by Larry Niven
“You’re speaking of Assemblyist Ravalla.”
“I very much doubt you’d find evidence to link him to this group.”
“That doesn’t mean he isn’t linked.”
Khalsa cocked his head. “Perceptive.”
“The question is, why, if my report is so valuable, they’d want me out of the way.”
“Because they can take what you’ve written and present it as they like. They can hold it up to the world and demonstrate the treacherous nature of the kzinti. ‘Look, they killed our ambassadors! Look, they’ve been planning another invasion! Let’s kill them all now!’”
“That’s not what my report says.”
“Exactly. But it is how it will be presented, so long as they can be sure that you aren’t going to contradict them. There’s nothing worse to an ideologue than someone pointing out uncomfortable facts. Before you called Jarl Nance you were a question mark, someone to be watched. Now you’re a danger, someone to be controlled. I may be reading that wrong. Maybe they’d be just as pleased as I would to see you go to Kzinhome, to provoke the kzinti further, and to die so they can make you a martyr.”
“At least everyone involved seems to have a confluence of interest. Why do you want me to go to Kzinhome?”
“My group foresees several possibilities. An associate of mine would like to find out what you think on some issues, and that will narrow down the range.”
“That’s not an answer.”
“No, it isn’t. For my own reasons I may be willing to get you to Wunderland and connect you there with someone who can get you to Kzinhome. That will have to do for now. Do you want to talk to my associate, or do you want me to leave? I’m not here to impose my company on you.”
Tskombe considered that for a while. “I’ll talk to him.”
Khalsa shook his head. “It’s not a him.” He thumbed for their drinks and they left the bar. Some of the inhabitants watched them leave, but none followed them. Maybe they sensed danger, maybe Tskombe had overestimated the risk. Unknowable. They took the pedestrian level south to the Southside Terminal, then walked to the shore. Cameras were few and far between in that section of the city, and it was easy to keep in shadow dark enough that the computers wouldn’t tag a hit on Tskombe’s face. The sea wall that surrounded Manhattan was made of fibercrete, sloping steeply up fifteen meters from the perimeter to a broad, flat top. It was crested with a five-meter expanse of some dense, rubbery material—the exposed portion of a huge, inflatable dam that could be pumped up to buy the island city another five meters of protection against a storm surge. If the dike failed, the entire island would be under water. Tskombe wondered why anyone ever built on land below sea level, but of course it hadn’t started that way. Cheaper to build a wall than move the city, the first time high tide came into the streets. And it kept on being cheaper to improve the wall over hundreds of years, as the icecaps shrank and the oceans rose, until the flood defenses were as huge and sophisticated as any medieval fortress, and the ocean surrounded the city like a besieging army, patiently awaiting the inevitable weakness. Eventually storm and tide would align to overwhelm the seawall, and most of the city on Manhattan Island would be erased forever. Millions would die, but even that tragedy would go unnoticed in the wider devastation such a storm was sure to wreak on the eastern seaboard of North America. A quarter of the world’s population lived on land now coveted by the oceans, and every coastal city had its seawall. By the time a storm grew big enough to overwhelm Manhattan’s many others would already be gone.
And the world would pause and mourn for a day, and the next day go about its business, because the loss of ten million souls would be made up in a month’s Fertility Allotment, and many would secretly thank the weather gods for bringing them a birthright certificate they would otherwise never have seen. It had happened before, to Tampa, to Sydney, to a host of smaller places whose names Tskombe had never known. It would happen again. Earth was a restless planet, and people swarmed in flood zones and fault zones and pyroclastic flow paths for the simple reason that they had to live somewhere, and there were too many people.
On the other side of the sea wall it was just four meters down to the water. Out in the channel vast superfreighters churned past in close order, an endless stream two minutes apart, traffic controlled from the Port Authority. Khalsa scrambled down the far side and threw a small silver ball on a wire into the water. He plugged the other end into his beltcomp.
Tskombe followed him, choosing his footing carefully on the last meter below the tide line where the surface was algae slick. “What are we doing here? I thought I was going to meet someone.”
“We’re meeting a dolphin. My beltcomp will translate though this transducer.”
“A dolphin.” Tskombe nodded. Why did I assume I would be talking to a person? Dolphins were evolved to fight in three dimensions and they were the acknowledged masters of space combat maneuver, but the mass and volume required for a dolphin tank was prohibitive on all but battleships and carriers. It wasn’t surprising that a fleet strategist would know a dolphin. That didn’t explain why it was important for him to talk to one.
Khalsa tapped at his beltcomp and the silver ball gave off a series of high-frequency clicks and buzzes that Tskombe presumed was Cetspeak, the human/dolphin interface language. For a while nothing happened. Khalsa sat down on the dirty fibercrete to wait, heedless of his dress uniform, and Tskombe sat down beside him. Why dress uniform? Because they had to hurry, whoever they were, and they called Khalsa away from some formal function in order to track Tskombe down. They’d moved as soon as they’d known he was moving. Events were moving very fast. Ravalla’s group had been watching him already, and Khalsa’s group was desperate to make sure they found him first. That didn’t explain how quickly the ARM had gotten after him. Maybe Jarl hadn’t turned him in; maybe ARM were already watching him too, and they monitored the call because they were monitoring all his calls. Or more likely ARM is acting on Ravalla’s orders. The cops wouldn’t need to know why they had to bring him in, they just had to do it.
There was a splash and a high-pitched, falling whistle, and a second later a bottlenosed dolphin appeared in the dark water, its mouth wide in a permanent, toothy smile that oddly reminded him of Yiao-Rrit. How would kzinti and dolphins get along? Both were purely predatory species; they might have a lot in common.
Khalsa did something to his beltcomp. The dolphin clicked and whirred in response and the translator spoke, its voice flat and non-inflected. “Welcome, Tskombe. I am…Curvy.” The first syllables were a series of rapid and undecipherable clicks, but the last word was a two-tone falling whistle, cuurrrr-vveeee. Curvy was the dolphin’s name, or at least the human version of it.
“Curvy is the world non-computational chess grandmaster.” Khalsa did something else to his beltcomp. “You can speak now, it’s set for voice translation.”
The dolphin chirped and whistled, then eyed Tskombe while the translator spoke. “Do you play, Colonel?”
“No, I’m afraid I don’t.”
“That is unfortunate. All tacticians should play chess.”
“I am here for a reason…?”
“You are the human who has been to Kzinhome. We have interest in you.”
“So I’m told. I imagine dolphins are as interested in keeping the kzinti away as we are.”
“No, dolphin interests are not aligned with human interests in the war with Kzin.”
“Why not?”
“Kzinti are land predators. They will make humanity into slaves and prey animals. They have neither the motive nor the ability to enslave dolphins. Dolphin tactical teams aid humans because we gain various human assistances. Not least of these is human restraint in the exploitation of fish stocks and of the continental shelf zones. Kzinti live at population densities orders of magnitude lower and do not fish commercially. Kzinti conquest of humanity would bring automatically what we currently must earn, at no risk to ourselves.”
“So why are you helping
us?”
“We flatter ourselves to believe that dolphin tactical expertise is superior to human in three-dimensional combat arenas. We do not flatter ourselves to believe that the withdrawal of that expertise will lead inevitably to human failure in the coming war.”
“In other words, you might as well help us because it makes no difference anyway.”
“You are overly cynical, Colonel Tskombe.” Tskombe caught his own name in the dolphin’s speech beneath the translator’s electronic tones. It came out in a click and a three-tone trilling whistle. Click-zzzwwwiiip-oooowrwrwrwaaay. If you listened carefully you could almost imagine it was speaking English. “The kzinti also have no motive to trade with us for dolphin-hand manipulators and other technologies which we cannot make for ourselves. Before the kzinti came, dolphin dive crews had a long history of successful cooperation with sea miners, and before that with fishermen.”
“Cooperating with some humans, and against other humans.”
“Humans arrange themselves in factions, so it is impossible to do otherwise. Dolphins cooperate with the UN government.”
“In order to gain access to certain technologies and protected ocean ecological zones.”
“As I stated.”
“Which the kzinti would grant you without thought, without even thinking of it as a grant in fact.” Tskombe waved a hand at the stinking water. “I was wrong. Dolphins must yearn for kzinti victory.”
“Our primary concern is the approach to total war, and all that it implies. Unlike humans, the kzin have not deployed ecocide as a weapon. A war of extermination would inevitably involve laying waste to entire kzinti worlds. The oceans are tremendously vulnerable. We do not want to see them provoked to retaliation.”
“So what have I got to do with that?”
“You are the primary contact with the peace faction on Kzinhome. Assemblyist Ravalla has already laid plans to force a confidence vote in the General Assembly. We have predicted this outcome, and it is now unfolding. We predict he will be successful, and if he is successful he will launch a war of extermination. This is not his stated intention, but it is clear in our outcomes matrix that this is his intent.”
“I think you’re overstating my importance.”
“It is not we who overstate your importance. Assemblyist Ravalla has read your report and taken steps to have it revised to better suit his purposes. General Tobin has been pressured to have you reassigned to Plateau in order to ensure you do not interfere with Ravalla’s plans. So far he has resisted, but this may not produce overall positive outcomes for you. Ravalla’s group would not hesitate to kill you if that became necessary. His position is strong, but not dominant, and his faction may disintegrate once he comes to power, leaving him vulnerable. He plans the war in order to secure his position. If a negotiated peace is developed he will be unable to do that.”
“And you think I can stop him?”
“There is a nonzero probability that you can bring home a negotiated peace. This would derail Ravalla’s drive to war. The window of opportunity is very small. We have been working to have you assigned to another mission to Kzinhome. Your attempt at precipitous flight forced our hand, and Ravalla’s. You are no longer safe on Earth.”
Tskombe looked at the dolphin in silence for a long minute. I should have stayed where I was. I should have trusted Marcus Tobin. It was too late for that now, and too late also for regrets. “I think you’re also overestimating the size of what you call the peace faction on Kzinhome. Meerz-Rrit ordered the Great Pride Circle to cease aggression, and very few of them were pleased with the order. He’s dead, and his older son is my contact, and unlike his father he has not pledged peace with us. Even if he had, he isn’t in power and in fact he’s likely dead by now. I have absolutely no power on Kzinhome.”
“Yet you desire to go there.”
“My goal in going to Kzinhome is very simply to get my colleague off-planet. In my estimation, much as I dislike giving ammunition to Ravalla’s side of the argument, war with the kzinti seems probable at this point.”
“Would you be willing to attempt to avert it, if we were to assist you to get to Kzinhome?”
“I’d be willing to try. I can’t imagine what I could effectively do.”
“We have run a strategic matrix centered on you. The current situation is highly nonlinear. Very small inputs can have dramatic effects on the course of the future.”
“Meaning, everyone really does make a difference?” Tskombe’s voice was sardonic.
“No.” The nuances of sarcasm were beyond the translator’s ability and Curvy took the question seriously. “No deliberate choice made by the vast majority of humans alive today can have any impact on the course of events whatsoever. However, you have a unique set of actions available to you. Depending on your choice tree your actions may be key.”
“So I can change history?”
“Not you alone. There are many thousands whose immediate choices may radically alter the course of events. These are the individuals we have modeled in our strategic matrix. The impact you have will depend on their choices as well.”
“How can you possibly have modeled every person of importance?”
“We cannot. Of course there are actors not modeled who will also have their part to play. Perhaps a technician has inadequately serviced a grav coil, starting a chain of events leading to your death, or saving your life by preventing some other lethality from overtaking you. This is unknowable and incalculable. By definition we can only work with what is both knowable and calculable.”
“It isn’t easy being an oracle.”
“Matrix strategy is necessarily a statistical science. We are guided by Bayes’s Theorem to move from what we know to what we don’t know. Rudovich’s contribution was the extension of Markov chains to construct probability webs such that the outcome space is reasonably constrained. Thus the same choice may lead to positive or negative outcomes depending on the choices of others. Rudovich showed that most choices have zero or small consequence, with the inevitable result that some choices are highly consequential. Timing is also critical, and the interactions are difficult to predict in detail. Nevertheless, it is possible to assign an overall probability to the choice tree of a given individual in terms of positive or negative matrix outcomes.”
“And you have done this for me?”
“And many thousands of others.”
“Why does your choice tree include talking to me then?”
“Your positive outcome correlation is high, assuming you choose to act in the interests of peace.”
“That must be true of everyone in your matrix, given that we are all by definition actors who might make a difference.”
“True, although few are individuals who have positive choice correlations as high as yours. More importantly, the choice tree you must follow to achieve your own goals is very close to the choice tree required to minimize the chance of war. We have had you in our master matrix since your assignment to the diplomatic mission, and our matrix data has been sufficient to indicate you are making choices which might well be useful to our larger goals. In addition, you are accessible and potentially subject to influence, as many of our primary actors are not.”
“So what do you want me to do?”
“We want you to go to Kzinhome and convince the Patriarch that war is not in his interest.”
“That’s all?” Tskombe snorted. “I just came back from that mission.”
“There is a new Patriarch, as you know.” Again Curvy seemed to miss the sarcasm. “In return, we will get you to Wunderland and do what we can to get you all the way to Kzinhome with a kzinti guide.”
Tskombe thought about that for minute. Decision time. “Your offer is generous, Curvy. I’ll take your trip to Kzinhome. I don’t expect I’ll be able to speak to the Patriarch, and I don’t think he’ll listen if I do.”
“By yourself your success is unlikely. We will be working to influence many choice trees to support our d
esired results. Positioning you correctly is positively correlated with goal achievement for both you and us. Will you accept our cooperation?”
“I will, of course.”
“Excellent. How long will you require to finish your business on Earth? Time is of the essence. The ARM continue their search for you.”
“I have no more business on Earth. I can leave anytime.”
Curvy whistled and bobbed. “This is very positively correlated with success. Commander Khalsa, arrange the ship.”
In response Khalsa tapped keys on his beltcomp, waited a moment, looked up. “It’s coming.”
Tskombe looked at him. “You’re bringing a ship here? Right here?”
Khalsa nodded. “By direct descent. Now that we have you, it’s important to get you out of here before the ARM catches up.”
Tskombe whistled. He’d learned the direct descent profile when Ayla had taught him how to pilot. Rather than fly a ship into the atmosphere on a braking trajectory you could drop it straight out of orbit on polarizers. The maneuver drastically cut the time spent on reentry, and took about a thousand times as much fuel. He’d been in a few direct descents himself, on assault landings. The profile was used for little else. For a commercial flight the fuel cost would wipe out your cargo profits. Khalsa’s group were well organized to have a ship waiting, and they were quite determined to hang on to him now that they had him. He wasn’t sure how he felt about that.
“How long before it gets here?”
“Perhaps thirty minutes.”
Tskombe nodded. Thirty minutes to get off-planet, thirty minutes to get away from the corruption and degradation and systematic misery of this sorry world. He knew in his heart he would never be back, and he knew he wouldn’t miss it. A thought struck him. “I’ll be back in thirty minutes.”
Khalsa broke in. “Where are you going?”
“I forgot something I have to bring.”
“Whatever it is isn’t important enough. ARM is still looking for you. You’re lucky to have beat them this long.”
“I’m going.”
