correct as to their ethnic and geographic places, but they shared a common
limitation: All were frozen in preindustrial eras of their past.
But the great machine had a universe to develop, and other imperatives as well,
and had no wish to rule, only to maintain. A few, only the best and the
brightest from each cultural district, would have to know the truth—that there
was something beyond the world and culture into which they had been born. Such a
static set of cultures required management, and the great machine wished neither
to manage nor to set lesser machines to manage. No one knew why, since it would
have been easy to do and absolute in its controls. Master System was
incomprehensible to all but itself.
Those who oversaw the system were routinely checked for a series of things they
might know or intend which were on the Master System’s proscribed list, and
supposedly all the computers of Earth reported regularly and often all that they
had been asked or were doing to that same Master System. Occasionally someone
was flagged; when one was, it was up to the administrators to apprehend and deal
with the culprit in any way they saw fit but in all cases to remove and isolate
the marked individual. In a very few cases, the Master System would send its
own, the Vals, to minimize any chance of something really dangerous or
threatening creeping into human knowledge.
All contact between the worlds of the new humanity was indirect; computers under
the Master System alone piloted and navigated the spacecraft and alone knew the
secrets of how it was done. Most spacecraft, in fact, had no provisions for
human occupancy: no air, no pressurization, no way for any living thing to have
a spacefaring habitat. There were, however, a few that had such provisions,
because there was occasionally a need for a few to travel somewhere. Most ships
were interplanetary rather than interstellar, since Mars, at least, was
colonized and there was some natural contact and interdependency among the human
administrators, and a certain level of experimentation was allowed on isolated
outposts.
Just where the great machine was that administered and coordinated this as it
had for many centuries was unknown as well, but it had originated on Earth and
was certainly nearby. The space traffic to and from the solar system was
enormous, always dense and busy, yet the worlds and people there were now
considered unimportant. Master System’s term was stabilized. Earth and Mars
were stabilized worlds, more zoos or carefully managed living exhibits than
natural social institutions. One thing was very clear: The Master System wished
to stabilize the entire galaxy, at the very least, and spent much of its time
doing just that.
North America had its native American exhibit, quite varied but strictly
pre-Columbian; South America had become Portuguese colonial, about 1600. China
had its Han exhibit and also smaller exhibits for the Mongols and the Manchus.
Europe was thinly populated and medieval; the Slavs had European Russia and the
Balkans. There was also a precolonial India, an aboriginal Australia, a medieval
Arabic mideast and Mediterranean Africa, and a complex polyglot of sub-Saharan
African cultures, pre-thirteenth century, although the major ones were the Zulu
Empire of the south, the Bantu of the center, and Songhai to within a few
hundred kilometers of the Arabic-Berber coast. There was no Sahara; that
human-made waste had been reclaimed to savannas and plains and once again teemed
with game.
The Earth was a vast area of living, breathing, thinking exhibits who lived as
their culture dictated and had no knowledge of the greater world or the universe
beyond. A living museum with no visitors, no students, no onlookers at all save
the tiny number of those who were its caretakers.
And now the daughter of one of those caretakers sat at her computer, an illegal
device that did not speak to Master System or to anyone or anything else but its
operator, and deduced with a fair degree of certainty that there were a few not
in the exhibits, that in spite of the seeming absoluteness of the system there
were some who were not in their cages but out there somewhere, running wild.
Song Ching was anxious to tell her father all about her experiences and her
discoveries, but he never just arrived; as Governor, or warlord, of the entire
island province, he came in with a massive entourage and had a huge load of
prescribed duties, audiences and the like, when he did settle in.
Although she was spoiled and protected, she and her father were not close. It
was unlikely that a man who had risen to his position and power would allow
anyone really close to him, but he was also a man of his dynastic culture, one
in which daughters were not highly prized and women were supposed to know their
place and joyously accept it. She was there not because he wished a daughter but
because sons would inherit many duties and responsibilities and be much in the
public eye, while a daughter could be kept to the one task that was his dream.
For herself, she could think only of her discoveries and anxiously awaited the
inevitable summons. It came three days after he arrived, and it was to be a
totally private audience in his office. There were the usual guards at the
doors, of course, but she was shown right in and discovered her father sitting
Buddhalike on a silk mat, totally alone.
He was a large man, not just for a Han, but in general, but his round face,
broad shoulders, and thick, squat body made him appear chubby and less imposing.
She bowed and then sat on another mat, facing him, and waited for his eyes to
open and for him to speak. He was the one man she feared and respected and,
despite his coldness, loved.
He began to speak without opening his eyes. I have read the reports on the raid
and your conduct, and they say you did quite well. It seems that we acted just
in time with these people. There is a ship capable of carrying passengers in
system now, and several shuttle boats are in for refurbishing at Ulan Bator. It
appears that these were the target. They would not have been able to get away
with it, of course, but it would have brought dishonor upon me and my
administrators. We would certainly—and deservedly—be held responsible for such a
breach. It was for that reason that I allowed you to go along on the raid. Our
family honor required one of us to participate in its success.
She bowed her head. I humbly thank you, my father, for the opportunity. I have
learned much from what was recovered.
His eyes opened, and he stared at her. Oh? And what did you learn?
She was required to keep herself humble and calm, but inside she was highly
excited. They had found a way that humans could both pilot and navigate
spaceships, even interstellar ones, almost without training. She paused,
expecting at least an exclamation of surprise, but he did not react.
Yes? And what else?
She suddenly realized that he must have known that in order to have made the
opening comment he did. A little shamefaced, she realized that she had not been
exclusively privy to the copies of the files, records, and devices from the
raid.
It is almost certain—well over ninety-nine percent— that this was known to
others and that this sort of thing has been done in the past and is being done
now by person or groups unknown. I believe that there are people out there who
have access to all that we have but who are not in or subject to the Community.
It was this discovery that led to their plans.
It is so, he admitted. The question is how such a group came into possession
of this knowledge.
She was rocked by the comment. He knew!
That information was not in the files we recovered, she told him, stifling her
emotions as much as possible. It is something that security personnel must
discover by other means.
Yes. Unfortunately, it will take much time to identify and trace all the
illegals and find the leak without alerting Master System.
It was getting to be too much for her. Please excuse my forwardness, but it is
inconceivable to me that Master System does not at least know of their
existence.