The Shockwave Rider (34 page)

“And—no, it
can’t
be killed. It’s indefinitely self-perpetuating so long as the net exists. Even if one segment of it is inactivated, a counterpart of the missing portion will remain in store at some other station and the worm will automatically subdivide and send a duplicate head to collect the spare groups and restore them to their proper place. Incidentally, though, it won’t expand to indefinite size and clog the net for other use. It has built-in limits.”

He gave a faint smile.

“Though I say so myself, it’s a neat bit of work.”

All of a sudden a man no older than his thirties, but pot-bellied, who had been in a seat near the back of the hall, came yelling down the aisle.

“Traitor!” he howled. “Goddamned stinking traitor!”

With his right hand he was tugging at something under his jacket; it appeared to have caught. It came free. It was a pistol. He tried to aim it.

But a quick-witted student in a seat on the aisle stuck out his leg. The fat man went sprawling with a yell, and next moment a booted foot tramped on his right wrist and he was disarmed.

From the platform Nick said, “Ah. That’s the first. It won’t be the last.”

AND THE TRUTH SHALL MAKE YOU YOU

Q This place Tarnover you keep talking about. I never heard of it.

A It’s a government establishment, one of several. All are under the direction of the spiritual successors of the people who deployed nuclear weapons in overkill quantity. Or maybe I should cite the people who thought nothing of taking a fee to condition little boys out of playing with themselves.

Q What?

A You don’t believe there were such people? Punch for data concerning the income of the Behavioral Science Department of the Lawrence campus of the University of Kansas back around 1969, 1970. I swear it’s true.

Q Same again, but this time Weychopee.

A Ah, yes. Working for G2S I moused deep into their banks. That’s Electric Skillet, the continental defense center. By defense they mean they override the controls on all incoming chunks of asteroid ore and send them crashing down on the eastern hemisphere like a rain of thousand-ton hailstones. I haven’t yet checked out how many of the people who bought asteroid drivers from G2S realized that facility was built in.

Q But that’s insane!

A Sure it is. The blast wave from the impact would level every structure on this continent taller than fifteen meters. They don’t core. They want to turn Ragnarök into rain-of-rocks. Excuse me. Yes?

Q The bottom dropped out of stock in Anti-Trauma. Your doing?

A Mostly theirs. Their failure rate has never fallen below sixty-five percent, but they’ve kept it such a close secret that last year they doubled their clientele. Never again, I hope.

Q Some weird things happened to Delphi odds lately.

A I’m glad you brought that up. Data from Crediton Hill are in the net by now. Check them out. A lot of you probably have deeveed tickets you can claim against. The legislation authorizing Delphi betting obliged the organizers to make refunds if it could be shown that the pool was manipulated, and there’s no reference to the organizers themselves being exempt.

Q But I thought the whole point of Delphi was to tell the government what changes the public was ready for. You mean it’s been turned around?

A Go find a veephone and ask for the incidence of federal intervention per annum for the last five years.

Q How the hell were you able to build a tapeworm this complicated?

A It’s a talent, like a musician’s, or a poet’s. I can play a computer read-in literally for hours at a time and never hit a wrong note.

Q Christ almighty. Well, this flood of data you let loose may be okay for people like you. Me, I’m scared shitless. A I’m sorry you’re scared of being free.

Q What?

A The truth shall make you free.

Q You say that as though you believe it.

A Well, hell! If I didn’t …! Anybody here get nightmares because you know data exist you can’t get at and other people can? Anybody suffering with chronic anxiety, insomnia, digestive trouble, general stress response syndrome? Mm-hm. Turn any wet stone and you find victims. And as to the underlying cause … Any of you play at fencing? Yes? Then you know how frustrating it is to find that your opponent has claimed a point slam in the middle of your best potential triangle. All your cherished schemes go crash because he outsmarted you. Well, that’s a game. When it’s a matter of real life it’s not fun any more, is it? And up to now the data net has been consciously manipulated to prevent us finding out what we most need to know.

Q Come again?

A We know, we feel in our guts, that decisions are constantly being made which are going to wreck our ambitions, our dreams, our personal relationships. But the people making those decisions are keeping them secret, because if they don’t they’ll lose the leverage they have over their subordinates. It’s a marvel we’re not all gibbering with terror. A good few of us do wind up gibbering, don’t they? Others manage to keep afloat by denying—repressing—awareness of the risk that it’s all going to go smash. Others still drive themselves into null passivity, what’s been called “the new conformity,” so that even if they are suddenly unplugged from one side of the continent and relocated on the other they’ll be able to carry on without noticing the change. Which is sick. Is the purpose of creating the largest information-transmission system in history to present mankind with a brand-new reason for paranoia?

Q And you think what you’ve done is going to put all this to rights.

A Do I sound that arrogant? I hope not! No, what I’ve done at best means there’s a chance of it coming right that didn’t exist before. A chance is better than no chance. The rest … Well, it’s up to all of us, not just to me.

SIEGE PERILOUS

It was quiet at Kate’s home: outside, where volunteer students patrolled the streets for three blocks in all directions, proud that here of all places had been chosen to unleash the avalanche of truth; inside also, where Freeman was working at a remote data console donated by G2S on Rico Posta’s authority, coupled via regular phone lines to the corporation’s own immense computer facilities.

The veephone was quiet too. There had been so many calls, they had recruited a filtration service.

Bringing coffee, Kate said, “Paul, how’s it going?”

“Ask Nick. He can keep more things in his head at one time than I can.”

Working with an ordinary desk calculator and a scratch pad, Nick said, “Fairly well. There already were a couple of resource-allocation programs in store, and one of them is very, damned good. Very flexible. The update facility is particularly elegant.”

“Better than this, then,” Freeman muttered. “I just found a loophole you could fly an orbital factory through. But I got to one thing that ought to wring some withers.”

“Tell me!” Nick glanced up alertly.

“Proof that all poverty on this continent is artificial except what stems from physical illness, mental incapacity or private choice. Like homesteading a patch of the Canadian northwoods … or going into a monastery. That’s about—oh—a quarter of one percent, max.”

Kate stared at him. “You make it sound as though we’d be better off, not worse, after some kind of continental disaster. And that’s absurd!”

“Not entirely.” Nick went on tapping his calculator as he spoke. “One case that comes to mind. During and after World War II they cut food rations in Britain to what most of us would think of as starvation level. Two ounces of margarine a week, an egg a month if you were lucky, things like that. But back then they had more sense than they do now. They hired top-rank dietitians to plot their priorities. They raised the tallest, handsomest, healthiest generation in their history. When rickets reappeared again after rationing ended, it made national headlines. We think of abundance and good health as going hand in hand. It doesn’t follow. That way lies heart failure, too.”

The phone sounded. Kate gave a start. But Nick had come to a point where he could break off and ponder what he had written. Reaching out absently, he turned the camera so he could be seen by the caller.

And exclaimed, “Ted Horovitz!”

The others tensed, everything else forgotten.

The sheriff of Precipice exhaled gustily and wiped his face.

“Lord, after fighting my way past your filtration service I was afraid I might be too late! Listen carefully. This is a breach of Hearing Aid rules but I think it’s justified. Ever hear of a shivver named Hartz? Claims to be the former Deputy Director of BDP.”

Freeman leaned into camera field. “I didn’t know about the ‘former’ bit,” he said. “But the rest is solid.”

“Then get the hell away from where you are. Clear the house—the surrounding streets too, for preference. He says a hit job has been authorized against you. Category V, he called it.”

Freeman whistled. “That means ‘execute regardless of casualties’—and they generally use a bomb for those!”

“It figures. We got a tip about someone smuggling a bomb into Precipice, too. Sent Natty Bumppo and the rest of the dogs on perimeter patrol—Oh, I’ll tell you when you get here.”

“You’re able to transport three?” Nick rapped.

Freeman cut him short. “Not me. I stay close to G2S. I need their facilities. Don’t argue!” He smiled; he was more relaxed now, able to do so without looking like a death’s head. “I’ve done some bad things with my life. If I finish this job I can make up for them all at one go.”

Horovitz glanced at his watch. “Right. I’ve arranged for you to be met in about ten minutes. Jake Treves was intending to stop by your place, of course, but I contacted him and warned him there’d be a change of rendezvous. Make a suggestion and I’ll pass the word for him to be there.”

NIGHT ERRAND

“You look kind of down,” the driver said.

“Hell, with the continent crumbling around us … !” The passenger in the rear seat of the quiet electric car fumbled with the lock of the briefcase across his knees. “Everything’s gone into a spin. First I get the order to do the job, then they say hold it, we may send in the National Guard instead, then they say back to plan one after all. Jesus, the damage that’s been done while they were dithering! Okay, this will be close enough.”

The driver said in astonishment, “But we’re still five blocks away!”

“They got all them students on guard. Could be armed.”

“Yeah, but … Look, I drove this kind of mission before. If you’re planning to hit them from here you—”

“Save it. I got what you wouldn’t believe.” The passenger clicked open his case and began to assemble something slim, and tapered and matt-black. “Pull over. I got to launch it from a dead stop.”

Obeying, the driver glanced in his mirror. His eyes widened.

“That little-bitty thing brings down a house?”

“Told you you wouldn’t believe it,” the passenger answered curtly. He lowered his window and leaned out.

“So what in the—?”

“None of your business!”

Then, relenting with a sigh: “Ah, what difference does it make? Classified—top secret—doesn’t matter since that bugger turned his worm loose. Tomorrow anybody can get at plans for this gadget. It’s called a kappa-bird. Ever hear the name?”

The driver frowned. “Believe I did. You got two other cars around the area, right?”

“Mm-hm. Giving a one-meter fix on the roof of the target.”

“But—hell, a whole
house?
”

“Instant firestorm. Hotter than the surface of the sun.” The passenger gave a wry chuckle. “Still want to be closer when she blows?”

The driver shook his head emphatically.

“Nor me. Okay, there she goes. Swing around, head south, don’t hurry.”

Later there was a bright reflection on the low gray cloud sealing in the city.

WELL DOCUMENTED

Dutifully, at each state border control post, Dr. Jake Treves presented a succession of documents to the inspectors: his own ID, his certificate of professional status, his permit as a research biologist to transport protected species interstate, and his manifest for this particular journey.

Upon which the dialogue developed in predictable patterns.

“You really got a mountain lion in this truck?”

“Mm-hm. Safely sedated, of course.”

“Say! I never saw a live mountain lion. Can I. …?”

“Sure.”

Invited to slide back the door over a peephole, the inspectors saw an elderly though still sleek male specimen of
Felis concolor,
drowsy but alert enough to curl his lip in annoyance.

Also they smelt a strong feline stench. From an aerosol can. Very useful to induce big cats to breed in captivity.

“Faugh! Sure hope for your sake you got air conditioning in your cab!”