Originator

by Joel Shepherd

  “Shit,” Chief Boyle murmured, rubbing his forehead. “League would know, they’ve had Pantala for over a hundred years. Something like that, they’d know. Which means they’ve known the Talee are a post-E.L.E. species for a long time.”

  “Speculation at this point,” Reichardt cautioned them. “But worthwhile.”

  “Whatever.” Ari cut them off with an impatient gesture. “The point is that if the Talee wiped themselves out as part of some psychological condition, they had it real bad. So the question then becomes, was this just the technology that made them crazy? Or is it something native to Talee psychology? Because if it’s the latter, we might be okay here. If it’s the former . . .”

  Sandy shook her head. “I don’t think it’s that simple. I know it’s dangerous to speculate given how little we’ve seen of the Talee . . . but their recent behaviour doesn’t suggest an aggressive or violent species at all. Quite the contrary. And they made Cai, and if it’s possible to judge a people by their creations, Cai’s nature speaks very well of them.”

  Ibrahim nodded a little, stroking his short beard. It was as good as a comment from him, when his people were talking. He liked to sit, and think, and absorb.

  “But certain psychological types are reactive,” Sandy continued. “Compulsive Narrative Syndrome proves that the human addiction to narrative patterns is not a matter of violence. Very nice and apparently nonviolent people have become so convinced in the rightness of a particular narrative that they end up doing terrible, violent things. Predisposition to violence is not a factor in a person’s predisposition to fanatical belief.

  “The Talee could quite easily be a very kind and gentle people, but if there’s something in their psychology that predisposes them toward exponential, catastrophic pattern-recognition cascades, then introduce the wrong sort of uplink technology into that and there’s no telling how it could blow up. The real thing we have to be worried about is the degree of interaction between the uplink technology and the psychology. League are using Talee tech, far more than they ever admitted, because of course they never admitted they borrowed Talee tech in the first place. Whether that technology will interact worse with human psychology, or better, or whatever, is the real question.”

  “Whoever’s in charge of Pantala research would know,” Reichardt said solemnly.

  “That might be hard,” said Sandy. “I’d rather take a run at Margaritte Karavitis, Renaldo Takewashi’s woman on the inside of that operation.”

  “Or Takewashi himself,” Ari added. “He might even cooperate.”

  “And then,” said Ibrahim, “we do have an example in our hands of some of the most advanced Talee uplink technology, in the head of a human subject.”

  Everyone looked at Ibrahim. Then at Sandy. Sandy nodded slowly, heart beginning to thump in dull panic.

  “Sir,” she said, “I know you’re not suggesting it. But just so we’re clear—if it’s a choice between me subjecting my little boy to invasive testing or the entire human race dying, then the human race dies. I’m sorry, I’m completely unreasonable about his well-being. Completely.”

  No one challenged her on the logical contradiction that if the human race died, so did Kiril. She made her point. Everyone stayed quiet.

  Except Ibrahim. “I understand your position completely. How ever, surely there must be some medium?” Sandy’s heart thumped harder. She blinked hard, fighting the redness that threatened to descend. About the table, everyone watched cautiously.

  “Perhaps,” she admitted with difficulty.

  “I cannot tell you what that medium is, Cassandra,” said Ibrahim. “We all know there should be further tests, not merely aimed at his well-being, as previous tests have been, but at truly understanding what is going on in his head. But the decision must be yours. And his, of course, small boys have rights too. If he refuses, then that’s that. But I’m quite sure he won’t refuse if you tell him it’s safe.”

  “But it’s not safe.” Her words didn’t quite come out right. They caught in her throat. Reichardt looked away, great discomfort on his face. “It’s never safe.”

  “There is risk in all things,” Ibrahim said quietly. “But you must decide. And, if tests are to be done, you must approve them and set your own limits. It would be completely inappropriate for any institution to attempt to impose them on you. But please, consider the stakes here. In Kiril’s mind may rest the clue to how long we have left to act.”

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Sandy got home in the morning. It was Saturday, so Kiril was watching kids’ shows with Svetlana, eating a breakfast they’d made together.

  “Pancakes?” Sandy exclaimed, looking at the bowl of mixture in the kitchen.

  “It’s healthy!” Svetlana insisted from the sofa.

  “What’s healthy about pancakes?” Sandy retorted, turning on the hot plate to make herself some.

  “We had some fruit, too! Didn’t we, Kiri?”

  “Uh-huh.” Kiril was too lost in his show to comment further.

  “Danya’s out running?” Sandy asked, pouring mixture. The hot pan sizzled.

  “Yep. He left half an hour ago, should be back soon.”

  “I bet he didn’t eat pancakes.”

  “No, but he told us to save him some for when he got back. So don’t eat all of it, okay?”

  “Shush!” Kiril complained. “I’m trying to watch!”

  “Come on, Kiri,” Sandy told him, “talking with family’s more important than TV. If you can’t hear, use your earplugs.” But he never did. Sandy suspected it was one of those subconscious defence mechanisms that her kids had. They liked to see and hear each other, as reassurance. And then complained about the noise.

  She settled on the sofa between them with pancakes and juice, and watched TV with them. The show was a nice little thing about kids growing up as explorers on some new colonial world. All animated in kiddie style, with cool aliens, wonderful landscapes, and nice moral lessons. She wasn’t always so happy with the stuff she found them watching, but it was hard to tell a kid who’d grown up around daily brutality that a few images on a screen would do psychological damage. Often she was astonished at how well they’d turned out, that they hadn’t just aped all the awful things they’d seen other people do. It suggested something good about fundamental human nature, in some people at least.

  Danya got back just as the show was ending, sweaty and breathing hard. “Pancakes?” he announced in disbelief, entering the kitchen. “Sandy, I can’t believe you’re eating pancakes. You’ll get fat.”

  “GIs,” said Sandy around a mouthful of her third pancake, “do not get fat.”

  “You don’t get old either,” said Svetlana. “You’re so lucky.”

  “Crap, I get old.” They’d had this discussion many times before. Sandy thought Svetlana had a narrow interpretation of the concept. “I just won’t look it. Come to that, the way the age treatments are moving, neither will any of you.”

  Danya had a shower, cooked his own pancakes, and joined them. The next show was an action thing with superheroes. Sandy didn’t like that so much, but she was hardly sitting here for the TV. Kiril cuddled up, and Svetlana and Danya fired all kinds of questions at him about who the cool superheroes were, and why, and found his answers extremely amusing as only older siblings could.

  “Can you do that, Sandy?” Svetlana asked, as one of the characters on the screen shot lightning bolts out of his eyes.

  “’Course I can,” said Sandy. “You saw it last week when you got dirt on the stairs.” Danya, she sensed, wanted to talk to her about Cresta but saw that she didn’t and left it alone. “Kiri, I forgot to say how much I liked your play yesterday. I thought you were terrific.”

  “Yeah, it was fun,” Kiril admitted. “Mrs Shula was really happy. And then, after you left? We did all kind of photos and stuff, and . . . and Mishi Roberts got poked in the eye.”

  “Poked in the eye? With what, was she okay?”

  “Just a trident.”
>
  Sandy nearly grinned and stopped herself. “You mean a paper trident.” Kiril nodded.

  “Just as well it was just a paper trident, Kiri!” said Svetlana, never missing a theatrical opportunity. “Otherwise she’d have become like that one-eyed monster in your book! GRRR!” With her face all screwed-up, one eye closed. Kiril laughed.

  “Now come on,” Sandy told them, “don’t laugh at someone who had their eye poked out.”

  “It wasn’t poked out,” Kiril reassured her. “She just cried a lot.”

  Svetlana rolled her eyes. “Yeah, gosh, what a baby.” On some things, her kids were always going to be judgemental. Last month Svetlana had given herself a genuinely nasty cut with a kitchen knife, lots of blood, and had nonchalantly said it was nothing, she’d had much worse. Because she had. Sandy had seen the fading scars, had listened to Danya’s horrifying account of pulling the rusty nail that had gone right through her arm, then another of nursing her through bad concussion after she’d fallen from a wall. And had listened to Svetlana’s account of how Danya had gotten that scar on his leg, and how she’d had to sew skin and flesh back together from the razor-wire cut. And other equally horrible tales that had nearly made her cry to hear. The thought of that happening to her kids was unbearable . . . and yet, those experiences had made them who they were, for better and worse. Kiril, thankfully, they’d managed to keep relatively safe, and as the baby of the trio had been kept away from risky adventures.

  “I’m sorry I had to leave, Kiri,” said Sandy. “I really wanted to stay, but it was an emergency.”

  “That’s okay,” said Kiril. “I told Mrs Shula that you were a superhero, and sometimes you had to go and save the world and stuff.”

  Sandy grinned, arm around him. “Yeah, well. I wish I could put that on my tax forms.” And then she noticed that Svetlana was looking through her wallet. Sandy felt in her pocket. Nothing. Svetlana grinned at her. Sandy gaped. “You didn’t! When did you . . . ?”

  “I’m not telling! It’s a trade secret.” She tossed the wallet back. Sandy caught and looked through it suspiciously. “I didn’t take anything!” Svetlana laughed.

  “Wow, Svet, that’s amazing. First time.” She’d tried before, but it was nearly impossible to pick a high-designation GI’s pocket.

  “She’s been practising so hard,” said Danya. “She’s met this guy on a VR forum—it’s okay, Ari checked him out, says he’s fine. Professional pickpocket, has a big stage act on Ramprakash Road, says Svet’s got talent, showed her some tricks.”

  “He’s amazing though,” said Svetlana. “He invites people on stage and steals their clothes while they’re wearing them, and they don’t even notice.”

  “Well, that’s great, Svet,” said Sandy. “But don’t get carried away, because this is my safe zone, and my guard is so down at home with you guys.”

  “I know,” said Svetlana. “It’s actually more about minds than hands. You need good hands, but mostly you need to know what the other person’s thinking, and what they’re paying attention to. It’s all a mind trick. I think it works better on you because I know you so well.”

  “So you can pick your friends’ pockets,” Danya remarked, “but not your enemies’?”

  Svetlana gave him a look of feigned innocence. “You say that like it wouldn’t come in handy?”

  “Sure,” said Danya, repressing a smile that hinted at many in-jokes and old stories between them. “Depending on whose side you’re on.”

  Svetlana made an amused-but-not-entirely face at him. Danya’s return expression suggested an older brother’s amused-but-skeptical judgement. He held it long enough for Svetlana to get annoyed and stick her tongue out at him. Danya rolled his eyes just a little. Svetlana jerked her head back at the TV screen in a “shut up and watch” motion. A few seconds, a few facial expressions, Danya and Svetlana could have entire conversations without speaking a word.

  The next show was familiar, Rinni and Pasha, a Tanushan institution. They were best friends in school, a boy and a girl, who liked being proper best friends so much they resisted becoming boyfriend and girlfriend . . . but obviously that wasn’t going to last, even if they were the only ones who couldn’t see it. Even Danya had to admit it was a good show, lots of laughs and some genuinely thoughtful stuff about how people related to each other. Sandy found it sad, because it reminded her of two GIs she’d barely known as friends and had lost immediately upon meeting. This had been their favourite show too. Eduardo and Anya, also a boy and a girl. Best friends in their short lives, but born to die, for the League’s desperate uplink experiments on Pantala.

  When it finished, Danya muted the TV. “You going back to work, Sandy?”

  Sandy nodded. From the others’ lack of surprise, she guessed he’d already told them she would be. “Yeah. It’s a bit crazy at the moment. I just wanted to come back for breakfast.” She took a deep breath. “Kiri? I have to ask you something.”

  She surfed net activity on her way back to HQ, as was her habit. Tanusha was still Tanusha; there was still more interest in football scores and celebrity gossip than in the violent death of a League moon. But those sources that were covering it were doing a surprisingly sober job. Sandy supposed there weren’t many ways you could sensationalise the death of Cresta. An entire moon had been destroyed, or as good as. It was already too sensational, on a level that wasn’t any fun.

  She played the latest HQ official briefing over the top of her other surfing, watching five things at once as the weather turned bad, and a morning storm buffeted the cruiser with sheets of rain across the windshield. Amirah took it, of course—she was the official face of the FSA these days, and she was brilliant at it.

  “Can you give us any idea of who killed Cresta?” one of the journalists in the press room was asking her.

  “No,” said Amirah.

  “Can you at least tell us if you yourselves are aware of who killed Cresta?”

  “No,” said Amirah. “Look, this is just too serious for anyone to be making offthe-cuff remarks right now. I know the media in Tanusha has a lot of very good sources who know the League quite well, and I can only suggest that you ask most of your questions of those people. Our job, in this building, is Federal Security. We’re not a media information service.”

  If she’d said something like that, Sandy thought, people would have grumbled about insensitivity to the people’s right to know and made accusations of her supposed “authoritarian streak,” followed by mutterings of “fascist tendencies.” But Amirah was just too cute. Some sections of the public refused to believe she was a GI, let alone a combat GI. She was slim with a hooked nose and a cheeky grin, and had turned down a combat job in preference for administration. Sandy thought a lot of the public reaction was just shock that so many GIs were female. Tanusha’s gender roles were more traditional, and despite physical augmentation, women typically did not make up more than twenty percent of FSA/CSA roles, and less still at the sharp end. But the League produced GIs on a fifty-fifty split, and defectors to the Federation were more like sixty-forty, in favour of women. A lot of Tanushans, many women among them, found that disconcerting.

  “Is there any suggestion of a threat to Federation worlds?”

  “Again, I know you all have your sources on system security throughout the Federation. Those questions are best directed at Fleet, who I’m sure will tell you that Federation defences against V-strike or any other kind of strike are extremely strong, far stronger than we think Cresta’s were, given the relatively poor condition of the League Fleet right now. Obviously League is facing some very severe internal security threats at present, but again, it’s not something we’re prepared to give a running commentary on.”

  “With all respect,” another journalist said, “it really is your responsibility, because the FSA assumed government powers on Callay when it launched its coup.”

  “Counter-coup,” Amirah corrected, with a hint of that crooked smile.

  “Yes . . . but you
are the government now.”

  “No, we’re the oversight,” said Amirah. “We appointed a government and it sits in the Grand Council today and governs.”

  “An unelected government.”

  Shrug. “Very much so, but a government nonetheless.”

  “And you retain the power to remove that unelected government whenever you want. So that makes you the ultimate authority in the Federation right now, which means you are the government. And the government has responsibilities to answer the media’s questions in a way that the Federal Security Agency, in its normal role, would not.”

  “No,” said Amirah quite calmly and perhaps faintly amused. The press hated that about her, but grudgingly respected it too. “The government is the government. That’s why they’re called the government. Don’t ask me questions about what they do, I speak for the Federal Security Agency, I’m not that smart. We appointed them because they are.” The infectious, creeping smile. “As the spokesperson for the Federal Security Agency, I can tell you that the FSA never comment at length about ongoing security issues. The current government in the Grand Council has an Intelligence Committee and a Security Committee, and they make decisions on these matters just like an elected government. The FSA don’t tell them what to do or how to do it, so long as they do it well. Now if you’d like to go and ask them those questions, the building’s five hundred meters in that direction,” pointing, “and we’ll even lay on a car so you don’t have to walk.”

  Sandy smiled as the cruiser rocked in crosswinds and rain cut visibility to a few tens of meters. Again, if she’d said that, someone would have taken it as a threat. But with Amirah, many of them were actually smiling. Amirah cheerfully selected another questioner.

  Approaching FSA HQ she couldn’t even see the huge Grand Council building, hidden behind the grey fog of the downpour. Automated approach brought her in to a transition zone beside green gardens, already with puddles turning into lakes on the grass, sea birds standing in blissful disregard, looking for snails. Above her, she could barely make out through the windshield the looming shapes of construction gantries, as the upper levels of HQ underwent the final stages of reconstruction following last year’s bombardment. Ibrahim had used the opportunity to build an entire new wing, and several other floors to perform new tasks the FSA had not originally been envisaged undertaking.