“You'll find that people here are in two distinct camps,” Lanham said. “Those who believe there is no life after death but who still want to live forever, and those who believe strongly in God's judgement and are doing their level best to avoid having to face it. I am in the former camp.
“Outside of this place, there is a broader spectrum of views. Newton Cordell, for example, believes in the existence of God with a firm and unshakable faith. He also believes that he is destined to go straight to Heaven when he dies.
“Have you ever wondered why some people have faith and some have not?”
Rik shrugged. “Takes all kinds.”
“Credulity, Mr. Drew. That's what makes the difference. Scientists studying human personality have known for many decades that a tendency to credulity can be a significant factor in human psychology. Some people are highly credulous. They believe in UFO abductions, Bigfoot and conspiracy theories. People with a credulous personality will happily believe in all kinds of bizarre and unfounded things – even things that contradict one another. They believe the motions of the planets determine their daily lives. They believe the human colonies in space are an elaborate fiction perpetrated by their government. They believe there is a prehistoric monster living in Loch Ness. And so on.”
He paused and looked at Rik meaningfully. “People who have a high credulity index also tend to believe in some form of God.”
Rik looked sceptical. “Are you telling me Newton Cordell is a credulous type? 'Cause I don't believe it.”
Lanham barked a surprised laugh. “You yourself are clearly not a credulous type, Mr. Drew. And you're right, high credulity and the skills you need to succeed in business don't often go together. But, sadly, there are many other reasons why a person may become a religious zealot like Cordell; intensive indoctrination, for example, mental illness, or simple stupidity.”
“I take it you don't like religion much.”
“No, I don't.”
“Or Cordell, either.”
Lanham's lips twitched, but he said nothing.
Rik remembered how so many on the religious right denounced uploading as a crime against God. It was partly down to the various churches' constant campaigning that uploads had such a bad name down on Earth.
“So this is all about Cordell's mental problems?” For all Lanham's talk, Rik couldn't see how he was any nearer to explaining what was going on.
“The reasons for Cordell's fanaticism are irrelevant. What matters is what he plans to do about it.” Lanham went to a sideboard and poured himself a large whiskey. He didn't offer one to Rik.
“About fifteen years ago, researchers in the UK identified two genes which seemed to play a role in creating a credulous personality. But the trait was obviously very complicated. So they kept on looking. Other groups in Europe began to join them. Considerable funding was made available from several sources, and it became a hot research area for a short while. Many other genes were found to contribute, a large 'nexus' of genes, in the jargon of genetics. People in the field began referring to it as the credulity nexus.
“Five years ago it looked quite likely that the whole credulity nexus was about to be identified. Then the funding dried up. The leading researchers were recruited by a newly-formed private company in Germany. There were no more publications. Whatever they were doing was cloaked in commercial confidentiality. People expected that patents would be filed and products launched, but no announcements have been forthcoming.”
“And the company was GeneWerken, in Berlin, right?”
“Correct.”
“So your little killbot was in there slaughtering people to get her hands on this nexus thing...”
“No. The credulity nexus is just a piece of information – knowledge about the complete set of genes that lead to a credulous personality. What Celestina's embodied upload was trying get from GeneWerken was the thing they've been developing there for the past five years. A retrovirus.”
Rik was on his feet again. “Damn! So that package did contain a bioweapon. What the hell does a bunch of dead guys want with a bioweapon?” The implications were chilling.
Lanham sighed. “Sit down please, Mr. Drew.” Instantly, Rik was sitting again. “I can see you've jumped to all the wrong conclusions. We're not planning to wipe out the human race. We are not the bad guys here. You shouldn't listen to so much church propaganda. What we're trying to do is stop Newton Cordell and his right-wing fundamentalist associates getting hold of the retrovirus. That's why I had Celestina send someone to GeneWerken. That's why we've been hounding you.”
“But...” Rik shook his head. It still didn't make sense. “Why is Cordell developing a bioweapon? And what's it got to do with the credulity nexus?”
“You really are very slow, aren't you?”
“Yeah, well some of us don't have a quantum computer the size of an asteroid for a brain. You're saying Cordell has found a way of using the genes in the credulity nex–” Then it hit him. “Good God! He's developed a retrovirus to insert the genes, hasn't he? The virus is the... whatever they call it-”
“The vector.”
“That's it, the vector. It gets into people's cells and inserts the credulity nexus genes into them.”
“Actually, we think it mostly just activates and deactivates genes using epigenetic techniques, but it must certainly insert some where necessary. Only brain cells and gametes need be affected.”
“But it's infectious, right? So once it's released, everyone will get this virus.”
“The release would have to be carefully planned for maximum coverage, but the retrovirus is designed to be highly infectious. For what they want to achieve, anything over a ninety percent infection rate will do.”
“But what could they possibly want to achieve? Why turn the world into conspiracy theorists and UFO abductees?” For a moment he'd been caught up in the excitement of understanding the mechanism, but when it came to understanding the motive for all this, Rik suddenly realised he didn't have a clue.
Lanham shook his head again. It made Rik want to knock it off the man's shoulders. “If you were a religious fanatic and you were suddenly offered a whole world full of people just aching to believe in something, anything, what would you do?”
Slowly, Rik answered, “I'd give them the sales pitch for my favourite brand of fire and brimstone.”
“Well, that's precisely what Cordell and his associates plan to do. As soon as the virus starts to spread, they will begin a massive, wordwide media campaign to promote their own flavour of fundamentalist Christian religion. Total saturation. And don't think they don't have the money and influence to do it.
“We've been running computer simulations of possible outcomes. The best case scenario is that they recruit two billion new believers. Worst case, they convert over eight billion. On the most likely, conservative estimates, they will have sufficient support to take control of almost every government on Earth within the next five years, mostly through elections, but also through coups and revolutions. Within ten years, the ensuing crusades against non-converted states, and the pogroms within their own territories, will give them complete, unopposed global dominion.”
Rik laughed. It seemed like the only possible response. Yet even to his own ears, there was no mirth in it, only a desperate need to disbelieve what he was hearing. “If what you say is true...” he began.
“Oh, it's true.”
“Why should I believe you?”
But the trouble was, Rik did believe him. Crazy and harebrained as it was, it sounded just too plausible to dismiss. The religious right had been trying to get control of governments in the West ever since its heyday in the old Bush presidency. These days, support was starting to wane and their power-base was being eroded – not least by the existence of technology that could enable people to live forever.
“What do you think our position would be in a world dominated by religious extremists?” Lanham asked. “We'd be outlawed and destroyed. I think Co
rdell's plan is an ethical abomination, but whatever I thought of it, I'd have to oppose it out of simple self-preservation. Omega Point – along with every upload in the System – is fighting for its very survival.”
“So we finally get to your own sales pitch, huh? You'd like me to help you. You want me to find the package and hand it over to you. In fact, you're going to make it well worth my while to do just that. Am I right?”
Lanham looked serious, but then, serious was his default look. “I don't think either of us wants the world that's coming if Cordell releases that retrovirus. The last time Christianity held a lot of power in the world, we had the Crusades, the Inquisition, the hunting down and burning of anyone who didn't share the Church's beliefs.”
Rik walked to the fire. The simulation was so good, he could see the flames dancing and feel the warmth increase as he got closer. And that was just with a neural inducer clamped to his neck. For the people who lived here, the experience must be completely lifelike.
He watched the flames, thinking about heretics and ‘witches’, Jews and Muslims, ordinary people dying because someone didn't like the ideas they had. It made him shiver, despite the warmth. Next time round, the uploads would be included too. And who else? Gays? Feminists?
Rik had nothing against uploads. He couldn't see any reason for religious types to get so het up about them. He had nothing against religious types either, unless they started preaching at him. Live and let live, was about the sum total of his moral outlook. If Lanham was right...
“OK, make your pitch,” he said.
“You really don't know where the package is?”
“I really don't.”
“But you have some ideas for finding it?”
“If you can promise me I don't have to worry about my friends and family any more.”
“Whatever Celestina was doing, I'll make her stop.”
“OK. Then, yes, I have some ideas. What's the offer?”
Lanham gave him his dead-fish stare for a few more seconds. “Very well. You can have The Phenomenon of Man for as long as it takes. The ship and her crew are at your disposal. I've arranged for an account for you to draw on.” A small smirk crossed his face. “Money, for once, is not at all important. Spend whatever it takes. Just so you understand, the funding available to this project amounts to many trillions of dollars. If you need additional resources – anything at all – just ask. You'd be amazed how far our influence extends.”
“I'm already amazed. You're staking a lot on a long shot.”
“I don't have any better play at this time, but rest assured I will be exploring every possible avenue. If I find the virus before you do, that's it; our association is over. If you find it first, I will make sure you receive more money than you know what to do with.”
“That's a hell of a lot of money, Mr. Lanham.”
“One more thing. I've been talking to Celestina.”
When? Rik wondered, but ghosts could think and communicate at quantum computer speeds. No doubt the conversation with Rik had occupied a tiny portion of Lanham's capacity.
“She suggested you take her associate, Rivers Valdinger, along with you. Apparently she has many valuable talents.”
Rik shook his head. “No way. I don't need your psycho-killer looking over my shoulder.”
“Sorry. That is not negotiable. The ship has been prepped and is ready for take-off. Goodbye, Mr. Drew.”
“Wait a–”
“–minute!”
Rik was lying on a gurney in an office in Omega Point. The black-skinned upload leaned over him. She looked unhappy.
“Looks like you and me are partners, shithead,” she said.
Chapter 20
A one-way ticket to the Moon. Just thinking about it made Maria feel cold inside. But with people trying to kill her and Rik nowhere to be found, what else could she do? She couldn't go to her sister's or to any of her friends. She'd only be taking the danger to them. And she wanted to put that damned package firmly into Rik's hands and make it his problem again.
“First time?”
The voice had come from the seat next to hers. “Sorry?”
“In space? You seem a bit nervous.”
The speaker was a woman in late middle age. Maria studied her carefully. She looked harmless enough. She was even holding a bundle of knitting in her lap. Could they have found her already? She'd paid cash for everything. She'd used false names whenever she could. But she'd had to use her cogplus at the passport scanner. Would they have access to government datastreams? Would they have people on the inside watching for her leaving the country? And if they did, how did they get the old woman on the gondola so quickly, and in the seat next to hers?
Shaking her head, she relaxed into her seat, laughing at herself.
“I'm sorry,” she told the woman. “Yes, it's my first time. I should try to relax more. I'm driving myself nuts worrying about every little thing.”
“That's right. Now me, I'm a seasoned traveller. I've been whizzing up and down this wire since they built it when I was a little girl. And I'm pretty sure I'll wear out before it does.” She gave a small, cackling laugh. “My name's Kirsty – bit old-fashioned, but then, so am I. Kirsty Winters.”
Maria introduced herself. “What takes you up into space so often?”
“Men. Husband was an astro-engineer. Worked on half the cities on the Moon, spent most of his life up there. I wouldn't stay with him. The Moon's no place to raise kids. So I used to go and visit a lot. He passed away nearly ten years ago. Molotov's Syndrome. You ever hear of it? You get it from breathing too much of that moondust. Rots your lungs.”
“I'm sorry. He can't have been very old.”
Kirsty Winters gave a dismissive wave. “Occupational hazard. At least I don't have to worry about Bren going that way.”
“Bren?”
“My oldest boy. He's an engineer too. Working on Alltheway Station. Only thing I need worry about with him is solar storms. They're killers, those storms.” She paused and put a hand on Maria's arm. “You should look out the window, you know. You're missing the view.”
Maria turned away from the chatty old lady and looked out at the view. The sky above had turned to a velvety twilight, while below, the Gulf of Mexico shone like polished silver. The coasts of Louisiana, Texas and Mexico itself were a beige arc at the limits of her vision.
“Wow.” She'd seen it on vids, of course, but the reality made her heart skip a beat. She was in space. Just a couple of hundred kilometres up – she still had weight, even – but space, all the same.
“Still a long way to go,” Kirsty said. “But I like the view from around here. There ain't nothing can beat it.”
Maria watched her planet inching slowly away from her, and wondered how long it might be before she could go back. The ground below looked bright and inviting, while above her, a terrible darkness was gathering.
-oOo-
“What do you mean, he's disappeared?” Newton Cordell rounded on his wife, eyes bulging.
“Don't take that tone with me. I'm not one of your nasty little henchmen.” She sat down in one of the square-sided armchairs, her white business suit matching the white leather, her long legs sliding against one another as she crossed them.
Cordell looked away sharply and made an effort to control himself. “I'm sorry, darling. But you know how important this is!”
Peth picked up a reader from a coffee table and began flicking through the pages of a magazine. “His wife's gone, too,” she said.
“His wives, you mean. Two wives. The evil, fornicating...” He pulled himself up. “Both dead.”
Peth kept flicking through the magazine. “I mean his ex-wife. The one in New York. When our people got to her house, they found a dead man and no trace of the woman.”
“Why would she run?” Cordell asked. He steered his wheelchair erratically about the enormous room, its motors whining and pausing, whining and pausing. He needed the practice.
“Be
cause people are trying to kill her?”
“Did they search the house?”
“Of course, but it had already been ransacked before we got there. There was nothing left to find.” She looked across at him. “You know we'll find her again, don't you?”
Cordell ignored her. “Our people in the FBI say the Bonomi woman doesn't know anything. Her husband is still in a coma and might not live. We should search that bar in Heinlein. Get somebody on that right away. And stake it out. Drew might go back there.”
He shook his head. His voice, when he spoke again, was full of admiration. “How in the world did they get to him before we did? We've got the police in our pockets, scores of agents all over the world; we even put a tracker in him! Yet that black-skinned demon just whisks him into space like... like Satan taking our Lord up to a high place.”
Peth snorted. “I don't think you can really compare Drew to Jesus, darling. You'd understand if you'd ever met him.”
Again, Cordell turned to his wife. “This is no time for flippancy. What's the matter with you? You're acting as if losing track of both of them hardly matters.”
Peth finally put down her reader and gave Cordell some attention. “It's a setback, that's all. We always knew there was a chance we might lose track of him. But as long as Lanham's people have him, we'll find him again. And what does it matter? He doesn't have the phials. We're pretty sure the wife has them.”
Cordell stared at her, blinking for several seconds. “They blew GeneWerken up. They are trying to ensure that I can't have another batch brewed. And how could I, when the half-dozen people alive who knew how to do it have all been killed?”
“Killed? All of them?”
“Yes. All of them. Some died in the explosion. The rest met with accidents, all in the last couple of days.”
“Are we sure it's Lanham who sent that zombie after the package? They seem to have become too violent too soon.”
Cordell shook his head and continued his motorised wanderings. “I know. There's something not quite right about it. My sources tell me it's the Mafia. The Chicago Mob, would you believe? But why would they want to become involved? How would they even know what this is all about? I need you to dig deeper into this. I need us to pray for guidance. There's something strange going on, someone else hiding in the shadows.” He spun his wheelchair to face her. “And I need you to find Drew and that damned woman.”
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