Solip:System

by Walter Jon Williams

  Van Allen enjoys the show. His eyes sparkle, his pouched cheeks glow with excitement.

  The bugged rooms here, Reno decides, are crude, inelegant. And unnecessary when people hand you keys to their minds just by watching stage shows. Not when they show you, just from what they stare at, that they want power and potency so exaggerated as to seem ridiculous.

  “Jackie,“ Reno says, “I wanted to talk to you about the next step.”

  Van Allen looks up, interest in his eyes. “Yes, Al?” he asks.

  “I don’t like the projections,” Reno says. “In the short term our current rate of profit will continue, but in the long term—even with the acquisition of Osmanian, we’re still going to encounter a shortfall.” He looks at van Allen and smiles. “I want to be here for the long term, Jackie. I’m sure you do, as well.”

  “With Osmanian,” van Allen says, “we have the basic tools for expansion. We haven’t employed them yet. Haven’t had time, really.”

  “I want to reach for self-sufficiency,” says Reno. “Acquiring Osmanian has strained our energy resources. Their plants take a lot of power, and mostly they’re buying it.”

  Van Allen purses his lips. “I don’t know if we can smoothly absorb another company. Our structure isn’t ...”

  “I didn’t mean another takeover attempt,” Reno says. “I agree, there’s danger in expanding too fast. But there’s danger if we continue our dependency.” He leans close to van Allen, forces intimacy. Van Allen has to strain to hear him over the litejack band.

  “I think the days of the United Orbital Soviet are numbered, Jackie,” he says.

  Van Allen is disturbed. He looks at the stage show, frowns, thinks about it for a long moment.

  “Consider what I’m saying, Jackie,“ says Reno. “I saw the need for the Orbital Soviet twenty years ago; I helped create it. The Soviet was set up to fight for our independence, then to control Earth once we’d won the fight. Earth is beaten. Now we can’t help but control the planet: the Orbital economies are too critical, too huge. The Orbital Soviet is losing its reason to exist.”

  Van Allen doesn’t seem to want to commit himself to this idea just yet.

  “Perhaps,” he says. “But what does that mean for us?”

  “We’ve been controlling distribution of our product on Earth by subsidizing some operations at a loss to drive Earth competition under, or by forming cartels with other companies to exploit a given market. We’ve been selling to the black market in order to have a measure of control over their operations. One thing we really don’t do is compete.” Reno shakes his head as screams of feedback accompany a simulated orgasm. “We’re not set up for competition. We’re not efficient enough, not streamlined enough. We don’t command enough resources to be able to compete effectively. And too many of our resources are siphoned off into trying to control Earth.”

  Van Allen’s face is solemn. The stage show appears to have lost his interest. “What you’re saying is very dangerous,” he says.

  “Reality,” says Reno, “is dangerous.” He gazes coldly into van Allen’s eyes. “Power,” he says, “is dangerous.” Van Allen considers this. Reno puts a hand on his shoulder. “We live in dangerous times, Jackie. That’s why we need to be self-sufficient in power. I don’t want our new factories hostage to someone throwing a switch.”

  Van Allen draws back, putting room between them. Litejack crashes from the speakers set in the ceiling. “You obviously have something in mind.”

  “General Power Systems Satellite Number Four. Their latest. The Singapore bloc mortgaged themselves to the hilt to build it.”

  “That would serve our present and future needs very well.” Objectively. “It’s the biggest GPS has built.”

  “We’ll need the help of someone in the Pharmaceutical Research Division. Someone who isn’t Viola Ling. I don’t want to involve her in this.”

  “I think I know what you want,” van Allen says. His eyes have a familiar light in them, the same light Reno saw when van Allen was watching the man wielding his lethal phallus.

  “Then I won’t have to say it,” Reno says. “And that’s all the better in a place like this.”

  Later, after van Allen disappears with his partner for the evening, Reno steps to the bar and watches the bar mirror, the images of the hostesses as they move from place to place, their walk studied, their smiles bright, their eyes dead. He can’t seem to get interested in any of them.

  They’re not his type any more.

  Later that week he has his rotten teeth pulled, replaced with strong ceramic-over-alloy implants.

  *

  When the emergency signal goes out from GPS Four, the nearest ship is the prototype Century Series frigate. Mohammad is aboard, supervising the new warship on its trials. He orders the trials aborted, and the frigate diverts on a rescue mission.

  Mohammad arrives five hours after the distress call. He finds the crew of eighteen dead of some unknown disease. He enters the station alone and seals himself in.

  Using the station radio, Mohammad files a claim for salvage with the High Court of the United Orbital Soviet. General Power Systems protests.

  GPS is in debt, and everyone knows it. Without Satellite Four, they have no hope of making their payment schedule. Within the ten minutes following release of the news to the screamsheets, GPS stock has lost forty percent of its value on the Chicago and Singapore exchanges. From his office on Habitat One, Reno announces an attempt on behalf of Tempel Pharmaceuticals to acquire a majority of GPS stock. Tempel seems uniquely placed to take advantage of GPS’s problems, having on hand a large amount of liquid capital from a recent bond issue, and Tempel moves with surprising speed and efficiency.

  Reno, his jaw throbbing, waits in his office for the call he knows is coming.

  “Albrecht.”

  “Mr. Korsunsky.”

  Pain hammers through Reno’s skull. Knowing this was coming, he’s avoided painkillers, not wanting to dull his perceptions.

  “Would you mind if we use the face?” he asks. “I’ve just had oral surgery.”

  “If you like.”

  Reno studs into the face and looks into the vid. His pulse rises. For years he has looked at this man as an enemy, as an accomplice to the destruction of Earth’s cities and the slaughter of its population. Now that he can deal with Korsunsky as a near-equal, he has to keep reminding himself they’re supposed to be friends.

  Korsunsky is President of the United Orbital Soviet. He is the hand-picked successor to Grechko, its first and most brutal president, who has been going quietly senile in a Tupolev sanitarium for the last ten years, successive attempts at brain transfer having failed.

  Korsunsky’s red, elderly face seems kindly, but his eyes are a window into a blue Siberian winter. Reno knows he can depend on nothing from this man.

  “GPS has filed suit in the High Court.” Korsunsky’s voice roars in Reno’s head. He winces and turns down the volume. “They are claiming an unprovoked attack, a violation of the Orbital Pact.”

  Reno shrugged. “They will be proven incorrect. My man’s action was precipitous, but not illegal.”

  “GPS is alleging a biological attack.”

  “Absurd.”

  A pause. “You are in a dangerous position, Albrecht.”

  Reno gazed back into Korsunsky’s baleful eyes. “Dangerous in what way? I would welcome any objective investigation.”

  “Would you? The questions raised in any investigation would alone enough to damage you.”

  “What questions?”

  “There is a pattern forming. What are we to make of it? Abdallah Sabah suffers a breakdown and Tempel I.G. absorbs his company. A mysterious plague afflicts GPS Four, and a Tempel ship is on hand to take advantage of it. Your move on GPS has been very fast: do not insult my intelligence by telling me it wasn’t planned in advance. Not when your rescue ship contains Abdallah Sabah’s son, whom Tempel has rehabilitated and advanced. Were I GPS, I would advance the claim that
this Mohammad is your personal assassin, first having disposed of his father and then the crew of GPS Four.”

  “That claim would be nonsense.”

  Korsunsky’s face is intent. His voice rings through the interface, the relentless sound echoing in Reno’s head in time to the painful throb of his jaw, “The claim alone would damage you. After what your predecessor attempted in the failed Korolev takeover, the Orbital Soviet could not afford to support you.” Korsunsky raises his index finger to make a point. “There is a way out. You have made a profit by buying GPS stock after its decline. You can announce the salvage claim was unauthorized and drop it—you didn’t make it yourself, after all. You can claim you made the stock purchases only to stabilize the situation. You can withdraw from this attempt with honor and profit intact.

  “If I don’t do this?”

  “I will instruct the High Court to rule in favor of GPS. The Orbital Soviet will also call in the loans it made to Tempel following the failed Korolev bid. That would put Tempel in an extremely precarious financial position— Tempel itself may become the subject of a takeover attempt.”

  Reno shrugged. “Anatoly Victorievich—I don’t understand why you are threatening me this way.”

  Korsunsky’s look softens slightly. “The Orbitals are still in a delicate situation, Albrecht. We are not free of our interdependence on Earth, and we are the object of vast hatred. You yourself were re-elevated to the chairmanship as a result of stock manipulation by people on Earth. That proves we are dependent on them, that they still have power. We must remain united, Albrecht. We can’t afford to fight each other. We can’t afford recklessness. If Tempel must be dismembered as a lesson to others, then so be it.”

  Reno struggled to keep his face neutral as his heart leaped. He knows he should argue more, try to soften Korsunsky’s position, but the chance to destroy this enemy is too great.

  “Anatoly Victorievich,” he says. “There is an overriding reason for Tempel’s actions, of which you are perhaps not aware. Are you alone in your office?”

  “No.” Korsunsky’s eyes track off camera. “But I can be.”

  “If you will indulge me. This is for you alone.”

  Korsunsky studs out of the face, then withdraws from vid range. Reno can hear sotto voce discussion. Then Korsunsky returns, puts the studs in his sockets.

  “Yes, Albrecht? I’m alone.”

  Reno leans forward toward his camera and smiles with his bright new teeth. “Die,” he says, aware of a certain melodramatic intent here, and triggers Black Mind.

  Korsunsky jerks and pitches forward, falling onto the camera lens. Reno peers anxiously into the vid as the screen turns dark. He can hear the whine of data, Korsunsky’s hoarse grunts.

  Black Mind fades. Reno hears a long moan.

  Korsunsky leans back. Blood is running freely from a gash on his forehead. He must have cut himself when he fell on the vid unit. There are tears in his eyes.

  “Yes,” he says, his lips not moving, the words pulsing through the interface in a voice that is Reno’s own. “Black Mind worked.” Korsunaky blinks blood from his eyes. “The Orbital Soviet will remain neutral.”

  *

  In the end, Tempel needs help in dismembering GPS: Mikoyan-Gurevich buys twenty percent, comes away with a new power satellite and some facilities in Asia. The Orbital Court, under Korsunsky’s prodding, rules the takeover legal. The disease that killed the crew of GPS Four turns out to be a mutated meningitis virus that has been responsible for several small, deadly epidemics in various parts of the world, including GPS’s home base of Singapore. The precise means by which the disease was introduced into the satellite remains unknown. Contaminated food or water is suspected.

  There are screamsheet analyses about the “new, predatory era” in corporate relations. Reno receives the congratulations of the board. Abdallah Sabah and Grechko die in their respective padded cells. Tempel is one of the five largest corporations in history.

  “The next step,” Reno says. “Think of the next step.”

  Mercedes Calderón returns from her journey to the power satellites. That night, in Reno’s bed, she falls limp beneath him and Reno thinks she’s gone passive again. It isn’t until later he realizes that Mercedes is unconscious. His attempts to revive her fail.

  Mercedes is committed to the hospital for treatment of malnutrition. She’s been starving herself to death.

  Reno wonders why he never really noticed.

  It would seem he isn’t the only one on a suicide mission.

  *

  Her eyes are rimmed with black. It isn’t makeup, Reno knows. Her arms lie atop the pale green sheets, and he can circle each with his thumb and forefinger.

  He stands by her bed and watches her breathe. She is in partial weightlessness here, easing organs strained by malnutrition. Above the bed, on a crystal display, her vital signs glow a subdued blue in the semidarkness. He reaches out to touch her hand. There is a rough bandage on the back from where a needle was taped to a vein.

  Suddenly her hand seizes his. Her eyes come open. A crazy, jagged gleam of blue, the crystal display is reflected in the darkness of her pupils.

  “Tío,” she says. Her grip is fierce.

  He tries to smile. “Call me Reno.”

  “Tío.”

  “You’re going to be okay. We’ll put you on leave till you get better. Then you’ll have another job, a promotion. Where you won’t have to travel so much.”

  “Tío.” A desperate, imploring whisper.

  “Stop trying to surrender.” There is an ache in Reno’s chest. With his free hand he strokes her hair. It’s as light and dry as dust.

  “Tío.” She pulls his hand to her mouth, kisses it. Reno wants to cry.

  “Call me Reno,” he insists.

  She goes to sleep again, her dry lips pressed to the back of his hand. Reno stands over her bed like a sentry, and knows the enemy he guards her from is himself.

  Mercedes is put on medical leave, moved into a spare room in Reno’s suite, guarded by his prowling samurai bodyguards. A nurse visits regularly, and so does a dietician. Mercedes puts on a little weight, takes her vitamins. She still looks like a refugee. She is withdrawn, unsmiling, hesitant. Intravenous feedings tattoo her arms with bright splotches of blue and yellow.

  Reno, unable to stop himself, spends every night in her bed, his vital signs leaping with hers in the cold lights of the hospital beds crystal display. Only then does Mercedes show signs of passion: she clutches at him, cries out, weeps in terror. He doesn’t know what she’s afraid of.

  Below, on the hammered Earth, war between Estonia and Muscovy comes to a negotiated end. The demand for medicine declines. Tupolev sees its chance and tries for Pointsman Pharmaceuticals A.G., winning control after a long fight that weakens both.

  Black Mind wasn’t even necessary, Reno thinks. The changed climate was enough.

  Mikoyan-Gurevich, its appetite whetted by its easy consumption of GPS, lunges into action against its old rival, buying up enormous quantities of Tupolev stock.

  Korsunsky and the Orbital Court again decline to intervene. A Mikoyan-Gurevich messenger queries Reno about another shared takeover. Reno puts out feelers to the Tempel board, finds them unwilling to step into the fight on either side. He doesn’t feel it wise to press them, and offers the MiG envoy his regrets.

  Mikoyan-Gurevich has a power-sharing directorate, an old-style Russian collective. They aren’t vulnerable to Black Mind, but Tupolev is. Reno gives their chairman a call. Black Mind takes him, then the CEO, then drives the vice-chairman raving and into a padded room.

  Within days, Tupolev cutters and frigates strike MiG targets. Silent lights blossom in the night sky, lasers cut the darkness. Mass drivers are turned on orbital habitats; power satellites cut loose with slow-cooking microwaves. Pressurized atmosphere boils out into vacuum, crystallizes, drifts slowly to dust the frozen faces of corpses. The preemptive strike is almost entirely successful: Mikoyan-Gurevich is lai
d bare. Mercenaries in the pay of Tupolev roar into orbit from launchpads in California, Malaya, and Kenya to occupy MiG facilities.

  This time the Orbital Soviet acts against the atrocity. Reno offers the Soviet his forces, and the new Century Series frigates fight alongside Korolev cutters, Toshiba marines, Pfizer mercenaries. The Tupolev forces are crushed. Their directors die in the fighting. Remaining assets are divided among the victors.

  During the emergency Reno has a lot of conferences with his peers. Black Mind strikes again and again, driving mad those it cannot overcome.

  The stunned members of the Orbital Soviet regroup. Stock prices for members of the weapons bloc rise and keep rising. Everyone is nervous, and everyone is arming.

  “The next step,” says the ghost brother, his voice the sigh of wind through distant trees. “Always the next step.”

  Less human every day.

  *

  “Who are you?” A voice screams in his ear. Reno flounders out of sleep. “Who are you?”

  Mercedes is in the bed, grappling him, clutching his wrists. Her spittle in his face. “Who are you?” she demands.

  He battles her, fights her onto her back. He can see the tears on her face. Mercedes tries to knee him in the groin, fails. “What’s going on?” he yells.

  Her claws draw blood from his face. “Wake up!” Reno shouts.

  Her resistance collapses suddenly. She is sobbing. In a spill of yellow light from the hallway he can see her emaciated breasts trembling with each wracking sob. Lust surges through him, and he is appalled.

  He lies by her side and puts his arms around her. His blood is warm on his face. “What happened?”

  “Un ensueno,” she says. “Un ensueno malvado.” An evil dream. He kisses the tears from her eyes. “I dreamed Uncle was killed,” she babbles, still in Spanish. “And you had taken his body.”