Sonia suddenly had the strong impression that desire had more than one meaning for Elise, when it came to Lobeck. The question arrived unbidden in her mind, as to whether Lobeck was partial to heavily decorated and strongly scented women.
“We’ll process it now,” Sonia said. “It will take about two hours.” She was willing to model anything that was asked, as long as she could escape the room to do it.
“Great! Unless the economists come back with a frightening prediction, we’ll get this show on the road! Merlin, please queue up the interviews for our two subjects and start the buzz going, just as soon as we get the green light. We’ll pick up more experts and supporting testimonials as soon as the first few stories go big – you know how they always come out of the woodwork to get their fifteen minutes of fame.”
“Do we need to go to the Story Board?” Merlin asked.
The Story Board had to be consulted any time a family planned a major revision to the True Story, which might have an impact on all of the Sisters.
Elise considered. “Not for this. It’s all specific to Affirmatix. There’s nothing here that would tear the fabric of the larger True Story that spans all of the families.”
Merlin nodded. “What about suppressing the false stories? Keep active?”
“We need to stay with that, until the True Story takes root and grows. But this gives us a great positive direction instead of just reacting. Merlin, you’ve been your brilliant self once again! This is a story we can really get behind.”
“I have just one question.” Ravi.
“Yes?” Elise gave him an expectant smile.
“Is this what you guys do for a living? All the time?”
“Oh Ravi, you are so funny. We have the best job ever. We help people to be secure, and happy. And supportive of all the good things we do to protect them. We’re just so lucky.”
With that, Elise and her cloud of assistants swept out of the room.
The Governor
Theodore Rezar had been governor of Kelter for just over three years. In that time, he reflected, the only decisions he had made were on the topic of when and where to go pee. Sometimes not even that. He considered the unending parade of state events and public appearances.
He studied his script once again. Rezar was a gifted speaker, a talent he had inherited from his father. That, and being the son and grandson of long-serving governors, was what had gotten him elected. It had not even been a contest. There had to be at least one other candidate, and there had been, but there also had been no doubt.
Had he felt sorry for his opponent? Alice Lamb, whose name just begged to be ridiculed, had fought well, even absent all hope of winning. She had proposed excellent and innovative ideas for how to improve the governance of Kelter, but her campaign had lacked polish and professionalism – no match for his team’s messaging. As everyone knew, the ability to run a successful campaign was the most important test of a candidate’s ability to govern – his opponent had failed that test.
Rezar decided that he didn’t feel sorry for her. The name recognition would serve Lamb well, whatever she chose to do. And if he ever tired of the office and decided not to run for re-election, she might have a real chance.
He went through hair and makeup without complaint. It was important to look good.
Rezar began.
“Citizens, consumers, friends. I am here to provide some important updates on recent events. As you know, we have been engaged in an ongoing antiterrorism operation. The operation has been going well and will be proceeding to completion. Meanwhile, we will maintain our request that no ships leave the Kelter system until we provide clearance. Traffic from the surface to Top Station and to the moons continues to be permitted, with full flight plans submitted and cleared in advance.”
“These operations will have no effect at all on anyone’s lives on the surface. Please continue your regular work and recreational activities.”
Rezar continued through the script, projecting assurance and calm.
Finally, it was done.
The part of the speech about the blockade not affecting life on the surface was not quite true. In addition to stopping all outbound travel, Affirmatix had placed ships in other systems to wave off anyone planning to travel to Kelter. Very few ships were coming in any more, and soon there would be none. The latest news, latest culture, and products were stranded elsewhere.
For instance, the Governor’s office had ordered a large shipment of fresh, wild-caught live lobster, all the way from Baffin Bay on Earth. The lobster were for a large banquet to be held in two days. Already, the chefs were updating the menu with a replacement for the main course.
Rezar would miss the lobster. If he had to go to all those events, at least there could be lobster some of the time.
Re-Entry
Mira decided to just let events unfold. As long as Denison stayed quiet about his employer as he had agreed, things would be fine.
Denison put out his hand and offered, “Great to meet you, Mr. McElroy. I’m Rodney.”
Evan sure wasn’t looking his best. Not that he had cared much for his appearance at any time. Why in the world didn’t he have his beard removed? It never looked remotely tidy and at this moment it was worse than usual. His hair and beard were called red by convention, but were closer to a kind of burnt orange.
He also looked totally aghast at there being another person on board. Mira had had no way to warn him of their new passenger before he came inside, but she had also decided it would be fun to let him twist a little.
She watched Evan consider Rodney’s hand as if it were some kind of alien invader, until social convention won out and he allowed his own hand to be shaken.
“Write my story? What’s that about?”
“Well, it’s totally epic! Did you really spacewalk for two million kilometers?”
Evan looked around for help. “Mira, this isn’t what I had in mind.”
“Oh, just go with it,” she told him. “We’re going to need someone to help get it out in style.”
“But we haven’t even made it to Kelter yet. Mira, why?”
“Full charter. Rod offered me full charter for passage. I couldn’t refuse.”
“For money? Are you serious?”
“You’re not listening,” Mira told him. “I couldn’t refuse. When there’s a full charter request on the log, someone like me doesn’t fly away empty. You don’t exist, remember? I had to choose one of the charter requests, and I know Rod. We can trust him. He’ll help us figure out the best way to blast the word out everywhere. In exchange, you can tell him tales of your epic voyage, and someday he’ll have a bestseller. If he doesn’t get zeroed for coming near us.”
“I’d like to do an interview,” Denison told him. “I can’t wait to hear what it was like cruising across the solar system in an EVA.”
“Epic, eh? Well, I was scared out of my wits. Thought I was going to die. Had claustrophobia attacks. Spent the last two hours desperately needing to poop but not daring to, for fear of what it might do to the EVA or to the air supply. Trying not to think about the source of the water I was sipping. Counting down the minutes until my air would run out. And the whole time, the suit kept telling me I should sleep, so that my air would last longer. How am I doing so far?”
Denison was nodding in approval. “Gritty realism. Excellent.”
“I’m glad someone likes it, because I sure didn’t. And then Mira makes me hide in the intake for another few hours, because she isn’t sure I’ve suffered enough.”
“Hey, that move saved your ass,” Mira called out from the front. “Security rooted through the whole ship. Don’t forget to thank me!”
“I’m dying for a wash,” Evan continued. “And I itch. And someone has been trying to kill me. With missiles! And I have no idea who you are. Mira, how long until we get to ground?”
“An hour and three minutes. But we’ll start re-entry soon, and it’s going to get noisy.”
�
�Mr. McElroy−”
“Evan.”
“Evan, I won’t put you on the spot,” Denison offered. “If you’re amenable, I’d like to know more, whenever you choose. And meanwhile, every minute of this journey is news in the making!”
“I assume you know that I am a fugitive, likely to be killed, and you with me. Are you okay with that?”
“Not if we’re with Mira! Luckiest woman I know. Something always saves her. Charms her way out of any situation.”
“Charms? Mira?” Evan shook his head.
“Just the ride down,” Mira told Denison. “After we land, we’re going to disappear. You need to complete your courier trip, Rod, because the record shows that’s the reason you came down. If you don’t do that, alarm bells. We’ll send you a note when we’re ready for you.”
“I just hate to miss out.”
“And a reminder,” Mira prodded. “You agreed as a condition of the charter to respect the privacy of my passenger. You cannot, under any circumstances, mention Evan to anyone, especially to your employer, until we release you from that agreement. Do we have that straight?”
“But I need to file a full report.”
“Ship, dates, times, that’s fine. But my passenger is a private matter. You can’t breach trust on that. Not to anyone.”
Mira looked back and saw Denison nod his acceptance.
Sound appeared around them and then it grew. The small ship began to shudder. Soon it was too loud to talk. The atmosphere of Kelter, thin as it was, was rocking the ship. Re-entry had begun.
How Many Lives
They were nominally on break, although the wheels never stopped turning. There was always a next topic to discuss. Sonia had one in mind.
“Ravi, I’m a little worried, that our work could be misinterpreted,” Sonia opened. How to say this delicately, without raising too many flags? “Or misapplied.”
“We provide the analysis, they do with it what they will,” he dismissed. Ravi’s thin, sharp features were a perfect match to his typical outlook. “They will never understand the limitations. So we will just do our job.”
“But our job is to help them make good decisions,” Sonia insisted. “You heard that Lobeck is gunning for the ninety-nine percent outcome. Controlling ninety-nine percent of all entities, of all families. All assets anywhere.”
“That’s his business, isn’t it?” Ravi shrugged. “He told you, it’s above our pay grade.”
The small observation deck recommended by the captain had a magnificent view. They were perched five thousand kilometers up, looking directly down on Kelter.
Sonia visualized the piercing green thread, among the myriad possibilities. “That outcome is so unlikely. The chances of making it there are so low, and the risks are so high. On that path there is a clear risk of war. Large or small.”
“We fully informed Lobeck, and he’s not stupid.”
“Here’s what I suggest we do,” Sonia said. “It’s completely consistent with our job responsibilities. We should put broad labels on the outcomes, such as Most Realistic, Less Realistic, and Unrealistic. And we should always use them. So if Lobeck plans for the ninety-nine percent outcome, ultimately that’s his choice, but we can keep reminding him, and everyone around him.”
“That’s okay, I guess,” Ravi replied. “Just don’t expect me to get political about this. You’ve got an agenda, and it’s all yours. Not mine. Label the outcomes as you will.”
At the moment, Kelter was a thick crescent, close to half filled. Just a few days before, Sonia had tried to explain to Simone why half a moon was called a quarter. That was going to take a few more tries.
“Here’s another thing I want you to look at,” Sonia told Ravi. “We’ve been working with the Marcom team on suppressing stories that point toward our discovery, and now we are also replacing those stories with something better.”
“Seems like it has been successful. Those Marcom guys are all over it. What are you on about?”
Sonia pulled out her tablet. “I was following some individual cases, and I saw something strange. Look at this article from yesterday. We caught it within 12 minutes and got it pulled. But the author has been zeroed. For a first time post, no warning. And he’s still zeroed.”
Ravi squashed an imaginary bug on his arm rest. “I’ll bet he won’t repeat that error.”
“But he didn’t even know that it was a sensitive topic. Let’s look at this next one. Yesterday again. Article pulled after nine minutes. This morning the author suffered a myocardial infarction, and died.”
“So? That’s unusual, but it still happens to people. Especially if they don’t watch what they eat.” Ravi still seemed unconcerned about the trend.
“Next one. We caught this post after only four minutes, which was good because it was pretty explosive. Author speculated that the new glome’s route might have been found by a predictive model.”
“Good thing we caught it so fast.”
“Yes, but then I checked on the author.”
“And?” Ravi wore his accustomed skeptical look.
“Nothing.”
“So? That’s good.”
“No, I mean nothing,” Sonia said. “No news, no updates, no heartbeat at all.” A heartbeat was the steady stream of information that any person tended to leave while going through the world. Lunch purchases, phone calls, downloads, social chatter.
“What are you driving at?”
“People are out there just doing what people do. Thinking and writing. No malice, no intent to harm us or anyone. And we are not just stomping on the articles, we’re stomping on people. People who have done nothing wrong.”
Ravi looked at her deeply. “Have you truly such power of denial, that you have found a way not to know? Every day, Sonia. Every day. For years. We provide the path, and they do what needs to be done. Usually, we are farther away than this. When you look at a whole planet, you do not see the fleas upon it. But you cannot tell me that you did not know.”
“We work with planetary trends.” Sonia indicated the world below them. Two of Kelter’s larger cities were visible. Bergen was lit up on the night side, while Abilene just an uneven smudge in the daylight zone. “We do not suggest specific actions like this.”
“We do not need to. Let me give you an example. When you proposed the De Beers method, tell me, what was the greatest risk?”
Sonia knew the answer easily. “If one of the Sisters held back on publishing a new glome for a time, an independent might explore it and thus claim it. That was the reason it had not been done before. Fear of being scooped.”
“And we provided clouds of probability, with outcomes better or worse. The better outcomes were all cases where the independents somehow failed to make those discoveries. If you wanted the De Beers method to succeed, then all you needed to do was stop the independents from having any success exploring. A relatively small budget item, compared to the gains that would then be realized. Vast gains.”
Sonia felt that she was being led by a ring through her nose toward doom. She could not take the step herself. “What do you mean?”
Ravi set out to shred the last tattered remnants of plausible deniability that remained to her. “Do you not think it is funny that no independents have claimed even one new glome in the past eight years? A slight misalignment of a sensor is all it takes to enter a glome at the wrong vector, you know. In that case, you are turned into plasma. Sometimes a fuel mix can be less than optimal. Credit checks might fail for just long enough to scuttle an expedition. Key investors given an offer they can’t refuse, if they agree to walk away.”
“That’s CT.”
“No, it’s Occam’s Razor. The simplest answer. And it is the one that is factual. Just look carefully at recent history, and you will see. We will never know how many lives, Sonia. Whether lives ended too soon, lives ruined, or just deflected to a lesser course. We will never be able to count them. If you found a way not to know for this long, I am sorry to end it for you
now.”
Sonia looked at the desert planet. Fifty million people. Trends, numbers, economies, customer demographics, social groups. People. “This is not our doing,” she denied without hope. “We are scientists.”
“What we unleash is our responsibility. If you do not like it, then it is still the case.”
“I was providing for my wife and daughters, every day. The best possible home for them.”
“Spare me your perfect domestic family,” Ravi sneered. “If you tell me one more story of brilliance in grade school, I think I will puke.”
Then Sonia saw a new Ravi. No calculations, no analysis. Just passion. He cupped his hands as if he were holding a baby bird. “Do you think you are the only person who can love? I am not the good looking guy, or the one with the great words. But someday, I will tell her. Someday I will have enough to offer, for our future. The most beautiful, the most spirited woman who ever lived.”
In a flash, Sonia knew. Malken. No matter how they argued. Or perhaps because of it. Ravi was in love with Eliza Malken.
And who wouldn’t be?
Then Sonia knew something else.
“Don’t say it! Don’t say her name! Let it be your secret still. Just for now.” Sonia looked at him with wide eyes, palms raised, ready to hush him. It might already be too late.
It probably was.
“Let’s get back to the analysis,” Sonia said.
“Yes, let’s,” he quickly agreed.
As they headed back to their work station, Sonia struggled to absorb the meaning of what Ravi had just told her – what she had always known to be true. Ravi set a rapid pace, focusing on a spot in front of him as if he could exclude the rest of the universe.
The sight of his jerky and nervous pace suddenly brought to Sonia an unbidden thought, and she had to suppress a snort at the thought of Ravi’s chances with Eliza Malken. As if.
Diapers And Beer
Lobeck was fit to be tied. “Check every milliliter of space along that path!” he ordered. “The object could be right in front of us. We must have it.”
Skylar had just delivered the news. The message had been decrypted, ultimately by brute force. They had read the vector, and had matched it to the path of McElroy’s runabout, at a certain moment in time before it had changed its course. The vector led straight to a stable orbit around the moon Foray, just a few hundred thousand kilometers from their position near Top Station.
The Great Symmetry Page 10