by Larry Niven
10. To fiction? If Saturn retrieves it from “memory,” he never had the experience of reading it…only of having read it!
11. To the planet Saturn, or the Zodiac Saturn? Would these have meaning to such an entity? (The entity Saturn is not saturnine but mercurial!) (We can put permanent probes around planet Saturn.) (I noticed years ago that Saturn never disappointed anyone. Though a telescope Mars can be just a jumpy pink blur, but Saturn is always spectacular.)
12. Saturn is superintelligent and mad. Bob saw that much…but I find it more interesting that Saturn is evolving. His motives, his abilities, everything is changing. By the time Chaz confronts him—for instance—
13. He may have decided the attack on Lenore was a horrible mistake. He certainly knows (by now) how to chop off a few hours of Lenore’s memory and seal it off without spreading damage. He can see how much more malleable Chaz would have been with a happy Lenore in his company. She must still be persuaded that any paranoid remnants are false…a challenge, at least…but sharks aren’t herders.
14. Saturn is always hungry. There’s no on/off switch for a shark’s hunger.
So much for Saturn. There is more to fix……
15. We need a better setup for the state in which we find Lenore after the jump. I can insert data: Confused and frightened and damaged, she thought of no better plan than to go on to where she had contracted to work. We find her there. (I haven’t even noticed if that’s already in place. It needs pointing out!)
16. Pg. 309–311: set up those global riots better. (I don’t know how. Something will suggest itself. Maybe Nero spots something anomalous that Chaz ignores.)
17. Bob says: set up the meet between Lenore and Chaz. I thought you’d done that well, but I’ll look again.
18. Life on Java. Give it detail or cut it, Bob suggests. I’ll leave it in, Steve, for your next pass. If I don’t see it get better, I’ll chop it then.
19. Pg. 314—riots are described after the fact! I don’t know of an editor who wouldn’t flinch at that. I’ll try adding immediacy before you see it again.
20. The best writing in here, says Bob, is Chaz and Lenore falling in love. After that Chaz turns shallow. He’s right. I noticed it myself. I expect you’re better at fixing that than I am, but I’ll give it a shot…when I start my second run.
21. THEME: Privacy. Chaz spies on Lenore. Chaz’s medical interface plug spies on him. Clarise of Security spies on everyone…spies on her husband, then ex…She may have seen him mooning over Lenore.
22. THEME: Mutability. The Chaz, the Saturn, the Lenore who end the book are not the same as those who began it.
23. Nail down the ending for Chaz! It’s Shane! He goes off alone. Triumph amid the ashes. Chaz intends to use the Saturn power for good…but as we leave him, that power is all bluff! Bluff, and a fantastic plug that will interface with hardware and software that the Ninjas were able to duplicate.
24. Saturn knew how to use this. Chaz doesn’t. But the Ninjas don’t know how it works either, so they can’t catch him being inept. He can grow into the role of Saturn.
25. “His servant he made me and thereby I knew him, But later betrayed me and therefore I slew him.” It was scripted on an old dagger.
The ninjas see Saturn (though they never have seen him!) as a man of honor. No crime of Saturn’s will ever persuade them otherwise; because they commit horrors too. They would have to see Saturn betray what they see as his motivation; and must then persuade themselves that it’s a trick.
Can we foreshadow this?
So Chaz is almost safe.
And we have seen what he became in Achilles’ Choice.
STEVE—
YOU’RE RIGHT: Lenora MUST think like a very high quality mind. You keep writing and I’ll work to make her lectures more lucid. Some will become dialogue, Lenora to Tooley.
This all hangs together better than before; the background details are clearer and fit better. It still feels like I’m butting my head against a wall. I can’t get into it.
I’ve figured out some of the reasons. Lenora is badly flawed. Chaz is a little strange too.
Here’s what has to happen—
We need to work together. We need a week.
I can’t tell when you were trying to get at something. Some of this only needs to be said better, but some is blind alleys. I can’t tell which.
So: for the moment I’m talking to an imaginary Steve. I can only go so far with that…
What we need is an outline. The outline we carved out together is likely to be obsolete. Do another, or rewrite the old outline thoroughly. Tell me where you’re going, tell me what’s on the way. I’m lost because I don’t have a map!
First scenes: Lenora has been indulging in telemetrically operated thermal gliding. You said so later. Say so at the opening! Maybe she fled the setting sun and oncoming dark, just in time for the show. That would leave her fizzing with adrenalin, aware of every breeze…?
Place her! There’s lots of detail and no integration. It might help you see Lenora better.
Lenora is a basket case. There’s absolutely no reason why she should be.
That night, she was alert for a chance to get laid. She wanted a job offer, too. But when Chaz made an offer, she went into full paranoia!
I can see her carefully considering pros and cons. Shying back from mixing business with pleasure, from screwing a boss or co-worker; I was warned about that when I was young, because an uncle did it. But that isn’t what I see.
Everything’s coming together in her life. I can see her reason pulling hard on the reins of her joy; but the joy isn’t even there!
More: Her thoughts, her motives, her train of thought are all fragmented. She’s using textbook philosophy to try to pull it together; integrated personalities don’t do that. Lenora is crazy. If they looked at her hard enough to see that, they would have looked further, and seen her political alliances.
Why was she allowed at Xanadu in the first place?
This is bad narration too. Why shouldn’t Lenora remain ecstatic and triumphant until she finds a dead nympho humping her roommate in the hall?
Chaz’s studies: we need to talk. We need to winnow!
The spare ribs: is this so important as to deserve all this volume? I can’t fix it without knowing what you wanted from it.
ALIENS. Yes, I’m good with aliens. I get that way one alien at a time. I practice with the individual alien until I understand it, until I know it.
I’m way behind with the squarks…. And I still need to talk about them with you. What they are is too nebulous; I can’t work with them yet.
(By the way, if you dropped dead of sexual excess, I’d just go ahead and suck it out through my fingers. The book wouldn’t be as good, but it would happen.)
MAKE A MAP. We’ll trade it back and forth until it’s right.
It’s not my style to do the map first. I normally let the story evolve until I feel cramped…but I don’t think we’re jumping the gun here either! It’s time.
Subj: proofs
Date: 2/1/00
I got a certain distance with this proofing job, but now I need help. And I’ve reached page 275.
The proofreader couldn’t stand it and wants all Scaliens and Squarks in lower case. I can’t stand it either so I gave in.
You left boldface crap throughout. Most were just for each other’s attention, can be romanized. One was a note, me to you, excised.
“Schatoma.” I took your word for this word. Proofreader can’t find it. Is it real?
Planet Hollywood: disappeared? Is it a problem? I said, “STET, they might rebuild it.” This scene is all nostalgia anyway.
Belsen becomes Bergen-Belsen?
“Zarathushtra” is old Iranian for Zoroaster. Make a decision: which?
Proofreader quarrels with your interpretation of Bombay history:
Ref Encyclopaedia Britannica on-line, in 1661 Bombay came under British control as part of marriage settlement between King C
harles II and Catherine of Braganza, daughter of King of Portugal. I never checked any of this. What happened? What should our characters think happened?
I’ll keep going. Get back to me soonest. They put a close deadline on us.
Larry
Subj: Re: proofs
Date: 2/2/00
Good. (I’ve left “bought.” Alternatives were awkward.)
Now tell me, so I don’t have to read half the damn manuscript: is Pak Jute the Lurah?
Proofreader Brian Callaghan says “Mindy” pops up from nowhere. Wasn’t on the ’cat. Suggests Crystal or Nadine?
Larry
Subj: proofs
Date: 2/2/00
We should have done a global search for
Is Bay of Bengal a thousand miles (1600 kilometers) across?
Mitsubishi Wetcat, how many tonnes (kilotons)?
Subj: Re: Fw: Casimir effect
Date: 10/20/99
message dated 10/20/99 12:56:10 PM Pacific Daylight Time,
Original Message—
Date: Re: Wednesday, October 20, 1999 1:00 PM
Subj: Casimir effect
I vaguely remember something about placing two plates very close together and being able to measure some force holding them together (?) due to particles being created and immediately annihilating each other with no net energy input or output. There isn’t room between the plates for these particles to come into being to exert any pressure, but the particles on the out-sides of the plates do exert pressure. At least, that is my vague recollection of it. I have no idea how hard it is to do the experiment.
Peter
Without my actually checking, that seems to fit. There might be room in the story to embed that description…but not much else. (Stories come in ideal lengths. I wrote a looong Draco Tavern story once, because I had to. I prefer vignette size.)
Larry
Title: Re: Greg Benford
Subj: hydrogen wall
Date: 1/19/00
Great! It’s a good story. It’s faithful to the original premise, and builds on it. You may have beat the rest of the field into print with another clever way to destroy human civilization.
The file transfered badly: O-with-accent for quotes, and unexplained gaps.
There were lots of typos too. You need to take another proofread. (If you leave him too much to do, a proofreader will keep fixing things after he’s run out of mistakes. My theory.)
When you publish, I want a copy.
Larry Niven
Subj: My Soul To Keep
Date: 2/23/00
Steve
This is for Tananareve. If you’ll send me her email address, I can go directly.
Tananareve:
I said I’d read your second book and get back to you with impressions, with an eye toward a sequel. I am to pay special attention to the immortals’ culture we only glimpsed.
I didn’t want you to think I’d forgotten my promise. I’ve read the book, but nothing is happening.
The problem, from my viewpoint, is that there’s not enough of the culture showing to even suggest implications. But let’s get together, whenever, and start a conversation. Maybe something will emerge. You may know more about these people than ever showed in the book.
Subj: Re: “Ringworld” rights and Mandell
Date: 12/11/99
Robert Mandell took an option on RINGWORLD, then exercised it. He holds all rights involved in making a movie, plus sub rights plus nonexclusive rights related to use of characters. I signed the wrong papers at least three times here, in my eagerness to get a movie made. If you can deal with him, buy his rights or get them legally discontinued, you can make a Ringworld movie.
Larry Niven
Saturn’s Race
Taking the elevator back to his apartment, Chaz was caught three times by various Xanadu folk seeking audiences.
In the last year he had steadily and surely felt the hand of discipline closing around him. There seemed to be endless demands for his services, and it would have been impolite and impolitic for him to refuse.
There were standard linking questions: amplification and modifications to installed equipment bases. New equipment to be tested and installed in Xanadu and abroad. The operation of telemetrical systems around the planet and beyond. Interpretations of data from subjects like Barrister, questions about whether this or that action or reply could possibly indicate true intelligence or awareness.
Then there was the arena of finance. As little as it might mean to him, his money continued to amass, and there was a call from a broker….
“Chaz?”
“Van Buren. How’s the weather in Geneva?”
“Fine, thank you.” Sober banker the fellow might well have been, but Chaz still remembered Van Buren’s last visit to Xanadu, when Chaz had talked him into a descent to Squark City. It was hard to forget the image of Van Buren in full rebreather gear, goggle-eyed and incoherent at the sight of the first Squark dome ever shown to an outsider and fourteen armed and dangerous squarks juggling steel rods underwater.
Today: “I want to discuss the disbursement of funds for the month. You have a standing order for the purchase of Synaptech. We know that there will be a new offering soon and wished to be certain that you hadn’t changed your mind.”
“It’s been awhile, hasn’t it?”
“Yes, and frankly, we feel that there are some better opportunities available.”
“I’m sure. Keep me there, Carter.”
Pause. Van Buren didn’t like it, but then there was no reason for him to. Chaz’s motivations were not shaped by money here.
The image winked off.
The last call requested that he attend a board meeting in the afternoon. Decisions had to be made about copyright piracy in India. He made useful noises and signed off just as the elevator reached his apartment.
The door opened and closed behind him, and the new security systems went into operation.
Chaz entered his library.
He loved his collection of computers. It was hard to recall his enthusiasm over the Sinclair’s membrane keyboard, or that he had once been involved in a lively debate defending the minuscule CRT screen on the Osborne as “Almost exactly the size of a paperback book held at arm’s length,” as if anyone read that way.
No outsider knew, or could know, that he had personally purchased every one of these at retail. But any citizen of Xanadu would understand.
And it was hard to believe that the Macintosh computer case had once looked so strange, or that its sealed system had once caused so much frustration to its devoted fans. If he used the special tool and took the case apart, there, engraved on the inside of the composition plastic, would be the names of the original design team. Flush against the right edge, halfway down the list, was the name Chadwick Kato.
Ten months ago he had waited until his standard meditation time and placed his apartment under full security seal. He’d established that habit long before the Lenore incident. It wouldn’t attract unwanted attention. Chaz had disassembled the Mac case, and not merely to view the name of the young man he had been so many years before. He had rebuilt its innards.
He knew nothing of Saturn. How could he outguess an opponent of unknown intelligence, unknown experience, unknown background? But even the most basic understanding of human psychology would suffice to warn Saturn that Chaz would be disturbed by what had happened eleven months before. Chaz Kato could not be expected to leave this alone.
His apartment could be, would be, searched or bugged. Saturn was watching.
Chaz must be seen to react.
Publicly if quietly, Chaz had engaged the services of a detective agency to keep a steady, long-distance check on Lenore and h
er roommate, Tooley Wells. It was only after the terrible duel with “Saturn” that he realized that anyone who had been in close contact with Lenore might have been entrusted with dangerous knowledge.
He only guarded her. He had never approached Tooley Wells in any way.
Lenore had been targeted for death. Why? Lenore the thief and spy was a fiction, but what was the truth? Had she learned something? There were too many factors, and too much information, to sort through with his unaugmented mind. He could not even be seen asking the right questions. He did not believe that any level of security could protect him from Saturn.
He couldn’t rely upon Clarise. He dare not even question her directly. But he needed to search.
This was his current solution.
Chaz lifted the ancient Macintosh down from the shelf and plugged it in. He touched the switch on the back, and the little “Mac” icon smiled at him from the middle of the screen.
Under routine security seal, sealed into a womb of privacy and silence, Chaz had, for the next half hour, a window of opportunity.
The screen blinked. “PLAY BLACK DOG?”
“N. PLAY PONG,” he typed.
The screen lit up in black and white. A little white ball bounced from one side to another at moderate speed. It was difficult to believe that the game had ever been anything but a child’s toy, but the simple blip-blip of it, called Pong, had once been the most popular computer game in the world.
Simpler, happier days. He was well practiced in the game, his coordination perfectly synced so that the minutes passed fluidly, his wrist flipping and flipping, catching the little ball of light as it zipped to and fro, until the score read 83101021—Chaz’s age, plus the date.
He let the ball dance past his paddle. “Now Quest Gold,” he said.
Inside the innocuous case was the most advanced processor that Chaz had been able to obtain secretly. Knowing that all of his accounts could be monitored, and most of his movements as well, he had done the only thing he could. He had stolen the parts. He needed a processor and an independent power source, so that Archie (the hardware) and NERO (the program) could sit in their shielded box and work even when the plug was pulled.
