. "But this is my department. I am supposed to bridge the gap between the organic and the electrophotonic."
Fenn tautened. "Maybe we are crazy, we organics." He tossed off his beer and thudded the beaker onto the table between them. "If so, that's how we are."
Chuan inquired whether he would care for more. While it came, the synnoiont maintained: "You know modern society does not try to suppress the emotional life of human or metamorph—or nature itself, animals, flowers, everything that lives and is not too harmful to people. Rather, life has more freedom and encouragement than ever before in history."
"Provided it stays inside the limits of what you call rational," Fenn snapped.
"You are an intelligent, educated man. Surely you do not believe the sophotectic mind is nothing but a cold calculator."
"No," Fenn conceded,- "you have your dreams and drives, whatever they are."
"We do?" Chuan said low. "I am human too."
"You know what I mean," Fenn retorted defensively. "Just let us get on with ours. What do they threaten? How?"
Chuan shook his head as if it had gone heavy. "I— we, if you insist—on behalf of civilization and life, I beg you to consider the all too real possibility that your dream will turn into a nightmare. How often in the uncontrolled, randomly happening past did it so occur? Christ preached God's love; Christians massacred unbelievers and burned heretics in the name of it. Reformers called for universal equality, and tyrannies came forth to enforce—the name of it."
"You needn't go on," Fenn growled. "I know. But I also know, we're here today because people were not content with things as they were."
Chuan's voice sharpened. "Change for the sake of change? Is that your idea of progress? You realize, do you not, that if your Lahui Kuikawa establish a viable presence beyond Earth, they will cease to be the Lahui Kuikawa."
Fenn nodded, glad to have a ready response on the other man's chosen ground. "Sure. We accept that, the way—oh—the way anybody accepts being changed by a great experience. The trouble's been, there were no great experiences left for us, for any organic beings. We've got to make our own." That was not how most of his fellows would have put it. But to say that they wanted power to deal directly with the Proserpinans and the stardwellers would have touched a sore spot. Anyhow, Chuan knew it perfectly well. It had been discussed openly, sometimes globally, for years. In fact, why the flame was the synnoiont wasting time on arguments gone threadbare? “Besides, only a minority would leave Earth. The mother polity will stay home."
"Scarcely unaffected." Chuan's gaze searched him. "My friend—may I call you my friend, now when we speak frankly?—I fear this future you mean to strive for. And so does not only the cybercosm, but many thoughtful humans also. The consequences are incalculable, consequences to our whole race, yours and mine and the Lunarians and your Keiki Moana, everyone. We have already suffered the impact of news from Alpha Centauri—in the Lahui Kuikawa too, am I right? Discontent, alienation, rebelliousness with no clear object, crime—insanity.''
The challenge stiffened Fe
nn. “Has that been due simply to the news, or did the news—and the wondering how much of the truth we're being told—did that touch off a fire that'd been smoldering all along?"
"You imply that humankind is incapable of sanity," Chuan said. "That a peaceful, prosperous, tolerant, just, and marvelously diverse world has by its very nature become unendurable."
"Well—" muttered Fenn, taken aback.
"I do not choose to believe that. Neither sociodynamic theory nor empirical fact require me to. But it is true that we humans are still, genetically, primitive hunters and foragers, savages. Not wild animals—it would be easier, less dangerous for us if we were—no, the oldest domesticated animal is man himself, who will go as crazily, suicidally ferocious as any dog when the master commands. Civilization is an artifact. It is the supreme artifact—invention, drama, work of art—and the most fragile. Do not stress it beyond its breaking strength, Fenn."
"How would we? Seems to me we'd be enlarging it, taking it back to the planets and pointing it toward the stars."
"You know full well what I mean. You have heard it over and over. But let me repeat it. Something as radical as this would upset too many social balances. Imagine, for a single example, what a renewal of extensive space traffic and a growth of major new industry would do to Luna: the small businesses that give purpose to so many people's lives going under, the customs and traditions that bind them together dissolving. Economic rivalry; the resources of the Solar System remain vast, but they are more widely scattered and less easily harvested than formerly. The bitterness in those who try and fail. Unforeseeable new ideas, faiths, desires; and some are sure to prove as troublesome as Catharism, Communism, Avantism, or a hundred others were in their day. More immediately, what of the Lunarians, also here on Mars? Few of them have renounced irredentism. What may they do after space commerce and a reinvigorated planet have given them a prospect of reclaiming their ancestral Moon? No matter whether they could succeed or not; consider the monstrous tragedies that an attempt would bring about. As for the Lunarians of Proserpina—we do not know. Nor can we foretell anything whatsoever about those at Centauri.
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