eyes seemed to waver and lose focus.
“Oh,” she said.
05
The image of Fedora faded from the wall, which resumed its neutral color. There was a moment of silence.
Daljit turned to Aristide.
“It’s the nightmare scenario, isn’t it?” she said. “The end of civilization.”
His level gaze remained fixed on the empty wall. “It certainly seems so.”
“The priests were in Midgarth because it’s full of undocumented bodies,” she said. “There’s natural breeding there, and poor record-keeping. The people there aren’t equipped with network implants that broadcast an alert if a mind is tampered with. The priests can suck people through wormholes to some pocket where their minds can be altered. Once their wetware is corrupted, they can be returned through the same wormhole. Equipped with plausible identities they can be sent as agents to other pockets.”
“Yes.”
Fortunately, he thought, they couldn’t spread a meme epidemic like the Seraphim. When anyone—even the pre-technological inhabitants of Midgarth—got sick, they’d go to a pool of life, and the nature of the plague would be discovered. The pool might be able to cure the plague, or it might not, but in any case it would broadcast an alarm that would be heard throughout the multiverse.
Midgarth was a failure as an anthropological experiment. The ethics committee that designed the scientific protocols wouldn’t permit real death or real plague. A Middle Ages in which the people couldn’t get sick and wouldn’t stay dead was useless as a re-creation, but apparently it was diverting enough as a theme park.
“What do the enemy do next?” Daljit asked. “You’ve been through this. I haven’t.”
He held out a hand and looked at it as if it belonged to a stranger. Finding it was merely a hand, and not some autonomous mechanism attached to the end of his arm, he placed it with care on a desktop.
“A lot depends on the time scale the attackers are working with,” he said. “If they’ve got time, they can choose their targets in our technological pockets with extreme care. The targets can be taken while isolated—while on vacation, say—then drawn through a wormhole to a place where their implants’ defense systems can be neutralized. If circumstances permitted, the attackers could spend centuries picking off one person here, another there, and their efforts would be nearly undetectable.
“But,” he added, “circumstances won’t permit, or so we hope. Their victims can’t back themselves up, or visit a pool of life, because the altered brain structures would become immediately apparent. And if they don’t visit a pool of life, they’ll start aging —and that can’t help but be noticed. So that will provide a temptation to work faster than might be absolutely safe.”
Daljit considered this. “What if the attackers have their own pools of life, that aren’t connected to the network?”
He considered this for a moment as quiet horror seemed to shiver through the room.
“We’d better find someone in authority to talk to,” he said. He looked at Bitsy. “Perhaps the Prime Minister? I know the Prime Minister.”
“The Prime Minister has to be considered a potential target,” Bitsy said. “If not the Prime Minister’s own person, then others at Polity House in a position to observe comings and goings.”
“You have a better idea?”
“I have a list.”
Commissar Lin was a medium-sized man with mild dark eyes placed far apart, nearly on the sides of his head. He had been chosen over the others on Bitsy’s list for prosaic reasons: one other suitable candidate was in political exile, and therefore possessed restricted power of action; another was on holiday in Courtland; and Fedora had worked unhappily with another, and vetoed her.
Lin had also backed himself up just two days before, which meant that if his wetware were corrupted, he would have been attacked in just the last few hours.
That his agency
“Oh,” she said.
05
The image of Fedora faded from the wall, which resumed its neutral color. There was a moment of silence.
Daljit turned to Aristide.
“It’s the nightmare scenario, isn’t it?” she said. “The end of civilization.”
His level gaze remained fixed on the empty wall. “It certainly seems so.”
“The priests were in Midgarth because it’s full of undocumented bodies,” she said. “There’s natural breeding there, and poor record-keeping. The people there aren’t equipped with network implants that broadcast an alert if a mind is tampered with. The priests can suck people through wormholes to some pocket where their minds can be altered. Once their wetware is corrupted, they can be returned through the same wormhole. Equipped with plausible identities they can be sent as agents to other pockets.”
“Yes.”
Fortunately, he thought, they couldn’t spread a meme epidemic like the Seraphim. When anyone—even the pre-technological inhabitants of Midgarth—got sick, they’d go to a pool of life, and the nature of the plague would be discovered. The pool might be able to cure the plague, or it might not, but in any case it would broadcast an alarm that would be heard throughout the multiverse.
Midgarth was a failure as an anthropological experiment. The ethics committee that designed the scientific protocols wouldn’t permit real death or real plague. A Middle Ages in which the people couldn’t get sick and wouldn’t stay dead was useless as a re-creation, but apparently it was diverting enough as a theme park.
“What do the enemy do next?” Daljit asked. “You’ve been through this. I haven’t.”
He held out a hand and looked at it as if it belonged to a stranger. Finding it was merely a hand, and not some autonomous mechanism attached to the end of his arm, he placed it with care on a desktop.
“A lot depends on the time scale the attackers are working with,” he said. “If they’ve got time, they can choose their targets in our technological pockets with extreme care. The targets can be taken while isolated—while on vacation, say—then drawn through a wormhole to a place where their implants’ defense systems can be neutralized. If circumstances permitted, the attackers could spend centuries picking off one person here, another there, and their efforts would be nearly undetectable.
“But,” he added, “circumstances won’t permit, or so we hope. Their victims can’t back themselves up, or visit a pool of life, because the altered brain structures would become immediately apparent. And if they don’t visit a pool of life, they’ll start aging —and that can’t help but be noticed. So that will provide a temptation to work faster than might be absolutely safe.”
Daljit considered this. “What if the attackers have their own pools of life, that aren’t connected to the network?”
He considered this for a moment as quiet horror seemed to shiver through the room.
“We’d better find someone in authority to talk to,” he said. He looked at Bitsy. “Perhaps the Prime Minister? I know the Prime Minister.”
“The Prime Minister has to be considered a potential target,” Bitsy said. “If not the Prime Minister’s own person, then others at Polity House in a position to observe comings and goings.”
“You have a better idea?”
“I have a list.”
Commissar Lin was a medium-sized man with mild dark eyes placed far apart, nearly on the sides of his head. He had been chosen over the others on Bitsy’s list for prosaic reasons: one other suitable candidate was in political exile, and therefore possessed restricted power of action; another was on holiday in Courtland; and Fedora had worked unhappily with another, and vetoed her.
Lin had also backed himself up just two days before, which meant that if his wetware were corrupted, he would have been attacked in just the last few hours.
That his agency
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