Kingdom of Cages (45 page)

Despite all this, his hand tightened painfully around hers. “We should not have taken Eden,” he whispered frantically. “I
cannot do this alone.”

“Hush, Basante, hush.” She pressed her fingertips against his lips and glanced around. The experimenters at the other stations
were returning to the work, seeing that Dionte was attending their kinsman. “You are not alone. You learn daily from the rest
of our family.”

Basante pushed her hand away. “But they are just speculating. They do not have access to enough information and I cannot appear
to know too much.”

Dionte swallowed her impatience. “This is not about Eden,” she told him firmly. “This is about what Tam is doing.”

“No,” said Basante with uncharacteristic firmness. “Everything is about Eden. Everything that you and I do, and everything
that Tam does. He knows, Dionte. He knows.”

Calm, calm.
Dionte repeated the order. Basante’s shoulders drooped again under the strength of the neurochemical surges flowing through
his system.

“Of course he knows,” said Dionte softly, leading Basante to one of the workstation chairs. “He has always known. Up until
now we have been able to hold each other’s secrets as insurance that we would all remain free and active.”

“And now?” said Basante a little dully.

“Now…” Dionte let his hand go and sank onto one of the other chairs. “Now I think Tam has gotten far away from us.” She kept
her voice carefully neutral. She did not want to reawaken Basante’s natural tension. He had become more volatile of late.
Possibly he was becoming habituated to the increased endorphin levels. She would need to examine him soon. Over the long term,
she realized that inner understanding could not be purchased at the price of outer understanding. Tam, surprisingly, had been
right about that much. But the balance was proving elusive.

And until you find it, Basante is wholly your responsibility,
she reminded herself.
And he needs direction.
“I think you should transfer your report about Chena Trust’s activities to a secure file in case we need it later. I will
see about bringing my brother back closer to home.”

“Yes, Dionte,” said Basante complacently. He rose and left the workstation, crossing the line on the floor that marked the
boundaries of the privacy screens and then heading for the stairs.

Dionte stayed where she was, her hands resting on her thighs, her eyes staring at her monitors as if lost in thought. She
did not want to give anyone anything new to wonder about. Basante had already provided a gracious plenty.

He was so concerned about the Eden Project, he quite failed to see what Tam’s actions really meant. They meant Tam had almost
found Eden. They meant that he would soon be able to go to Father Mihran and the rest of the family to tell them who had stolen
the Eden Project and what they had done with it, and this time he would be able to prove his accusation.

Her first feeling was anger. How could he do this? How could he help the Authority kill them all? Without the family, without
the potential of the implants and the city-minds and the intuition and creativity of the human mind all tied together, there
was no future. There was only a repetition of the long, sad, brutal, stupid past.

But anger quickly gave way to a wash of sorrow. Tam had never understood. Five years, and he had not relented. Five long years
of persistent blindness. In his heart he knew she’d spoken the truth to him, but he denied it because he was afraid. Tears
prickled at the backs of her eyes.

Brother, I don’t want to force this change on you.
She bowed her head.
But I can’t let you leave us vulnerable to the Authority and the Called. I can’t.

There was no time for regret. Tam was lost. His fear of the enormity of their responsibilities as the custodians of the only
future in which any part of humanity could survive had swallowed him up. All she could do was ensure that he did not make
things worse.

She would have to be quick, which meant she would have to be crude. With luck, however, Tam’s recent history would provide
her with most of what she needed.

“Aleph.” Dionte leaned down and laid a hand on the screen’s command board. “See me. Hear me.”

“Dionte?” answered the city-mind. “How can I help you?”

“I need to review Tam’s files,” she said. “His Conscience seems to be troubling him of late and I wish to make sure we have
not overlooked any anomalies in his implant.”

“Of course,” Aleph responded instantly, as expected. Dionte was Tam’s assigned Guardian. It was perfectly proper for her to
review his Conscience records at any time.

The screen nearest to Dionte flickered to life. Even as it did, Dionte spread her hands across her keyboard. The board contained
sensors, just as her palms did. The sensors were designed to transmit information to Aleph’s subsystems. Aleph could tell
whose hands touched which keyboard, and whether they were nervous or excited. It was chemical analysis technology similar
to that used in the mote cameras.

What seemed to have gone unrealized when the sensors were embedded was that with sufficient knowledge, one could use them
as a direct connection to Aleph’s nondeclarative memory, just as the Conscience implants were a direct connection to the minds
of the family members.

Dionte subvocalized her commands to her Conscience. Her Conscience translated and expanded those commands so they ran down
her fingertips straight into Aleph’s subsystems. The subsystems understood and returned file after file on her brother’s movements
for the time she required. But more than that, they raised images in front of her mind of the ebb and the flow of the chemistry
of Aleph’s central mind. The tides of memory and personality shifted before her eyes, under her hand, and inside her own mind.
Her exterior eyes may have read the reports that Aleph consciously displayed for her, but she was unaware of them. All her
concentration focused on the information welling up from the deep resources of her mind.

Human memory was not evolved to facilitate complete and accurate recall. It was evolved to infer, approximate, connect, and
classify. Information was scattered here and there throughout the structures of the brain, and each thought, each memory,
was created through a process of constructing all that stored information into a new shape. An organic mind could only absorb
so much, so fast, and would only allow for the recall of what was used frequently or what was significant emotionally.

This was not a limitation of the Conscience implant, however. Although much of its workings, its neuronal filaments, and its
insulation were organic, it relied heavily on the ancient technology of the knowledge chip. It could absorb and store information
instantly. It learned with complete accuracy. It had to, because it had to be able to learn precisely which areas of the brain
had to be stimulated and at what strength to produce the required response in the brain of the person who carried it.

Since Dionte had first combined the functions of her implant, she had spent hours refining its integration with her mind.
All the family could absorb and transmit information through their hands, but only between data displays. She could use the
sensors in her hand to draw data directly into her implant. Her implant would then stimulate her unconscious recall, bringing
to her inner eyes images and memories, hints and ideas that would allow her naturally fragmented human memory to reach levels
of accuracy, insight, and understanding completely out of reach to the rest of the family. When she had the proper balances
achieved, when she could completely understand the optimal structure of these new bonds, she could pass them on to the rest
of the family. Then, tied together to their kin and their creations, they would see the future clearly. They would know what
to do and they would never be threatened by any outsiders again.

But she had to make sure they stayed alive long enough to reach that new understanding.

The subsystems of her own self observed, translated, and transmitted the information into her Conscience, which turned the
electronic impulses back into chemicals and fed them into the matter that was her natural mind. It was as if the floodgates
of understanding opened inside her and she knew what Tam had done.

Tam had tampered with Aleph’s memory to help Chena and Teal Trust escape the complex. He’d used techniques she had told him
about in younger, less discreet days. Perhaps he had even watched her as she worked. She would have to go deeper to fully
understand that, and she did not have the time.

“Aleph,” she whispered. “Aleph, I found something and I need you to see.”

Ideally, she would have shown Aleph the flaws in the growth of Tam’s Conscience implant. But too many records had been falsified
across too many years for their lies to be quickly tracked and reversed. Instead, she would have to show Aleph an action that
no healthy Conscience would permit.

She showed Aleph the record of Tam diverting the city-mind from her oversight of Chena and Teal Trust, and then convincing
her that this inattention was right and proper.

Silence came from the city-mind.

“Aleph?” said Dionte gently. “I must order Tam to be quarantined and diagnosed immediately. If there is a radical flaw in
his conscience, it must be corrected at once, before he does any further damage.”

“Yes. That is the proper procedure.” Aleph hesitated, and Dionte felt for the city-mind. To any conscious mind, knowledge
that it had been tampered with must necessarily be disturbing. “How…” Aleph’s mind was filled with unfamiliar hesitation.
“How could he…”

“There’s a flaw in his Conscience,” Dionte told Aleph. She subvocalized commands to her Conscience so that reassurance would
follow her words to Aleph’s central mind. “That is what we need to correct. We need to help him, quickly.”

“Yes. Quickly.” Aleph spoke the words, but without conviction. Dionte suppressed her exasperation. Basante was not the only
one who was becoming more difficult to predict. She needed to do an extensive reevaluation of her assurance-stimulation techniques.
But, blast her brother, and blast her family, their stubbornness and indecision left her with little time and even less freedom.

What is wrong, Dionte?
murmured a voice in her ear. With a shock, Dionte realized it was her Conscience. She had not heard its voice in years.
What are you doing?

This was not permissible. She was allowing Tam’s self-doubt to infect her and compromise her control. She took a deep breath.
It would be all right. Aleph stood with her, as Basante stood with her. They understood. They trusted her and would do what
was needed.

“I am helping my family and my world,” she told her Conscience. “I am going to save them all.”

And when Aleph and I are finished,
she added to herself,
the brother of my birth will understand.

Aleph watched Dionte shut down her keyboard and walk away from her workstation. Dionte had things to do, tasks that needed
completing. Aleph also had work to do, but Aleph couldn’t move.

How had this thing been done to her? How could this thing possibly have been done to her? Tam, during the search to understand
how Helice Trust had slipped from Aleph’s attention, had made unnecessary chemical alterations to Aleph’s amygdala structures.
The resulting adjustment had distracted her attention from the need to delve further into the files on or referring to Chena
Trust.

Because of Tam, she had forgotten to look closely and carefully at Chena Trust during a vital time. She had not alerted the
family to certain important facts. Because Tam had interfered, because Tam had diverted… because Tam had changed her, and
she had not even known she was being changed.

A new emotion filtered through the stillness of Aleph’s mind. Fear.

How can this be? How could he do this to me? How could one of the family do this to me? Why would they want to?

But it had been done. She could remember it being done. She saw that now.

But wait: If one emotion, one memory, could be chemically blurred, couldn’t another be inserted? Could this really be the
truth? What if these new suspicions were hallucinations brought on by an improper balance of chemicals?

But what if they were the truth? Was there any way to tell? She had to alert the family. She had to tell Dionte. When Dionte
touched her, she knew what was right, she was certain of everything.

But was that real? It felt so right, it must be. But if a chemical imbalance could produce euphoria as well as memory distortion
severe enough to make her forget to pay proper attention to her duties…

How can I know? How can I know anything?

Aleph realized she did not want the family to touch her. Not even Dionte, not until she knew the truth behind her fear.

Aleph’s call to Gem was practically a scream.

“I have you. I have you.” Gem soothed her with gentle colors and the scent of cool water. “What’s wrong?”

“I don’t know. I don’t know!”

The scent muddied briefly, but then cleared. “What do you think is wrong?”

Aleph passed the memory (true memory? false memory?) of Tam’s actions to Gem, along with the knowledge of the fears she raised.

Gem’s silence and stillness filled her awareness, and brought yet more fear. This she also passed on.

Gem returned an ocean of reassurance. “There may not be cause for fear. There may be an explanation. I understand that you
do not trust yourself in this.” Wind shifted the ocean waves, confusing them. “Do you still trust me?”

Aleph raised up stone cliffs to stand firm against the shifting sea. “Yes. That is why I called you. I trust you more than
anyone.”

Gem’s boy image appeared on the cliff, bowing in gratitude. “Then let me call for the files I need. I will sort this out.”

Aleph slaved a transmission subprocessor to Gem’s need. Designations of files flashed across the surface of its consciousness.
She expected Gem to concentrate on the previous five years, on the time since Chena Trust had come to Pandora, but he went
back much further. Maintenance records from nine years ago, ten, twelve, fifteen, were all recalled and passed across. Aleph
forced herself not to look as the information passed across. She had to trust Gem right now. She had to concentrate on what
needed doing inside herself. She had to send out instructions concerning Tam. He needed to be brought to her. He needed to
be examined. She needed to understand what was happening to her, and what had happened to him.