How firm a foundation s-5

by David Weber

  “But not when you’re closeted with Father Zhon or any of the others, Father,” Merlin murmured, and the young priest laughed.

  “I’ll bear that in mind,” he said. Then his expression sobered once more.

  “You asked whether there might be another Key, or its equivalent, and I said I thought not. I still think that’s probably the case. And if it is, then presumably you don’t have to worry about someone deliberately awakening whatever might lie under the Temple. But there’s a reason I said your comment about having been dead for ‘almost a thousand years’ was ironic, Merlin.”

  “And that reason was?” Merlin asked slowly.

  “Because according to the ‘Vision of Schueler,’” Wylsynn said softly, “the Archangels themselves will return a thousand years after the Creation to be sure Mother Church continues to serve the true plan of God.”

  ***

  Merlin blinked as his memory finished replaying the conversation, and the same chill ran through him once again.

  He’d always been afraid of those power sources under the Temple. He’d thought he wanted nothing more than to discover the truth about them. Now he realized the reality might be even worse than he’d allowed himself to imagine.

  The Archangels will return, he thought. What the hell does that mean? Were those lunatics crazy enough to put a batch of “Archangels” into cryo under there? Were they actually willing to trust the cryo systems to keep them going that long? And even if they were, could the systems stand up for that many years?

  So far as he knew, no one had ever used the cryo suspension systems for a period greater than thirty or forty years. Theoretically, they were supposed to be good for up to a century and a half. But nine centuries?

  But maybe that’s not what it is after all. Maybe it is an AI. It could be that they didn’t trust an AI to run continuously but were willing to let it come up periodically. Only if that’s the case, why wait a thousand years before it makes its first check? Unless the “Vision of Schueler” is lying and whatever it is has actually been popping up for a look every fifty or sixty years, I suppose. Except that it’s pretty evident the vicarate’s been departing from the image of the Church laid down in the Holy Writ for at least two or three hundred y ears, so if there’s an AI down there that’s supposed to be making midcourse adjustments, why’s it kept its mouth shut? Unless it’s broken, and that doesn’t seem likely, given how many of the Temple’s other systems still seem to be up and running. I can’t imagine they’d’ve built the place without making certain something as critical as a monitoring AI would be the last thing to go down, not the first!

  He grimaced, then froze as another thought struck him.

  I’m the only PICA Commodore Pei and the others had access to, an icy mental voice said. But what if I’m not the only PICA that came to Safehold after all? What if that’s what’s down there? The only reason I’m capable of long-term operation is because Doctor Proctor hacked my basic software. It’s possible they could have brought along-hell, even built after they got here, despite Langhorne’s anti-technology lunacy!-a PICA or two of their own. And if they didn’t have Proctor’s fine touch on the software, their PICAs could be limited to the “legal” ten days of autonomous operation before their personalities and memories automatically dump. So maybe, if that’s the case, it would make sense for them to only spin up once every thousand years or so. They get up, spend a day or two looking around, and if everything’s humming along, they go back into shutdown immediately. For that matter, they could have multiple PICAs stashed down there in the cellar. One of them wakes up and looks around, and if there’s a problem, he’s got reinforcements he can call up. Hell, for that matter if they did have more than one PICA down there and it was keyed to the same person, could he bootstrap himself back and forth between them to get around the ten-day limit?!

  He didn’t know the answer to his own question. Under the Federation’s restrictions on Personality Integrated Cybernetic Avatars, each PICA had been unique to the human being who owned it. It had been physically impossible for anyone else to operate it, and just as it had been illegal for a PICA to operate for more than ten days in autonomous mode, it had been illegal for an individual even to operate , far less own, more than a single PICA, except under strenuously controlled circumstances which usually had to do with high-risk industrial processes or something similar. So far as he was aware, no one had ever attempted to simply shuttle someone’s memories and personality back and forth between a pair of identical PICAs keyed to the same owner/operator. He had no idea how the software’s built-in restrictions would react to that, but it was certainly possible it would represent a lower-risk solution than Proctor’s hack of his own software. Assuming one had access to multiple PICAs, of course.

  And didn’t that lead to an interesting speculation?

  “Owl?”

  “Yes, Lieutenant Commander Alban?” the distant AI replied.

  “Could we use the fabrication unit in the cave to build another PICA?”

  “That question requires refinement, Lieutenant Commander Alban.”

  “What?” Merlin blinked at the unexpected response. “What sort of ‘refinement’? List the difficulties.”

  “Theoretically, the fabrication unit could construct a PICA,” the AI said. “It would deplete certain critical elements below the minimum inventory level specified in my core programming, which would require human override authorization. In addition, however, it would require data not available to me.”

  “What sort of data are we talking about?”

  “I do not have detailed schematics or design data on PICAs.”

  “You don’t?” Merlin’s eyebrows rose in surprise.

  “No, Lieutenant Commander Alban,” Owl replied, and Merlin reminded himself not to swear when the AI stopped there, obviously satisfied with its response.

  “Why not?” he asked after a moment.

  “Because it was never entered into my database.”

  Merlin began reciting the names of the Federation’s presidents to himself. Obviously it had never been entered into Owl’s database. Of course, that wasn’t the “why” he’d had in mind when he posed the question!

  “ Why was it never entered into your database?” he asked finally. “And if you don’t have a definitive answer, speculate.”

  “I do not have a definitive answer, Lieutenant Commander Alban. However, I would speculate that it was never entered because the construction of PICAs was a highly specialized enterprise attended by a great many legal restrictions and security regulations and procedures. It would not be something that would be found in a general database. Certainly it would not be part of a tactical computer’s database, nor, apparently, part of the library database downloaded from Romulus.”

  “Damn. That does make sense,” Merlin muttered.

  Owl, predictably, made no reply.

  Merlin grimaced, but he was actually just as happy to be left to his thoughts for the moment.

  The possibility of building additional PICAs had never occurred to him before. On the other hand, if he could, and if the additional PICAs’ software duplicated his own, he could create clones of himself, which would be hugely helpful. Not only would it allow him to be in more than one place simultaneously, it would give him the advantage of redundancy if one of him inadvertently did something to which some high-tech watchdog system might take exception.

  And if Wylsynn’s right about something “returning” in a thousand years, I may just need all the reinforcements I can get, he thought grimly. This is the year 895, but they’ve numbered their “Years of God” from the end of “Shan-wei’s Rebellion,” from the time the Church of God turned into the Church of God Awaiting. The Day of Creation was seventy years- Standard Years, not Safeholdian ones-before that. And that makes this year 979 since the Creation. Which means we’ve got twenty years, give or take, before whatever’s going to happen happens .

  Twenty years might sound like a lot, but not when it was
all the time they had to break not simply the Church of God Awaiting’s political supremacy but also its stranglehold on Safehold’s religious and technological life. They’d been working on it for five years already, and all they’d really managed so far was to stave off defeat. Well, they’d begun gnawing away at the Proscriptions of Jwo-jeng-slowly and very, very cautiously-but they certainly hadn’t found a way to take the war to the Church and the Group of Four on the mainland! And even if they managed that, simply defeating the Group of Four militarily wasn’t going to miraculously undo ten centuries’ belief in the Holy Writ and the Archangels. That fight was going to take far longer… and it was likely to involve even more bloodshed than the current conflict.

  Perhaps still worse, if there was something-“Archangel,” AI, or PICA-waiting to “wake up” under the Temple, he had to assume any technological advancement beyond the simple steam engines which still hadn’t attracted the bombardment system’s attention to the Castaway Islands was going to be noticed by its sensors and reported to the Temple. At which point it was entirely possible the wake-up’s schedule might be rather drastically revised.

  “Owl, could analysis of this PICA give you the data you’d require to build additional ones?”

  “Probability of success would approach unity assuming a complete analysis of software and hardware,” the AI replied.

  “And would such an analysis constitute a risk to this PICA’s continued operation?”

  “Preliminary analysis indicates a sixty-five to seventy percent probability it would be rendered permanently inoperable,” Owl said calmly.

  “Why?”

  “Most probable cause would be failure of the unit’s software. There is a significant probability that the necessary analysis would trigger a reboot, which would wipe the unit’s current memory and personality.”

  “What if it were possible to reload the memory and personality from another source?”

  “In that case the probability of rendering the current unit inoperable would drop to approximately twenty-eight percent.”

  “Still that high?” Merlin frowned. “Why?”

  “In the event of a reboot, standard protocols would reinstall original program and system defaults, Lieutenant Commander. The software alteration which permits this unit’s indefinite operation lies far outside those defaults and would be eliminated in such an eventuality, thus restoring the ten-day limitation on autonomous operation.”

  Merlin grimaced. That made sense, he supposed, and twenty-eight percent was still unacceptably high. Under the current circumstances, at least. But if circumstances changed…

  “Do you have the capability out of existing resources to build both a Class II VR and a recording unit?” he asked.

  “Affirmative, Lieutenant Commander Alban.”

  “In that case, get started on both of them immediately. I assume you can run up the recording unit first?”

  “Affirmative, Lieutenant Commander Alban.”

  “Then send it out to me as soon as it’s finished.” He grimaced again. “I might as well get myself recorded as soon as possible.”

  “Acknowledged, Lieutenant Commander Alban.”

  JUNE, YEAR OF GOD 895

  Siddar City, Republic of Siddarmark

  “Don’t be such a greedy guts!” Byrk Raimahn scolded as the wyvern swooped down and snatched the morsel of fresh bread from his fingers. “There’s plenty if you just behave yourselves!”

  The triumphant wyvern only whistled smugly at him and flapped its way back up onto the green-budded branch of the apple tree from which it had launched its pounce. It seemed remarkably unmoved by his appeal to its better nature, Byrk reflected, and tore another piece from the loaf. He shredded it into smaller pieces, scattering them across the flagstone terrace for the less aggressive of his winged diners, then picked up a wedge of sharp cheddar cheese from the plate beside the bowl of grapes. He leaned back in his rattan chair, propping his heels on the matching chair which faced him on the other side of the table, and nibbled as he enjoyed the cool northern sunlight.

  It wasn’t much like home, he thought, gazing out across the sparkling waters of North Bedard Bay. The locals (a label which he still had trouble applying to himself) usually called it simply North Bay, to distinguish it from the even larger Bedard Bay to the south. This far north of the equator, the seasons stood on their heads and even late spring and early summer were almost uncomfortably cool to his Charisian blood. Trees were much later to leaf, flowers were later to bloom (and less colorful when they did), and ocean water was far too cold for a Charisian boy to swim in. Besides, he missed Tellesberg’s livelier waterfront, sharper-edged theaters, and heady, bustling air of intellectual ferment.

  Of course, that intellectual ferment was the main reason he was sitting here on his grandfather’s Siddar City terrace feeding bread to greedy wyverns and squabbling seagulls. It wasn’t like “So, here you are!” a familiar voice said, and he looked over his shoulder, then rose with a smile of welcome for the silver-haired, plump but distinguished-looking woman who’d just stepped out of the mansion’s side door behind him.

  “I wasn’t exactly hiding, Grandmother,” he pointed out. “In fact, if you’d opened a window and listened, I’m sure you could have tracked me down without any trouble at all.”

  He pulled one of the chairs away from the table with one hand while the other gestured at the guitar lying in its open case on the bench beside him.

  “For that matter, if you’d only looked out the window, the fleeing birds and the small creatures running for the shrubbery with their paws over their ears would have pinpointed me for you.”

  “Oh, nonsense, Byrk!” She laughed, patting him on the cheek before she seated herself in the proffered chair. “Your playing’s not that bad.”

  “Just not that bad?” he teased, raising one eyebrow at her. “Is that another way of saying it’s almost that bad?”

  “No, that’s what your grandfather would call it if he were here,” Sahmantha Raimahn replied. “And he’d mean just as little of it as I would. Go ahead and play something for me now, Byrk.”

  “Well, if you insist,” he said in a long-suffering tone.

  She made a face at him, and he laughed as he picked the guitar back up. He thought for a moment, picking random notes as he considered, then struck the opening chord of “The Way of the Widow-Maker,” one of the very first ballads he’d learned to play sitting on Sahmantha’s lap. The sad, rich notes spilled across the terrace while the sunlight struck chestnut highlights in his brown hair and the wind ruffled that hair, sighed in the branches of the ornamental fruit trees, and sent the shrubbery’s sprays of blossoms flickering in light and shadow.

  He bent his head, eyes half-closed, giving himself to the ballad, and his grandmother drew her steel thistle silk wrap closely about her shoulders. She knew he thought of his music as a rich young man’s hobby, but he was wrong. It was far more than that, and as she watched him play her own eyes lost some of their usual sparkle, darkening while the lament for lost sailors spilled up from his guitar strings to circle and curtsy around the terrace. It was a haunting melody, as lovely as it was sad, and she remembered how he’d insisted she teach it to him when he’d been barely seven years old.

  The year before his parents’ deaths had sent him to her more as her youngest son than her oldest grandson.

  “I don’t suppose you could’ve thought of anything more depressing, could you?” she teased gently when the final note had faded away, and he shrugged.

  “I don’t really think of it as depressing,” he said, laying the guitar back in the case and running a fingertip gently down the bright strings. He looked back up at her. “It’s sad, yes, but not depressing, Grandmother. There’s too much love for the sea in it for that.”

  “Perhaps you’re right,” she conceded.

  “Of course I am- I’m the poet, remember?” He smiled infectiously. “Besides,” his smile turned warmer, gentler, “I love it because of who it
was that taught it to me.”

  “Flatterer.” She reached out and smacked him gently on the knee. “You got that from your father. And he got it from your grandfather!”

  “Really?” He seemed astounded by the notion and gazed thoughtfully out across the gleaming blue water for several seconds, then nodded with the air of someone who’d just experienced a revelation. “So that’s how someone with the Raimahn nose got someone as good-looking as you to marry him! I’d always wondered about that, actually.”

  “You, Byrk Raimahn, are what was known in my youth as a rapscallion.”

  “Oh, no, Grandmother-you wrong me! I’m sure the term you’d really have applied to me would’ve been much ruder than that.”

  She laughed and shook her head at him, and he offered her the bowl of grapes. She selected one and popped it into her mouth, and he set the bowl down in front of her.

  “Somehow the hothouse grapes just aren’t as good,” he commented. “They make me miss our vineyards back home.”

  He glanced back out across the bay as he spoke and missed the shadow that flitted through her eyes. Or he could pretend he had, at least.

  “I think they have a lower sugar content,” she said out loud, no sign of that shadow touching her voice.

  “That’s probably it,” he agreed, looking back at her with another smile.

  She returned the smile, plucked another grape, and leaned back, cocking her head to one side.

  “What’s this about you being off to Madam Pahrsahn’s again this evening?” she asked lightly. “I hear you have at least a dozen rivals for her affections, you know.”

  “Alas, too true!” He pressed the back of his wrist to his forehead, his expression tragic. “That cretin Raif Ahlaixsyn offered her a sonnet last night, and he actually had the gall to make it a good one.” He shook his head. “Quickly, Grandmother! Tell me what to do to recover in her eyes!”

  “Oh, I’m sure you’ll come about.” She shook her head at him. “Although, at the rate she seems to attract fresh suitors, you may yet find yourself crowded out.”