Venator thought of screened rooms and sealed, encrypted communication lines. “Why do you mistrust us like this?” he asked softly.
“Because of what you are,” Matthias told him. “Not you as an individual, or even as an officer. The whole way things are going, everywhere in the Solar System. It makes small difference to me. I’m old. But for my grandchildren and their children, I want out.”
“How is the Federation government oppressing you? It means to give you the Habitat.”
“The purpose of government is government,” Matthias said. Venator recognized a quotation from Anson Guthrie. “Muy bien, this one meddles and extorts less than any other ever did, I suppose. But that’s because it isn’t the real power, any more than the national and regional governments below it are. The cybercosm is.”
“We rely on the cybercosm, true—”
“Exactly.”“But that it plans to enslave us—there’s an apocalyptic fantasy for you!” Venator exclaimed. “How could it? In the name of sanity, why should it?”
“I didn’t say that. Nothing that simple.” The heavy voice was silent for a moment. Outside, wind gusted and the rain against the house seethed. “Nor do I pretend to understand what’s happening. I’m afraid it’s gone beyond all human understanding, though hardly anyone has noticed as yet. For my race, before it’s too late, I want out. The Habitat may or may not be a first step, but it’s a very long way to”the stars.”
Alpha Centauri, Venator thought, a sign in heaven. Without Guthrie and his colonists yonder, the dream —the chimera—would long since have died its natural death.
“Meanwhile,” Matthias finished, “I’ll keep hold as best I can of what’s humanly ours. That includes the Founder’s Word. Do you follow me?” His bulk rose from the chair. “Enough. Adids, Pragmatic.”
The odds were that it didn’t matter, that the lodgemaster had spoken truthfully and his defiance was symbolic. Indeed, what real threat did Kenmuir and his presumptive companion pose? Venator had guessed she possessed an expertise to which the spaceman would add his special knowledge; between them they might be able to devise a strategy that would find the Proserpina file and break into it.
Unlikely to the point of preposterousness, at least now, after it had been double-guarded by DNA access codes. More and more, Venator wondered if the whole business was not a feint, intended to draw attention from whatever scheme Lilisaire was actually engineering.
Other operatives were at work on the case, both sophotectic and human. He was their chief, but he knew better than to interfere. If and when they wanted his guidance, they’d call. Until then he’d assimilate their reports and get on with what he could do best himself. Kenmuir and his partner were worth tracking down for the clues they could maybe provide to Lilisaire’s intent. Besides—Venator smiled—it was an interesting problem.
Striding along, he reconsidered it. They could not forever move around hidden from the system. Already spoor of them must be there, in Traffic Control databases, in casual encounters, perhaps even in an unusual occurrence or two. People observed blurrily, remembered poorly, forgot altogether, or lied. The cybercosm did not. For instance, any service sopho-tect that had chanced to meet Kenmuir would recognize his image when it came over the net and supply every detail of his actions.
But machines of that kind were numbered in the millions, not to speak of more specialized ones, both sentient and robotic. The system was worldwide, hopelessly huge. A search through its entirety would take days or worse, tying up capabilities needed elsewhere. And during those days, what might Lilisaire make happen?
Well, you could focus your efforts. Delineate local units of manageable size. Inquire of each if anything had taken place fitting such-and-such parameters, within its area. That should yield a number of responses not too large, which could then be winnowed further. It would still devour time, but—
Whatever he did, he must act. However slight the chance of revelation was, he could not passively hazard it.
Venator shook his head. Sometimes he still found it hard to see how Proserpina could possibly mean that much.
The short-range politics was clear enough. Let the fact out, and the Terrans who wanted the Habitat would suddenly find themselves in alliance with the Lunarians who abhorred it, or at any rate not irresolvably opposed to them; and how could the Teramind itself make the mass of humankind realize that this threatened catastrophe?Because why did it? Revival of the Faustian soul, how vague that sounded. How many dwellers in this mostly quiet, happy world knew what it meant, let alone what it portended?