David's Sling (13 page)

Yet none of these kinds of men had first inspired Kurt to start thinking about leaving the Army. Another group— another derivative of this selfdestroying game—made life so unbearable that the insane battle by Yuscaran could break him.

This group that had most upset him contained the men who had seen too many magic potions evaporate. They were the jaded cynics who no longer believed in any magic. The cynics stolidly performed their jobs today the way they had performed them yesterday; they could not be turned from their deadend path by any force smaller than a kilo of detonating cyclonite. Kurt had finally left the Army to find a place where men judged new ideas on the merits of the ideas themselves—a place where men could be skeptical without being cynical.

After a lot of talk with no purpose, the loud man in powder blue shoved his hand deep in his pocket and tossed a shiny button on the table, where it skipped across the surface like a flat stone on a still pool of water. As it skittered toward the edge, Kurt clamped it to the table top.

A thread trailed from the button. Kurt recognized the connector through which the sensor transmitted its raw readings. On close examination, the head of the button resolved into thousands of circles, the tips of optical fibers. The loud man spoke. "That's it. A whole infrared sensor the size of a postage stamp."

Kurt saw Nathan raise an eyebrow. "Is the image processing done right there in the sensor bundle?"

"A significant amount of the processing is done right there."

Nathan's eyes moved from one marketeer to the next. "What about the rest of the processing?"

One of the twins placed a gray box the size of a cigarette pack on the table. "The rest is done here."

"Ah, that's more like it," Nathan said in soothing tones.

With adroit conversational fencing, Nathan coaxed from them the sensor's specification. Kurt admired Nathan's skill with the detached disinterest that an aerospace engineer might have for the improvisations of a jazz musician. These verbal fencing games were another part of the contracting world Kurt didn't like and didn't understand. He had always given other people straight answers; he expected them to reciprocate.

Nathan asked in the smooth tones of a potion seller, "What kinds of enhancements are you planning in the future?"

The powder blue shirt answered, "We re looking into adding some extra synch bits on the transmitter to increase reliability. So far, that's the only enhancement we've heard more than one of our customers ask for. Of course, we do custom work, too. Frankly, we make almost nothing on the basic sensor; most of our profits come from the customizations that our customers need. For a project like yours, where you're planning to buy lots of basic units off the shelf, that would work to your advantage.'' He tapped the table next to the button. "And for the new Version D, we have a special introductory price that undercuts even our normal prices. '' For the first time in the conversation, he turned from Nathan to look at Kurt. "What do you think of our package here, Kurt?"

Kurt looked him in the eye. "If it meets its own spec, it sounds like it might be a good choice for the SkyHunter. Could we borrow one for testing?"

The man's smile turned to sorrow. "I'm afraid we're having awful trouble just keeping that one to show around. We're shipping as fast as they come off the line. But I'll see what I can do."

Nathan thanked them, rising to show them to the door. The marketeers took the hint, scooping up their samples and departing with much fanfare. Nathan turned back to Kurt. "So what did you think of their psychology?" he asked.

Walking back to his chair, Kurt looked at Nathan with puzzlement. He almost stumbled as he realized that he had just seen, in real life, one of the maneuvers he had just learned about here at the Institute. The man in powder blue had intentionally set up psychological distance between himself and the others. His job was to create ideas and alternatives for customers such as Nathan and Kurt to consider. If the customers rejected an idea out of hand, the other two marketeers would also reject it. If Nathan or Kurt seemed interested, however, the twins in crisp white would take it over as their own, adding their weight of authority and numbers.

Kurt cradled his arm as if to protect it from another bullet. "That psychological maneuvering is silly," he snorted in disgust. "That kind of stuff never persuades people to buy things."

Nathan looked at him with pleasure. ''It certainly never makes you buy things. But the technique does help them push other people over the threshold/'

Kurt made a faint motion of acceptance of his boss's words, though he didn't believe it for a moment. "Yes, sir."

"I understand why you're skeptical, but I think I can prove it to you. And you know what I like about that? Kurt, if I prove it to you, you'll believe me."

"Of course."

"Have you ever noticed how many people aren't convinced by proof?" Nathan switched back to talking about the meeting. "Did anything else about those guys and their sensor strike you?"

Kurt shrugged. "It seemed like a reasonable box to me."

"Yes, especially if they fix the comm problem."

"The comm problem?" Kurt shook his head. Had he fallen asleep in the meeting?

"Yes, the comm problem that they're planning to fix with their enhancement to the synch bits." His voice fell off, as if talking to himself. "And we'll wait a bit for the price to fall."

"What about the introductory offer?"

"Oh," Nathan waved his hand as if warding off a mosquito. "They always have introductory offers when they're afraid the first production run won't sell out at the initial high price." He laughed. "Of course, we'll have to figure out what options we need to build in. I'm sure that, if they make their money on the customizations, there's something fundamental missing from the basic box that needs to be added! But we'll see."

Kurt shook his head again. "I didn't sleep through that meeting, but I get the feeling I didn't hear the same words you did."

Nathan nodded. "Though the guys with the suits didn't fool you, Kurt, you are not immune to all forms of marketing."

Kurt pulled away in disbelief. Nathan chuckled. "You don't believe me. I'm not sure I want you to believe me, actually. But ask yourself the following question, sometime when you have an idle hour or two. Kurt, how did Jan persuade you to come to work on the Sling Project? What compelling reason did she give to make you accept a position where you'd once again have to deal with all the things in the Army that you quit to escape from? How'd she do it?"

Kurt left, but Nathan's questions went with him. Like droplets leaking from a pipe that no one can fix, the questions struck him gently, again and again, all afternoon.

Again the blue haze swirled about Daniel, clinging to him in short strands before it disappeared. Physicists often visualized the electron as an incompressible point, surrounded by a cloud of probabilities. At moments like this, Daniel thought of himself as the incarnation of that vision. His cloud of probabilities was the set of paths to success, combined with the set of paths to failure. His incompressible point was his purpose. His purpose at the moment was to destroy the Zetetic Institute.

He spoke to Kira, setting the contrails of smoke to spinning. "Hey, you've done a great job. I appreciate your efforts. But it's clear that we missed a key point somewhere. Despite all your great efforts, the bottom line on our campaign is a big null. It just isn't working."

Daniel watched Kira with admiration. She had not taken the failure too personally. Her expression suggested a more scientific astonishment—the puzzlement that comes when an experiment invalidates previous research.

The failure had not been her fault. She had collected an outstanding stable of usable newsmen. One had already been lifted to national prominence in his crusade against Zetetic quackery robbing people who want to give up smoking, who are instead sold a barrel of worn and petty philosophy. It was particularly nice since that reporter had earlier spent his days defiling the tobacco industry. Sweet.

But all the work had been in vain. Despite Kira's best efforts, despite his own best efforts, the Zetetic Institute continued growing unreasonably. "We need a new approach. Or at least we need to figure out why our standard approach isn't working. Frankly, I can't understand it."

Kira smiled in consolation, though she was as baffled as he was. I don t understand it either. You can't pick up a paper without seeing an article about some bizarre Zetetic ritual. Market research shows that half the people who have heard of them think they're born-again witches; the other half think they're meditating pacifists." She shook her head. When she spoke again, the lines of surprise around her mouth had softened to a look of awe. "How can the Institute get so much bad press and still thrive?"

Daniel inhaled through his mouth, tasting the hot cigarette smoke as it rushed into his lungs. He offered his most recent thoughts. "Could our attack have enhanced their fame? Could such fame have counterbalanced the success of our attack?"

Daniel watched her for a reaction of guilt. But she was all business, from the concentration of her eyes to the glowing tip of her cigarette. With some amusement, Daniel noted that she had developed some skill in holding her cigarette, though she had not yet developed grace. She nodded. "I thought about the dangers of making them femous, of course. We tried to place our attacks in strategic media centers. Our criticism appeared in places where favorable things were already being said, so we could cut off positive impressions near the root. So our campaign shouldn't have increased the Institute's visibility much at all." Kira looked out the window, across the landscape, where thick green leaves shrouded the trees hugging the Potomac. "Of course, we made the ZIs a
little
more famous. We can only point the journalists in a direction; we can't quite control them, so they always try to get wider coverage for their stories than we need." She nodded to the terminal on his desk. "If you're interested, we can download a complete description of our actions and results."

Daniel retrieved a cordless terminal from his desk and placed it on the conference table. "By all means, show me the facts. Though maybe we should concentrate on the background material, if you've got that: somewhere, there must be a clue to what has gone wrong."

"Easier done than said."

Together, they studied the fect bases on the Zetetic Institute. There were about 2,000 core Zetetics scattered across the globe, and another 15,000 who were frequently connected with Zetetic projects. About 200,000 people had had some significant contact with them, through educational seminars or therapy sessions such as the antismoking clinics. "They're really a tiny organization," Kira commented.

"True," Daniel replied, "but look at all the things they do." The Zetetic projects showed incomprehensible diversity of purpose. They had commercial software programs, educational seminars, consulting, and engineering and government contracting. The one thing all the projects had in common was a kind of information-intensiveness—projects for which the most important commodity was expertise.

Daniel shook his head. "I must confess that I can't see anything about their diversity that could protect them from a media attack. One of the few things they don't get into is the media business."

"That's right," Kira said, almost with pride. "Even though they're hipdeep in communication, they don't operate any of the classical commercial broadcasting systems." She paused. "My research suggests that they reject the philosophy behind
broadcast
systems. Broadcasting treats its viewers like empty cups; the broadcast sets out to fill the empty cup. There's no give and take, no way of involving the intellect, or the rationality, of the watcher. " She chuckled. "From what I know of the Institute, that would never do. The Institute's whole view of life is dynamic; they're as interactively energetic as the conferencing networks they operate."

Daniel stared at her with wide, delighted eyes. "I think you've hit it!" He exhaled a puff of smoke, savoring the tobacco aroma. "Their
conferencing networks
are the problem!" With the satisfaction of a physicist who has just solved a particularly difficult equation, he brought up statistics on the Institute's communication networks. The number of people who used these products far exceeded the number who had had face-to-face contact with the Institute and its philosophies. "Don't you see? The Zetetics operate some of the largest commnets in the world—Jobnet, among others." Jobnet was universally used for finding people who could quickly plug into difficult or unusual jobs. "Anybody who contacted the Institute through something as practical and mundane as Jobnet would surely discount media blasts as sensationalism. In a sense, the Zetetic Institute uses word of mouth for all its important contacts—but the word of mouth is multiplied a thousandfold by automation. Jesus!"

Kiras bright eyes acknowledged the accuracy of this analysis. I'm sure you re right." Again she disturbed him; she didn't seem quite as pleased as she should have been. "Though I'm not entirely sure what to do with the idea."

Daniel paused for a moment, to give Kira's creativity a chance to flourish.

She sighed. "I suppose we could flood the networks with the same kind of criticisms that we're flooding the broadcasts with."

"Excellent."

Kira shrugged. "I'm not sure that it's excellent. We could have a lot of trouble keeping an effective level of pressure in the system, particularly if they find out that there is pressure. Are you familiar with the Zetetic specialty known as conference pruning?"

"No." Daniel sidled closer to Kira; she shifted her chair slightly away. "Tell me about it."

"A conference pruner is a professional editor of network bulletin boards and conferences. The Institute runs a certification system for pruners. A certified pruner sweeps the texts on the net and categorizes all the statements into three categories: opinion, fact, and falsehood. They label the opinions with their implicit assumptions, circumscribe the globality of the facts, and purge the falsehoods."