The pocket was a small area formed by god guns using specific sorts of programs. It was not large—perhaps two hundred square meters—but it was enormous by pocket standards. Quite a number of the things had been provided not merely as food and water resupply stations but as small bases for Signal corps local administrative personnel. There were actually some small one-room buildings here, along with some fruit and coconut palm trees as well, surrounding a nice little pool of clear water. It was lit by some interaction of the void with the bubble, and the water was constantly renewed. There was even a small but modern lavatory and shower. The whole area was thickly carpeted with soft green grass that seemed manicured. The light level was lower than Anchor by a fairly strong factor, but it was constant, and seemed sufficient to keep the plants thriving on their own. The program that had created it also kept a constant supply of water in that pool. A small creek flowed from the void down a slight incline to the pool, although it had its origin in the void and not in any condensation. What was needed was simply being transmuted from Flux energy. What was consumed and then given off was reconverted and sent out to the void.
It was, however, quite warm and very humid, even when allowing for the contrast of entering from the desertlike dryness of the void, as if the still atmosphere were an amorphous and penetrable woolen blanket soaked with water. Without this humidity sufficient water would not be introduced to the trees and grasses to maintain them.
Brenda Coydt noted the gun belts and holsters worn by Ryan and his people. “What in hell are those?” she asked him.
Ryan grinned, took out a massive-looking pistol of metallic black with white pearl handles. “This, my dear, is a .44-caliber Magnum handgun. These are the bullets—the projectiles— that it fires with really lethal effect.”
She stared at the thing, which she hadn’t seen outside of museums and historical dramas. “And those?” She pointed to some of the others.
“Various pistols, rifles, shotguns, and even a submachine gun or two capable of pumping hundreds of rounds of these things in a general direction in seconds.”
“Where in hell did you get them?”
“Cockburn had his toy train, van Haas had his art collection, I don’t know what you brought in. Me, I brought my antique gun collection. Every one mint and in perfect firing condition. We’ve been having our Sensitives grind out these damned things and the bullets for them—particularly the bullets—at a feverish pace ever since we got cut off, and I’m having pistol and rifle instruction all over the damned place. Not nearly as effective as the lasers and the stun rifles we used to have, and much harder to use properly, but they sure work real nice. You know we can’t charge those damned laser weapons anymore. We can create the suckers, but they always come up dry. So, what the hell. Right now I’m having some folks comb the historical records we got out of headquarters for all sort of other shit like this. We made some really good if basic cannons, and even got some kind of chemical powder that’s better and more efficient than gunpowder out of those Sensitives’ commands—but we can only go so far. Ancient-style caissons I can manage—they were pretty simple. Just a matter of pump and prime and making sure the damned cannonballs fit the barrels. The more sophisticated stuff we can’t manage. Tolerances are too close.”
“Yeah, but—antique explosive projectile weapons?”
“Listen, I’d use crossbows if I had to. Or stones and spears. They’re not worth shit against what the Anchor Guard can put against us, I admit, but they’re golden in Flux where their weapons run dry too. Two of those submachine guns cut a band of twenty-nine duggers to ribbons the other day. Nobody’s gonna come in here and get us. I swear. They’ll have to terraform the whole bloody planet to do that.”
“They can’t,” she assured him. “The climatology was never really worked out and tested, and it’d probably bring massive changes if they even did a single region. When they shut the Gates, they had to limit the amount of opening for incoming Flux bleed so a ship couldn’t creep in during a time when the computers were getting large refills. They don’t have enough for the whole world. You can relax on that score.” She relaxed and spread out on the grass. “God! I’m tired!”
“Well, we’ll get you all food and you better get as long a sleep as you need here. Time’s really wasting.”
Her eyes had closed, but one of them opened. “What do you mean by that?”
“The old bat’s ready to test out her own personal theories on X-ray within days. If it goes well, then ‘bye-‘bye Charley, George, and Queen. The word is that if it all works, then Anchor Luck will be the test of the Holy Islamic program, followed by Nancy, Mary, and Baker, because there’s such a large percentage of devotees of the fundamentalists there. That’s where they sent all the bad boys to begin with, remember. If that goes well, they’ll try to convert the rest close to simultaneously once they deploy their people from Region Four. A matter of a couple of months. But that’s not the kicker. A bunch of our bright boys and girls, using what computer power remains to them, postulated Watanabe’s complete, rip-roaring success and asked the little thinkers to think like dear old Suzy. We tried to figure out her game for once, and I think the computers confirmed our worst fears.”
“Huh?” She sat up, feeling more awake. “Come on, as little as I can stand worse than this.”
“We think she’s gonna prove her own program out, then give them loaded modules interfaced together. If you just postulate to the network of all twenty-eight fucking 7800 computers a set of ‘if, then’ conditions, then when those conditions occur, a process will be enacted automatically. That’s what we did with the military programs. We weren’t even able to use or access those suckers until all twenty-eight big brains agreed that there was a threat sufficient to enact them. That’s what gave me and some of my folks with nasty minds the suspicion in the first place.”
“Go on.”
“Well, she’s been working on the network a long time now. Been making and testing out her big super-tranformation programs. Checking them out. She would need access to the data for all the Anchors to allow for all sorts of conditions, including number of people, types, ages, skills, you name it. Old Suzy knows that Ngomo’s gonna have her blown to her own special hell as soon as he’s sure he doesn’t need her anymore, and that could be as early as the enactment of the master programs. He’s got a lot of bright computer people, after all. Not of Suzy’s genius, but after this her genius is a total liability. I’d sure blow her away.”
She nodded. “I’m listening.”
“O.K., so we plant a master series of programs down in the hearts and minds of the assembled 7800 congregation. Suzy’s programs. But they don’t exist because they’re conditional independents. We taught her how to do it by showing her the military programs in operation. These programs are like big bombs. They sit there, fat, dumb, and happy, doing nothing, not being noticed, ignored even by the computers, unless all twenty-eight agree that a certain condition exists and at that point these are independently triggered. Say these are called defensive programs. They are only to be used to safeguard everyone in Anchor if all twenty-eight Anchors have had their stabilization programs modified.”
She sank back on the grass and closed her eyes. “Oh, my God!” She paused a moment, seeming to be asleep, but then said, “I wish I’d never resurrected the old bag.”
“Well, you did, and now it’s cost us. Who could have foreseen all this though? An external enemy, the Gates sealed, coups and revolutions . . .”
“Every great event in human history results from a combination of unlikely, almost unbelievable circumstances coming together. This is no different. Still, it really screws up our plans.”
“Yup. Just blowing the old bag away and taking out Ngomo won’t do it all, love. We’ve got to intercept those modules somehow when they get distributed to the faraway Anchors, if they haven’t been already.”
“You’ve contacted Ngomo?”
“Oh, sure. I never could get Tom on the line as quick as I got Al. He was cordial, even conciliatory. Offered a whole set of deals. Didn’t believe a word I was saying though. I could tell. He thinks it’s just one last desperation gambit on our part—which, in a sense, it is. It’s no less real a threat, though, for being that. Fact is, unless we can prove our case, he won’t accept the double-cross.”
“How can we prove it? He must be blind or mad!”
Ryan chuckled. “Just as blind and mad as you and me and Tom and the rest, maybe? We had the power, love, and power breeds arrogance and contempt for the lowly. We were so damned fucking secure with our godlike powers and our master computers feeding us just what our enemies wanted us to hear. Why should he be any different?”
She sighed. “I’m going to sleep on it. A long sleep. Wake me if you get a date and place for the big demonstration.”
“How are you gonna get in there, love? You think they won’t have that whole damned sector of Anchor sealed off? And if the old bag’s in the void, she’ll.be under one hell of a big amp force field.”
“I’m going in the Gate. She’ll return to the capital as soon as it’s done to check her work and coordinate her takeover.”
“Now, how in hell are you gonna do that? Security system, remember? It’ll run a tube purge if you trip the second-section lights going in.”
She smiled dreamily, half out already. “That’s no problem if you know the right codes,” she mumbled, and was out.
She remained with Ryan for three days, plotting out the means and methods and contingency plans should she fail. Coydt did not, of course, intend to do the job herself; without the big computer she was unable to really alter her appearance beyond recognition and she would not be welcome in Anchor X-ray. She would see that everyone got through, and cover the rear—and be ready with other plans should failure result.
They were finally off for the full day’s ride to the Gate, with a complete Signals escort. The reached the Gate itself long after dark, but Suzuki and her own people who would actually go in wanted to enter in the middle of the night, when the administration building itself would be pretty well dark.
Coydt did not tell Ryan or even her own people how she was going to bypass the supposedly foolproof security system leading from the dish to the transmission line down the tunnel, but she went first and had no problems, and the worst thing the others received going down the tube was a very bad attack of nerves.
Suzuki went first, activating the transmission key and being digitized and transmitted at the speed of light to the basement of Anchor X-ray’s administration building.
The area was well lit when the psychiatrist stepped off the terminal plate, and a number of robed and hooded figures stood there as if they were expecting her. One of them stepped forward and threw back her hood.
“Patricia!” Suzy Watanabe exclaimed, coming forward and hugging and kissing the psychiatrist. Then she stepped back. “Oh, you look wonderful! Any problems?”
“No. The worst thing was all that time on a horse. I’ll ache for years from it. Nobody ever expected that bastard to turn off the transport power.”
“I have massage treatments that are out of this world! We’ll get you normal again in no time. And we’ll fire up those transports again in a few months, I promise you!”
The rest of the infiltration team arrived, one by one, and none of them seemed any more surprised at being met than had Suzuki.
“That’s all of them,” the psychiatrist said at last. “Some of the finest computer minds short of your own.”
“We will need them. And Coydt?”
“Why, she’s the boss, sitting back there and running the show, of course!” Suzuki replied with a broad wink.
They both broke into gales of laughter. Finally, Watanabe said, “Come. Up the back way to my old offices. The military made a mess of them, but it’s better comfort than here. We have much to talk about.”
When one has gotten used to wishing and having one’s wishes fulfilled, it is very difficult to have to go into a piece of complex machinery with a set of tools. Toby Haller and five other computer engineers had been working almost constantly on the big amp for weeks now, but to no avail. They had practically taken it down to the bare remote computer—a shockingly small cube perhaps two meters square—and built it back up again. They had determined that the circuitry was live, but the contact point was simply being shut out. There was nothing wrong with the big amp except that it was being ignored.
In the meantime, the evacuation of the small colony of Sensitives was under way, first to pre-prepared pockets close by, later to God knew where, but at least out of range of this madness. It had not been without incident. Right now, much of the place was a ghost village, as Anchor Guard forces, very ably commanded, had moved in and surrounded the area. Right now it was a stalemate, although shots had been exchanged and some of the troops on both sides had died.
It was a totally discouraged and disheartened Haller who reported the bad news to Lisa Wu.
The director seemed almost preoccupied. “If we can’t hold at least one Anchor against this, it’s all over,” she told him. “That was our only hope. It looks like Coydt and Ryan have accepted the inevitable as well. I get a real funny feeling talking to their headquarters.”
“What do you mean?” he asked her.
“I’ve never trusted Coydt or her people. They always see human lives as toys or things to alter or push around to suit their needs. Why did she try to resurrect Watanabe in the first place? What made her even think she could do it? Ever wonder about that? Ever wonder how all these miracle programs just happened to be there and available as needed? You of all people should know what it would take to program that kind of operation. The only way she could have pulled it off is because she knew beforehand that it would work. Knew because she had the programs on tap and her scientists had done it before, up on her orbiting headquarters.”
“Go on. I’ve thought a little about this myself, but nobody else ever talked about it before.”
“She had Watanabe exclusively on that orbital station for six months. Sure, they didn’t have the level of sophistication and fine tuning that they managed eventually here in their Special Project section, but they had a lot of knowledge even then, and all the tools of psychotherapy at their command, yet we’re asked to believe that all they did was turn Watanabe around by giving her a will to live and curing some social hangups. I think that’s bullshit. I always thought it was. They re-created Watanabe there, Toby. She was their ultimate experiment. To retain all that genius and that force of will while making her their creature. They created this mad monster so that they and they alone would be in control of the real powers of the 7800 series. They needed her unique genius and they needed her believable enough that she’d retain a position of authority and leadership. You couldn’t piss within any place having access to a 7800 without Security knowing about it and even measuring and recording the urine flow and analyzing its chemical contents. She couldn’t have put something this monstrous over on them. Couldn’t. They knew, Toby. They let her do this.”
His eyebrows went up. “Why in hell would they do that?”
“Because she was pushing the technology to its limits. She alone was making the 7800’s and the net jump through hoops and literally make gods of the operators. Don’t you see, Toby? I wonder why we all didn’t before. That’s what Special Projects was all about, and why it was run not by programmers and mathematicians but by a psychiatrist. Watanabe’s psychiatrist at that.”
“Well, they almost admit something like that, but she fooled them. Frankenstein’s monster.”
“Uh-huh. But did she fool them? Or is it just that Ngomo fooled them? I find it just as impossible to believe that a conspiracy involving the highest levels of the military and thousands of subordinates could have been kept from Security. I think the thing was set up with Security’s full knowledge, if not complicity. I think the only thing that went wrong was that it leaked so badly, and Ngomo was so much smarter than Coydt gave him credit for, that he moved precipitously, before they were ready. How did he get all those military codes if Security didn’t give him a key part? The only thing they didn’t expect was for him to lock them out as well.”
“I’ve never read Machiavelli,” Haller told her. “You sure you aren’t dreaming this up out of your old history books?”
“History changes constantly, but human beings change very little. That’s why we can learn from history, although we seldom do until it’s too late. I think the commanders were all in on it—except Cockburn, of course. I think there was supposed to be a deal. Ngomo got the government and civil authority. Security would maintain enforcement and control the computer access, and Ryan would get the void—and, with it, a monopoly on trade and commerce between the Anchors. I think Security was planning the very action we’re now fearing. A double-cross of Ngomo and maybe Ryan too. Make everyone into Watanabe’s basic vision and they’d be totally under the control of her lunatic church—which means Security. Coydt would never accept an Islamic fundamentalist state in which women are subordinate to political power. She’s a career military officer.”
“How long have you been thinking like this?” he asked her. “Is this something that’s been building or something that just came like divine revelation?”
“A little of both. A lot of both, actually. None of it meant a lot until the Gates were sealed. Contingency planning, the military calls it. Once we were cut off, though, everybody started having plots. Five out of seven directors have vanished into the void, but some of their own loyalists tried a coup at headquarters to get the control codes for the Gates. It failed, and was really hushed up, but I found out about it. It must have panicked them all. That’s why they clung to military rule. Then Ngomo starts his plotting and is discovered by Coydt, but instead of stamping on him she co-opts him. She wants two things because that’s the way she sees the world and her own place in it. She wants a safe and secure world which is orderly, disciplined, and needs little control, and she wants to retain her own power base and authority. I was told that Ngomo would make a deal with the devil himself to win. At the time I thought that devil was Watanabe. This Brigadier Singh was very convincing, you know. He pointed out that Ngomo was the only black man and the only non-Western culture represented. What he failed to point out is that Coydt is the only one whose native language and culture is not English or English-influenced, and that she was the only woman on the command level.”
“1 didn’t remember Singh at all when you described him, but a few days ago I remembered meeting him once, years ago. A tremendous time ago. I jogged my memory enough to get out some old impressions. I can’t remember much except the turban about his looks, but I can remember that he was very impassioned and idealistic. Unless that was a hell of an act, I can’t see him going along with this. I particularly can’t see any man working to create a world in which the women have the ultimate power.”
“Singh is a very complex man. I had him checked out as much as I could under the circumstances. Although he’s nominally number two, I seriously doubt if he knows this or even suspects it. He’s been close to Coydt for so long, I don’t think he believes she’d put anything this monstrous over on him. I do think he knew about Watanabe, and perhaps the whole business with Ngomo, but I believe he has been sold the Frankenstein scenario. I think that’s also been sold to Ryan. No, this was hatched, possibly improvised, by Coydt and Suzuki. If I’m right, Coydt’s out there now fooling everybody by acting as if she’s going to take out Watanabe and prevent the activation of these programs, but in reality she and Suzuki were the ones who fed the old girl the theory of the military command programs. They’ll have their church and it’ll be controlled by Watanabe, who in turn will be controlled by Security. Security will become the church, and will also have virtual complete control of the computer network.”