James P. Hogan

by Migration

  “Nice flight down,” Lois complimented as the pilot got up from his seat and moved back to unlatch the door.

  “We try to please,” he acknowledged as he operated the control to open the door and lower the access steps. One of Masumichi Shikoba’s robots was sitting in the copilot’s seat, taking in the view outside. It had come down from the ship as an observer. A still-unsolved problem with trying to develop artificial intelligences was finding an effective way to equip them with the “world knowledge” that came naturally to humans as a consequence of growing up and living in it. One of Masumichi’s strategies was to expose them to as wide a range of experiences as possible as a way of getting them to form the conceptual associations necessary for inferential reasoning.

  The pilot glanced back at the cabin through the open door behind Lois, winked at her, and said to the robot in a carrying voice, “You did real well. Ten out of ten. Now let’s see how you handle docking when we take her back up.”

  That got Quentago’s attention. “What?!” came his strangled voice from the rear. “That was flying us? I don’t care how the talks go. I’m not going back up.”

  “Easy,” one of the escorts cautioned.

  The robot turned its head to look at the pilot. “Please explain reason for asserting as true what must be known to be false,” it requested.

  “I see they haven’t programmed you for getting a joke yet,” the pilot said, grinning.

  “Please explain ‘joke.’”

  “Catch you later,” Lois said and left them to it.

  The air outside as she descended the steps was cool with a touch of dampness. It carried a whiff of sulfurous odor from somewhere, probably an industrial emission. The vehicle was some kind of oil-or gasoline-powered passenger car, shiny black, heavy, and boxy, with three doors on each side, large wheels with what looked like internally sprung tires, and a motor compartment at the rear. The Tranthians had a trading arrangement with oil producers to the south, on the neck connecting Merka to the southern half of the continent. They operated their own mines for coal, ores, and other minerals, most of them reopened workings from the old-world era.

  One of the two men standing in front of the car approached. Lois assumed him to be Gratz. She hadn’t been given all the details of the Directorate’s prior dealings with Tranth, but apparently he was a state attorney. He struck her more as a hired bruiser or political policeman, with his blockish build, long coat of gray rubberized material, brimmed hat set squarely above craglike features, and expression of studied opacity. He drew up without offering a hand or other form of salutation.

  “Lois Iles?”

  “Attorney Gratz.”

  “Quentago is not with you?”

  “He will remain aboard the lander until I’ve met Clure and can verify the deal – as was agreed. I take it that Clure is elsewhere.”

  “Not far from here. We will drive, yes?”

  Gratz turned and let her follow him back. The other man, wearing an olive tunic with a black leather cap, held the door for them and then went around to the rear. The interior was quilted, with leather seats, the dash panel in front of the driver’s seat cut from wood or an imitation. Noises that sounded like a hand crank being turned came from behind, and the motor started, settling down after a few seconds to a steady clickety-clack chugging. Moments later, the driver reappeared, climbed in at the front, and engaged gear.

  They drove out through the gate, past a gaggle of onlookers who had seen the lander come down and stayed to gawk despite shouts from the guards to move on. As they turned onto the street of drab stone frontages to what looked like official buildings, an escort car that had been waiting a short distance back moved out to follow them. The few people about were also drab, wrapped in dark, enveloping garb that insulated them from the world and conferred anonymity, their eyes turned toward the ground or trained straight ahead, avoiding contact that might invite attention. From ground level, the indifferent quality of architecture and the poor state of repairs on every side was obvious. Projecting the state’s power abroad took priority.

  “This Clure, I have worked hard to protect him,” Gratz said. The tone sounded mechanical, as dispassionate as the countenance. “It is not easy. He has dangerous ideas that he does not keep to himself. It makes powerful enemies.”

  Lois took it as an artless ploy to pre-settle the issue, regardless of what impressions she might form. Marney Clure had somehow come to the attention of certain people in Aurora as a person fired by the kind of vision, and with a flare for imparting it to others, that would enrich the venture. However – probably for the same reasons – Clure had fallen foul of the Tranthian authorities and was being held under detention as an agitator and subversive. Getting the Tranthians to part with him should have been an easy enough matter. But their ways of doing business meant that they never gave away anything that someone else wanted without getting some kind of return, even if it would cost them nothing to do so.

  Quentago was a Tranthian thug who had been apprehended in Sofi, where he had come in pursuit of a fugitive math genius whom the Tranthian authorities considered to be state property and had explicitly prohibited from leaving. Quentago had connections among people who mattered in Tranth, and eliciting agreement from them for an exchange had not proved difficult.

  “Well, let’s just hope that what I’ve heard was a fair assessment,” Lois replied. In fact, from the Aurorans’ point of view, there was little to deliberate over, since it was a convenient way to rid themselves of an unsavory customer. But Gratz needed to be made to feel that he was working for his deal.

  “You realize that there are limits to how much I can do?” Gratz said. In other words, What happens to him is in your hands.

  “Are you asking me to take responsibility for decisions that your government might make concerning its own internal matter?” Lois answered. Two figures in uniforms similar to those worn by the guards posted at the gate were swaggering along the sidewalk outside. An old man stepped into the gutter to get out of their way.

  “Why put him to the risk? What is it to you?”

  “The work I do is judged according to certain standards.”

  Gratz raised his eyebrows and looked away. “As you wish.”

  They turned into a narrow street with sooty row houses on one side and a high, windowless wall with metal barbs along the top lining the other. It ended at a pair of heavy wooden gates in an arch overlooked by a watchtower, with a guardhouse on one side. An officer came out and waved the car through as the gates were opened by guards on the inside. The arch opened into a cobbled yard enclosed by the wall on one side, and on the others by outbuildings in the shadow of a large, foreboding structure with small barred windows and steep gables.

  An officer accompanied by a guard came out of an entrance to receive them as the driver opened the car door, and Lois and Gratz climbed out. No words were exchanged. The officer led them back in and through a lobby area of plain, yellow-painted walls, with a counter desk on one side, behind which was some kind of office room, visible through a window. A hallway at the rear of the lobby brought them to a stairway, which they ascended to a landing with corridors leading away on both sides. They followed the one to the right, and after a short distance the officer stopped at one of the doors and rapped sharply on it with a key ring. A guard within opened it, and the officer led the two visitors through to a bare room with a table in the center below a single hanging lamp. The only other occupant, sitting at one of the three chairs drawn up to the table, clad in a two-piece garment of light green, was presumably Marney Clure. The officer sent a perfunctory wave in his direction and withdrew, followed by the guard who had been posted inside the room. As the door closed behind them, Gratz lowered himself onto one of the empty chairs at the table. Lois took the remaining one, opposite Clure, laid her document wallet down in front of her, and opened it in readiness.

  Marney Clure was younger than Lois had imagined, probably in his early thirties, or even late twe
nties. He had a fresh, boyish face with color in his complexion, straight yellow hair falling into a loose mop over his forehead, and a blond fuzz of several days’ growth softening his cheeks and chin. His eyes were a clear blue-gray, quick and shrewd, returning her gaze steadily with the depth and self-assurance of one twice his years. At the same time, there was a hint of mirth in them that told of an irrepressibility of spirit that even his present surroundings and circumstances couldn’t overcome.

  “This is Ms. Iles,” Gratz began, addressing Clure. “She is sent by people who want to make you an offer. This is the best deal I have for you.” Clure shifted his eyes to her curiously, but more in a way that seemed to be weighing her up than asking what. It was as if he were looking for a measure of her first as a person, before getting into details of what she was selling.

  “A new future, Mr. Clure,” Lois said. “A different kind of future.”

  “Here, you have no future,” Gratz threw in.

  Clure kept his eyes on her. “If it’s military, or some kind of troublemaking to provide an excuse for protective intervention somewhere, the answer’s no.” His voice was calm and deliberate, leaving no room for doubts. Then he cocked his head to one side. “But you don’t look like a military recruiter.”

  “Why would you be so adamant, if I were?” she asked.

  He shrugged. “It doesn’t solve anything. Just causes a lot of hate and reasons for revenge, and makes problems worse. The wrong people get rich.”

  “Who do you think should get rich?”

  Clure took a moment to reflect. This probably wasn’t going in any of the directions he had expected, but he seemed happy enough follow it through. “Well, the way I see it is, nobody’s born with anything. So whatever they get on top of what they produce themselves must come from other people. And the only way other people are going to give it to them is if they get something worthwhile back in return. So the ones who should end up with a lot to show are the ones who can do things better when it comes to providing what other people need.” He rubbed his nose with a knuckle for a moment. “And when you look at it, most people who are rich never do much with the stuff they’ve got. It’s just a token to let people know who you are. But if you really had anything of value to offer, you wouldn’t need it. They’d know who you are.”

  The line of conversation suited Lois perfectly. Far from having come to sell anything, her prime concern was evaluating what Aurora stood to gain. From what she had heard so far, Clure could have been one of the program’s founders. “So, what are you doing here?” she couldn’t help asking, gesturing at the room. She glanced at Gratz. He nodded at Clure to go ahead.

  Clure smiled, as if at an inner joke. “I’m a subversive, don’t you see? A threat to the security of the state. Actually, the charge was of being a member of a banned political organization that I’ve never had any connection with. But that was just a frame-up to —” He caught the beginnings of an objection from Gratz. “Oh, come on, Borgio, you know I was framed. No, I didn’t expect you to dig too deeply into it as my defense. You had your orders.” He looked back at Lois before Gratz could take them off track. “To keep me out of circulation because too many people were listening to the things I was saying, and thinking about them. I guess I’m not very, what you’d call… ‘tactful’ in these matters. The thought of organized opposition doesn’t go down well with the people who run things around here.”

  “What kind of things were you saying?” Lois asked.

  “The kinds of thing we were talking about a moment ago. The people who do the work and produce all the real value deserve better. But they’re kept down and exploited by parasites who rule through violence and fear, and have stolen enough to buy protection for themselves.” Clure tossed Gratz a look that said he could think anything he wanted. “There has to be a better way. This way was how the old world ran, and look what happened.”

  Lois held his eye, but her expression remained enigmatic. “Do you think there could be a better way, Mr. Clure?”

  “Maybe, if enough people believed in it, and were capable of organizing themselves to meet force with force if they had to, to protect it. Someone has to try. Look at the way things are starting to go again already. But the ones who make it that way are not as invincible as people think. They have to lie. Inside, they’re cowards, and they scare easily. Why else do you think I’m here?”

  Gratz was breathing heavily, but he managed to contain himself. A silence fell for several seconds while Lois stared at Clure fixedly. Finally, she said in a curious voice, “Suppose I told you that there are people who have resolved to build just such a world as you describe. A new world, elsewhere, far from the reemerging forces that would destroy it. How would you feel about playing a part?”

  Gratz seized the chance to get back onto the track that he understood. “I would advise you to go while you still can,” he told Clure. “Right now, you are regarded as a nuisance. If you ever looked like becoming a serious threat, there would be no way out for you, ever.”

  Clure looked at him searchingly, across at Lois, clearly intrigued now, and then back at Gratz. “Exactly what are we talking about? How soon could this be arranged?”

  “The papers are prepared now, in the main office downstairs,” Gratz replied. “Ms. Iles has transport waiting. You can leave with her.”

  They talked for maybe another half hour, but there was already no doubt as to Clure’s decision. He drove with Lois and Gratz back to the lander, where Quentago was produced and the exchange concluded. The lander took off shortly afterward to rejoin the mother craft from the Aurora. Lois was more than happy with the day’s business. It was the best trade she had seen made in a long time.

  SEVEN

  The reasons for Sofi’s enormous technological lead over the assortment of disconnected states, provinces, and tribal lands that made up the rest of the world went back to the times immediately following the Conflagration. One of the foremost was the concentration of extraordinarily capable people in the population that arose there out of the ruins of the old world. Some believed that the old world had never fully died in that region, and its inhabitants were a remnant of essentially pre-Conflagration stock who had kept their genetic and cultural identity intact, along with much of their skills and aptitudes. Such a notion was certainly in keeping with the readiness with which they were able to absorb and apply the repositories of old-world knowledge that they found around themselves or sent expeditions to recover from elsewhere – lost, for the most part, on the populations of other areas. In this way, Sofi became a legendary sanctuary, spoken of with awe, that the talented and gifted would give up their old lives and journey across the world to join. The resulting one-way diffusion of ability and learning translated into a superiority that as a matter of policy was kept firmly within Sofi’s borders.

  This inevitably gave rise to envy and ambitions of rivalry both in neighboring areas and farther abroad, among those whose preferred way of procuring the necessaries of life was to take them by force from whoever produced or otherwise possessed them. In response, the Sofians had, over the years, developed a numerically small but effective military capability. It didn’t have to be large, because the superiority of Sofi’s weaponry to anything that a potential opponent could bring to bear rendered a credible threat nonexistent. One of the principal rationales for Sofi’s isolationist stance was to keep things that way.

  A consequence of this was the lack of any incentive to create a global trading and communications infrastructure of the kind that had existed before – there wasn’t much out there to trade or communicate with. So, instead of being broad-based and universal, Sofian technologies evolved to be narrow-focused and intensive.

  In place of tens of thousands of airliners, they produced a few high-performance aircraft, some experimental space probes, and finally a starship. As the uniqueness of Sofia’s situation consolidated, two opposed movements developed within the political leadership regarding the future course to which they s
hould direct themselves.

  The “Traditionalists” kept to the original Sofian position that saw expansionism and the desire to impose one’s own ways as the root of the conflicts that had ended the old world through an endless cycle of resentment, resistance, retaliation, and revenge. Instead, they believed that staying out of the affairs of others, while maintaining an impregnable position at home and setting an example by their own quality of life, would demonstrate the superiority of peaceful and prosperous cooperation. In the same way that the more enlightened and capable individuals came to Sofi of their own accord when they were ready, so would other nations and peoples move to become part of a widening community of like minds. Yes, it would take time and patience, but look what had happened to the world that had tried to rush things.

  The other position, that of the “Progressives,” had found its voice later, when Sofi’s pre-eminence was past dispute. It saw an opportunity to unify the world under one system of thought and ideals that would never come again, and should be seized while no force existed that could stop it. The self-immolation of the old world had resulted from a virtually equal power balance between vast political-economic groupings, each believing in its own invincibility, which had guaranteed the escalation of violence to global dimensions. No such obstacle existed to prevent Sofi from asserting its hegemony everywhere today, and establishing a worldwide order of stability that would last. Boldness and resolve had brought the Sofians to where they were. The same qualities would ensure they remained there permanently.

  If a division this deep was appearing within Sofi itself, did it mean the beginnings of the same pattern as before, that would spread over the world once again, inexorably and unstoppably, anyway? That was when the Traditionalists, who had originated the starship program as a mission of exploration and discovery, broadened the concept to one of creating their own world elsewhere based on the ideals that they championed.