by David Weber
“Assuming my analysis is accurate,” Owl continued, “it is remarkable there were so few fatalities. I attribute the relatively low death toll to the directional nature of the device and the close spacing of the Guardsmen and soldiers lining that portion of the route. Their bodies absorbed much of the blast, which is undoubtedly why so few of them survived. The relatively low placement of the charge, resulting from the need to conceal it within the wheelchair, also contributed to the reduced death toll.”
A chill ran through Merlin’s molycirc nerves as the AI laid out his and Nahrmahn’s analysis. Owl had developed a much more acute sense of empathy in the course of his interactions with Nahrmahn, and Merlin suddenly realized how little his dispassionate tone had to do with lack of imagination. He looked up at the screen displaying Owl’s avatar and saw the awareness in those sapphire eyes so much like his own. Saw the intelligence which had never been flesh-and-blood seeking to distance itself from the horror of Cathedral Square.
“The application for the reserved area is obviously false, since the hospice it supposedly came from isn’t missing any lay sisters or patients,” Nahrmahn said into the silence which had fallen. “We’ve been attempting to backtrack both of them, but we haven’t had much luck. Unless someone reports him missing, we’ll never know who was in that wheelchair or where he came from. As for the ‘lay sister,’ hair color, complexion, and facial features all suggest a Mainlander from one of the more northern realms, which would be consistent with Clyntahn’s methodology. She was sent in from outside Corisande, never made contact with any native Temple Loyalists, never discussed her mission with anyone, and in the process managed to avoid our SNARCs’ notice just as effectively as she avoided Doyal’s and Gahrvai’s.”
“Dear God,” Cayleb murmured. He sat very still, then inhaled deeply and shook himself. “How in God’s name are we supposed to stop people like that? People who cross thousands of miles of ocean simply to kill as many people as possible in God’s name? People we can’t even see coming because they don’t talk to anyone—anyone at all—about their missions?”
“Unless we want to ask Aivah to try and put one of her people inside the Inquisition in Zion, we can’t,” Merlin replied.
“Owl and I have developed a new search subroutine for the SNARCs watching the Temple Lands outside Zion,” Nahrmahn offered. “We’re trying to improve and refine the satellite imagery of Zion itself, as well. Hopefully, we’ll achieve sufficiently detailed resolution from the orbital sensors to recognize individual faces of people entering or leaving the Temple and, especially, the Inquisition’s offices. We believe we may be able to identify at least some of Clyntahn’s potential agents, and we intend to run facial recognition on everyone present at any major public event anywhere in the Empire from now on. Owl needs to generate a secondary AI to manage the sheer data flow, but if we happen to identify someone whose image we collected in the Temple Lands standing around outside Tellesberg Cathedral, for example, we can hopefully steer security forces towards him.”
“That may help a lot,” Sharleyan said. “In the meantime, though, I’m worried by the fact that Clyntahn used a woman for this.” She grimaced. “It’s just that Clyntahn’s such a confirmed lecher I’m surprised the idea occurred to him.” She grimaced again, with far more distaste. “As far as he’s concerned women exist for only one purpose, and it isn’t to use their brains or fight as God’s warriors.”
“That’s probably true in his case.” Merlin’s grimace was oddly like Sharleyan’s, with more than an echo of Nimue Alban. “Unfortunately, I suspect Archbishop Wyllym’s a bit more broad-minded in that respect, and do any of us think a woman can’t be just as … committed as any man? The fact that the Safehold mindset tends to pigeonhole women as ‘female: no threat’ would probably work in their favor when it comes to penetrating our defenses, too. But if they are starting to send out female ‘Rakurai,’ I’ll lay you odds Rayno’s the one who came up with the idea.”
“And just how do we explain to all our own dear, chauvinistic Guardsmen that a mere woman could pose a significant threat?” Cayleb asked.
“Send them the imagery of Sharleyan at Saint Agtha’s,” Merlin suggested with a grim chuckle. “Or let them spend a half hour or so in Aivah’s company. Or, for that matter, I can think of at least a hundred women from places like Glacierheart and Shiloh who’d cut a Temple Loyalist’s throat without even blinking.”
“All true, and none of it likely to make a lot of difference in their thinking, I’m afraid,” Cayleb said.
“My own suggestion would be to use our ‘seijin network’ in Corisande to hand our analysis—cleaned up to exclude any little things like reconnaissance remotes—to General Gahrvai and Colonel Doyal,” Nahrmahn put in. “We can even circulate a sketch of the ‘lay sister’ to his men. One of them might’ve seen her, and even if no one did, it ought to at least get the idea there are female ‘Rakurai’ out there through their skulls.”
“And Koryn needs that information,” Sharleyan pointed out in a softer tone. “Given transit times, they must’ve sent their assassin out well before Irys and Daivyn got home. That means she probably came up with this ‘mission’ for herself, based on whatever orders they gave her before they sent her. I may be wrong about that—there’s still that ‘Langhornite’ at Saint Krystyphyr’s; he has to be somewhere—but Koryn needs to know how she did it in case she wasn’t the only one they taught to make these damned things. And from a personal perspective, finding out how they got through—that it wasn’t his fault he never saw a bitch cold-blooded enough to stick a bomb under someone caught in the gray mists coming—might help him stop blaming himself for all those dead civilians.”
“It might,” Merlin agreed. “In the meantime, though, we have a problem. I think you’re right about when she was sent out, but Clyntahn’s sure to concentrate his efforts on breaking Corisande back away from Charis. We may well be looking at additional attacks like this one. Or some other, totally different effort to get through to Irys or Daivyn or Hektor. Or to Coris, Anvil Rock, Tartarian, or Gairlyng— Hell, there’re dozens of potential high-value targets! And we don’t have anyone permanently in Corisande who can do anything about it. I know we’ve essentially drafted Irys and Hektor and they’ll have access to the com network and to Owl and the SNARCs, but they won’t be able to do much with it. They haven’t built up a support structure they can trust with mysteriously obtained information, and neither of them has the capacity to … intervene personally if they pick up on another attack like this one.”
“That’s true,” Nahrmahn said slowly, and Merlin’s eyes flicked to the prince.
“I know that tone, Nahrmahn,” he said. “Why am I hearing it?”
“Well, it happens that Owl and I conducted a few virtual experiments on things besides Ohlyvya’s VR suit.”
“What sort of experiments?” Merlin’s eyes narrowed, and Nahrmahn shrugged.
“Some time ago you asked Owl about building additional PICAs, but he told you he lacked the necessary plans and technical data and there was an uncomfortably high probability of rendering you inoperable if he analyzed your chassis to obtain the needed information. However, it occurred to me that while he might not have the specifications for PICA-building, he had a great deal of data on advanced materials, fusion engineering, molecular circuitry, etc. So I suggested he might conduct his own research, using that data, to figure out how your gizzards worked.” Nahrmahn smiled brightly. “As I understand it, he spent the equivalent of somewhere around a man-century in virtual R&D.”
“You mean you could build PICAs, Owl?” Merlin asked very carefully.
“No,” Owl replied in his most meticulously accurate tone. “I can build one additional PICA, Lieutenant Commander Alban. My supply of several critical materials, which my industrial module is currently unable to replenish, is insufficient to build more than one.”
The silence over the com net was profound.
“How long would it take?” Merl
in asked after a moment.
“The processes are complex, but none are especially time-consuming,” the AI said calmly. “The time requirement would be approximately six local days, plus or minus three hours, from the moment I enabled the nannites.”
“That would help. Help a lot,” Cayleb said after another long moment of silence.
“There is, however, one minor problem,” Nahrmahn said.
“What sort of problem?” Sharleyan asked.
“We can build the PICA; we can’t build the personality to put inside it.”
“Why not?” Cayleb demanded. “Why can’t we just upload Merlin to it? It’d let him really be in two places at once!”
“Because his high-speed data port is disabled. The data transfer rate’s too slow. It would take a couple of months to make a backup of him.”
“Forgive me, Nahrmahn, but I was under the impression Owl had supplied Merlin with the headset he used to record your personality for the purpose of recording his own,” Staynair said.
“Not one of Merlin’s better ideas,” Nahrmahn said with a sly, very Nahrmahn-like smile. “From his perspective, that is. It worked out quite well from mine.”
“Why not?” Cayleb repeated.
“Because I overlooked the minor fact that it was designed to interact with either an organic human’s implants … or a PICA’s high-speed data port,” Merlin sighed. “At the moment, I don’t have either. And neither do any of the rest of you.” He shrugged. “It could still do the job in my case, but Nahrmahn’s right about how long it would take. I haven’t been able to find a big enough uninterrupted chunk of time to record myself, and we don’t have the time for me to go on sabbatical and take care of it now, either. Especially not if the idea’s to put a second PICA into Corisande soon enough to keep Hektor and Irys alive.”
“Then what about uploading Nahrmahn?” Sharleyan cocked her head as she looked at the little Emeraldian’s com image. “You’re already recorded, and you’re obviously capable of interfacing with Owl at a very high rate of speed.”
“The thought occurred to me,” Nahrmahn said slowly. “In fact, I might as well admit that one reason I had Owl looking into the matter in the first place was the possibility of giving me back a body. Unfortunately, I’m not … complete.”
“‘Complete’?” Staynair repeated very gently into the fresh, ringing silence.
“Oh, I’m entirely functional, Maikel. Don’t imagine I’m in any trouble.” Nahrmahn’s cheery tone seemed genuine, and he smiled. “The problem is that a lot of me had to be reconstructed and there’s quite a bit of Owl’s … DNA in my gestalt. That’s one reason he acquired a true sense of self-awareness so quickly after I arrived; some of his subroutines spend a lot of time directly interfacing with that gestalt of mine, ‘propping me up,’ for want of a better term, and I’d cease to function if I were separated from him. It was a bit humbling to discover I’ve acquired a sort of mirror twin, but there’s no data exchange unless we deliberately initiate it, so my sense of privacy isn’t routinely violated. However, the chance that I—or any of the rest of you who wanted to volunteer for the job—would be able to sustain a functioning personality in a PICA’s ‘brain’ is vanishingly small. In fact, Owl puts it at less than one half of one percent.”
“I suppose that qualifies as small,” Cayleb agreed. “But in that case, there’s not much point in building another PICA, is there? If Merlin can’t record his personality or upload it directly to another PICA and none of us could survive in one, we wouldn’t have anyone to ‘drive’ it.”
“That’s … not entirely accurate,” Nahrmahn said very slowly. All of them looked at his image once more, and he sighed. “As it happens, there is one personality available to us. One I’m completely certain would function within the environment of a PICA.”
“Do you have any idea how lucky you are that you no longer have a neck to wring?” Sharleyan inquired. “You just finished explaining why none of us can do the job. So where does this personality who could do it come from?”
“Well,” Nahrmahn looked at Merlin, “it turns out that when Doctor Proctor started … modifying your PICA and its software to override the ten-day automatic personality erasure, he wasn’t certain he’d be able to pull it off. And he was afraid he’d trigger one of the security protocols and dump your memory when he started probing the lockouts. So, just to be safe, he made a backup of your personality. It’s still here, stored in Owl’s data core.”
Merlin heard himself inhale, the sound sharp and clear in the sudden stillness. That stillness lingered for several seconds, then—
“Owl, why didn’t you mention this to me when I asked for the unit to record myself?” he asked.
“You did not inquire about existing personalities,” Owl said reasonably, “and I was not then as capable as I am now of extrapolating unspoken desires from specific queries. Nor was I aware I possessed this recording until Prince Nahrmahn broached the question of virtual R&D. At that time, I conducted a search of all databases and discovered Doctor Proctor’s folder. It proved highly valuable, but until I opened it, I was unaware of the data he had stored there.”
Merlin nodded. Of course it hadn’t occurred to the pre-Nahrmahn Owl to expand his search parameters beyond those specified in the original query.
“It would be possible, even without your high-speed data port, to record your experiences and memories of events here on Safehold in no more than five or six days.” Nahrmahn appeared to be picking his words with extraordinary care, Merlin noticed. “That would allow us to update the stored personality with all your own experiences on Safehold.”
“No,” Merlin said very softly.
“But, Merlin—” Cayleb began.
“No,” he repeated more firmly. “I don’t want to duplicate myself in another PICA, Cayleb. It’s already hard enough for me to remember how much the person I’m talking to at any given moment knows about me. If we build a second PICA—and I’m not certain it’s a great idea, just yet—it’ll be another permanent person, someone who has to interact with other people—the same other people—for months on end. There’d be too much chance of bleed over, of the new seijin giving away the fact that it has ‘Seijin Merlin’s’ memories.”
Cayleb nodded slowly, but Sharleyan’s eyes narrowed and she looked at Merlin speculatively.
She knows, Merlin thought. Of course she does. And so does Nahrmahn. The very way he phrased the suggestion proves that.
He closed his eyes, his thoughts spiraling inward, and his nostrils flared as he faced it squarely.
Nimue Alban—the Nimue Alban sleeping in Owl’s database—was … unstained. She hadn’t done any of the things Merlin Athrawes had done. She wouldn’t even remember, as Merlin hadn’t when he’d awakened as Nimue Alban in this very cave, having volunteered for the mission before her. And because of that, she bore none of the responsibility—none of the guilt—for all the millions of human beings who’d died—or were yet to die—in the religious war Merlin Athrawes had brought about. He had no right to burden her with that guilt, those memories. But did he have the right to bring her into the consequences of his actions? To confront her with this world of bloodshed, fury, and hatred? He felt the friends waiting around him, the strength of their support and love, and he knew there were people and causes of enormous worth here on Safehold, but they were so wrapped in pain, so trapped in the ugliness he’d done so much to birth.
He drew another of those deep breaths a PICA’s lungs never truly needed and opened his eyes once more.
“I’ll have to think about it,” he said quietly. “Nahrmahn, you and Owl go ahead and build the PICA. I’m pretty sure I’ll decide in the end that we really don’t have any choice but to put it online when it’s finished. But I need time to come to grips with the idea and decide how much, if any, additional memories to include in the process.”
.XXIII.
The Delthak Works, Barony of High Rock, Kingdom of Old Charis, and Thesmar Bay and Brana
th Canal Crossing, The South March Lands, Republic of Siddarmark
“My God, what a racket!”
“Excuse me? What was that?! Can’t hear you, Paityr!” Ehdwyrd Howsmyn replied with a huge grin, and Paityr Wylsynn shook a fist at him.
Of course, he had a point, Howsmyn acknowledged. His manufactories’ work floors had always been noisy places, but it was even worse now. And in many ways, Wylsynn had only himself to blame. The assembly line they’d just finished inspecting was the product of his suggestion, and the noise level of the pneumatic and hydraulic machinery was the next best thing to deafening. That was why both of them wore the ear protection and safety helmets Howsmyn had issued to his entire workforce.
It was also a very well lit work floor, considering the fact that this was the night shift. The coal gas tapped from the Delthak Works’ coking ovens had been piped into all Howsmyn’s buildings, and the overhead gas lamps’ polished reflectors poured down illumination. More lamps lit the roadway and canals between the Delthak Works and Ithmyn’s Lake and ran down the Delthak River to Larek, and the gasworks he was building to provide the Tellesberg waterfront and city streets with similar lighting was more than two-thirds completed.
