by Isaac Asimov
“Just how much, if anything, do you really think we’re going to lose?”
The chairman looked at the man at the far end of the table. “I don’t expect to lose very much at all. Ambassador Humadros hopes to alter our traditions and change history by offering more open markets, exchange of technologies, better policing along the shipping routes, lower tariffs–the usual package of incentives intended to force policy to change. Not that it isn’t a tempting package–I expect that we’ll end up signing off on some of it, maybe even a lot of it. In fact, I imagine it would be very profitable in the short term. But she hopes to break our resistance to positronics. I expect her to go home disappointed.”
Anxious looks crossed the table. Not everyone on the committee, he knew, agreed that positronics was a bad thing, but all of them understood how the markets and their future holdings could be effected. The chairman was always impressed at the degree of nuance the program translated. He could always tell, no matter what each member did to modify their own projection, who was genuinely comfortable with the setting and who still felt uneasy. The chamber did not exist outside the buffers of the data module, but it was patterned on one that had once jutted from the side of a tower built just below the summit of Puu Kukul, on the island of Maui in the Hawaiian chain. The view was spectacular, overlooking a meandering valley through which the Honokahua Stream ran on its way to the Pacific Ocean. The openness of it challenged them. The suggestion of limitless sky unnerved the average Terran, but none of the members of this forum considered themselves average. A little agoraphobia would not, they claimed, dictate to them.
Still, it was a construct, and they all knew it. The chairman wondered if they could so bravely attend meetings in the flesh outside the walls that defined their existence and their identities as citizens of Earth.
“In my view,” he continued after a pause, “we have come to a consensus on this matter. Are we, in fact, agreed?”
Nods rippled all around.
“Good. The upload is complete. Please be thoroughly familiar with all the points before the conference begins. I know I can depend on you.”
Singly and in groups of two and three the attendees faded from the table. Alone finally, the chairman stood and walked to the window. He felt his pulse increase, a tremulous thrill in his groin and behind his sternum, as he stood at the edge of the view and confronted it. It was lovely. The ocean far in the distance formed a sharp, straight horizon above which the blue, blue sky arched. He wondered at times what had driven people to hide from the universe and burrow into the Earth. It surprised him sometimes to realize that in this he had much in common with both Spacers and Settlers.
Some, at any rate. He knew of Settler worlds where the warrens of Earth had been and were being duplicated in alien soil under other suns. What, he wondered, was the point of leaving a place only to bring it with you?
His heartrate regulated finally. He reached into his jacket pocket and found the small square. He gave it a squeeze and the windows opaqued to black. It was a good illusion, this chamber. He sometimes forgot for a few seconds that he was not standing in anything, that it was all a construct of numbers and electrons. A mirage.
He turned back toward the table and squeezed the square in his pocket again. There was barely a flicker. The scene seemed to skip sideways a centimeter or two, hardly noticeable unless anticipated and expected. The automated recorders were now being fed a secondary illusion, one that showed the chairman sitting in a chair, gazing out at the lovely, frightening vista of naked Earth, the way he often did.
The deception was necessary because of the redundant monitors the entire committee maintained on the site. Time records, the comings and goings of members, the alternate uses of the chamber–all recorded for the benefit of mutual distrust and mutual oversight. The committee conducted official business here and so the construct was always running. Of course, they could meet in public, but there were other monitoring and recording systems in many of those places; it was much safer to say certain things here, within the sphere of their own complimentary suspicions, where only they could get at the records. The system had been built to prevent exactly what the chairman was now doing.
“Secured,” he said.
Two figures reappeared at the table. They ran their own masking programs, so their faces were difficult to see clearly, and their voices were altered into unrecognizability. But the chairman knew who they were, and they knew him.
“Where’s our Judas?” the chairman asked.
“He wished to be absent during the final preparations,” the indistinct apparition to the chairman’s right said. “He’s in agreement, but wants to remain free of the actual planning. Deniability, he says.”
“A true politician,” the other figure said.
The chairman suppressed a disgusted response. He sat down.
“Very well.” He drew a loud, dramatic breath. “Briefly, everything is in place on my end. The program is running and we’ll have fifteen minutes of operational time. What about security?”
“Taken care of,” the left-hand ghost said. “My people are in place and ready.”
“And the operations team?”
“Set,” answered the right-hand ghost. “Give the word and we go.”
The chairman leaned back, enjoying a sensation of accomplishment. He sighed. “Ambassador Galiel Humadros of Aurora believes she can change the face of Terran policy and tradition. She has our own Senator Clar Eliton to thank for validating that illusion.” He looked across the table to the ghost on his right. After a few seconds, the indistinct face looked away.
“You know,” the other ghost said, “there are elements of this treaty that aren’t terrible.”
“Which elements do you mean?” The chairman’s voice became blunt, almost monotonal in its derision. “The part where Spacer industry is allowed to set up factories on Earth as cooperatives with native companies? Or the reduced tariffs that could cut government revenues in half–which would mean that our government would be forced to make up the shortfall through increased local taxes? Or is it the limited reintroduction of positronics to the open market?”
His tone turned mocking. “Or could it be the sentiment of reconciliation that permeates every clause and paragraph of the draft proposal? How does the preamble go? ‘The people of Earth and the people of the settled worlds share a common heritage and should not be separated by ideology or divided over commerce.’ Do you wish to sit down to break bread with our lost children of Aurora and Solaria and reminisce over the branching past? What parts of this treaty ‘aren’t terrible’? Educate me.”
“That’s enough,” said the left-hand ghost. “Sometimes I wonder if you aren’t a fanatic. The fact is we stand to lose a great deal of money if positronic inspections are instituted for interstellar shipping. The black markets have been too lucrative and we’re bound to them now, but it’s just profit. I don’t think we should forget that. We’re doing this to protect our margins–period. I don’t have any ideological axes to grind. Nobody–not Earth, not Settler, and especially not Spacer–is going to damage my business. That should be enough. This isn’t a holy war.”
“No?” the chairman asked. “Perhaps not. But you should study history more. You might find yourself agreeing with the fanatics more than you’d expect.” He settled back in the chair. “That brings me to another point. The Tiberius incident which precipitated this conference was nothing but sloppy handling on the part of the captain. It should never have escalated to the point of provoking the Auroran ship. Once we get through the upcoming event, I think a restructuring of our smuggling operations is in order. Shipments have been cut to less than half their former size because of this nonsense. A year of this is too much. But I don’t want a repeat of that mess.”
“Do you think after the conference we’ll still be doing any business with Spacers?” the left-hand ghost asked.
“Oh, yes. More. They won’t be able to get Terran products through legitimate channel
s. Not as easily, at any rate. Possibly, depending on how angry their governments are, not at all. The market won’t go away and we’ll be able to raise prices due to any embargo. Business will continue, make no mistake. I’ve already made inquiries into alternate routes and methods. I think, once the dust settles, we can look forward to doubling our former revenues.”
“We’ve heard none of this,” the left-hand ghost complained.
“Of course not. I’m waiting till afterward, so that if anything goes wrong, you will all have deniability.”
“Or anything to take to the authorities?”
The chairman frowned. “Why do you goad me so much?”
The ghost shrugged. The indistinct form made the gesture seem liquid, like the slap of water against a wall.
“It’s best,” said the ghost, “that we never forget the nature of what we’re doing.”
“We’re putting a stop to a bad idea,” the chairman said. “Risks are necessary to do so. Speaking of which, you–” he pointed to the right-hand ghost “–are taking the greatest risk.”
“So?”
“Any second thoughts?”
“All the time. But it’s necessary.”
The chairman nodded. “Then we won’t speak again.”
“True.” The ghost sighed, a papery sound that seemed ancient. “Flesh, not steel?”
“Flesh, not steel,” the other two repeated.
“Good-bye.”
The ghost faded out, leaving only two.
“Will he go through with it?” the left-hand ghost asked.
“The beauty of this is that once the reception at Union Station begins, he won’t have any choice,” the chairman replied. “But I think we should make absolutely sure he doesn’t suffer a crisis of conscience. Before or after.”
“My people will keep a watch on him. As for after...”
“See to it.”
“Done.” The ghost paused. “You asked why I goad you so much.”
“A rhetorical question. I actually enjoy it, in a way.”
“Good. But I don’t do it for your pleasure, Ky. We’ve known each other for a long time. I’ve always found in you the desire to act on passion alone. You never do, but you want to. I worry sometimes that one day you’ll ditch your practicality and turn zealot.”
The chairman raised an eyebrow. “How do you know I haven’t?”
“You pay attention to costs too closely.”
The chairman laughed. When he finished, he gazed at the wavering, masked form across from him. “As a matter of fact, I do believe positronic robots represent a real threat, beyond the fiscal. When you study history–”
“I know about the riots.”
“We all do–we’re endlessly told about them, by commentators and in our dramas. Riots don’t frighten me, though.”
“You’re not worried that a reintroduction of positronic robots would bring them back?”
“No. I’m worried that this time they won’t. And then it’s allover for us.”
The two shimmery figures sat together in silence for a time, the space around them growing thick with contemplation.
“Well,” the ghost said at last, “I have details to chase down and kill.”
“So do I. I think we’re as prepared as we’re going to be.”
“I agree. Till afterward then?”
“Flesh, not steel?”
The ghost chuckled. “If you insist.”
The form faded out, leaving the chairman alone in his generated conference chamber. After a time, he reached in his pocket again and squeezed the square.
“Recording complete?” he asked.
“Recording complete,” answered a flat, genderless voice. “Decoding routines in place, descrambler active. Bubble memory established under file ‘Zealots, Inc.’ Minutes retrieved, stored, coded to password release.”
The chairman felt a wry aversion to that label, but it fit. He did not feel like a zealot, not in the sense of an irrational fanatic single-mindedly devoted to a cause. Rather, he felt supremely rational, a practical man in an impractical universe, presented with an opportunity to make a small adjustment and guarantee the sanity of a small part of history.
A zealot? No. Ambitious, perhaps, and, he admitted, even a little vain.
But it was necessary.
“Very good. End routine.”
The room faded away, leaving nothing.
One
MIA DAVENTRI LISTENED to the stream of com chatter in her left ear and surveyed the crowd gathered at the archway. On an average day, Union Station D. C. was thick with travelers and their entourages of well-wishers and connections. Now it seemed to contain half the residents of the city.
“Wing Three,” a voice whispered to her. “Parcel is arriving. Are you established?”
“Copy, One,” she said quietly, glancing around. No one looked like anything other than a fascinated spectator. “Gate is open.”
“Very good,” One replied. It was unusual for the head of Special Service to operate as general dispatcher, but today was an unusual day.
Union Station always impressed Mia. The main gallery seemed to grow out of the earth itself, huge arching ribs reaching up and overhead to support the roof, the columns carved in delicate fractal patterns. The floor shined like polished starglow. The hall lay at the center of a network of tunnels to and from the shuttle port. Archways lined the walls, glowing signs set into the synthetic stone above each directing people to transportation, shops, restaurants, com booths, and the station hotels. Between those columns that did not flank an exit stood statuary, representative pieces from several periods extending back to preindustrial times. Sounds caught in the air, contoured, slightly magnified, and lingered high above. Union Station was a showpiece for D. C., sprawling and elegant and, it seemed, ever incomplete. Mia had seen a view of it from outside. It looked like a giant mushroom cap, a thick set of tunnels linking the landing field to the secrets beneath its penumbra.
Beginning at the apron before the main entrance, two rows of station security robots formed a sort of honor guard that continued down the length of the concourse into the station’s great hall. Arms extended and linked, they kept the crowds back by a combination of presence and cordial cajoling. Union Station was one of the few places on Earth where positronic robots were in such public use, which, Mia felt, was a shame. She liked them–which set her apart from the vast majority of her fellow Terrans–and could not see the evil they supposedly represented. They were here because so many offworlders came through; Spacers who not only were used to a clear robotic presence, but depended on it. Union Station was a kind of international zone in which all jurisdictions had representation, containing embassy offices of the Spacer missions–satellites to the main embassies east in Anacostia District.
But beyond the diplomatic necessities, Mia thought the use of robots was ideal for crowd control during events like this. Earther distaste–Earther fear–for robots kept most people from getting too close to them. Mia could hear the insistent, genderless robotic requests to “please stay back” and “do not cross the line” even over the din. If anyone actually got past that line, it was up to a human to usher them, gently or otherwise, back behind it. For that, regular police and station security stood ready.
Even so, these robots were not entirely independent units. They were all slaved to Union Station’s Resident Intelligence. The RI handled the complex coordination among the various units. Besides Mia’s own Special Service team, the police, and station security, several of the representative bodies from industry and political interest groups had brought along their own small security teams. In the unlikely event of a security breach or other emergency, the RI would deploy these units more efficiently than any human coordinator might manage.
“Moving up now,” One said.
Mia caught sight of her two team partners on the other side of the archway. Each of them, Mattu and Gel, gave her a nod and returned their attention to the avenue.
&n
bsp; The moving strips immediately fronting the Union Station entrance had been shut down today. The strips on the other side of the independent traffic lanes still moved, but they were empty.
The oversized limo rolled silently into sight, small flags fluttering at its corners, and pulled up against the curb. Mia strode to the doors and tapped a code into the lock. A section of polished black metal slid back and Mia stepped away.
A robot emerged first. Standing nearly two meters tall, it nevertheless appeared almost toy-like. Smooth-jointed, its arms hung to its sides, little more than tubes that ended in clumsy-looking three-fingered hands. It seemed too thin for its height. The rounded head possessed ill-formed ear shells, a faint depression where a mouth ought to be; above that was a single slit that glowed white–its optical array. Its bronze skin dully reflected the station’s lights.
“Agent Daventri,” it said through her link, “it is good to see you again. Is all secured?”
“Hi, Bogard. Yes, we’re fine.” She glanced at the gathered spectators and saw a number of round-eyed stares. Despite the robot’s innocuous appearance, they were clearly afraid of it. “Bogard, please link to RI network now.”
“One moment,” Bogard replied. “linking. link complete. Security net, sensory net, and related peripherals realtime linked to Union Station Resident Intelligence. Telemetry optimal, Agent Daventri.”
“Very good, Bogard. Proceed.”
Bogard took two steps forward, then turned smartly. Senator Clar Eliton stepped from the limo. He seemed taller than he actually was, his high forehead crowned by thick waves of greying black hair. The beginnings of a double chin and the dense webbing of creases around his eyes betrayed his age and the wear of office, but the rest of him appeared fit and energetic. Boos and angry shouts peppered the air as his personal staff emerged behind him. Eliton, seemingly oblivious to them, smiled and waved as though on a campaign stump, and started down the entry tunnel.
Bogard fell into step behind and to the Senator’s right. Mia and her teammates ranged out ahead, she to the left, Gel on the opposite side, and Mattu on point. She spotted other members of the on-site security sprinkled along the way and through the crowd as they brought Senator Eliton into the main gallery.
