by Greg Bear
The furniture and walls were indistinct and gray. ”Brighter, please,” she said.
“Many regrets,” the room voice, now harsh and dissonant, replied. “Pictors in your quarters are malfunctioning. Please be patient. Repairs are in progress.”
She sat on the edge of the bed. As her eyes adjusted, she realized that all detail had gone out of the room. She sat on a basic white bed-form, surrounded by basic white furniture-forms.
The walls were blank. She picked up her slate to see if it had been damaged by the flash.
On the screen, a crude line drawing of the rogue in his high-fashion togs appeared, followed by a string of numbers and then an end-of-string triangle. Beyond the triangle, in the next register, were three equations and a code equivalency. She integrated the two registers and performed a basic operation with the equations.
Words appeared on the slate, flashing: Olmy knew Korzenowski. Knows him yet.
In Thistledown City. Olmy’s quarters were in Axis Nader most of the time; he never kept a residence beyond four months, but he did stay in that section of the Axis City more often than not. He never decorated his quarters, relying on a minimum of elaboration to make the rooms livable. He seemed, in fact, to avoid as many as he could of the services most Axis Citizens regarded as basic. Yet he was not an ascetic. He simply had no need for such accoutrements; he did not criticize those who did.
He sat in the all-white living room, waiting for his trace to be completed. Olmy had patterned his tracer after the central mental programs of an old terrestrial species of dog known as a short-haired terrier, supplemented with several of his own partial personalities.
It was a tough trace to elude, hardy and resourceful. It rarely failed him.
By Axis City law, rogues in City Memory were fair game.
Citizens could not wipe the rogues they located, but they could corner them and call down an immediate inactivation.
Olmy was not interested in inactivation. He simply wanted to maintain a steady trace on the rogue—and to keep pressure on him, to heighten the sensation of illicit activity. The rogue was of very high quality; he had outlived dozens of duels, some extending across decades, which meant virtual millennia in City Memory. He kept no name, not even adequate spoor; he had designed his active persona to be efficient, elusive and only as egotistical as necessary to provide motivation for duels.
The tracer had caught the rogue in Patricia’s quarters, and Olmy had then commanded it to back off, in such a way that the rogue would be led to believe it had escaped.
Olmy was well-acquainted with the personality of the average rogue.
Most had been born during the final stages of City Memory constructiona task that had taken over five hundred years, beginning in Thistledown City before the creation of the Way.
A number of citizens, generally young, had found ways to create loopholes and to circumvent the ultimate penalties being put into effect to deter crime—recycling of the citizen’s body and inactivation of the stored personality. The most popular method was making an illegal duplicate personality which would remain inactive in City Memory; if the citizen received the ultimate penalty, the illegal duplicate would be activated, guaranteeing continuity.
These “rogues” had then engaged in all manner of criminal activities, some of them resorting to acts of violence not seen in the Axis City since the expulsion of the orthodox Naderites from Alexandria.
Most were caught, tried and sentenced, and the punishment carried out—releasing a virulently destructive group of personalities into City Memory. As time passed, some of the rogues were convinced by Hexamon agents that the best way they could spend their time would be to engage in duels—searching out and eliminating other rogues. That solved much of the problem. Dueling caught on, and within a decade, half of the rogues had been eliminated by their own confreres.
Many had survived, however—the smartest and most inventive, and therefore, ultimately the most dangerous.
In recent decades, one of the Nexus’s most pressing problems was to make City Memory completely safe for all citizens. The Nexus had made little progress—a stubborn residue of resistance remained, creating mischief and occasionally disrupting important functions.
Hiring a rogue was always risky, Olmy knew. The patron could not expect complete loyalty—a rogue stayed loyal only so long as advantages and interest remained high.
To that end, Olmy rewarded the rogue richly with access to several private data banks—and made doubly sure that no one would ever discover who had done the hiring, especiaily the rogue himself.
Chapter Fifty-three
The dark library brightened slowly, allowing his eyes to acclimate. Pavel Mirsky stood blinking on the far side of the plaza of seats and teardrop globes.
His first impulse was to look for the damage done by Vielgorsky’s spray of fire. There was none. All the globes were intact. Mirsky raised his hand to the side of his head, and then to his nose and chin.
No scars. In his head, a tiny, unobtrusive signal told him he was using part of his brain that did not originally belong to him.
He walked back and forth, noticing a distinctly unpleasant sensation of inexperience behind his eyes. Then he circumnavigated the banks of chairs and approached the black wall, still closed and featureless.
Frowning, he called out, “Hello!”
Nobody responded. ”Hello! Where is everybody?”
Perhaps he had been left alone. The others may have exited the library after shooting him. But there had been the white, curling mist—and he remembered the three officers with their heads jerked back, jaws slack.
“Pogodin!” he called. ”Pogodin, where are you?”
Again, no answer. He crossed the dark corner of the library to the little doorway that led to the observation booth. The door was open.
He climbed the stairs and entered the booth.
Pogodin stretched on three chairs, breathing steadily, apparently sleeping. Mirsky shook his shoulder gently. ”Pogodin,” he said. “Time to leave now.”
Pogodin’s eyes opened and he regarded Mirsky with surprise.
“They shot you,” he said. ”They took half your head away. I saw it.”
“I’ve been dreaming,” Mirsky said. ”Very odd dreams. Did you see what happened to Vielgorsky—to Belozersky and Yazykov?”
“No,” Pogodin said. ”Just mist all over me, itching. And now this.” His eyes widened and he sat up, lips quivering. ”I want to leave,” he said.
“Good idea. Let’s find out what happened.” Mirsky preceded Pogodin down the stairs to the black wall. ”Open,” he said.
The half-moon doorway irised open silently.
Annenkovsky stood at parade rest with his back toward Mirsky and the door, holding his rifle by the barrel with the stock on the paving.
“Excuse me, Major,” Mirsky said. Annenkovski tensed and swung around on one foot, lifting his rifle and fumbling it.
“Careful,” Mirsky cautioned.
“Comrade Colonel—I mean, General—”
“Where are the others?”
Mirsky asked, looking at the troops in the quadrangle.
“Others?”
“The political officers.”
“They haven’t come out. Excuse me, General, but we must go to our camp right away—we must contact them by radio.”
“How long have I been gone?”
“Nine days, General.”
“Who’s in charge?” Mirsky asked. Pogodin stepped up just behind him.
“Major Garabedian and Lieutenant Colonel Pletnev for the moment, sir.”
“Then take me to them. What are the NATO troops doing here?”
“Sir ...” Annenkovksy seemed ready to faint. ”There has been a lot of tension. Nobody knew what happened in there. What did happen?”
“Good question,” Mirsky said. ”Maybe we’ll find out later. For now, I’m fine—Pogodin is fine—and we need to go to the camp ... in the fourth chamber?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Let’s go. And why are our men stationed here?”
“Waiting for you, General.”
“Then they’ll come back with us.”
“Yes, sir.”
In the train, Mirsky closed his eyes and leaned his head against the wall. I am dead, he thought. I can feel it—parts of me missing, replaced—fill dirt in gaping trenches. That means I’m a new person; I’m dead, come alive again. New, but stuck with the old responsibilities.
He opened his eyes and looked at Annenkovsky. The major regarded him with an almost fearful expression, which he quickly wiped away and replaced with a wan smile.
Chapter Fifty-four
“Let’s sum it up, then,” Lanier said. They had gathered again in Patricia’s quarters, to hear her story about the rogue and reach an agreement on their common behavior. ”We’re guests, but not exactly. We’re protected, which means our condition bears some resemblance to being prisoners.”
“Our data services are censored,” Farley said.
“We can’t go back to the Stone,” Heineman said.
“And—if what Patricia has learned is true—we’re about to become celebrities,” Carrolson said.
“Did the rogue say whether anyone expected the Stone to return to Earth?” Lanier asked.
“No,” Patricia said. ”But I don’t think so. If I’m right, they thought it would simply continue through space, too small to be noticed, and never end up anywhere in particular—because of the snap when they opened the corridor.”
“So what’s our position on all this?” Lanier asked. ”Larry, Lenore?”
“What does it matter, what we want? What can we do?” Heineman asked, spreading his arms.
“Think, Larry,” Carrolson said, putting a hand on his knee. “We’re celebrities. They can’t just ignore our wishes.”
“Oh, no!” Heineman said. ”They can just brainwash us. They’re not even human anymore, some of them!”
“They’re human,” Patricia said. ”Just because they can choose what shape they want to be, or what talents or abilities they’ll have, doesn’t mean they’re no longer our descendents.”
”Lord,” Heineman said, shaking his head. ”This is beyond me.”
“No, it isn’t,” Carrolson insisted. ”If I can handle it, you can.” She pinched his knee.
“If we put forward a united front, we’ll get more concessions,’’ Lanier said. ”If we’re celebrities, or even curiosities, we could have some control over how we’re treated—and not so incidentally, how of people on the Stone are treated.”
“So what are we going to demand?” Carrolson asked.
“First, we insist that our data services be uncensored,” Patricia suggested.
“I haven’t even used mine,” Heinernan said.
“We make every attempt to get permission to communicate with the Stone.” Lanier looked around the room. ”Are we agreed to that?”
They were.
“We make sure that we travel in a group; we should never be separated,” he continued. ”If we are, we protest—”
“Hunger strike?” Farley said.
“Whatever works. It seems obvious to me that our hosts are not ogres, and it’s not likely we’ll be mistreated—dazzled a bit, perhaps, subjected to all kinds of future shock, but ... We can handle that. We all survived our time on the Stone, so we can survive this. Right?”
“Right,” Farley said, regarding Lanier with an expression of something more than respect for authority. Patricia glanced between them and put on what Lanier thought of as her sharp cheery look—a smile with an edge, her square eyes intense.
Carrolson inspected all three intently.
“Olmy’s in the lounge,” Patricia said. ”He has Ram Kikura with him. I told him to wait until we were finished but they want to talk to us.”
“So are we.united?” Lanier asked.
“Of course,” Heineman said softly.
Olmy and Ram Kikura entered Patricia’s quarters and sat in the middle of the group, legs crossed. Ram Kikura smiled happily; to Lanier, she looked hardly more than Patricia’s age, though she had to be much older.
Lanier presented their demands. To his surprise, Olmy agreed to almost everything, excluding only communication with the Thistledown.
“That I cannot grant you right now. Perhaps later. We can allow you uncensored access to data, but that will require some education,” he said. ”Full access to data is very complicated, a great responsibility. There is potential for abuse. For a start, would you accept the help of a pedagog? Ram Kikura could assign a ghost—a partial personality based on her own. This pedagog will perform searches for you, as well as instruct. Our younger citizens use them all the time.”
“It will let us research anything?” Patricia asked.
“That is a difficult request,” Ram Kikura said. ”Not even a citizen has access to everything in City Memory. There is much that could be dangerous for the untrained—”
“Like what?” Heineman asked.
“Programs that alter personality, or merge different personalities. Psyche enhancement. Various high-level fictions and theoretical programs. You may wish to explore these later, but for now a pedagog will protect you from inadvertently ... let’s say, getting in over your head.”
“Or under,” Carrolson said.
“Are we still being kept pure?” Patricia asked.
“To a certain extent,” Olmy admitted.
”But the tests have been performed—”
“They have?” Heineman betrayed his shock.
“Yes. While you slept.”
“I think we should have been advised what was happening,’’ Lanier said, frowning.
“You were. Your sleep personas guided our inquiries, and we did nothing they did not agree with.”
“Jesus,” Carrolson said. ”What in the hell are sleep personas?”
Ram Kikura raised her hands. ”Perhaps now you see why your legal status is that of children, or at best adolescents. You are simply unprepared for full exposure to all the Axis City has to offer. Please don’t be offended. I’m here to help whenever possible--not to hinder or frustrate you. I’m also here to protect, and I will do that over whatever objections you may have.”
“Is that what advocates do?” Heineman asked. ”I mean, are they lawyers, or what?”
“An advocate is both a guide and a legal representative,” Ram Kikura said. ”We advise on courses of action, based on researches our assigned ghosts perform in City Memory and elsewhere. We have many advantages—access to private memory collections, for example. While we cannot divulge the contents of those collections, we can act on what we learn—within limits. Some advocates--myself included—offer what in your time might have been called psychological counseling.”
“Basically,” Olmy said, “Ser Ram Kikura will provide another layer of protection—against abuse from higher authorities. Do you have any other questions?”
“Yes,” Carrolson said, looking to Lanier. He nodded and she continued. ”What’s going to happen to our people on the Stone—in the Thistledown?”
“We don’t know yet,” Olmy said. ”That decision hasn’t been made.”
“Will they be treated properly?” Farley asked. ”Americans and others?”
“I can guarantee they won’t be harmed,” Olmy said.
“Do you have any idea when we can communicate with them?” Lanier asked.
Olmy tapped his index fingers together before his chest and said nothing.
“Well?”
“As I said, that question has not been decided. There is no immediate answer.”
“We’d like to know as soon as you learn,” Lanier said.
“You will,” Olmy assured them. ”You have been protected and isolated. That will change somewhat now that your presence is no longer secret. You recognize your potential popularity; there will be ceremonies and tours. You’ll probably be quite worn out by the attention.”
“I’
m sure,” Lanier said dubiously. ”Now, Ser Olmy, just between the seven of us—if you’re just one person, as you seem to be, and there’s nobody peering over your shoulder—what stake do you have in us?”
“Mr. Lanier,” Olmy said, “you know as well as I that now is not the time to be perfectly frank. Frustrating as it may be, you simply do not understand, and if I were to try to explain, I would only confuse you. I will explain, eventually, but first you must experience our city, our cultures. Since you are now free to use the data services—”
“Relatively free,” Lanier said.
“Yes, free with protections ... You may wish to spend the next twenty-four hours ‘boning up,’ if that’s the right idiom.”
“Do we face any other restrictions?”
“Yes,” Olmy said. ”You cannot leave these living areas. Not until your schedule has been made up and the Nexus has arranged for your ... let’s call it a debut. And before that happens, we suggest you become fully informed about the Axis City and learn at least a little of the ways we live.”
He looked from face to face, his eyebrows raised to solicit any more questions, but none were asked. Lanier clasped his hands behind his neck and leaned back on the couch.
Ram Kikura programmed the pictors from where she stood.
“There is now a pedagog, based on my personality,” she said. “You may use the data services from any of your apartments and the pedagog will help you. It would be best to begin with the city and Way description ... agreed?”
The seven of them watched in silence as the Axis City was projected before them in hypnotic detail. They seemed to approach the city from out of the north, swooping along very close to the singularity—the flaw—and passing through several dark shields.
Their point of view then fell to very near the wall of the Way, until they seemed to hover a few hundred meters over the flowing lanes of traffic. Heineman twitched when he saw rushing tank-like cylinders conveyed along multiple tracks below them, each cylinder equipped with a circle of brilliant forward-facing searchlights on the nose and three.bands of running lights along the side. In the distance, a four-kilometer-wide gate terminal accepted thousands of the cylinders from all directions. (A visual appendix briefly showed them the interior of the terminal—maze of multilevel switching yards, cylinders being rerouted, guided into sheds to be loaded or unloaded, the contents being transferred to different containers for their trips into the gate. The gate itself was much wider than the ones they had encountered—a stepped hole at least two kilometers wide, resembling an open-pit mine but more regular and much more crowded with machinery.) The Axis City was awesome from any angle, but from near the surface of the Way, it was overwhelming. The pictor highlighted the northernmost parts of the city and explained their functions, then their point of view moved south.
