Multireal (44 page)

That old book of the Pharisees expresses it best: seasons come and
seasons go, but the Earth remains forever. (Obviously Ecclesiastes had
never heard of Hubble's law or gravitational singularities, but you get the
picture.)

Again, I digress. (Cf. paragraph 2, above.) Let us move on to more practical matters.

I have spent many long hours pondering the challenge you face in swaying
the Prime Committee, and I have concluded that what you need is a
trusted voice. The Council will seek to put your face on the libertarian
cause. They will highlight your admittedly uncompromising nature, your
personal foibles, and your shortcomings; a vote for MultiReal is a vote for
Natch, they'll say.You need the Committee to see your situation not as a
conflict of brash personalities, but as an ideological struggle. You need
someone to present the libertarian position on MultiReal in a measured,
persuasive, and objective way.

It seems to me the ideal person to put forth such an argument to the
Prime Committee is Speaker Khann Frejohr. And so-I hope you are not
upset with me-I approached his office intending to convince him to
speak on your behalf. Unfortunately, the speaker refused to see me, and
his senior aides informed me that Frejohr would not make such a speech
under any terms. I don't know what sort of disagreement you have with
the speaker that would cause him to lie low in this conflict (his office
laughably claims a desire to "maintain impartiality"), but he has indeed
made that decision. Frejohr had assigned a midlevel Congressional solicitor to make the libertarians' opening statement. I made it my duty to
observe the man in court, and the most charitable conclusion I can come
to is that Khann Frejohr is not invested in your success.

So I offered to deliver the libertarian opening statement before the Prime
Committee instead.The speakers office agreed.

You gasp.You frown. I admit that I am no politician, and my speeches have
been the butt of many jokes around the fefcorp. It's true that I have no
experience swaying government officials for their vote, and yet I do have
decades (and decades) of experience swaying government officials for
something even more precious and inseparable: their money.

My reputation has shown some tarnishing lately, as have all of ours in the
fefcorp. But I submit to you that I am still one of the world's preeminent
authorities on brain stem programming and a much sought-after expert
on neurotechnological issues. I have been stockpiling this reputation for
many, many years, and at my age one begins to wonder exactly what one
is stockpiling such a thing for. So now I offer this reputation to you in the
hopes that it might be of some service.

You will, of course, get the opportunity to make your case before the
Prime Committee in person. Nothing I do or say in my opening statement
will change that. All I can hope to do is to make your task somewhat
easier.

One last piece of business: Jara has informed me that she has also been
called to testify before this hearing, or special session, or whatever the
Prime Committee is calling it at this hour. She will be bringing the rest of
the Surina/Natch MultiReal Fiefcorp with her. Since you have not been answering her messages either, Jara asked me to tell you that she does not
see any benefit in broadcasting your differences to the world at such a
perilous time. She has asked me to relay her assurances that her testimony will be both fair and impartial to the best of her ability.

And now I have succeeded in relaying her message, in this long-windedeven-by-my-own-standards way.

Rest assured, Natch, that wherever you choose to go or whatever you
choose to do-and whatever becomes of this execrable MultiReal technology-from now until the moment they drag my creaky bones and
aching joints off to join the Prepared, I will always, always be with you.

Sincerely,

SerrVigal

29

Lucco Primo once said, Size up your enemy by studying his approach.

Defense and Wellness Council troops usually approached their enemies with the thunderclap of a hundred disruptors and the sonic boom of
a hundred hoverbirds in their wake. Such was the Council's edge in technology that Len Borda's officers rarely needed the element of surprise, and
their ghostly white robes openly mocked the idea of camouflage.

But when the Council unleashed its legal army, the standard rules
of engagement did not apply.

None of the drudges had noticed any unusual activity at the
Council's Terran headquarters recently. No streams of departing hoverbirds, no sudden influx of advisors. So when a torrent of white hoverbirds
landed at the Melbourne facilities on the thirteenth of January and let
loose a merciless tide of lawyers, the public was caught completely by
surprise. Sen Sivv Sor and John Ridglee were among the drudges who
could be seen dashing out of public multi gateways soon after the procession began. Even staunch governmentalists like Mah Lo Vertiginous
were spotted in the crowd in various stages of dishabille or disarray.

The procession continued for over an hour. There were nearly two
hundred attorneys, technical specialists, legal programmers, analysts, and
researchers dressed in matching suits of crisp gray with a muted version
of the five-pointed star embroidered on their chests. They fanned out
across Melbourne's broadest boulevard and began a slow yet disciplined
march toward the Defense and Wellness Council's administrative offices.
Somewhere along the way, they picked up an accompanying scrim of military officers with dartguns drawn and disruptors charged. Half a dozen
Council hoverbirds swooped over the street in perfect synchronization. (A
dry run, some muttered, for the inevitable pogrom that awaited them all.)

By the time this bureaucratic army reached the Council's undistin guished slab of a building, a sizable crowd had gathered to witness the
coming of history. Children sat on the shoulders of their parents.
Politicians elbowed each other aside in a struggle for prime positioning. Vendors, advertisers, and salespeople fed off the crowd like
leeches, while on the Data Sea, a menagerie of video feeds captured the
Council's approach from every possible angle.

At the last minute, several libertarian activists emerged from the
crowd and linked hands, cordoning off the steps leading to the Council
building. A hush fell upon the crowd. There was a tense standoff
between the commander of the white-robed officers and the leader of
the libertarians. Several minutes passed, with their arguments growing
more heated by the second. Finally, the irritated commander turned his
back on the activists and made a gesture to his troops.

The officers shouldered their rifles as one and did not hesitate.

Murderers! cried a few strident voices. Bloodthirsty tyrants! But the
Defense and Wellness Council's legal army continued up the steps with
nary a pause and disappeared inside the building.

A few moments later, the libertarian activists struggled groggily
to their feet, plucking darts from their torsos. They were dazed but
otherwise all right.

The three fiefcorpers lined up against the wall of Jara's apartment like
troops submitting to an inspection, their spines uncomfortably stiff
and their eyes doggedly forward-facing. Jara marched down the aisle
and bayoneted each one of them with a sharp stare. She insisted that
Horvil comb his hair, that Merri stand up straight and project confidence, that Ben take control of his scowling or stay home.

Jara saw the reactions on their faces and almost backed off. Everyone
was bone tired from the stress of the past few days-the disruptions in
the tube lines, the demonstrations in the streets, the constant migraine of Council troops around every corner-and their attitudes toward Jara
were beginning to slide from mild distrust to outright resentment. She
was just a short hop away from breakdown herself.

Naturally, it was Benyamin who chose to speak up. "Can't you give
it a rest for once, Jara?"

The analyst walked up to the young apprentice and stood within
spitting distance. "I've had just about enough of you," she said with a
grimace. "There could be ten billion people watching us tomorrow at
that Prime Committee hearing. Do you understand that? Literally ten
billion people. We need to look our best."

"They'll understand, Jara," said Merri, her voice stretched and
hoarse. "Everyone's feeling a little surreal right now. The audience is
going to be discombobulated too."

Horvil nodded. "She's right. We're not a theater troupe. You can't
expect us to be onstage every day when we've got work to concentrate
on. Do you realize how little we've gotten done this past month because
of all this political crap?"

Jara stared at the engineer, momentarily speechless. His words
might have been harsh, but his tone was mellow, almost supportive.
She found her thoughts slipping, like fingers losing their grip on the
rung of a ladder, falling back to that scene in the museum at Andra
Pradesh. The feel of his chubby hand enclosing hers. The radiating
concern. That warm, uncomplicated, perpetually adolescent face
beaming at her with an emotion raw and undistilled. Who wouldn't
feel embarrassed to be on the receiving end of such a look?

Ben cut through her reverie with a heavy sigh.

Jara only stopped herself from throttling Benyamin by a tremendous
act of will. She flipped through her mental library and dusted off GrimFace 202, one of the intense glares she had programmed for such an occasion. "Do you trust me?" she said. "All of you. Do you trust me?"

A pause. A few frowns. Merri, sheepish, answered. "Yes. Of course
we trust you."

"Good." Jara walked up to Benyamin and stabbed his chest with
the nail of her right index finger. "Then fucking listen and do what I say.
All right?"

The fiefcorpers nodded and followed her out the door.

Jara berated herself for that petulant little outburst all the way to
the tube station. Isn't that exactly the kind of shit you criticized Natch for?
she thought. Yelling at everybody for no reason. Refusing to explain yourself.
She was practically marinating in irony. One week in charge of a major fiefcorp, and all you can do is imitate Natch. Natch, the worst manager you've
ever known. Pathetic. She debated making some kind of apologetic gesture to the rest of the fiefcorpers all the way to the tube platform.

She still hadn't made a decision when the train arrived and
everyone stepped aboard. Moments later, they were off.

The fiefcorp maintained complete silence for several hours after the
train whooshed out of the station, and there was no one else in their
part of the car to fill the void. So they kept watch out the windows.
The dilapidated tunnels and debris-strewn lowlands of Britain, practically untouched since the Autonomous Revolt, soon made way for the
comforting dull gray of the sea. After that, Africa. Sea became shore,
shore became forest.

The silence was finally broken by the arrival of a freshly minted
Latin accent during the stop at Cape Town. "Looks like the crew's all
here!" said Robby Robby, oozing down the aisle with a jaunty grin.