Clive spent four hours debriefing him on the chase while the geeks set up the computers according to Seth's specifications. Apart from engaging him on a string of fascinating though rather trivial facts, Clive came away with three significant conclusions.
One, Seth might have saved Saudi Arabia from a coup by breaking the law and aiding Miriam.
Two, with or without his clairvoyance, Seth's cognitive powers surpassed Clive's greatest expectations. Destroying a mind like Seth's would indeed have been like killing a young Einstein or Sir Isaac Newton.
And three, Seth's clairvoyance was changing. What had started out as an increasing ability to see possible futures now fluctuated like a swinging pendulum between massive breadths of sight and a complete loss of it. Seth could see beyond himself and clearly beyond Miriam, but only sometimes.
“This is incredible,” General Smites said, breaking the silence. He crossed his arms and rocked back on his heels. “If I wasn't watching it with my own eyes, I wouldn't buy it for a second. How many of these simulations has he completed?”
“Sixteen in the last two days,” one of the techs, Garton, said.
“And he's won them all?”
Garton nodded. “The first battles were oversimplified sea battles in which he commanded a single destroyer against a slightly superior force. We moved him up to tank battles with odds stacked in the enemy's favor and then on to full-scale invasions.”
“So he just sees what's going to happen and counters it?”
“Not exactly,” Garton said, tapping his pencil on the window. Seth turned toward the noise, eyes darting. Garton held up his hands in apology, and Seth dived back into the simulation in front of him.
He wasn't unlike an overgrown kid playing the world's most complex video games, battling the likes of IBM's ASCI White, a computer that ran at a speed of 7,226 gigaflops. One gigaflop was equal to a billion mathematical operations per second. Even for a man with Seth's capabilities, the task was daunting, and he hated distractions.
“Strung pretty tight,” Smaley said.
“Wouldn't you be?” Clive said. “He's holding countless bits of information in his mind, tracking each from one moment to the next and adjusting for countless variations. I get a headache just thinking about how he does it.”
Garton smiled. “And that's only half of it.” He looked down the windowpane to the general. “He's not seeing
the
future, just possible futures. There's a big difference. If he were seeing what's going to happen, that would be easy enough. But evidently the future doesn't work that way. I mean, what's going to happen one minute from now hasn't been decided yet. If a tank is standing on the battlefield facing ten enemy tanks, the future may hold a thousand possible outcomes, depending on decisions the commander makes. Seth has to see them all and choose those in which his tank destroys the other ten tanks and escapes unscathed. That might entail a half-hour battle and a unified string of decisions chosen from a million possible decisions.”
He chuckled and faced Seth again. “Now try that with a thousand tanks, each facing ten tanks, and try commanding all thousand tanks at once. If you can imagine that, you have an idea of what he was doing yesterday.”
A few moments drifted by. Clive couldn't imagine it, not really; none of them could.
“And what's he doing today?” the general asked.
Garton took a deep breath. “Today he's directing a zero-casualty campaign.”
General Smites's eyes skipped to the techs and then back to Seth.
“It was actually his idea,” Garton said. “Took us most of the night to set it up.”
“A battle in which he incurs zero casualties?”
“Sort of. That was his initial idea, but we took it further. It's not a battle; it's a war, and he's trying to win it without any casualties on his side.”
The general came off his heels and stared at Seth, who hunkered over the desk, hands flying nonstop over the keyboards.
“This boy's invaluable.”
“Actually, it's more than just a war,” Garton said. “It's a nuclear offensive. Question: How do you win a worldwide nuclear offensive without sustaining a single casualty?”
“That's possible?” It was Smaley this time.
The tech they called J.P. answered. “Winning is possible, yes. This morning, at 0843 our time, Seth saw two different futures in which the United States could launch a full-scale attack, including the use of nukes on China, parts of the former Soviet bloc, several Arab states, and a dozen smaller targets, and walk away pretty much having a lock on world power.”
Smaley cackled. “Seth knows how to take over the world?”
“Not necessarily. I'm telling you that he saw two unique futures in which that would have happened
if
the United States had done specific things beginning at 0843 our time. It's now 1315. Those futures don't exist anymore. The premier of China might have eaten a bad steak for lunch, gotten indigestion, and as a result might now react differently to the news of incoming nukes than he would have if they were launched before he ate the steak. Seth's seeing a ton of stuff, but he can still only see three hours out.”
“But you could go down there now and ask him for a scenario in which we could take over the world, so to speak, and you're saying he could give you one?” the general asked.
J.P. frowned and nodded. “
If
there was a way now. And
if
he wanted to give it to us.”
“That's not the point! The point is he actually
has
that capability?”
“That's what we're saying, yes. It sounds a bit James-Bondy, but I'm sure he could just as easily tell us how to shift power in the Middle East, say, or neutralize China, at least in the next three hours.”
The general was beginning to understand what they had here, Clive thought.
“As I was saying,” Garton said, “the two scenarios Seth saw this morning included hundreds of thousands of American casualties. He's trying to figure out how to conduct a similar campaign that returns zero casualties, using mostly conventional weapons. That means he's directing hundreds of battle groups, feeding each one precise orders. It's tantamount to giving every field commander specific directions and then telling every soldier when to duck and when to fire.”
Clive knew men like the general well enough to realize that Smites was already thinking about both sides of this equation.
“So basically we're looking at the most powerful man in the world,” Smaley said, sober now.
“And the most dangerous,” Smites said.
Indeed.
The general shook his head, still staring through the glass at Seth.
“This is unbelievable. You're absolutely sure all this is possible?”
“Two days ago I would have said no,” Garton said. “But hard data doesn't lie.”
“Has anybody ever shown this kind of clairvoyance before?”
“Well . . . not that we've been able to quantify. I'm quite sure this kind of ability to see into so many futures all at once and to see them only for a short time out has at least never been recorded. This is a first.”
“Phenomenal.”
Clive decided it was time to throw the wet blanket on their fire.
“There
is
a slight problem. At least some might consider it a problem. His clairvoyance is . . . changing. It's become cyclic.”
“It comes and goes,” J.P. said, as if the others needed the clarification.
“It started four days ago, while he was still with Miriam,” Clive said. “His ability to see began to expand beyond their immediate concerns, but it also became intermittent. Every few hours he regresses.”
“Meaning what?”
“Meaning when he sees, he sees a whole lot, but his clairvoyance only lasts a few hours. It's almost like his batteries wear out, and he needs a few hours of rest to recharge them. At first the periods of blindness were short. He says he made some mistakes out in the desert. But with each passing day they seem to be lasting longer.”
“How long do we have?” Smaley asked.
Clive rubbed his bloodshot eyes. “It's not like we can go to the local library and get a book on how to sustain clairvoyance, Peter. It could last his entire life, or it could be gone tomorrow. Ask him and he'll tell you it's on the way out.”
“Based on what?”
“Based on the fact that Miriam is now safe. He believes his gift was tied to her.”
“We should proceed as though he will lose the ability at any time,” J.P. said.
“You're recording what he's doing?” Smites asked.
“Yes.”
“Then we could create models from his work, right? They would at least give us scenarios to study. Like creating histories that we can learn from.”
“Yes.”
“Or we could actually use Seth now,” Smaley said. “Feed him a real scenario without telling him. Feed his directives to the battlefield as he enters them and execute them in real time.”
“He would see what we're doing,” Clive said. “Now that you've mentioned it, he probably already sees it as a possible future, if only subconsciously.”
The general shook his head and grunted. “I have to make some calls, gentlemen. Keep me informed.” He walked out, leaving them to watch.
Clive's thoughts returned to a lingering problem. One he wasn't of a mind to speak aloud. The problem was Seth. Seth was no ordinary man, with or without this sight of his. He had a mind of his own, and Clive was sure it was occupied by more than how the United States might take over the world.
t
o Seth, the barrage of futures far outstripped his capacity to single out any specific one. Still his mind handled it without conscious effort. At least most of his mind.
The other part was consumed by Miriam.
The part playing these games was in an autopilot of sorts, albeit an intense autopilot. He supposed the process was not unlike the mind's control over involuntary bodily functions. His fingers seemed to follow their own will, striking the keyboards with commands that isolated the future he wanted.
The part consumed with Miriam slogged through an abyss of pain. Her face had parked itself in his mind's eye and refused to budge, no matter what tricks he threw its way. He had known long before they reached Las Vegas that he was falling for her, but he assumed that once she was safely out of his life, his good sense would make quick work of her. He was an intelligent man, after all, not given to emotional reasoning. It seemed his heart had betrayed his mind.
Yes, he was in love with her. Not just love, as in it's-springtime-I-think- I'm-in-love love, but
Love
, as in pass-the-poison-I-must-die-without- you love. This new beast presented a more difficult challenge than any he'd ever encountered.
He had thrown himself at the games because he agreed to, but also because he needed to. They provided a necessary distraction. From her face. From her long black hair, shimmering in the desert heat. From her lips kissing him, and her eyes winking at him across the roulette table, and her throaty laugh as he spun her through an absurd dance in her hotel room. From Miriam, the bronzed princess who had swept into his life on the winds ofâ
Seth slammed both fists on the keyboards.
Stop it!
He looked at the lower right monitor. A box in the upper right-hand corner. Casualties sustained =
0
.
And there was also this gnawing awareness of his gift's source that wouldn't let him go. This madness about God.
Seth lifted both hands and rubbed his temples. The seeing had sustained itself for four hours already. Soon it would release him for a reprieve before returning again in all its fury.
The door opened behind him. “You okay?”
He closed his eyes, then opened them. The casualty box had changed.
3
.
You see, you lose your concentration for a few seconds and see
what happens? You're killing people
.
“I'm fine,” he lied.
Clive stepped in. The casualty numbers started climbing.
100. 300.
700
.
“Take a break,” Clive said.
Why not? He'd blown the simulation anyway. Seth nodded.
Clive led him to a break room near the back of the complex.
“Coffee?”
“Advil,” Seth said.
Clive tossed him the bottle from the counter and poured himself a cup of coffee.
“I don't know how long I can go like this,” Seth said, dropping into a chair. “I'm not sure which hurts more, my mind or my fingers.”
“Any changes?”
“Yeah. About three seconds ago. I found my sanity again.”
Clive looked at him over the rim of the mug. “So right now you can't seeâ”
“Right now I'm as blind as a bat. Futuristically speaking, that is. And if I could take a drug that would keep me here, in the land of the blind bats, I would take it intravenously.”
Clive sat back and sipped his coffee. “I'm not sure I blame you.” He paused. “The Saudis are having a fit about Hilal's death. The State Department told Abdullah your theory that Miriam was supposed to marry Omar as a part of a deal with Sheik Al-Asamm.”
Seth glanced at the NSA operative. “They're just hearing that
now
? That's not a theoryâit's Miriam's testimony. Do they know where she is?”
“Evidently not. And in their eyes the testimony of a woman doesn't hold water against the word of a prince.” Clive shrugged. “Besides, it's a moot point now. Miriam's been saved by Samir. Remember? Even if there was a planned marriage, it's off now.” Clive lifted his eyebrows.
“So why are the Saudis having a fit?”
“They're accusing us. Abdullah's hold on power is tentative enough without rumors of a coup floating around.” He coughed. “In honesty, I think they don't know what to believe. But they can't just arrest a prince and kill a sheik based on a woman's word. Doesn't work that way in the House of Saud.”