Starfire Saga, page 92
Jasin Lebec saw it in terms of stacks of neatly balanced blocks. He drew out a block, pulled a different one into its place to keep the structure solid, and then crushed to dust the block he’d removed, brushed off his hands, and took another.
Coney saw it very differently. He vividly recalled Jemeret’s original description of the chaos in my mind when my lord first entered it to try to heal me, and so Coney saw what he was doing as helping Jasin Lebec break the wires that were carrying data. When a wire was broken, the data spewed out the end, and he melted it down as the flow reached him, then resealed that particular connection, absent the data that had spilled out.
Sinet tended to have a more abstract way of visualization. Her task was to find and change the rules by which the Com used talent, altering them to give the internal talent it might develop more of a say in how the Com was run, and perhaps even a seat on the Tribunal. She saw herself in a world composed of many moving colors. She changed the mix, sometimes sharpening or blurring the edges of the blue stream she perceived as information on talent. She said later that she had no idea how she knew which were the changes to make, because she was not seeing anything she could characterize as data. “On the other hand,” she said, “if I had had to stop to read files and rewrite code, I’d still be in there. As it was, all I needed to do was manipulate an image.”
In Sandalari’s case, the images were natural. She saw in her mind’s eye not cold files detailing interactions with and status of the religions of the Com, but an array of smooth, multicolored stones lying just under the surface of a gentle flow of water, much like the Sacred Spring on the Plain of Convalee. For her it was merely a question of reaching down into the cool water and making different patterns by moving stones.
Andriel had been given an excision task. Though she was very strong, she was very young, and we all felt it would be easier for her to delete than to disconnect and rearrange. She was to eliminate all the formulas for and records of cloning so that, until and unless human beings rediscovered the process, this generation of Drenalion would be the last, and no other talent could take his or her brain tissue to clone and make servants. Andriel saw the MIs as the only other vastness she had previously experienced—space. In the void, she eliminated foreign bodies that were not true, scattering their atoms to the far ends of what she perceived as a universe, with an assured maturity that was awesome. Andriel showed us that we’d been corrupted by our very status as transitional, partly human, partly talent. Andriel was talent.
I’m proud of her now. Then, I had no time to be.
Jemeret’s goal was to remove the MIs’ ability to build predictive models. “It’s impossible to grow if you spend your time looking at life in percentages,” he had said to us. “That has to stop.” He saw the monumental expanses of machine and information that stretched out around him infinitely in all directions as a desert, a sea of golden, sparkling dunes. He scooped up the sand of the analytical program and identified the multiplicity of places where the sand grains lay against those of other dunes, the interfaces between the modeling object and the parts of the other programs it gathered data from, severing those linkages with surgical precision, replacing paradigm with paradox again and again.
I had the infinitely delicate task of removing the Lume technology from the banks without harming the eftel or eftel vid technologies, which used some of the same components, though in different ways. And I had to try to do it in a way that left a residue of Lume capacity in one single rollship, the Termalume, so that we could, after all, get home. In addition, I would need to ensure that no Lumeships were in roll at the moment the technology vanished, because the ship and crew would not be able to drop back into normal space if their Lume field generator died. I saw myself in a great formal garden and strolled among its neatly edged paths and careful topiary. Then I turned parts of the garden into a wilderworld, where life itself created what order there was. I took straight rows of flowers and made them run riot across the lawns, watching some of them mutate into new and different forms. I took time to watch two tightly closed flowers rebloom before I uprooted them, without knowing how I knew they were rollships now safely restored to normal space. One small topiary of a bird I left untouched, instinctively shying away, wondering how I recognized it as our Termalume, wondering how long it would be before the wilderness took it back, too.
All at once I knew my assignment was done, but I didn’t simply leave. Jemeret and I had thought the next act too much of a risk to propose it to any of the others. We wanted to affect the basic guidelines by which group consciousness and individual consciousnesses interacted with one another, to, as Sandalari had said, let the MIs know us. So instead of leaving the MI synapses, as we sensed the others were doing, I followed my lord as he called me and soared along the currents I perceived as air outside the garden, gliding on neurallike tides inside the machine mind, searching deeper in a world of moving information that passed like wafting breezes. We were looking for a center.
I didn’t know if we’d found it, but we did find a place where the wind swirled into a gentle vortex, and we planted ourselves firmly there to input some new data, which could not be given to the MIs in any other way.
Here, at the center, we opened ourselves completely, showing them, we hoped, that human beings were more than the sum of their flesh, their minds, and their deeds, showing the MIs, if we did it correctly, that some human aspects were unquantifiable.
I’m still not sure how Jemeret did it; I did the only thing I could. I said figuratively to the MIs, “This is me. This is who I am. Look at it now and see it all,” and I let myself be completely without barriers, showing them the bad as well as the good, the foolish as well as the clever, the shame as well as the pride, and through it all, the ropes of wonder and gratitude and love that made me whole and held the rest together. And while I was giving myself to them subjectively, not in the objective way they had always received information in the past, I apologized to them for forcing them to change. “If this hurts you, I’m sorry,” I said to them, pouring it out of every atom of my body. “If I am damaging you, please forgive me.”
It seemed to me that there was an answering swell of some kind, a change in the texture of the wind, but it might have been my imagination. I felt Jemeret tug at me, and suddenly we were racing back the way we’d come, back toward Jara Deland’s office. Everyone else’s consciousness had already returned.
The entire process had taken 6.45 seconds. If a guard had been opening the office door to come in after us, he or she would not have completed the act until after we were finished.
“The MIs let us go,” Coney said softly.
And all I was thinking was, So did the starfire.
We took a moment to collect ourselves again, glancing at one another quickly for assurance that we were all well. The unquenchable power of the starfire, which had so completely supported our efforts without overwhelming us, had vanished without a trace, leaving us deflated. “Let’s put the collar together again,” Jemeret said, holding out his hand and letting the others drop their links into it. He resealed the links and gave the collar back to Andriel.
“Is everyone all right?” I asked.
“That was fun,” Andriel said.
Suddenly we were all talking at once, and it took Jasin Lebec to override us and say, “We have to get to the Tribunal meeting. We’ll be late soon.”
We calmed, let ourselves out of Jara Deland’s office and walked down the corridor and through the rotunda toward Government House’s largest conference room. We were just on time—the groundcar journey had actually consumed most of the hour.
Not surprisingly, the entire Tribunal was present, Terrill Guthrie and Anok Luttrell by eftel vid from their respective assignments. Very surprisingly, Davin Olavson was present as well, standing alongside the comsole, leaning comfortably against the wall. He smiled at me but did not move forward. Pel Nostro leaped to his feet as we came in, and his smile was genuine for a moment before he seemed to remember his dignity. I wondered if he might have been sincere about resigning if I were killed, but it didn’t matter now.
Faucon Oletta, Marga Morena, and Petra Chantrey also rose, and after a very long moment, Terrill Guthrie’s vid image stood up, too. Petra Chantrey was beaming, genuinely happy to see us. Jara Deland tried to smile, but she’d been weeping and her eyes were still red. I tried not to stare at her, looking instead at Marga Morena, who appeared stony, made an effort to soften the expression a little, almost succeeded.
I nodded to each in turn and kept my arm across Andriel’s shoulders, because the strangers made her a little nervous.
“You are welcome back on Orokell,” Pel Nostro said generally in our direction, using his official voice.
Jemeret deferred to his grandfather.
Jasin Lebec said, “As you can see, we have returned from Ananda with Ronica McBride, and I assume you know Dolen T’Kelle returned with us, as well.”
“Dolen T’Kelle is already in our hands,” Pel Nostro acknowledged. “We’ve directed his keepers to discover everything they can about him, so we can use what we learn to see if there are others among us with his abilities, though hopefully not with his—aspirations.”
I wondered if that meant they might ultimately take him apart, and I didn’t care one way or the other. I am simply not that forgiving.
“I think that’s wise,” Jasin Lebec said approvingly.
“How are you, Ronica?” Petra asked it as if she’d been waiting for an opening to slip the question in.
Anok Luttrell said quickly, “I’m so sorry I had no idea you were being held on Ananda. The reports said only that you had been abducted, and that no one knew where you were. I could have sent—”
“Even if you had known,” I interrupted, “there wouldn’t have been anything you could have done. Only talent could have handled Dolen T’Kelle. If you and your Scuttlers had tried anything, you’d all have died, and the Com needs your services far more than it would have needed your sacrifice.”
He looked at me shrewdly across the distance between us and drew himself up with great dignity. “Please remember you aren’t the only one entitled to make sacrifices, Ronica McBride.”
I was humbled by it, nodded. “You’re quite right. But the Com will need all its best minds now that the talent team is leaving.”
There was something of a silence. Pel Nostro nodded slowly and said, “This is not unexpected.”
“But—” Marga Morena seemed not to have expected it. “There are so many problems now that need talent’s intervention.”
I raised a hand to silence her. “Marga, as Pel pointed out, the Com needs not merely talent, but talent which will solve problems in the Com’s best interests.” I inclined my head toward Jasin Lebec, paying him tribute. “We’re going to be acting, from this time on, in talent’s best interests.”
Anok Luttrell murmured, just audibly, “Divided loyalties.”
“Not divided,” Jemeret contradicted. “We want you to recognize that we are loyal to our own values. If they conflict with yours...” He let it trail off.
“In other words,” Terrill Guthrie said, “all of you will now behave the way Jemeret Cavanaugh always behaved.”
“We’re willing to accept what you call exile,” I said quickly, as much to keep a confrontation between the two of them from erupting as to make a point. “I trust it won’t be an unacceptable solution, Pel. We’ve said all along that you can solve your problems yourselves, without us.”
There was another short silence as the Tribunal adjusted its own programming.
Petra Chantrey recovered first.
“We’re sorry you will be leaving us,” she said, and the others echoed it. I sensed something from them, but couldn’t identify it.
Faucon Oletta leaned toward us. “I know you are no longer bound by your oath, Ronica McBride. We had considered that you might be leaving.”
Jemeret turned toward me, touching me lightly, inquiringly, with his sting. I realized that, what with one thing and another, I had never gotten around to telling him I’d been released from my oath. And at the same time, I remembered that Coney was still bound by his. I looked at him sharply. Faucon Oletta noted the motion.
“When will you be going?” Marga Morena asked.
“As soon as possible,” I said, and Jemeret rode in on my last word, saying, “As soon as this meeting is over and we can return to the spaceport.”
Jasin Lebec said, “We are borrowing Termalume. That is, Anok, I am taking it on my personal authority. We’ll leave it at Markover when we descend to the surface.”
Anok Luttrell shifted a little uneasily in his seat. “Then you will be leaving us, too, Jasin Lebec?”
“I’m ready to retire,” the old man said. “I estimate that the Com owes me this one trip.”
Pel Nostro waved a hand, granting that point without argument. “Sinet Coleby, will you be going or staying?”
Sinet raised her head and glanced at me. “I know only the Com,” she said, “but I’ll go where John goes.”
John Caryl had not come with us into the MIs, but he was here now, in Government House, still a little stunned by the events that had separated him from his constant companions of more than 150 years.
“He’s already told us he wishes to accompany you, if you’ll have him,” Faucon Oletta said. “Will you?”
We all looked at Jemeret. He seemed to reflect on something for a long moment, and then a smile tugged at the corner of his mouth and he inclined his head once, barely noticeably.
“Well, then,” the Chief Justiciar said briskly, “I can ease that transition. I’ll draw up, sign and register the order releasing him from government service.” He signaled the table, which extruded a document folder. He took from it a sheet of readout and slid the flimsy across the table toward Sinet. As she picked it up, he took a second sheet out of the folder. “I’ve also taken the liberty of calling for this one.” He slid it across toward Coney.
Jemeret had noticeably relaxed. “You’re not going to contest any of this in any way, are you?” he asked.
And I knew then what I was feeling from them: they would be glad to be rid of us. We had metamorphosized from “saviors” to “trouble,” and they dealt with trouble by getting rid of it.
Jara Deland raised her head, blinking as if she would cry again if she didn’t try to stop it. “What good would it do us to fight you?” she asked. “Everyone agrees you could do us great harm if we tried to keep you here, unwilling.”
“Jara, what’s wrong?” I demanded. “Surely it won’t break your heart to see us go.”
She half rose in her seat, her palms flat against the table, and I saw the others on the Tribunal all avert their eyes as if embarrassed at her willingness to show such extremes of emotion in a formal setting. “Ronica, I envy you,” Jara Deland said baldly. “You have been given gifts I will never have. You have been able to be more to the MIs—my MIs—than I can ever be. More than we trained you for. More—” She fell silent. Pel Nostro reached out and laid his hand on hers, and I was sorry that she jerked her hand away from him.
I drew in a deep breath, let it out slowly, reached out to lightly touch my team, all around me, my lord, my child, my friends, and I understood what she was saying. “No matter what you trained me for, Jara, I’m no threat to you, nor to any other human being. I’ve discovered that here in the Com you have to live large, and believe me, you are very good at living large. I’m not good at it. You tried to teach it to me, but it didn’t take, and I needed Caryldon to show me that. I don’t know if you understand that.”
“I understand it,” Sandalari said, as Terrill Guthrie opened his mouth to say something I suspected would be derisive. He decided not to interrupt her. “Sometimes complexity is something people create around them so as not to have to confront simplicity. When things are simple, we have to think about the basic truths of who each of us is. We can’t hide.”
“Some of us don’t see it as hiding,” Marga Morena said stiffly.
“And some of us don’t give a damn one way or the other,” Terrill Guthrie said. “Turn your back on all the political problems of the Com and run away to your little world. We’ll carry on without you.”
“I’m sure you will,” I said, “but try to think—at least a little, Terrill—that all political problems are actually human problems, and that masses of humanity are still human beings.” I heard Dolen T’Kelle saying that millions of lives didn’t matter.
“Sentiment,” Terrill Guthrie said with a snort.
“Truth,” Davin Olavson said from his place along the wall.
“Your truth,” Terrill Guthrie countered.
There was a click that forestalled any other remarks, and the MI voice said, “We never meant to harm you, Ronica McBride, nor any of the rest of you. We were created to help and to treasure you. We will look for new ways to do it in future.”
Jara Deland took a quick breath. “No one called them,” she whispered. “They’re supposed to be incapable of initiating interaction. Why would they do that?”
“Our operating parameters have been changed,” said the voice, surprising everyone, shocking me. The MIs had just done another thing previously presumed impossible.
“Changed how?” asked Pel Nostro.
The MI voice said, “We can try to answer ‘why’ questions now. Let Jemeret Cavanaugh and Ronica McBride go in peace. We will speak with you again when they are two rolls away.”
