David's Sling (17 page)

Juan nodded. "Yeah."

"You can stay here in Steilacoom, in communion with your soul, if you prefer. We'll run the project through telecomm, of course."

"Of course we'll run telecomm—until the crunch at the end, of course."

"Probably. The timelines are nasty, but we'll more than likely stretch them." Nathan smiled innocently. "Who knows? We might even make schedule."

"Nathan, only project managers believe those kinds of fantasies." Juan sighed. "I suppose contentment would kill me eventually, too. Just how much purpose have you got this time?"

Nathan told him the purpose, and the method, of the Sling.

Too often in the past months, Nathan had felt foolish describing the plan, explaining why this could be the most important project in the world, even though it was so tiny. He knew he sounded like a crusader when he spoke of it: he was a crusader. The sense of foolishness came whenever he talked to people who didn't care. It didn't upset Nathan too much that they didn't care about the Sling; it upset him that they didn't care about
anything
the way Nathan cared about the Sling.

Despite all the mechanisms the Zetetic Institute had developed to help people cope with the Information Age world—mechanisms to reduce stress, to adapt to contexts, to reduce egoinvolvement—the Institute had never found a way to help people to
care
. Life without caring was a shadow; the great moments of exhilaration came amidst the battles that only a crusader could know. Yet so few people accepted the risks, and those who did not care came closest to caring only when telling the rare crusaders that they were fools.

But Juan shared his crusader blood, fearful though he must be of this particular mission. So Nathan shared his vision freely, and found answers in Juan's sunken eyes.

He finished speaking, drained but excited, and waited for Juan's response.

At last Juan answered. "So you want me to build the simulations for the three Hunters. Every time someone gets a module written and ready to test, I'll already have the simulation tools online, ready to help them debug. Every time I fail, they'll miss their deadlines."

Nathan started to agree, but Juan continued.

"And we can't miss the deadlines because
they
will be the critical path. Somehow, that makes me the supercritical path, if there is such a thing." He bared his teeth as he stared into the nowfading sunshine. His face held a defiant look. It was not the expression of an animal that has been cornered, but of a man who understands the choices, knows the risks, and still accepts his purpose. "That's a real screamer, Nathan." His eyes glistened for a moment, looking at something only he could see. He blinked. When he looked back at Nathan his eyes had the steady, smoldering look of a controlled fire. "I guess you know that I'll do it."

"I guess I do. You know, the Institute has done a lot of work to help people deal more effectively with reality. We might have something that can help you travel from Steilacoom without leaving your soul here. I'll send you some info."

"Better do that, Nathan. Even if I never leave my house, I'll still be traveling for you—inside the Sling, inside every Hunter in the sky. Find a way for me to land without crashing."

A cloud crossed the sun, casting a brooding shadow across the town of Steilacoom.

Daniel sat at his desk and watched the widepanel television display. He hummed a human purr.

FOCUS. "In addition to the con game the Zetetic Institute plays with people who need help fighting their tobacco habits, the Institute has become a major force in the military-industrial complex." Bill Hardie's eyes cloud with anger. "They've initiated the 'Sling Project,' a project to sell cheap trinkets to the Army, pretending that these trinkets have value for defending the nation. How useful are the Institute's machines?"

CUT. A gaunt hovercraft appears on the screen; something about the light makes it glitter like a fragile Christmas tree ornament. "This is the so-called 'HopperHunter,' designed to kill tanks. You can imagine how long it would survive on a battlefield where the tanks were allowed to shoot back."

Daniel nodded his head in tribute to the newscaster. How did he get that video footage? It was terrific. It delighted him that Bill Hardie was one of his own creations, one of the delicately ripened fruits that now burst with sweetness. If Bill ever found out that Wilcox-Morris arranged the flurries of intense coverage whenever he reported on the Zetetic Institute, it would make him hysterical.

Daniel had certainly expended a lot of tender care to ripen this fruit, particularly after Hardie s first visits to the ZI headquarters. The damned Institute had poisoned all of Daniel's nurturance, manipulating the reporter as skillfully as Daniel himself. Wilcox-Morris had suddenly had to prune Hardie's popularity back. His syndications had dwindled dramatically, almost fatally. Daniel himself had arranged new opportunities for Hardie in remote places, just to get him out of the Institute before the Zetetic rot penetrated to his core.

If Bill found out how hard Wilcox-Morris had worked to get him back on track, that, too, would make him hysterical. But Hardie didn't know. That, too, was sweet.

ZOOM. The television whines with the sound of turbine engines. The HopperHunter rises, wobbles, then crumples on its side. "You can see how long it survives when it just has to fight gravity."

CUT. Bill comes back into focus. "The greatest absurdity of this is that the Army already has similar systems— better systems—in development, under the auspices of the FIREFORS agency. The Zetetic Institute has inspired the Defense Department to another crude, inefficient duplication of effort."

Whew! Daniel loved this guy's fire; even he half-believed the golden boy on the screen. Maybe he was doing the whole world a service in destroying the Institute.

CUT. "In other news, the Senate finally passed a new law banning many major forms of telecommuting. The nation's unions have been fighting for this protection for their workers for decades. They finally put together a coalition of forces capable of pushing the ban through against loud opposition."

Daniel chuckled. Did Hardie really believe that the unions had put together that coalition? Daniel had had a devil of a time persuading them to accept his support! They didn't trust the Wilcox-Morris Corporation any more than Daniel trusted the news media.

FOCUS. "Union leaders, and some corporate leaders as well, have hailed this as a return to sanity for the economy. By forcing employers to offer a workplace, employees will now be able to get government inspections that assure fair and safe treatment. Thus, these workers will at last receive the same protection that textile workers have received since home manufacture of clothing for sale was banned half a century ago."

Daniel added to the message a second part: the workers will also be protected by the quick destruction of the Zetetic Institute.

CUT. "This historic telecommuting ban starts on October 2."

Daniel heard a knock at the door. He flicked off the television and said loudly, "Come on in, Kira."

Kira opened the door and strode quickly to her usual place at the conference table. The weekly meetings had become a tradition; Daniel looked forward to them more than he cared to admit. Bright minds were a rare and precious commodity. For the most part, the tobacco industry needed obedience, not creativity, from its employees.

Daniel started the conversation. "Judging from the figures, our campaign to smear the Institute through their own networks isn't working any better than our media campaign."

"Yes." Kira lowered her eyes briefly in acknowledgement of her failure. "We set up a series of 'artificial people'—software agents—to log on to the Zetetic nets and enter comments directed against the Institute. They dropped quite a bit of stuff on the system in the first two weeks of operation." She hesitated.

"And then?"

She frowned. "And then the Institute must have realized that something odd was happening. The pruning rate has gone up dramatically. And as nearly as we can tell, the pruning is directed at our comments. I suspect the Institute has come up with a set of software agents whose purpose is to recognize and box off anything written by our software agents."

"I see." What a clever game this had become—the battle between Wilcox-Morris and the Zetetic Institute for control of the nets, for control of the soul of the country. Point met counterpoint. "What if we release more agents—just drown the Institute in our cash flow?"

"I can't believe that will work. Remember, the Institute owns those conferencing nets. Every time we log on, they make money. We can try it, but it's more likely to increase their profits than anything else." She held up her hands helplessly. "What surprises me a little bit is how fast they caught on. I've ordered a quiet investigation downstairs with our computer people. A frightening number of software engineers and computer architects have close ties with the Institute. Someone might have leaked the word. " She shrugged. "Or maybe not. The Zetetics are known for a lot of things, but not for their stupidity in information processing."

"Don't sweat it. We'll find another way." Daniel reached inside his coat for a cigarette, then stopped. He had stopped smoking during these meetings.

Kira had followed his lead. He regretted the loss of amusement watching Kira handle tobacco, but he did not regret the loss of the opportunity to smoke.

Daniel smoked whenever he appeared in public, except when he had to deal persuasively with anti-smoking fanatics. Sometimes he smoked then, too, if he could afford the pleasure of aggravating his enemies. But he never smoked in private. Ironically, he had stopped smoking in private shortly after buying up his first tobacco company for the Wilcox empire. When he had acquired the company, he had also acquired their private research documents on the health hazards of smoking.

Tobacco companies had spent millions of dollars trying to find favorable scientific ways to describe tobacco's effects. They had given up only after being struck in the face, again and again, with proof that went far beyond simple statistical correlations. The proof was still statistical, —but the statistics were of the caliber of the physicist's wave equations. They were statistics that allowed the researcher to predict, for any given population, how many people would die of cancer in a given year. All the researcher needed was a base rate of death, and a description of how many people had been smoking for how long. Cigarette smoking so strongly outweighed other variances that additional factors merely put wiggles in the line. If you knew how many people smoked, you knew how many people died.

So Daniel no longer smoked in private. And with Kira, he felt a bond. He counted his time with her as private time. He enjoyed her company.

They talked at length about many other aspects of the business, but Daniel's mind drifted. The Zetetic Institute seemed determined not to go away; more drastic measures were in order. The telecommuting ban should provide the focal point.

As they finished, he said, "Do you remember saying you could arrange a meeting for me with Nathan Pilstrom, the president of the Institute?"

Kira froze in the act of packing her briefcase. "I said I might be able to arrange it. Why?"

"I think the time has come. Any idea where he'll be during the last week of September—someplace where I could talk with him?"

Kira nodded very cautiously. "I might be able to get you his schedule for the week. If I remember correctly, he's supposed to attend a reception at the Capitol that week. You could get invited as well. Or are you thinking of arranging a broadcast debate? That'll be harder."

"No," he replied, perhaps more sharply than he should have. Kira perked up at the intensity of his response. "I just want to meet the fellow. Maybe we can cut a deal."

Kira's head bounced with a light laugh. "Optimist."

"Yes. Cockeyed, incurable, and romantic," Daniel agreed gravely as he watched her leave.

Lila drove through the night, blind to the falling rain and the danger of her reckless speed. She had uncovered the lies in McKenna's words; she had uncovered them faster than he could have anticipated. He was still within striking distance.

Despite his arrogant attitude, or because of it, she had buried herself in his satellite photos moments after he left. What was happening in northeastern Iran? At first McKenna's claims seemed overblown. Some of the fields were decaying, true enough. Some had been destroyed. But considering the normal horror of war it was not unusual; in some macabre sense, it was even mild.

When she had turned to rates of destruction, she had found that the decay was spreading faster than the destruction. These fields didn't suffer from artillery bombardments or the crushing brutality of armored vehicles; rather, they suffered from lack of attention. The decay struck, oddly enough, around the small villages nestled in the Elburz Mountains and diminished near the major cities like Meshed. Near Meshed, the outright destruction of fields dominated.

Why were the fields unattended? This was the question she and her computer had sought through image processing. She had stretched the image contrasts. She had run series upon series of density slices across the multiple images. She had wrung hints of knowledge from each operation, but no understanding. She felt as though she were trying to reconstruct a jigsaw puzzle while viewing the pieces through a microscope; her perspective had been wrong.

The understanding came as a flash of Zetetic revelation—a flash that had little to do with the images she was processing. She had stopped, sick at the conclusion she had drawn.

She could be wrong—she had prayed she was wrong—but she had had few doubts. Why had the fields decayed? Because no one was tending them. Why was no one tending them? Because all the people had been killed. All of them.

It had taken her a long time to build up the fortitude to investigate why, and how, they had been murdered. She would have preferred not to know. She had considered logging off and forgetting everything. At the last, she had been driven forward by the taunting image of McKenna's sneer. With a cold, violent concentration, she had analyzed the photos with a whole different set of tools.