Transcendence (46 page)

SALES FOR MONTE AND BELLAFORM SNAPSTICKS UP AVERAGE 30%

Good, Herrschaft thought, very good. Must keep the corps’ sales up to keep them happy. Must keep them happy to keep Feedcontrol on top. Must keep Feedcontrol on top to keep me on top. Must keep me on top to keep the plan on path. . . .

>>Slight force acts on ship’s equilibrium for a moment, blurring inner cameras. Flashes of metal and skintones and various fabrics. Primary feedback concentrated on following torpedo launched at NKK fighter. Neptune now twice as large as in verification feed sequence. At 1000 meters from contact, torpedo camera switches on. Unstable but effective action sequence as subscribers ride along at 100,000 kph toward NKK spacecraft, Neptune looming vastly larger each second. A bracelet of flares launch from enemy craft toward the torpedo. Two seconds later, so close camera can resolve long laser-burn along hull of NKK ship, one defense rocket explodes within a few meters. End of this feedback track.<<

Herrschaft no longer cared what was real and what was his editors’ license. This was going very well. A small part of him observed the reactions of the world’s two most powerful EarthCo presidents, of Susahn Jackson, and of Lucilla. Three other of his top aides had arrived while he wasn’t paying attention, but they drew none of his attention. All had seated themselves and were watching intently. Herrschaft chose this place for an audience because of the very nature of a private booth: Visitors have no control of the feed and, therefore, feel it more acutely. A taste of reality.

>>Enemy craft now within cannon range. Almost too close for practical use of camera P2. Neptune blooms blue like an ocean behind ship’s shiny tube of steel. Planet fills camera P1 and extends beyond range of P2. NKK craft now visible in P3;
Bounty
in danger.<<

Herrschaft felt a moment of acute worry, then relaxed. It did not matter if the
Bounty
were destroyed. Indeed, that might make it simpler. But not yet! Not quite yet.

The battle raged on. Herrschaft grew tired of the mechanics of war, instead shifting his pov from room to room throughout Feedcontrol Central. What he was witnessing had happened hours prior, and worry could kill him if he allowed it. He watched editors and technicians, artists and programmers, producers and physicists at work behind a thousand desks, adjusting feed and inserting prerecorded data and repairing damaged equipment, their physical bodies barely needing to move. Only when
Bounty
suffered a debilitating hit did he return a large percentage of Herrschaft’s attention to the booth.

>>External shifting povs show melted and glowing metals. Electromagnetic pulse recorded upon NKK missile discharge. Lingering traces of radiation after blast. Subliminal suggestions of nuclear explosion: 0.4-second flashes of shadow-figures in Hiroshima, Nagasaki, Berlin, Tel Aviv, Seoul; flashes of flesh melting from bone, bone glowing neon green, fire and gouts of blood; subconscious overlay of dusty NKK products, maniacal Asian faces.<<

“
With that act,” Herrschaft told his seven guests in the booth, “NKK has set itself on a course of war.
Bounty
did not provoke them. Wait a moment . . . I’m getting feed from a reliable source that they used atomics on us!”

He made sure his speech and his audience’s reactions were being recorded. He watched the script’s countdown:

0:00:07

Herrschaft’s mental face smiled hard, but his 3VRD presence remained serious and went on with the speech, timed just right.

“
Bounty
’s crew would be foolish to attack such an overwhelming force as Neptunekaisha, NKK’s proxy.
Bounty
had orders to carry out scientific research—and, I trust to tell you now that NKK has tipped its hand—important intelligence work in Neptunekaisha space. EConautics has heard they were developing illegal—”

>>Flip primary feed to interior pov, close-up of Captain Jackson. Face sweat-beaded and creased with tiny cuts.<<

“
Fire nuclear missile!” Jackson cried, seemingly interrupting Herrschaft’s speech. “They asked for it.”

“
What’s happening?” Herrschaft thundered. “Nuclear weapon? I’d expect that of NKK, but where would
Bounty
get such a thing?”

Susahn Jackson inhaled quietly and held the breath as her mouth fell slack and her eyes grew tight. She stared at the man whose name she wore like a badge. Herrschaft studied her for a moment. She was just about ready.

A ghost 3VRD appeared in the room, as programmed.

“
Director Herrschaft, Presidents Snipes and Zauber,” the mature woman—based on psych models of maternal images—said. “I was hoping they wouldn’t . . . oh, but they did.” The AI did an excellent job of acting like an upset and angry human.

“
Oh, sorry, my name’s Zelda Mapes,” she said. “Lieutenant at Markov Division, EConautics, spacefit corps at Howie Orbital Launch Center. Right after
Bounty
took off, months ago, we discovered that one of our freighters’ engines was missing its atomic core. We suspected—”

“
I see,” Herrschaft said, a threat in his voice.

“
Enough,” Zauber said. Herrschaft was pleasantly surprised at the impromptu addition; this was working out better and better.

“
File a complete report,” the European President said, “indicating all implicated in this idiocy. Then deliver EarthCo your resignation for waiting this long to tell us. That will be all.”

Mapes disappeared.

Zauber looked across the room at Herrschaft and said, “It was bad enough that NKK used a proscribed weapon. Now this. What’s going to happen now? Director, I need access to my voter feedback to plan a response.”

“
Of course,” Herrschaft said. He opened a line to Europe, intercepted by phantom editors that no one at either end would sense. Herrschaft watched the half-second delayed polling go back and forth between figurehead and citizens.

President Zauber cast his questions on all allband overlay; the responding citizens—who perceived they had a direct audience with their leader—filtered back to Zauber (and Herrschaft) as a column of numbers. Herrschaft realized no poll adjustments would be required. The citizens demanded revenge.

“
We can’t allow those Neptunekaisha socialists to get away with this,” Zauber boomed.

He has a fine speaking voice, Herrschaft thought. Virtually no one would recognize the slight mistake—TritonCo was the socialist proxy, not Neptunekaisha. Same thing, they will think; they’re all just NKK in disguise.

“
But
Bounty
provoked them, and
Bounty
also used atomics,” the other president said. His face was tight and he aimed his eyes at Herrschaft. Of course, those words were edited before being stored for feed.

“
What do your constituents think?” Herrschaft asked him.

After a brief pause: “I’ll ask.”

Herrschaft didn’t waste time watching the polls return; he knew the US was even more primed for war than Europe, since this country hadn’t felt enemy boots in twice as long as he had lived. Serials like
EarthCo Warrior
in Africa and all the rest reinforced this moment; decades of such shows had accumulated in the collective brain of EarthCo, and at last the vast military spending he had maneuvered would pay off. The people had virtually been there.

Herrschaft leaned back into the absorgel chair and increased the booth’s sensory feed. Seven of the most influential figureheads in EarthCo accompanied him inside a virtual
Bounty
as it spun, wounded, toward history in the shape of blue Neptune. He smelled burned insulation, hot metal, oil smoke, the crew’s fear. He watched Eyes, the bombardier, oddly fondle his subgun. Herrschaft’s heart sped.

He flipped most of his pov to a cramped control room where two women looked as if they were feedrapt: editors. They didn’t notice Herrschaft’s 3VRD presence until he commed them. The room was silent, so quiet barely a dust mote moved across the face of the sleek panels surrounding the women.

Herrschaft watched an unscripted drama begin to unfold. Eyes pointed his weapon at the Captain. Herrschaft slowed retransmission and gave one of the editors new directions. Her body twitched briefly as she set to work. One finger reached out and touched a green square on the panel to her left.

“
I’ll not take another criminal order from you, Jackson!” virtual-Eyes screamed. Virtual-Janus, the pilot, looked from Eyes to the captain, then back. In zero-
g
languor, she climbed through the smoke-filled cabin to stand beside the bombardier.

“
You told us you’d never use the nukes,” Janus said. Her face was hard and her eyes sad. She crossed bare arms below her breasts. “They were to deter, deter.”

“
Damn you two!” virtual-Captain Jackson said. “Don’t you remember? NKK is building an arsenal of atomics down there on Triton. How can you stand for that?”

Janus and Eyes paused to glance at one another just long enough for Jackson to push off toward his control seat and press a red button. A second missile screamed out of the
Bounty
.

“
There,” Jackson said, gripping the back of his chair. “No more nuclear arsenal, down there or up here. You two can take command of this vessel.” He glided toward a hallway and disappeared into his cabin.

Satisfied with the editors’ work, Herrschaft returned his attention to the projection booth. Everyone watched as the first missile worked its way through Neptune’s defenses.

“
What do you think of your husband’s behavior, Mrs. Pehr Jackson?” Herrschaft asked. He swiveled his chair to face the woman.

“
That. . .” She swallowed hard. “That’s a mannequin. That’s not Pehr, it can’t be. NKK must have made him into a mannequin. That’s not Pehr, it’s just a tracker chip controlling his body, right?”

Good, good, Herrschaft thought, but he didn’t want to arouse the old panic of mannequins. The corps had agreed to stop making war machines out of people long before they signed the Stop Nuke Treaty.

“
Not likely, my dear,” he said. “Your husband acted much like himself, even after—”

“
That’s not my husband!” she shouted, standing upright like a spike. “Man or mannequin, that’s just a character named Pehr Jackson. I’m no longer wife to a traitor. Do you all hear that? Is the whole world listening in?”

She grew shrill. “I’m filing a motion for divorce, do you hear that, Pehr?”

Herrschaft withdrew his pov as the woman’s rant continued. He had to do this to her in order to divert association-guilt feelings from
Lone Ship Bounty
subscribers. He had to clear EarthCo from direct blame. But watching a real person suffer triggered pain somewhere deep within him, and he was always careful to avoid pain. Pain unearthed things . . . .

Herrschaft flipped to the pov of one of his EConautics space fleet vessels. Far below rested the Moon, looming like some kind of grotesque beach ball abandoned in the middle of night. He gave his Fleet Boss the final word of the all-go phrase. Almost simultaneous with the word, rocket exhausts flared red and white and blue rising from that bright grey world; other ships seemed to appear like magic, transformed from infinitely distant constellations to shaped metal near at hand. Lasers began to steam the Moon’s surface.

Herrschaft felt giddy with anticipation. He returned to the projection booth. Both presidents were issuing emergency directives; the various aides were contacting their assistants.

“
Begun,” Herrschaft mouthed again, seated comfortably in his chair. It has begun: magic words to let loose dragons.

“
When politics alone was still running countries,” he said aloud, “we were forever on the brink of global collapse.” The other speakers fell silent. President Snipes frowned.

“
But the current arrangement has given us the solar system. If only we had acted sooner, or put down NKK at the beginning, we would possess it all, harmoniously. Our only concerns would have been how to properly raise and equitably provide for 21 billion citizens scattered across dozens of worlds. But now we must worry over war.”

He infused great emphasis on the final word, packing it full of subliminals designed long ago to elicit patriotic feelings, to reawaken that ancient, sleeping giant, war fever. A corner of his pov showed the two presidents’ polls winding maniacally up the scale toward revenge. They wanted war, a grand-scale war in which they could virtually participate.

Herrschaft continued to speak, but he wasn’t necessary for him to do so. The speech was prerecorded and carefully processed. He moved 100% of his pov to his favorite suite high above NYB and studied the skyline that defined the Atlantic border of North America. His robotic ears filled with the silence of high-rise wind scouring the suite’s windows. He stared out at glistening steel and aluminum and glass towers, countless aircars busily adding value to EarthCo, millions upon millions of citizens plodding through their everyday lives. . . .