1	%%% prolog.1.tex:  ========================================================##
     2	The explosion was due in three minutes.
     3	He couldn't stop shaking, trembling from fear and from
     4	anger. Call it wrath.  They were scum, filth.
     5	How could they have forced him into this?
     6	He'd put on double clothes, a thick coat, gloves,
     7	his heaviest shoes, plugs in his ears -- in fact
     8	he looked ridiculous, ready for a blizzard.
     9	Shit, the two-minute mark. Time to send a signal to open the electronic
    10	lock of the outer door.  Such a relief that after a click it opened easily.
    11	He'd never seen it open; {they} only used the other
    12	door, leading to their quarters.
    13	He propped it open with a chair -- it must not end up
    14	jammed shut.  He took a second to glance down the hallway
    15	outside. He'd found a building floor plan in their files
    16	that showed two turns in the hallway leading to an emergency exit.
    17	He assumed it would open.  If not then cast around
    18	in the building -- find  blown-open doors.
    19	He had to get away ... somehow.
    20	Outside pretend to be a random boy from the surrounding area.
    21	Most people probably didn't know a child had been kept inside.
    22	
    23	He wasn't supposed to have control of the door lock; releasing
    24	that lock and opening the door triggered two alarm lights in his minders'
    25	control room, but not an actual ringing alarm.
    26	They might not even notice and certainly wouldn't respond in time.
    27	And then the two who were there would die; they were much closer
    28	to the front than he was.
    29	That was terrible, but at least most people had gone home -- it was the
    30	weekend and off-hours -- Susan wouldn't be there.
    31	However, the Director of the whole facility and the Head of Neurobiology were
    32	in the building, staying late.  They were near the minders and would
    33	die too.  They deserved it, damn them.
    34	He wished he could force them to suffer and not die instantly.
    35	He should make it, though, with luck.
    36	And afterwards?  No way to predict, but he'd done all he could.
    37	
    38	One minute, crap, he'd practiced these moves, but  
    39	he was still shaking. Time to climb into
    40	his antique bathtub and drag a pile of blankets in with him.
    41	These he wrapped around himself as best he could, with special
    42	attention to his head, which he quadruple-wrapped almost
    43	to the point of suffocation.  Thirty seconds.
    44	He could feel his heart beating in his neck and chest.
    45	Raise his arms around
    46	his head, and bury himself face down into the blankets in front.
    47	His connection to their network and further connection to the radar
    48	guiding system still showed at most a few seconds error in the timing.
    49	Ten seconds. ... Then Five.
    50	Four. Three. Two. One. Zero. ...  A scary pause, and he was
    51	engulfed in an incredible blast, and then a wave of heat.
    52	
    53	{On the fifth day of her Hero's Journey the Green Woman
    54	runs across a bleak landscape of black volcanic rock.
    55	Viri the Fire {Demon,} along with Snopes the Swamp Hag,
    56	chase her into the forest.  {Outdistancing} them, she is able
    57	to leap into the island-encompassing Gita Banyan Tree.
    58	The demon burned off half her left arm,
    59	but he is too late, as she escapes
    60	to the Arachnid's Shelter, where she can regrow her arm.
    61	Somewhere under this unnamed island is the
    62	Golden Elixir of Life she seeks.}
    63	
    64	Jun Arakras was in a position of power and influence in her hab. 
    65	Among over fifty habs in the solar system,
    66	five were situated at the L4 and L5 stable points relative to the Earth
    67	and Moon.
    68	Hers was one of those, the Azel Hab,
    69	of the Onal Cylindrical type.
    70	Jun had lived her whole life there, among forests and meadows,
    71	lakes and rivers, beautiful buildings, and the two ends of
    72	the cylinder arching up toward the zero-G centerline,
    73	looking  like mountains. 
    74	 
    75	How did Jun get to where she was?
    76	What early steps had led her there?
    77	Already when three years old
    78	she had imagined herself as a superhero, an ultraperson,
    79	a mighty fighter, completely hairless and colored bright green.
    80	And why green?  There was no why, her hero {was} green.
    81	But green is the color of plants,
    82	the color of photosynthesis, a beautiful color for her hero,
    83	who was part plant and could bud and grow new extremities,
    84	or even reattach a severed head.
    85	Her Green Woman was powerful and courageous and wise, so she, Jun,
    86	small as she was, not green or bald, but with light brown
    87	hair, why she could be that way, too.
    88	
    89	{Far below ground, the Green Woman searches through
    90	a labyrinth of tunnels toward a growing scintillating light
    91	in the rocks themselves.  The Golden Elixir is so near, when
    92	a tribe of Saddle Gnomes comes out from two side tunnels 
    93	and attacks her.
    94	Each is armed with a Chigiriki, a type of ball and chain truncheon.
    95	She can easily best any single gnome, but not all of them together.
    96	Desperate now, she has noticed a narrow tunnel,
    97	barely wide enough to pass along.
    98	Scattering gnomes aside, she heads down that tunnel.
    99	The gnomes, forced into a single column, follow with their
   100	Chigiriki useless in the confined space. Thus she is able
   101	to stop every few steps and kill or maim the gnome right behind her.
   102	They are too stupid to understand, as each gnome clambers past
   103	the dead and wounded in the tunnel to be the next to face her
   104	at the head of their column.
   105	In the end the tunnel is stuffed with gnomes and impassable.
   106	A few are still alive but unable to move.
   107	Near exhaustion, she is again far from her prize.}%,
   108	
   109	%%% part1.1.tex, Imprisonment =============================================## 
   110	They called him John, not knowing he didn't like the name,
   111	though it was the only one he had.
   112	From the earliest times he could remember,
   113	he'd lived in the same small apartment and had been
   114	outside it only once. In one room a magic cabinet had food inside
   115	when he opened its door.
   116	He later understood that the food didn't just appear, but was
   117	inserted from the other side.  There were no windows -- he'd
   118	never seen a window, but he knew about them from pictures and videos.
   119	The apartment was cozy, comfortable, familiar.
   120	He slept on a nice thick pad on the floor in one room, in another
   121	he played with toys and exercised. 
   122	They required at least fifty minutes each day on two machines:
   123	twenty-five on the treadmill, which was not smart at all,
   124	and twenty-five with the strengthener,
   125	definitely smart, always working on weird muscles he didn't know he had.
   126	A third room was full of electronic
   127	machines and display screens, with stories to read and videos to watch.
   128	Oh, and there was a small bathroom.
   129	
   130	A rotating staff of people took care of him, feeding, teaching,
   131	playing, everything.  They said he was special and important, unique even.
   132	He was going to be better at certain scientific work than anyone
   133	had been before.
   134	For the past year or so, several people, Carl most often, had
   135	been droning on to him about how enemies
   136	were all around outside who would hurt him if they could.
   137	So he must not ever leave his apartment.
   138	How did they imagine he believed this?  Well, he pretended to.
   139	
   140	As for the one time he went outside, it hardly counted,
   141	since {during} the transfer he wore the standard mask
   142	over his mouth and nose and an additional blindfold, and then was
   143	kept in a {special} {windowless} vehicle where he
   144	slept overnight. Oh, and ate cold food, used the toilet, watched the news.
   145	Later he heard there had been a simple neovirus loose in the area
   146	and they had to decontaminate.  Much later he learned the real story: 
   147	one of the building's {terrible} weaponized viruses had gotten loose.
   148	There were five deaths and no other illnesses, since to get
   149	that virus was to die, no other possible outcome.  
   150	
   151	When he was three years old they started
   152	serious studies -- mathematics, physics, algorithms,
   153	engineering, computer science, machine learning -- the list went on.
   154	With time the work got quite hard, but he loved it, the harder the better.
   155	
   156	At the same time he developed the
   157	idea that they approved of him more as a willful, immature child, with
   158	simple desires and tastes.  He drifted into presenting himself to them as a
   159	kind of autistic savant, mostly normal but
   160	yet able to do the crazy hard things they wanted.
   161	He didn't overdo the immature front, but showed a preference for 
   162	simple games, cartoons and juvenile movies, and for young-adult novels,
   163	all with happy endings.
   164	By design he was particularly careless with routine dialog, often
   165	seeming to pay no attention to what they said when he was engrossed,
   166	giving no hint that he maintained a complete video
   167	record of all his interactions.   His own sophisticated
   168	software dug through everything they said, all their expressions
   169	and gestures, looking
   170	for contradictions, discrepancies, inconsistencies, mistakes.
   171	
   172	He was careful with Karen, an older woman who came in
   173	to ask him a variety of questions.  Like everyone else she used
   174	only a simple first name, clearly not her real one. 
   175	She was assessing his progress but worked hard to seem only casually
   176	interested in him.  Not fooled, he knew she was a psychologist,
   177	smarter than the others.
   178	With her he deliberately acted a bit more mature,
   179	carefully showed skills with memory and problem solving, but
   180	stuck to his overall immature presentation.  It was so easy to
   181	fool these people.
   182	
   183	Even years later he never understood why they let him
   184	listen to the ordinary news, along with other programs.
   185	His minders were often remarkably lazy so perhaps they didn't want
   186	to bother monitoring him.  And the news kept him entertained.
   187	Much of it was raw propaganda anyway.
   188	Here again he was always careful, often leaving the news on as if an afterthought
   189	when he was doing something else, seeming to ignore it,
   190	brushing his teeth or working at one of his computers.
   191	In this way he learned much of what the world outside was like:
   192	the murders and suicides and crime everywhere, a corrupt political system
   193	intertwined with an insane set of religions that tried to present a
   194	benevolent god, with truly psychotic Satan worshipers
   195	presenting an alternative.
   196	It was a world of floods and droughts and fires,
   197	the air filled with different microbes, so that
   198	most people wore a mask outdoors,
   199	new poisonous plants and insects,
   200	with wars and refugees and so many hungry people,
   201	shortages of everything.
   202	All the dead and dying: people, animals, plants, and one
   203	green planet -- formerly green, now getting brown and gray and black.
   204	
   205	His minders seemed to have simple goals, but he couldn't tell for sure,
   206	maybe nothing beyond their desire to get some of the
   207	old legacy hardware and software to work and be modified.
   208	This was when they told him about his brain implant.
   209	They thought they were helping him access it and use it,
   210	not realizing that he'd long ago discovered this hardware without any help.
   211	They had stuck an implant into him, into his brain before
   212	he was born, and they knew almost nothing about it. It consisted of
   213	the old fantastic technology.
   214	
   215	A generation ago, before the big crash in the late 40s,
   216	technical people had used artificial intelligence techniques to create
   217	masterpieces of machines, hardware and software, but the skills and tools
   218	used even to understand these machines were lost in all the chaos,
   219	as so much fell apart.
   220	The AI approach was mostly given up and often banned outright.
   221	No one alive could make use of the top-level machines any more.
   222	Often a device didn't function at all, and even if it did,
   223	it couldn't be modified to work in a new environment.
   224	
   225	{vidThe author's meta-discourse, breaking out of this book:}
   226	Readers should be aware that the economic collapse imagined here
   227	is inevitable in the real world unless something worse happens earlier.
   228	If you doubt this, read Jared Diamond's book {vidCollapse}.
   229	To survive, get out of cities, and don't stay near
   230	one or you'll be taken down by zombie swarms of survivors.
   231	Avoid the eastern US with its overpopulation and
   232	ancient nuclear reactors.
   233	Don't try to survive with only a few people, but
   234	join a smaller remote community, one with sources of water and food,
   235	and join early because
   236	they won't let newcomers in after the collapse.
   237	
   238	As he came to understand the innards of such systems, he tried
   239	guiding one of his teachers, the near-sighted Joel as the
   240	brightest one, to a partial understanding.  Short discussions of obvious
   241	details made it clear: Joel would never understand these machines.
   242	They were the products of teams of brilliant individuals, using
   243	amazing but flawed AI methods and tools.  The developers had no true
   244	understanding of anything, no overview of the entire system.
   245	There were so many details and so many levels, all hidden behind an
   246	inscrutable maze of AI generated code.
   247	Unlike them, he could load {everything} into his brain and implant, and
   248	embrace all the details, using the same AI methods.  He could understand
   249	these devices.
   250	
   251	What kind of people would insert into an embryo an implant they themselves
   252	didn't understand?  This told him a lot about them.  Lazy for sure, but
   253	this let them find out about the
   254	implant when they couldn't investigate it directly.
   255	Also it was a way to investigate other advanced devices.
   256	There must have been several such implants
   257	manufactured right before the crash.
   258	Maybe tested on animals or even humans, and now being tested on him.
   259	But they likely had no documentation left over, or
   260	only enough to know how to insert it.
   261	Insertion was complex, with a tiny and thin interface inserted into the 
   262	developing embryo, while the rest was inserted in two stages, at
   263	one month and at two years.  The last partly because the bulk of the
   264	implant needed a larger head to fit into.
   265	It was more powerful than they had any conception of, and
   266	was already filled with endless lessons on its use, its functions.
   267	He could hardly believe it.  Hundreds of millions of his neurons had formed
   268	connections with the hardware.  The connections couldn't change, but
   269	his brain was remarkably adaptable, and the hardware had tentative
   270	training built into it that could be redone -- the whole hardware could
   271	be retrained, and using the stored help he proceeded with that.
   272	They knew nothing about this retraining, not even that it
   273	was an option.
   274	At this time he became ever more careful about hiding his true abilities.
   275	If they knew everything he could do they would be afraid
   276	of him.
   277	
   278	His implant had wireless access built into it,
   279	powered by a sort of organic battery that would last indefinitely.
   280	That was another thing
   281	they ``taught'' him, something else he already understood.
   282	They also had no idea what his wireless
   283	capabilities might be, so he vastly understated them, seeming to
   284	require a far more powerful signal than he needed.
   285	He also claimed to require a specific slow format when he could adjust
   286	to any format at all, and could accept extreme data rates compared to what
   287	he admitted being able to handle.
   288	In this he had an
   289	automatic desire to minimize what he could do, figuring this might
   290	give him an advantage sometime -- perhaps he could intercept
   291	transmissions without them knowing.
   292	
   293	His apartment had a large stand-alone computer.  Well, ``large'' was
   294	a relative term, but it was powerful for its size, though
   295	not remotely the technology from the 40s.   He could access it, but that
   296	led nowhere else.  What he wanted was access to their
   297	networks, but he also didn't want to ask.
   298	Much better if they thought he didn't care.
   299	He assumed they monitored his work on the computer, but they evidently
   300	didn't know he could carry out vast computations in his implant that
   301	them knew nothing about.  As in other matters he gave them more
   302	credit than was due: years later he learned that they hadn't tracked
   303	any of his computer use.
   304	
   305	It was great fun to tackle their problems, often working on a
   306	specific device which was a combination of
   307	hardware and software, where there was no reasonable documentation.
   308	The goal was to see if he could get it to work in varying
   309	environments.
   310	The software was beyond them, but the hardware was completely
   311	impossible for them to understand.  One day his favorite teacher,
   312	Rob, seemed surprised when he explained how his
   313	solution to a problem could be modified to work on a whole range of problems,
   314	most of them not obviously similar to the first.  It took time to
   315	convince Rob, and that was when he came to realize that he could
   316	learn about his abilities from things Rob had trouble understanding.
   317	
   318	As he got used to his implant, he began to notice its strangeness.
   319	Weird was the word.  In some ways it seemed separate from him and yet
   320	not separate.  He spent hours of introspection, and decided that
   321	it had to do with consciousness.  This is a capability of humans
   322	that has never been understood or even defined.  Each person has
   323	a stream of awareness, a line of thought,
   324	called consciousness, but it has defied analysis.
   325	One property is universally agreed upon: you only have one stream.
   326	People could carry out two intellectual activities
   327	``at the same time,'' but this required switching
   328	back and forth between the activities.  This is how for over a
   329	hundred years a computer with only one central processor could
   330	do two actions ``at once'': by switching back and forth.  With such a
   331	computer, the switching is so rapid that there is the illusion
   332	of both actions being addressed continuously, at the same time.
   333	To get no illusion, one needs two central processors.
   334	
   335	He came to realize that he could do it: carry out two simultaneous lines
   336	of thought, continuously, without interruption, and at the same time.
   337	The memory for each line was joint, each line was himself, but they
   338	could proceed at the same time.  If he had needed to describe to
   339	someone how this worked, or even what it felt like,
   340	he knew he would fail: it was beyond description, except for
   341	its external features.  As a set of experiments,
   342	he would start up two topics to work on, say,
   343	problems to solve or mental tasks to carry out, and it was clear
   344	that both were going forward, without any back and forth switching.
   345	Three things at once didn't work for him.
   346	
   347	He also knew that professional piano or organ players and others could have
   348	their two hands (and also feet for that matter) doing different actions
   349	at the same time, but he could easily and profoundly transcend such minor
   350	abilities of what was called muscle memory.
   351	
   352	Even weirder was another property:
   353	one of the lines never went to sleep, while the other, which he thought
   354	of as the main one, would sleep and even dream.
   355	The non-sleeping line was always alert to its environment
   356	and could wake up the other if it was asleep -- an extremely
   357	valuable feature which could work as an alarm clock or general
   358	alarm given any hazard.  The non-sleeping line could control
   359	any part of his body, as the main one could when it was
   360	not asleep.  If the main
   361	line was asleep, exercising such control could wake the
   362	sleeper -- anything involving
   363	major movements, speech, or opening eyes.
   364	If both lines tried to produce some control at the same time, there
   365	was never any conflict, perhaps because he was only one entity.
   366	
   367	He didn't know if an implant like his had been tested before, that is,
   368	inserted into a person, and successfully integrated with the person,
   369	but he felt this likely had not happened.
   370	So no one had any idea of this amazing capability.
   371	Probably no one had even thought of this as a possibility. 
   372	It had come about as an unintended consequence of installing the implant,
   373	without the slightest expectation by the designers.
   374	He resolved someday to use his two-track mind to get a better
   375	understanding of consciousness.  For now, it was still a mystery.
   376	
   377	For the first time he thought about the lifetime of his
   378	implant -- its eventual degradation or even outright failure.
   379	The documentation inside the implant itself didn't discuss this.
   380	He must see if any others were available.  Of course he couldn't
   381	start over from scratch, but the design was modular, with the large
   382	two-year unit more-or-less plugged into the one-month one, and it had
   383	been plugged into the in utero unit.  At least the organic battery was designed
   384	to last indefinitely, and so far there had been no problems.  He had
   385	done the retraining and the unit had passed all the diagnostic tests.
   386	
   387	The two lines couldn't talk at the same time, so years later he would
   388	utilize existing software to generate what he wanted to say,
   389	so that he could carry out two
   390	interactive conversations at the same time.  He already had AIs that would
   391	do an excellent job with interactive conversations -- as many of these
   392	as he wanted.
   393	
   394	Also much later he would develop another skill using his second
   395	consciousness: reflexes as fast as computer controlled ones.
   396	He had sub-microsecond paths from special senses in his implant to
   397	control sections of the implant, which could then use his wireless
   398	access to produce another sub-microsecond result, such as firing a gun.
   399	
   400	A huge breakthrough came half a year later; he'd not expected it at all.
   401	Though he could do amazing processing within his implant,
   402	he was still cut off from any other devices
   403	except for the computer in his apartment.
   404	They suggested that he work on several projects involving seismic data,
   405	using newly developed ultra-sensitive seismometers they had.
   406	For real seismic data you needed
   407	a source deep in the ground, well away from humans and other surface-generated
   408	vibrations,
   409	but here the data he wanted was noise, noise from his building,
   410	words,  conversations.  He didn't tell them that, and besides,
   411	the scientific wisdom
   412	was that such an instrument couldn't tease out the words of a conversation.
   413	They made sure he had no connections to their networks.
   414	Still, he worked on real projects for them,
   415	earthquake predictions and the like.
   416	But while he was {``debugging''} his software,
   417	the local seismometers could pick up faint vibrations in
   418	the building, mostly of people talking.  Altogether,
   419	several hundred people worked in his building.  Some conversations were
   420	clear, but even with his fancy processing, many of them
   421	missed parts of sentences.  Most were simultaneous with
   422	others, and there was always a lot of other noise -- people walking,
   423	vehicles outside driving, microquakes.
   424	Separating out the individual conversations and
   425	interpreting them was a very 
   426	interesting problem.  Over time he gathered up
   427	a huge number of statements, filled in
   428	blanks, and ended with many of his questions answered.  The answers were
   429	disturbing, appalling.  
   430	
   431	Some pieces of what they said were ridiculous: ``I tell you, it's a
   432	live act,''  ``Go fuck your mother,''  and endless garbage like that.
   433	Other conversations were revealing.  The building carried out only
   434	highly classified work, biological more than anything else.
   435	Developing poisons and
   436	diseases seemed to be a big part of their work, along of course with
   437	countermeasures.  They had diseases with a
   438	predictable death rate, whatever you wanted: ten percent, fifty percent,
   439	or ninety-nine percent.  Some conversations involved him.  He himself.
   440	They regarded him as an expensive piece of equipment,
   441	mostly functioning pretty well, but often also a ``real pain in the ass.''
   442	One partial sentence stood out: ``John is getting along
   443	really well with his work, better than [unintelligible], so much for
   444	the crap about cost overruns with that project.''
   445	How insulting and disgusting to be valuable,
   446	but up for periodic evaluations amid concerns with ``return on investment.'' 
   447	The dirty bastards, they actually used that phrase.
   448	He also sensed they were less interested in him than at previous times,
   449	but he was still the pet project of the head of the neurobiology
   450	section.  A dangerous individual, very smart, that one.
   451	Only once had he talked with the reptile, cautiously, trying
   452	to sound overwhelmed with fear and shyness.  Well, the fear was real.
   453	
   454	The weeks and months went by.
   455	One Saturday morning, Susan, who worked weekends only, came into
   456	his work room.  She'd always been good to him, his favorite over
   457	all the others.  A year earlier she had brought a special
   458	cake for his fifth birthday.
   459	
   460	She hesitated and then said,
   461	``Hey, John-seven, how did last week go?''
   462	John watched as her pulse and breathing quickened, her face reddened, 
   463	and other physical indicators pathetically declared she'd
   464	made a mistake.  She started in with some distracting statement
   465	even as he quickly talked about the ancient Shirley Temple movie he'd
   466	watched that morning and how funny it was.
   467	Her relief was beyond obvious.
   468	
   469	``Which movie was it?'' she asked.
   470	
   471	``It was called Little Miss Marker -- about a orphan girl
   472	taken in by criminals, and how she manages to reform them.''
   473	Poor Susan, always nice but not very bright.
   474	
   475	He'd been waiting months for something like this, something {unequivocal},
   476	beyond the disconnected data all their conversations had yielded,
   477	and yet still the content was shocking.
   478	God help him, he was ``John-seven'' to her,
   479	with evidently six other Johns who'd come before.
   480	How many were still alive?
   481	
   482	He decided that at least his interactions with Susan and with
   483	the others were going well: in many ways he acted like a
   484	six-year-old child, with his simple demands, his immature
   485	reactions, his focus on trivial matters, his easily distracted
   486	nature, on and on.
   487	And all-important: he looked like a child.  Surely Susan
   488	accepted him as more-or-less typical for age six.  After all,
   489	she had nothing to do with his scientific work.
   490	
   491	John didn't know how mistaken he was.
   492	In fact, Susan saw him as an unusual child regardless
   493	of age.  She could see that his head was noticeably large,
   494	even though she knew nothing about the implant.  To her, his actions were
   495	more subtle and goal-directed than one would expect, as if
   496	he were playing a role.
   497	Indeed, his model for how a child behaved came from the videos he watched,
   498	where children recited lines written by adults.
   499	
   500	More months went by.  Many more overheard conversations.
   501	He learned they'd used a special protocol to enhance neuron growth, in
   502	utero and afterwards.  They'd had trouble getting it right, and that was
   503	why John-five ``failed.''  Failed?! 
   504	What was John-five, an electric motor?
   505	A yogurt culture?  This enraged him, that they thought of his predecessors
   506	as devices, and surely thought the same of him.
   507	And what was the failure mode?  Death?  No, they wouldn't use that word.
   508	Not turning out as smart as they were looking for?
   509	He came back to his old question:
   510	They'd had six failures, so what had they done with them?
   511	
   512	And everything changed, as he got access to several outernets and to
   513	quite a bit in the main building.  It started with his seismic work,
   514	where he worked with the stand-alone datasets they provided.
   515	Because he pretended to have slow wireless access, his work
   516	became increasingly slow and cumbersome.
   517	They got tired of this and decided to give him direct
   518	access to that collection of data through one of their networks.
   519	He couldn't believe they were making this mistake:
   520	they gave him an account on their network!  Even though
   521	he had good wireless capabilities, before this he couldn't get
   522	access to any machine.  Now he could.
   523	He proceeded cautiously and with a low profile, but it was relatively
   524	easy for him to gain access to their system.  Since that network
   525	was isolated from others and from outernets, they didn't take their
   526	security seriously enough.  Their system software was full of bugs and
   527	vulnerabilities; separate parts weren't properly sandboxed.
   528	After accessing most of what was in 
   529	his building, he then bootstrapped himself into the world at large.
   530	They weren't even doing basic traffic analysis, though he was being
   531	careful with that also.
   532	
   533	He had an orgy of data acquisition and analysis.  The main limitations
   534	were walled-off projects within the building, including himself as a
   535	project.  These required special passwords.
   536	Still there was lots of talk and memos, lots of information
   537	about him.  It was very disquieting for him.  Because of the cost and the
   538	general feeling that they weren't ever going to have crucial problems
   539	for him to solve, there was verbiage about ``shutting down''
   540	this neurobiology project and ``disposing'' of all the materials.
   541	They were also worried about possible leaks,
   542	about their own responsibility for the project, and
   543	about the disposal of all the earlier Johns as failures.
   544	Everything was moving slowly but inexorably toward termination.  His.
   545	He needed a plan for escaping.
   546	
   547	With frantic efforts over the next few hours he formulated three different
   548	plans for escape and decided to start all three at once.
   549	The simplest and least dangerous of the three was for him to leak
   550	data about activities inside his building.  This plan had its problems,
   551	but was easier to carry out and was far less dangerous than the
   552	other two.  He picked a reporter who specialized in scandals:
   553	one Alex Trecker, quite well-known.
   554	Then with great care he constructed and assembled the data
   555	that he would leak.  Mostly he wanted the data itself not to point
   556	to him, but rather to one of a number of mid-level supervisors
   557	in the organization (well, it was an ``Institute'' formally).
   558	The leak was to contain not only bare documents, but a commentary
   559	about the documents by the leaker.
   560	He had a specific supervisor in mind as the false leaker,
   561	someone who'd been impatient with him, even nasty.  She had come
   562	from Brazil and repeatedly berated and cursed him in her
   563	native Portuguese, talking
   564	about his large head, his skinny body, his disgusting habits,
   565	and all manner of invented flaws.  
   566	
   567	One of his clever AIs generated the
   568	text that went with the leak, constructing it to match her
   569	writing style from stuff she had written, and
   570	the AI declared it a 
   571	good match.  This was in case Trecker
   572	gave them the supporting documents as well and they made their
   573	way back to authorities in the building.
   574	
   575	The leak contained relatively little about him, and nothing specific,
   576	while there were lots of details about other projects.  Taken altogether
   577	it was a revelation of horrific activities, ghastly projects,
   578	a building full of terror.  He had multiple staging areas
   579	all over the world.  From one of these he sent a
   580	big batch of material, along with a promise
   581	of much more, even juicier stuff, to come.  Then wipe out that whole
   582	area, give Trecker another contact method, and wait, while he worked
   583	on the other two escape plans, each pretty complicated.
   584	
   585	Trecker replied after only two days -- a good sign indeed.
   586	It was a long text,
   587	posing a list of questions.  Trecker was especially concerned
   588	about authenticity.  Also, were there more materials?
   589	Well, the authenticity was partly self-defining, he replied.
   590	He also gave specific and detailed answers to Trecker's questions,
   591	with the style again devised by the AI to mimic the designated leaker.
   592	He maintained it would be impossible to assemble such a collection of
   593	documents if they weren't authentic.  And yes, more would come.
   594	Off went another big batch.  He waited and waited some more.
   595	Four days after the second batch went out, there was the worst
   596	news he could imagine.  One online news source had a headline:
   597	``Alex Trecker, Investigative Journalist, Dies in Freak Accident.''
   598	
   599	He actually collapsed into a chair.  This was unbelievable.
   600	He'd done up an elaborate diagram with all the possibilities, in one
   601	of which Trecker is identified before the leaks are public.
   602	He'd assigned it a low probability. 
   603	The whole idea was to get the leaks known publicly, and thereby
   604	make his existence known, giving him a measure of safety.
   605	But instead to his horror they found out about the whole scheme
   606	and killed Trecker.  Good God, they killed him immediately
   607	and evidently professionally, since it looked like an accident.
   608	How did they know?  Okay, they must have had Trecker under surveillance
   609	for some other reason, maybe not so surprising.  There might be a
   610	physical bug where he lived, since communications were routinely
   611	protected with strong cryptography.
   612	Now they knew there was a leak, but they didn't know who had leaked.
   613	They also had at least the first batch of leaks.
   614	Dangerous for the fake leaker he had chosen, and 
   615	dangerous for others they might accuse.
   616	They will suspect everyone, but him likely not so much.
   617	
   618	He still gathered in whatever fragments of conversations
   619	his seismic device yielded up.  Long before he heard anything
   620	personally, he learned they'd initiated a ``security exercise.''
   621	Nothing to worry about, guys, well, mostly guys in the building, or was
   622	guys gender neutral?
   623	Just a test run of our security apparatus.  Everyone has to fill
   624	out a form, ... oh, and everyone will take a polygraph test,
   625	only for practice, no big deal...
   626	
   627	Yeah, sure, those tests were witchcraft and psychology.  
   628	A red-hot sword on the tongue -- see if it burns.
   629	Tie them up and throw them into water -- see if they float. 
   630	In fact they might actually look for someone suddenly out on sick leave.
   631	If he had to take the test, he thought he could
   632	work himself into a total fake panic at the start,
   633	and be quite uncooperative from then on.
   634	
   635	They went through with their little exercise, even starting a polygraph
   636	with him before giving up.  Nothing much was changing.  He started
   637	work in earnest on the other two escape methods.  He was hoping to
   638	use his second method, since the third method would be so dangerous
   639	and uncertain -- terrible side effects.
   640	There was stuff online inside their building, but
   641	he couldn't access it -- too tightly controlled.
   642	The verbal chatter continued with major concerns
   643	from the few who knew there had been a leak.  At some point they
   644	decided they knew who the leaker was.
   645	There was talk about the danger of a functioning, talking John-seven, 
   646	who could rat out on them.
   647	Decisive action was needed or they'd be in big trouble.
   648	Then he caught fragments:
   649	``... keep it from that fucking {do-gooder} Gleason.''
   650	Gleason was Susan's real last name. Keep what from her?
   651	``With the leak ... too much risk.''
   652	Then several sentences said outright to ``have the Argyle people
   653	... John-seven tomorrow.''
   654	{Separately} there was a joke about
   655	telling Gleason they had ``sent an old dog off to a
   656	retirement farm.''
   657	
   658	{They were going to kill him.}  Yeah, John-seven was a device,
   659	not human at all, an ``it.''
   660	They would turn it off and dispose of it.  {Tomorrow.}
   661	The day was ending and he needed to do something {right then}.
   662	He had some other immediate threat options,
   663	mainly to send the leak material everywhere,
   664	but he thought that threat would speed them up instead.
   665	The second option he'd planned was complex and shouldn't be
   666	started up without a delay.
   667	With that second option he would take over all the computers, machines,
   668	and controls in the building.  Then there were non-deadly pathogens he
   669	could release into the building, as well as creating a whole series
   670	of crises for them, all in the middle of the night.  But he couldn't
   671	get everything going well this very night.  He needed more like
   672	twenty-four hours.  It was hard to admit, but
   673	his only reasonable option was the terribly dangerous third one.
   674	He really didn't want to, but what else?
   675	There was a fair amount of preparation to do in his apartment, which he
   676	started.  By now he was shaking almost uncontrollably, so it was
   677	hard to gather up the items on his internal checklist:
   678	A bottle of water and a snack.  No money, but a small
   679	first aid kit.  A face mask for afterwards -- you were
   680	always supposed to wear one outside -- someone
   681	had left it in his room.  Most of the
   682	work was online, accessing a military site he'd broken into,
   683	all finished days ago.
   684	In the end, it was like pushing a single button, in this case with 
   685	a deadline of 7 minutes 15 seconds. He had trouble moving around
   686	and getting ready.
   687	
   688	One more thought came:  failure of the third option was possible.
   689	If he was still alive, he would change to crazy mode and
   690	do simultaneous super versions of options one and two:
   691	take over everything he could in the building;
   692	cause every kind of crisis; open every container, in particular to
   693	release dangerous pathogens;
   694	override thermostats to produce maximum heat;
   695	overwork machines to failure by continually starting and stopping them;
   696	broadcast complete files about the building and its functions;
   697	give a complete history of all the projects,
   698	identifying every person involved and their specific contributions.
   699	Finally, he would try to escape from the building.
   700	He would not go quietly.
   701	
   702	The time remaining marched steadily down toward zero.
   703	
   704	%%% part1.2.tex:  Chap 2, Aftermath =======================================##
   705	Commissioner Robert Whearty (call him ``Buck'') of
   706	the Biology Section for the North American Science Directorate
   707	had been happy to survive the trip to a temporary office one more time.
   708	He hated these assignments where he had to go physically to
   709	a specific place and stay there for many days.  It was so easy
   710	to conduct business virtually and such a bother to pack bags, do the travel,
   711	stay somewhere, wear a face mask, and put up with anxiety about encountering
   712	crime or violence (or worse).  In this case while he had been taking a
   713	QuikKab from the airport, one of the Satanist groups was blocking the road.
   714	There were hundreds of
   715	such groups, all the way from the First
   716	Church of Satan to the group in front of him, evidently
   717	the ``Salamanders'' from a sign they were carrying:
   718	
   719	Christ, the QuikKab wouldn't be able to get past them.  
   720	He shouted for the Kab to do a U-turn, which it declined until he
   721	repeated the command.  It barely managed to turn around and somehow
   722	got past another group of Satanists and escaped.
   723	Looking back it was all Satan face masks and loose clothing, probably
   724	to avoid facial, shape, or gait identification.
   725	He had a small weapon with him, one that might help catch them
   726	after they had murdered him.  It would produce a blast of weapons-grade
   727	tear gas and bright purple dye.  Put your arm tight against your eyes
   728	and hold your breath as long as you can, they had told him.
   729	Even so, you'll go through seven Hells, but anyone near you, well, anyone
   730	not gas masked, will go through Hell squared, or even cubed.
   731	
   732	This is as close as it had ever been.  He was still trembling
   733	when he got to the research campus.
   734	At his temporary desk he stared at the piles of documents.  He'd spent
   735	three days working through reports about the annihilation
   736	of the Biology Special Projects Building, which had been the largest
   737	of several buildings in a special federal research complex located near
   738	the University of Illinois.  Most of their work was classified,
   739	but dozens of faculty were able to get clearances to work on
   740	projects associated with the complex.  Fourteen faculty had been
   741	part of projects in the destroyed building; none of them died
   742	in the explosion.
   743	
   744	The North American Federal Crime Unit had investigated the disaster and
   745	tentatively deemed it an accident, caused by negligence.
   746	His Directorate wanted an independent investigation of such a huge loss.
   747	There were a number of connected issues to research, and they'd assigned
   748	each to a separate group.  He'd insisted that the groups be mostly
   749	technical people, and that the head of a group be
   750	directly knowledgeable about the technical issues, in so far as that
   751	was possible.  The last thing he wanted was to deal with some
   752	noodle-headed bureaucrat.  Each of these heads had sent him a
   753	preliminary report.  He was now ready to interview them.
   754	
   755	First was Roger Simpson, an expert on disasters like plane crashes,
   756	and, uh, blown-up buildings.  According to reports,
   757	he had no imagination nor much of a personality, but he was
   758	excellent at digging through leftovers looking for answers.
   759	But hard to listen to and boring, boring.
   760	Whearty started in with the little speech he intended to use for each
   761	interview: that he wasn't recording the interview, and it would
   762	remain completely confidential, so there shouldn't be any concerns
   763	about saying the wrong thing.  He wanted to get real opinions,
   764	and he was interested in speculative ideas, anything at all,
   765	even something not obviously related.
   766	He had full clearances to discuss any of these issues.
   767	
   768	Of course he {was} recording the sessions; he wasn't crazy.
   769	
   770	``As you know,'' Simpson said with his soft voice, ``a military
   771	missile partially destroyed the front of the building,
   772	and this was followed by a fierce fire that burned
   773	for hours, completely destroying most of the contents.''
   774	
   775	``Why was there such a `fierce' fire?'' Whearty asked.
   776	``What would burn in the building?''
   777	
   778	``Well there was no wood, not even trim, but the missile is a {hybrid,}
   779	including an incendiary burst after the initial explosion.
   780	The idea is to blast apart and then get things burning.
   781	A large quantity of various organic solvents was present,
   782	and that did burn fiercely.  The insulation went up, as well as
   783	paper and magnetic tape, furniture, oh, ... in the end
   784	there was lots of stuff to burn, and the fire was extremely hot.''
   785	
   786	``As a result most things inside were consumed,'' Simpson continued,
   787	``even the various pathogenic life forms in the building.
   788	That was just as well.  The building, if only blasted apart without
   789	burning, could have presented major problems for a considerable radius.''
   790	
   791	``And the death toll?''
   792	
   793	``At least eleven people died and four escaped, two of those
   794	significantly wounded.  A few people are still unaccounted for.
   795	Fortunately, it was after regular hours on a weekend, so relatively
   796	few people were present.
   797	The Director of this whole unit and the Head of the Neurobiology Section
   798	were among those killed.
   799	We have remains after a fashion for the eleven, though often even bones
   800	were consumed.  Identities confirmed by DNA.  In spite of the fire
   801	there's a lot of stray DNA inside but not enough to indicate another death.
   802	I also think we should contact nearby emergency medical centers,
   803	such as they are, for anyone wounded and for any strange illnesses.
   804	That's because what was blown into the
   805	air could be a witches' brew of contagious agents.''
   806	
   807	``And what does `such as they are' mean?''
   808	
   809	``None of the nearby medical facilities are any good.''
   810	
   811	Simpson paused until Whearty said, ``what else is there?''
   812	
   813	``I've dug through charred remnants and carried anything of
   814	possible interest over to the building across the street.
   815	The floor is covered with items.  Mostly a waste of time.
   816	Pretty much nothing there.  We'll keep all that trash over there
   817	for quite awhile, just in case.''
   818	
   819	Whearty had heard enough.  For quite awhile, just in case.
   820	What crap.  And the stuff might remain in the building over there
   821	for years.
   822	He thanked Simpson and got him out of his office as soon as he could.
   823	
   824	
   825	The next interview was with a military man.  Whearty wanted to put
   826	him at ease, so he immediately said, ``Colonel James, come in please.''
   827	
   828	``Dr. Whearty, sir, I'm honored to be helping with this investigation.''
   829	
   830	Whearty went through his initial spiel.  Then he said,
   831	``I've gone over your report
   832	carefully, but still I want to cover many details.  In the end
   833	the question is: How did a missile from your facility end up
   834	destroying this building?  The answers in your report are not
   835	entirely satisfactory.  Obviously this shouldn't have happened,
   836	and yet it did.''
   837	
   838	``Yes, sir. I also find all this hard to believe.  But as we explained
   839	in the report, an unfortunate targeting decision,
   840	unfortunate as it turned out,
   841	followed by a software bug introduced to fix a different
   842	bug -- these led to the disaster.''
   843	
   844	``So let's go over those two items, but I want you to include more
   845	speculative possibilities, including not only things that are `unfortunate'
   846	or `erroneous,' but also deliberate actions.
   847	An act of terrorism, an act of warfare.''
   848	
   849	``Well, sir, our facility is preprogrammed to handle a large
   850	number of anticipated events and contingencies.  We have
   851	many pre-programmed possible targets, and a number
   852	of different weapons in several locations.  The building in question
   853	was one of those targets, with a hybrid-incendiary missile as the weapon.''
   854	
   855	``But this building?  How could it have happened?''
   856	
   857	``Sir, you must realize that we don't want last-minute programming,
   858	but instead we want every conceivable action ready to go.
   859	Each {targeting}
   860	entry requires a stored justification order, with multiple approvals.
   861	The building as a target was approved fourteen years ago.
   862	The justification is classified, but it maintains that,
   863	because of all the pathogens in the building, in case of some
   864	outbreak, it might be necessary to make sure all of them are completely
   865	destroyed.  Another reason listed is the remote possibility
   866	that we might need to deny the existence of some or all of the activities
   867	going on in the building.  Destruction of the building would help
   868	with that effort.''
   869	
   870	``I know this is in the report, but repeat it for me.  Who signed
   871	off on the order?''
   872	
   873	``Sir, three different people signed the order, but none of the three
   874	can be located now.  As you know, the intervening years have been
   875	difficult, with many deaths.  Nevertheless, the reasons given are
   876	sensible in an environment covering all contingencies.''
   877	
   878	``So your system was all primed, so to speak, to blow up the
   879	building.  Go over again how is was ordered to do so.''
   880	
   881	``Sir, in this case it was a software bug.  We've determined exactly how
   882	the destruct order occurred because of the bug.  We've been able to duplicate
   883	that behavior.  The bug was part of a software upgrade some two months
   884	ago.  We know the responsible programmers, but no one remembers how
   885	that particular section of code was created and inserted.
   886	The faulty code doesn't at all look like instructions to cause the event.
   887	It was created to fix a specific bug, but it's the old software
   888	problem: fix a bug, introduce a new bug.''
   889	
   890	``Okay,'' said Whearty.  ``This is kind of an odd question,
   891	but I want you to think it over carefully.  Would it be possible, say,
   892	starting several months ago, for someone to fake up this
   893	whole situation?  Perhaps even having the building listed as
   894	a possible target?  Certainly developing and inserting the `bug.'
   895	Please don't say no immediately.''
   896	
   897	To his credit, the Colonel did pause for a bit.  ``Ok, sir, you mean
   898	like some hacker orchestrating everything?''
   899	
   900	``Yes, of course.''
   901	
   902	``Well,'' with a pause, and leaving off the ``Sir,'' clearly
   903	rattled, he said, ``With having the building as a target, it
   904	doesn't seem possible.  The data relating to that is many
   905	years old.  The system protects the data, but it's conceivable
   906	that a hacker could do that.  I guess. This hypothetical hacker would
   907	have to get every detail correct, even the coordinates
   908	of the building, and all the launch instructions.  There are
   909	other problems, too, I'd have to think it over.
   910	But as for the software patch that fixed a bug and introduced
   911	the code to cause the disaster, well, that doesn't at all seem
   912	possible for any hacker.  It was an actual bug fix, and everyone
   913	thought it amazing that the specific fix enabled the launch of
   914	the missile.  As I said, we simulated everything, and the new
   915	code really did send the missile off.  Not possible that, um, ... 
   916	impossible that a hacker was the cause.''
   917	
   918	``Did John-seven have access to the building's networks or computers?''
   919	
   920	``Sir, limited access.''  James was back to sirring him.
   921	``Strictly limited to one computer as an ordinary user.''
   922	
   923	``In some of the materials I read, didn't it say John-seven has
   924	wireless access built into his implant?''
   925	
   926	``Yes sir, he does, but only for a fairly strong signal.
   927	The wireless signals he could in theory access are far too weak
   928	for his implant.  And even if somehow he could, his access would be
   929	noticed and logged.  The security of networks within the building
   930	was strong.''
   931	
   932	``And did he have access to anything else?''
   933	
   934	``To a seismometer in the building.''
   935	
   936	``In the building?  That wouldn't be useful.  It must be buried.''
   937	
   938	``Sir, he did seismic studies for us.  The device in the building
   939	was just for testing and debugging.''
   940	
   941	``And how often did he do this debugging.''
   942	
   943	``I don't know.  I don't think we tracked his usage, sir.''
   944	
   945	At this point Whearty sighed with a sudden understanding.
   946	After that it was all a repetition of the written report.
   947	Whearty went over many other issues with the Colonel, including coming
   948	back to the ``hypothetical hacker,'' but couldn't make
   949	any further progress.
   950	
   951	He was already exhausted, with the two most difficult interviews yet
   952	to come.   He geared himself up to talk with someone
   953	from Military Intelligence, in this case a young-looking man named
   954	Brian Chisholm, almost a baby-face.
   955	
   956	``Come in Chisholm.  Sit down.  I trust your flight from Toronto
   957	went well.''
   958	
   959	``Yes, thanks, quite well.''
   960	
   961	Whearty proceeded with his initial comments, ending with:
   962	``Please go over again how you came to discover we had a leak.''
   963	
   964	``The reporter, Alex Trecker, has long been under surveillance by
   965	North American Intelligence.  He's actually legit,
   966	well, {was} legit, but still people
   967	contacted him about issues of concern to us. Normally we would let
   968	everything proceed without interference. The leaked materials were sent
   969	to him in encrypted form, but we'd subverted his computer, so we
   970	had them immediately.  The federal officials who were notified of the leak
   971	contacted the Director of the unit occupying the building, a Dr. Ramsey.
   972	He was quite concerned.  He verified that
   973	the leaked documents were all
   974	authentic, and that only an insider should have had access to them.
   975	At Ramsey's suggestion we had an AI compare the leaker's cover
   976	letter and answers to questions with samples of writing
   977	from all employees in the building.''
   978	
   979	Whearty interrupted.  ``Was this why there was such a delay before
   980	any action occurred?''
   981	
   982	``Oh, no, that search went fast.  Right away we had a clear match,
   983	high probability, with an employee, a Adriana Cardoso.
   984	The delay came about because we wanted to allow time for more to happen,
   985	find further people involved, stuff like that.''
   986	
   987	``I read your report, but say again what did happen.''
   988	
   989	``Trecker posed a long list of questions for the leaker,
   990	and he, uh, rather more likely {she}, subsequently wrote answers and
   991	sent them with another even larger batch of documents.
   992	At that point, Ramsey 
   993	wanted a polygraph test on everyone, and we agreed to that.''
   994	
   995	``I'll make a comment here,'' Whearty said, ``I've never liked these
   996	one-shot polygraph tests, where it is a first time for most people.
   997	Without a sequence of regular baseline tests, it's extremely
   998	unreliable.''
   999	
  1000	``We agree with that, but in the case of Cardoso, her reaction
  1001	was  strong, about as clear as you could get with a one-shot test.''
  1002	
  1003	``And didn't the report say she'd been identified as carrying out
  1004	an additional crime.''
  1005	
  1006	``Yes, she'd been stealing several kinds of small items, but
  1007	valuable ones.  Smuggling them out and selling to several buyers.''
  1008	
  1009	``So she might have been nervous about the polygraph because of that.''
  1010	
  1011	``Well, perhaps, but there's the identification of her as the
  1012	person who wrote to Trecker.
  1013	That was definitive, near one-hundred percent.''
  1014	
  1015	``And then Trecker dies in a `freak accident,' right?''
  1016	Whearty used his hands for the scare quotes.
  1017	
  1018	``That's correct.''
  1019	
  1020	``At least, um, convenient, wasn't it?''
  1021	
  1022	``Of course I know what you're thinking.  If it was a targeted
  1023	killing, we don't know anything about it.  The police investigation
  1024	ruled `accidental death.'  Also Trecker had made  a number of enemies.''
  1025	
  1026	``And then Ms. Cardoso manages to flee the country.''
  1027	
  1028	``Unfortunately.  Several agents caught hell over that, but she
  1029	was able to travel south all the way into Brazil.  She had her elaborate
  1030	escape plan ready.  And it will be
  1031	difficult to locate her, if for no other reason, due to our current
  1032	disputes with Greater Brazil.''
  1033	
  1034	Whearty concluded with a raised voice,
  1035	``And finally I have to say it: All that happens right before the
  1036	Biology Building is destroyed in another `accident.' ''
  1037	More scare quotes.
  1038	
  1039	``We think that is a coincidence.''
  1040	
  1041	``One hell of a coincidence.''
  1042	
  1043	``Yes, admittedly it's thought-provoking, but coincidences are like that.''
  1044	
  1045	Whearty grilled Chisholm for another thirty minutes, and he kept
  1046	up his smug answers.
  1047	
  1048	Whearty had saved the most difficult and most important interview for
  1049	the last.  He was amazed that others weren't more concerned about
  1050	the surviving child.
  1051	As a government researcher in biological areas, he'd
  1052	heard rumors of a human-computer interface project being carried out
  1053	in the building that was destroyed.  He couldn't get any details.
  1054	In fact, the boy they called John-seven was the high point
  1055	of the project.  
  1056	Whearty had recently learned what had happened to him
  1057	after the explosion two weeks ago.
  1058	
  1059	Because he lived in the back of the building, furthest from
  1060	the {initial} hit, John-seven survived the explosion with only
  1061	a few nasty burns and minor bruises and scrapes.
  1062	In the confusion and destruction he managed to leave the 
  1063	premises, where he had in effect been held captive.  There had been fences
  1064	and gates, along with guards, but it was such an incredible mess
  1065	that he was able simply to walk away.
  1066	The University of Illinois, in Champaign-Urbana, was only a short
  1067	distance to the west.  It 
  1068	had been closely connected with the now-destroyed
  1069	top secret biological research building.
  1070	
  1071	John-seven must have had a brief encounter with jumba weed, leaving
  1072	itchy lesions on one hand; they subsided in a day with no scarring.
  1073	Somehow he made his way to the school's
  1074	Neurobiology Department, housed in an old engineering building.
  1075	The school had been well-known for its engineering departments, and
  1076	it was still a leader in most fields at a time when no school was as
  1077	good as it once had been. At present, their Neurobiology faculty
  1078	had the expertise, but not the equipment and
  1079	facilities they would like -- stuck in an older building without
  1080	any top-quality laboratories.  John-seven found several
  1081	people inclined to help him, starting with first aid for the
  1082	jumba weed and for facial burns.  They used alcohol to encourage
  1083	one of the new tractor ticks to back out from under the skin on his neck.
  1084	There was another bite on his neck -- an insect or worse;
  1085	it was fine the next day.
  1086	Even though they approved of his high-performance mask,
  1087	still they gave him a shotgun test for
  1088	viruses and other pathogens -- all negative.
  1089	
  1090	These same people were entranced by his story, and
  1091	became increasingly angry at the whole situation.
  1092	They contacted various media sources and high-level individuals in
  1093	government.  It became a terrible scandal that was still worming
  1094	its way through all the responsible departments and parties.
  1095	It also became a world-wide story, carried everywhere.
  1096	The scandal and all the bad publicity led senior government officials
  1097	to choose him to investigate everything.
  1098	They wanted more than federal officials dismissing it all as an accident.
  1099	Cover was needed, a way out,
  1100	excuses that could be made.  Or obfuscations, whatever.
  1101	
  1102	The academic individuals refused to turn John-seven over to government
  1103	officials, but insisted on taking care of the boy themselves.
  1104	They then cleverly and quickly arranged for him to be formally
  1105	adopted by a local academic couple. A local judge, who was also
  1106	outraged by the situation, supported the emergency adoption.
  1107	This made it impossible for some government agency to take charge
  1108	of the boy, or even to interview him without his new parents beside him,
  1109	along with a lawyer.  So far no interview with Gwyn had
  1110	yet taken place, the reason being that he was ``too traumatized.''
  1111	The boy had made a point about not liking the name
  1112	John-seven, and who could blame him.
  1113	He asked that they call him Gwyn, without any 
  1114	explanation of where the name came from.  He acquired the last name
  1115	of one of the pair who adopted him.
  1116	
  1117	Whearty wanted a lot more information.
  1118	
  1119	His secretary ushered in the final person.   This was Sean Hamed,
  1120	who was in the small circle of people working directly with John-seven.
  1121	``Carl'' was his code name within that circle as part of the project.
  1122	After giving Hamed the standard intro, Wheatly said,
  1123	``I want to know everything about your John-seven, or Gwyn as he
  1124	seems to call himself now.  I've read your report, but I want
  1125	you to go over matters carefully.''
  1126	
  1127	Hamed started in with perfect if slightly accented English,
  1128	explaining that Ramsey, the Director of the whole unit,
  1129	and Mangus, the Head of Neurobiology, had been completely in
  1130	charge of all biological issues.   Nothing had been done without
  1131	their approval.  He didn't know how they'd settled disagreements
  1132	between themselves, but Mangus seemed to be the dominant
  1133	personality even though he was under Ramsey.  Mangus was demanding,
  1134	exacting; Hamed had always been nervous around him. 
  1135	These two senior people,
  1136	together, had been the main driving force for the experiment.
  1137	They both died in the explosion. 
  1138	
  1139	``How did this project get started?''
  1140	
  1141	Hamed started to have a tick in his head, nodding it again and again.
  1142	``The origin dates back to the days with the high performing
  1143	hardware from the 40s.
  1144	They created at least a dozen of these implants, but had
  1145	only started trying them out when everything fell apart.
  1146	We could no longer understand in detail how they worked.
  1147	Mangus thought, though, that we could still try to test them.
  1148	They started with clones of a specific individual from the previous
  1149	century, a mathematical and scientific genius, with a photographic
  1150	memory.  All the Johns were clones of that person.''
  1151	
  1152	``And who was it?''
  1153	
  1154	``I never found out.  It didn't seem important.''
  1155	
  1156	``But you were in charge of all day-to-day matters, with their
  1157	approval, right?'' Whearty said.
  1158	
  1159	``That's right.  I worked in that position for the past five
  1160	years ... a little longer than five years.''
  1161	
  1162	``Please go over the progression of the Johns for me,'' Whearty said.
  1163	
  1164	``So they were trying out the implant, along with a protocol for
  1165	neuron growth that had been recommended when the implants were
  1166	created.  These human-computer interfaces had been done many times 
  1167	before, for many reasons, but this case was incredibly bold and complex.
  1168	The first three Johns were used up by mistakes in getting all the initial
  1169	procedures in place,
  1170	I mean, like the initial in utero implantation, working with an
  1171	artificial uterus, and using the neuron enhancement.
  1172	They thought they were close
  1173	with John-four, but then John-five was a terrible failure because of
  1174	problems with the neuron growth and other problems.
  1175	John-six came closer, but then failed to develop properly.
  1176	All that was before my time, before I hired on.
  1177	In John-seven, the last one, they seemed to have a perfect
  1178	result.  Wonderful integration and amazing enhanced capabilities.''
  1179	
  1180	Hamed paused to take a drink of water.  Whearty thought he looked
  1181	awful, extremely nervous, continuing to bob his head.
  1182	
  1183	``John-seven was about eight months old when I was hired,
  1184	{already} with his initial thin in utero
  1185	`starter' implant and his second
  1186	larger addition to the implant at age one month.  All along he seemed to
  1187	be doing well, without any of the side effects of the neuron-boosting
  1188	protocol.  Obviously we were concerned about any issue with
  1189	John-seven, but he remained remarkably healthy.
  1190	When he was two we surgically inserted the much larger
  1191	part of his implant.  That was the first time we were able to get
  1192	to that step.  With John-seven, all the the technical, the biological
  1193	issues, issues of compatibility and rejection that occurred earlier,
  1194	they all went well with him.''
  1195	
  1196	``So John-seven was a success?''
  1197	
  1198	``Absolutely.  It was far outside my field, but we were repeatedly assured
  1199	he was able to solve near-impossible problems, and was
  1200	able to understand the machines of the 40s to an astonishing degree.
  1201	One goal was to get some of the high-end 40s machines into use again.''
  1202	
  1203	``And what about his personality.  I get the impression that he
  1204	was considered immature, though not for a 6-year-old.''
  1205	
  1206	``Yes, he always seemed rather immature, not worrying about
  1207	much except trivial matters related to his environment.
  1208	The material he read and the entertainment he listened to were
  1209	both always fairly simple, designed for children.  He loved happy
  1210	`family' movies, ones with no conflict.''  A pause.
  1211	``He also seemed easily distracted, or else completely focused on what he
  1212	was doing, ignoring what was happening around him.  I frequently
  1213	saw both of these behaviors.
  1214	One thing was strange: my native language is Russian.  He sometimes
  1215	spoke to me in Russian, excellent Russian.  At the time I thought he was
  1216	using his implant to parrot speech to me that he'd heard somehow,
  1217	or using a translation AI.  Now I'm not so sure;
  1218	his speech was quick and smooth.''
  1219	
  1220	Hamed was starting to shake somewhat.
  1221	``Yes, immature for sure, I guess.''
  1222	A pause and then he said, ``You know, it seems stuffy in here.
  1223	I think I could do a lot better with the interview if I could
  1224	get some fresh air.  Could we continue on the grounds outside?
  1225	Is that all right?''
  1226	
  1227	Whearty never thought of himself as clever about taking hints,
  1228	but this one was obvious.
  1229	``Sure, we can go outside for the rest of the interview.''
  1230	They put on their masks and went outside.
  1231	He was thankful the courtyard wasn't open to the public.
  1232	
  1233	Hamed started in immediately.  ``You assured me everything would
  1234	be confidential.  Can you guarantee that?   It's partly that I
  1235	can use some private advice.''
  1236	
  1237	``Yes, completely confidential.  What, are you worried about a
  1238	secret recording in that office?''
  1239	
  1240	``Of course.  Bugs are everywhere anymore.  It's dangerous for me
  1241	even out here.  You may be wired and not know it.''
  1242	
  1243	``I'm pretty sure I'm not.  I picked this outfit myself at my
  1244	home, and ever since I've either been wearing it, or I've been
  1245	alone in a room with it.  Go ahead and ask for advice.''
  1246	
  1247	A long pause.  ``You see, I needed a job when I was hired five
  1248	years ago, and this one seemed extremely promising -- exactly what
  1249	I'd hoped for.  For someone foreign-born like me, it's always
  1250	harder to get hired.  I had the necessary clearances and I'd done similar
  1251	work for the government -- human-computer interfaces were
  1252	my research area.  They presented the John-seven project as
  1253	established.  I assumed all the proper reviews and approvals
  1254	were over.  I was well familiar with the required procedures: speak about
  1255	what we were doing only to direct colleagues and only within our
  1256	lab -- to nobody else and nowhere else.
  1257	They went over that with me carefully.  Once in a
  1258	while we had a visitor from elsewhere, and even if it was from
  1259	inside the building, we had to make sure computer screens
  1260	were covered and everything was secure.''
  1261	
  1262	Hamed stopped talking and just walked along with Whearty for a bit.  
  1263	Then he went on.   ``Over time I became increasingly
  1264	concerned.  This was a human subject we were working with.
  1265	It was the seventh one -- what happened to the previous six?
  1266	They explained only that all such issues were handled by the
  1267	`Argyle Group,' whatever that is.  Now everything has blown
  1268	apart.  Several times I've been interrogated by government
  1269	lawyers, after being briefed about my rights.  They say I only
  1270	have to tell the truth and everything will be fine.
  1271	I don't believe it.  I worry about being prosecuted for major
  1272	crimes, about a long jail sentence.''
  1273	
  1274	``I have no control over that,'' Whearty said.  ``I tell you what:
  1275	anything you say out here, well, I'll pretend it didn't happen.
  1276	What do you want to say?''
  1277	
  1278	``Why that it's much worse than I pictured.  I don't believe
  1279	there were any reviews or approvals, except for perfunctory ones.
  1280	I think I was a party to serious crimes.''
  1281	
  1282	``Like what, specifically?''
  1283	
  1284	``I think the six earlier Johns were disposed of, even though three
  1285	were viable human beings.  The two awful people in charge,
  1286	Ramsey and Mangus, talked about John-seven as if he was an
  1287	expensive {device}, with no more rights than a printer.
  1288	They almost acted like they had created this object using cloning,
  1289	and so they could terminate it.
  1290	After the leak, which I found out about, never mind how,
  1291	they seemed rattled, even terrified, I suppose about being
  1292	held accountable for everything.   Terminating the John-seven project,
  1293	as they had the others, was a real possibility.
  1294	They acted like the Argyle
  1295	Group would take good care of him.  But I think the plan was
  1296	to turn him over to them.  And they would dispose of him.
  1297	Dispose!  What a joke.  In this case I'm sure it meant cremation that
  1298	left not the smallest segment of DNA intact.''
  1299	
  1300	After saying nothing for a bit, Hamed went on.  ``I {liked}
  1301	John-seven.  And he's an astounding success.
  1302	I was getting desperate to somehow keep
  1303	them from killing him.  I'm certainly delighted with the way things
  1304	turned out.  Not entirely -- other people died besides
  1305	Ramsey and Mangus.
  1306	
  1307	``One more thing, equally disturbing.
  1308	There were further Johns: eight, nine, and ten.''
  1309	
  1310	Whearty couldn't believe it.  ``My God,  no one's mentioned that up
  1311	to now.  What happened to them?''
  1312	
  1313	``You could expect this.  There had to be a pipeline of Johns,
  1314	and it kept taking longer to see if one might succeed.
  1315	Probably all three had received the first two implants, and one or
  1316	two the third one.
  1317	I wasn't supposed to know about the next ones, but I did run
  1318	across evidence of them -- kept in a completely different facility.
  1319	They were somewhere and then they were nowhere.  I'm sure 
  1320	the success of John-seven and other pressures led them
  1321	to a solution: they `Argyled' the remaining Johns.''
  1322	
  1323	Whearty walked along in thought and finally said,
  1324	``Here's my advice, for what it's worth.  This may depend on
  1325	what you've already said, but you should stick with the line:
  1326	you knew nothing, suspected nothing.  You thought everything
  1327	was completely approved.  Unless you said something
  1328	different on the record, stick with the know nothing line,
  1329	repeatedly, over and over.  If they say you should have known
  1330	something, forcefully deny it.  I think that's the best you can do.
  1331	Also, I suggest you not volunteer any additional
  1332	information about John-seven that you haven't disclosed earlier.
  1333	I'm thinking of stuff about how good he was doing, individually
  1334	and with his implant.  How much you liked him and wanted everything
  1335	to go well for him.  Instead, say you didn't know what might become of him
  1336	and you knew nothing about any group that might take responsibility
  1337	for him.  You've never heard of the Argyle group, if they ask.
  1338	Finally, remember that you weren't even around when the other
  1339	Johns were `taken care of' or `disposed of,' whatever.
  1340	You can try to leave the impression that
  1341	he was a failed experiment, or leave no impression at all.
  1342	Oh, and you didn't say anything important to me.
  1343	I trust that you'll tell no one that we talked about this.''
  1344	
  1345	They chatted some more, but that was pretty much the end of
  1346	the interview.  He wished Hamed good luck.
  1347	
  1348	Whearty went back to his temporary office and sat for a long time.
  1349	His assigned secretary asked if there was any more work, or could
  1350	she leave, and he told her that was fine.  He sat for another
  1351	couple of hours or so, thinking.  Then went back to his room in the complex.
  1352	There he thought it all over, and over again.
  1353	
  1354	In retrospect it seemed obvious
  1355	that everything happening had a single cause, by one
  1356	individual, specifically by John-seven, nee Gwyn. 
  1357	They had brought forth
  1358	an individual (don't think ``created'' he told himself)
  1359	who was fantastically good at solving problems, so in some sense
  1360	very smart, surpassing themselves -- the old Frankenstein's
  1361	monster scenario.  Gwyn was in a difficult position
  1362	but in every other aspect he was greatly their superior.
  1363	So he found ways to inform himself about them, and when threatened,
  1364	he found ways to defend himself.  Clearly he also worked at
  1365	pretending to be an immature and distractible six-year-old
  1366	who posed no threat.
  1367	
  1368	This person Gwyn was more important than the whole biology building
  1369	had been, along with all its contents.
  1370	The two people who knew the most about him were dead, and most
  1371	records were destroyed.  The scientist Hamed who worked closely
  1372	with him was going to clam up.
  1373	Whearty could almost see time cracking
  1374	open before him, showing a path he'd never imagined, leading him
  1375	into the future.  He could become involved.
  1376	He could help Gwyn create a new reality for himself -- for his safety's
  1377	sake, a reality in which he wasn't nearly as
  1378	capable, not nearly the fantastic success that he actually was.
  1379	Deflect and reduce the interest in him.
  1380	He decided to taylor his final report to this need, and
  1381	it would be easy -- simply report what each group said, except
  1382	for Hamed.  And hardly mention John-seven, except as a pawn
  1383	the two senior researchers were using for their budget and careers,
  1384	where they exaggerated results and their importance.
  1385	But he had lived long enough to know that it often wasn't good
  1386	to interfere in someone else's business, in their life.
  1387	A specific example still bothered him after so many years,
  1388	engendering so much anger and disappointment.
  1389	The law of unintended consequences.
  1390	Well, his actions of understating abilities wouldn't directly cause Gwyn
  1391	harm and could be reversed.
  1392	
  1393	The safety of Gwyn was the most important and immediate issue:
  1394	Gwyn might be abducted or even killed.
  1395	He must contact the Neurobiology Department head, as well
  1396	as the adoptive parents.  Soon.  
  1397	Then he needed to draft his report.
  1398	And he would have to talk with Gwyn directly, somehow sounding
  1399	him out about whether he wanted a deception about his past.
  1400	After all, this was a game Gwyn had been playing all along with great
  1401	success.
  1402	
  1403	His pulse rate kept increasing.  Soon? What would be soon enough?
  1404	Now would be soon.  {Now!}  He couldn't help himself.
  1405	{Neurobiology} had experiments running continuously.  He tried sending
  1406	a message to their main address and it got to
  1407	someone who responded right away at night.
  1408	By pleading and demanding he got patched to the head, who thankfully
  1409	was still awake.  With difficulty he managed to talk
  1410	him into having the federal security service send a detail
  1411	to the house of Gwyn's adoptive parents -- in a nondescript
  1412	car complete with drone lookouts. It would stay the whole night.
  1413	The school and the various nearby federal agencies shared a need
  1414	for security.
  1415	
  1416	He went to bed and had difficulty falling asleep.  This was how he
  1417	always was when serious matters came up: his mind ground around and
  1418	around with too many thoughts.
  1419	Tomorrow he must get Gwyn and the pair who had adopted him
  1420	moved into an on-campus apartment, with security.
  1421	He had a younger colleague who would
  1422	welcome an appointment at the Illinois {Institute}.
  1423	She was excellent, and she'd had trouble getting another appointment,
  1424	even though she had the necessary security clearances.  
  1425	He should be able to arrange that.  Talk her and them into it.
  1426	Yes, he could cover her first-year salary with his own research
  1427	money -- easy, move some of the money around.
  1428	He was bored with his current position and hadn't decided what he would do.
  1429	Perhaps get ``visitor'' status at the Institute or even demand a regular
  1430	appointment.  Yes, excessive demands were the best way.
  1431	He congratulated himself on keeping
  1432	a high-quality personal research program going.
  1433	He should also demand a year-long sabbatical
  1434	from those entrenched blood-sucking
  1435	bureaucrats at his current location -- give them
  1436	a larger cut of the money he controlled.
  1437	Finally sleep came, but with it a dream:  
  1438	
  1439	{He is standing in line with a small group of strangers,
  1440	waiting for a tour of the Moon's colony, what they called
  1441	the Nest, short for the Owl's Nest.
  1442	Everything is vivid and clear, although the
  1443	strangers do not stand out -- he cannot see their faces.
  1444	A map on the wall shows the main parts of the colony. 
  1445	He studies it carefully.
  1446	The date at the bottom is February 7, 2084.
  1447	That's wrong.  This is 2068.  The map itself is large and complex,
  1448	unfamiliar in its intricacy and details even though he's
  1449	studied maps of the colony before.
  1450	He tries to trace out some of its parts, but is interrupted as
  1451	they bring out a cake shaped like an Owl to celebrate seven hundred
  1452	fifty people in the colony.  That is wrong too -- the colony
  1453	doesn't have nearly that many people.
  1454	Then he is in a large room full of plants and animals, like a forest.
  1455	A forest on the Moon?  They brag that one day
  1456	they will have larger animals, a more diverse collection.
  1457	Right when it was getting interesting there is a buzzing in the air.
  1458	The buzzing
  1459	gets louder -- his alarm.}
  1460	
  1461	He often dreamed, but his dreams were always confused and only
  1462	partly remembered, with everything fuzzy, not in focus, fragile
  1463	dream thoughts that disappeared as he tried to remember them.
  1464	They were also full of crazy, unrelated scenes.
  1465	This strange dream was clear and precise, fresh in his mind,
  1466	full of details, none of them crazy.
  1467	He felt odd, disoriented somehow, as if he belonged back in the dream.
  1468	As if the dream was real and his waking state an illusion.
  1469	
  1470	%%% part1.3.tex:  Chap 3, Cleaning Up  ====================================##
  1471	James Collinson gritted his teeth while pacing in his office.
  1472	A tall, thin, and intense former military man, he was now
  1473	the civilian head of the European Security Services, ESS for short.
  1474	He should have been happy with his view of the Atlantic Ocean
  1475	from the rebuilt old castle in the former Norway, where the
  1476	ESS headquarters was; he was everything but happy.
  1477	The reports he'd gotten from agents in Illinois described a
  1478	parody of incompetence.
  1479	
  1480	Those utter fools in North America.  Worthless morons.
  1481	They had created an amazing human-machine cybernetic organism, then
  1482	got scared and tried to kill it.  Or rather him, John-seven, now calling
  1483	himself Gwyn, basically a six-year-old boy with a neural attachment,
  1484	an extremely complicated one.  An unprecedented success at that level
  1485	of complexity, using one of the amazing devices from the late 2040s.
  1486	The boy managed to escape from confinement using a North American
  1487	missile to blow up one end of the building housing him.
  1488	How in the nine hundred names of the devil did he manage that?
  1489	It was a serious question.  Collinson couldn't imagine being able to do
  1490	it himself.
  1491	A few local people, in particular the scientist Robert Whearty, had come
  1492	to understand the potential of this ``experimental project.''
  1493	
  1494	They must get the boy to Europe where he would be safe.
  1495	The clowns taking care of him will still mess up the part about keeping
  1496	him safe, and someone will kill him.
  1497	We'll give him everything he wants or needs. Treat him like royalty.
  1498	Too bad it has to be what other people might call
  1499	a kidnapping.  An abduction should be feasible, albeit with risks,
  1500	but acceptable ones.  They wouldn't even need to lie or deny all
  1501	knowledge, but could claim that getting the boy out of
  1502	North America was necessary for his own safety, since the local
  1503	authorities not only couldn't guarantee safety -- they had tried to
  1504	kill him themselves.
  1505	
  1506	The ESS had a group of six agents in and around the 
  1507	University of Illinois where Gwyn was kept in an academic
  1508	department.  Reportedly his security was almost non-existent.
  1509	He immediately contacted the group leader in Urbana, Illinois.
  1510	
  1511	``Deter, you talked at length about this person, how amazing he is,
  1512	crucial for us.  We must go ahead as planned and
  1513	get him away from those witless dunces.
  1514	This is an absolute top priority.  I want to review your plans for
  1515	an extraction, and it needs to be done right away.
  1516	So send me a detailed description in two hours,
  1517	with a careful timeline, with possible difficulties, and counters to them.
  1518	I expect it to happen this very night at your location.
  1519	After you get the subject safely out of North America, be sure
  1520	to go over with him how they had tried to kill him and were
  1521	probably planning to experiment on him.  Tell him how much
  1522	safer and happier he's going to be with us.''
  1523	
  1524	Deter Bresson looked around at the small basement room they were using
  1525	for the operation.  Only the six of them plus others to help in getting
  1526	out of the country.  Basically a kidnapping -- very
  1527	dangerous.  He'd tried to get out of it, but Collinson had insisted.
  1528	He agreed with the importance, but regretted having to abandon their
  1529	North American operation.  Again, too dangerous for any of them
  1530	to stay after this, um, extraction -- like a tooth.  They'd had
  1531	three agents working in the destroyed biology building, one of whom
  1532	died in the explosion.  The other two were in the room now,
  1533	one a senior staff member.
  1534	
  1535	From its inception they'd followed the implant project closely,
  1536	although none of them were directly involved.
  1537	Several of his group hadn't bought into John-seven's
  1538	act pretending to be a mostly normal six-year-old. And oh, yeah,
  1539	the kid called himself Gwyn now, which seemed crazy. The leaders had
  1540	intended to kill him -- that's what seemed to have been
  1541	happening -- so Deter didn't feel bad about the kidnapping.
  1542	Far from misusing him, once they got him into Europe they intended
  1543	to value him highly, to take good care of him in every way.  The pathetic
  1544	response of the local investigation was useful, but some people
  1545	had clearly recognized his importance, for example that senior scientist
  1546	Whearty.
  1547	
  1548	Two of their group were students at the university and two were faculty.  
  1549	Such a huge amount of work getting agents positioned like
  1550	this -- he hated to give up these resources, but John-seven
  1551	was a key success, a unique individual, all by himself worth more than their
  1552	whole operation. His value was hard to overstate.
  1553	
  1554	They all had multiple IDs, with complete and redundant biometric
  1555	data, so they could move around anywhere.
  1556	The operation was scheduled for tonight; Collinson was right to push
  1557	for an immediate operation; the sooner
  1558	they moved the better.  In fact, initially it was going to be easy, since
  1559	Gwyn and his parents lived off-campus.  They'd delayed a little
  1560	and suddenly the family had moved into the campus high-rise,
  1561	an ancient building, but with new computer-controlled locks. 
  1562	So now they needed to go through three points of security to get to the boy,
  1563	although the access itself was no problem for them.
  1564	Still, the move worried Deter.  It indicated caution,
  1565	awareness of the need for security.
  1566	The family was living in Apartment 3.5, on the third floor.
  1567	They had emergency access to every room in the building, so
  1568	it should still be easy.  Andy, Liz, and Deter himself were going to do
  1569	the actual abduction.  The plan was to knock the kid out
  1570	with a treated cloth clamped over his mouth and nose,
  1571	and then Liz would carry him as if he were her child who'd
  1572	gone to sleep.  They hoped to avoid Gwyn's parents and be
  1573	done in minutes.  They were prepared to deal with his parents
  1574	quickly and non-lethally.
  1575	
  1576	Three people back in the operations room were monitoring two
  1577	small drones they were using for surveillance,
  1578	just to be sure. Eric had registered them to use for a
  1579	research project -- each drone could respond with the proper
  1580	permissions in case of a security query.
  1581	The two drones had already shown before that Gwyn and his new
  1582	parents entered the building and didn't leave it. 
  1583	All six of them, plus the kid, would go in a car to the private airfield
  1584	where a plane, two pilots, and other support was waiting.
  1585	
  1586	The initial steps were easy:
  1587	they IDed their way into the university grounds,
  1588	IDed into the high rise, and paused at the door to unit 3.5.
  1589	The emergency access ID let them into the apartment.
  1590	They were quiet, moving through the five rooms, finding furniture,
  1591	but no indication someone lived there.
  1592	It took another thirty seconds to check every possible place where
  1593	someone might be hiding.  Deter didn't
  1594	like this turn of events.  How could they have the wrong
  1595	apartment?  He even double-checked the ``3.5'' on the entrance.
  1596	He was in contact with their operations room.  They had long ago gained
  1597	access to the university's computers and were engaged in a frantic
  1598	search through different sources of data.
  1599	
  1600	``There's a discrepancy in the data about the room number,''
  1601	Eric said from the basement room.  ``Only one place lists
  1602	it as `5.3' instead.  It looks like they deliberately made
  1603	all the official entries the fake room you just visited.
  1604	They must all be on the fifth floor, Unit 5.3.''
  1605	
  1606	Deter was increasingly unhappy, but he had them go immediately
  1607	up to the other room.  They entered as before, finding an obviously
  1608	inhabited apartment -- everything was there, even recently
  1609	used dishes in the sink, but no people.
  1610	This was how an operation went all to shit.
  1611	
  1612	``Crap, crap!'' He asked about the drone surveillance, and Eric
  1613	said there was nothing, nobody at all moving around where they
  1614	were or anywhere near the apartment building. 
  1615	Deter went to a large stairwell and had the drones
  1616	go with him.  They checked each floor, and the drones
  1617	inspected all the open areas.  Forcing entry into apartments at random
  1618	wasn't going to work -- too many of them, and way too
  1619	dangerous.  Eric suggested they
  1620	abort.  Deter hated to, but what else could they do?
  1621	Suddenly a song started playing in the room: ``You are my sunshine.''
  1622	It was loud, startling everyone.
  1623	Then Deter noticed a prominent message on the main
  1624	table.  It read: ``If you leave immediately, you might avoid
  1625	being arrested or killed.''
  1626	
  1627	This was crazy.  Nothing like this had ever happened to him
  1628	before.  It was like they were toying with him.
  1629	But he took the advice on the note, and they did leave immediately
  1630	with no problems.  They encountered no one all the way back to
  1631	their base.
  1632	
  1633	They then made contact with Collinson in his ancient castle.
  1634	He was livid, almost sputtering incoherently, but there was
  1635	no choice.  They had shown their hand, and the note
  1636	seemed designed to prove they had failed completely.
  1637	A botched operation.  They went off in the private plane according
  1638	to plan, but without their captive.
  1639	
  1640	Deter could only think about Gwyn.  What kind of an opponent
  1641	leaves a rescue note for his would-be abductors?
  1642	Well, one who, to escape captivity, would blow up a building
  1643	where he lived.
  1644	Was he making fun of them, or did he truly not want anyone
  1645	arrested or killed?
  1646	
  1647	For some time Whearty had been helping Gwyn with his adjustment
  1648	from the limitations of his early life and from the trauma of the
  1649	explosion, to life outside confinement.  From the beginning he
  1650	was almost disturbed by the anomaly of Gwyn looking the part of
  1651	a six-year-old boy but talking like a sophisticated adult colleague.
  1652	Gwyn had endless questions for Whearty and others,
  1653	including questions about trust: whom could he trust and to
  1654	what extent.
  1655	
  1656	He, along with others concerned for Gwyn's safety, had insisted
  1657	that the boy was never to be left alone.
  1658	The first day Whearty was on campus, he arranged for
  1659	Gwyn, along with the married couple Alan and Joe
  1660	who had formally adopted him,
  1661	to move into the large old campus apartment building, since entrance
  1662	to it was strictly monitored and controlled.  They took up
  1663	residence immediately, while all their belongings took another
  1664	two days to get there.  It was a tremendous relief to have
  1665	them away from their house that was out in the vulnerable community.
  1666	
  1667	It turned out his relief was premature and
  1668	Gwyn was still potentially vulnerable after all: from a
  1669	bold attempted abduction by European agents.
  1670	That was terrifying for Whearty and certainly disturbing for Gwyn,
  1671	but they managed to counter that attempt. Would there be others?
  1672	
  1673	Gwyn's previous environment had left huge holes in what he had
  1674	experienced: a long list.  He had never participated in anything
  1675	like sports, and wasn't even able to throw a ball with any force.
  1676	He didn't know how to swim, ride a bicycle, ride on a moving
  1677	sidewalk or escalator, use outdoor tools,
  1678	among many other missing activities.
  1679	He had no direct experience with animals, such as riding
  1680	a horse or playing with a small animal.  He had never
  1681	seen an egg cracked open or much food preparation at all.
  1682	There was a whole world of experiences he'd seen only in videos.
  1683	
  1684	In Gwyn's new academic world, two of the 
  1685	neurobiology faculty at the institute wanted to study him at length,
  1686	with a goal of learning about him in relation to his implant,
  1687	and as an incentive they would also be looking
  1688	for possible difficulties -- with his biology or his hardware or
  1689	both, particularly at the interfaces.
  1690	The implant itself had
  1691	a huge amount of data stored inside, including built-in testing
  1692	routines.  It contained complete hardware and software descriptions of
  1693	itself, but Gwyn doubted they could understand that part at all.
  1694	A separate mathematics faculty member wanted to see what
  1695	Gwyn could do with the help of his implant. Have him
  1696	carry out activities or solve problems that were beyond the reach
  1697	of previous studies.  Gwyn was in no mood to let any of them get
  1698	near him.
  1699	
  1700	Whearty had contacted Gwyn by secure video -- at least
  1701	supposed to be secure.
  1702	To start a conversation, he asked where the name ``Gwyn'' had come from.
  1703	
  1704	``I took my favorite name and dropped two vowels,''
  1705	
  1706	Whearty decided not to follow that riddle.
  1707	``Were you scared when they tried to kidnap you?''
  1708	
  1709	``Yes, I can deal with stuff like that mentally okay,
  1710	but it affects me physically.  I'd taken over their drones
  1711	and led them astray, so they thought my parents and I were still
  1712	in the building, when we were actually far away.  But I even had trouble 
  1713	walking.''
  1714	
  1715	``The next attempt, if there is one, may be more sophisticated.''
  1716	
  1717	``Exactly.  The school has promised heightened security in general
  1718	and for me personally.''  
  1719	
  1720	``Do you think the school can protect you.''
  1721	
  1722	``Well, no, but I can do much of my own protection.
  1723	Anyway, I'm not supposed to discuss security with anyone.
  1724	It would be sad, but I might need to separate from that wonderful
  1725	pair Alan and Joe who took me in.  Uh, not separate formally;
  1726	I'll still be their adopted son.  They gave me a family and
  1727	a family name.
  1728	But I'm a danger to them, and it may be too complicated
  1729	to secure a whole family unit.  I'll have to see.''
  1730	
  1731	In fact, Gwyn had been thinking all along about his own protection.
  1732	After his life in a prison he'd resolved never to be locked up again,
  1733	yet here he was, pretty much unable to go out into the world.
  1734	Right then he had one of his AIs monitoring a large number
  1735	of surveillance devices, some the school's and some his own.
  1736	Several of these could also be used as minor weapons.
  1737	As soon as possible he wanted to deploy significant weapons, since it
  1738	was necessary to protect against attacks, even something so extreme
  1739	as a missile like the one that destroyed his building -- some
  1740	directed energy system of his own could do that.
  1741	It was stupid that the missile he'd used to free himself had not
  1742	faced a laser protection system that constantly scanned all the area
  1743	around the building, and then, since the speed of light was so
  1744	much faster than any moving physical object, the missile could
  1745	have been detected and destroyed as it approached.
  1746	There could be counters to the protection system,
  1747	and so on like a stack of Russian dolls.
  1748	But physical security was complex because many actors carried
  1749	out surveillance and deployed weapons themselves.
  1750	The other side of his protection was to compromise the computer
  1751	systems that might control a threat.  Here he was creating
  1752	a big advantage for himself by analyzing the various kinds
  1753	of system software and finding new exploits.
  1754	He was good at creating backdoors in the complex and bug-ridden
  1755	software in use.  And after all,
  1756	it was such a near impossible code change that let him
  1757	convert an apparent bug-fix into a missile launch command.
  1758	
  1759	His protection was a work in progress; he expected
  1760	to spend the rest of his life refining and improving
  1761	the machines and algorithms and policies that protected him.
  1762	And he would discuss these protections with no one -- he
  1763	had talked about trust with Whearty, but he'd
  1764	privately decided not to trust anyone at all, not completely.
  1765	
  1766	Two days later, Whearty talked with Gwyn and found him holding a
  1767	dog, a puppy.  He lifted the dog up close to the camera.
  1768	His parents had let him pick her out:
  1769	a small, white rescue of uncertain lineage.
  1770	Gwyn was quite taken with her.  ``I've never directly interacted with
  1771	any animal except humans.  It's fantastic having her to play with.
  1772	She's non-judgmental and smart, with partly unpredictable
  1773	behavior.''
  1774	
  1775	He paused for a second.   ``She's a security risk; I understand that.
  1776	I may have to leave her with Alan and Joe, but it's great to have
  1777	her now.''
  1778	
  1779	``A `she.'  So what is her name?''
  1780	
  1781	``I named her Selene, for the Goddess of the  Moon.''
  1782	
  1783	``And why that name?''
  1784	
  1785	``This sounds, uh, silly.  I had an unusual dream about the Moon a few weeks
  1786	ago.  I guess that was the connection.  I can't get the Moon out
  1787	of my mind.''
  1788	
  1789	Whearty had the sick feeling he would get when something important
  1790	was going on that he didn't understand.  He told himself to
  1791	drop the subject (don't ask!), but he couldn't do it.  
  1792	``What was the dream about?''
  1793	
  1794	``About a fancy updated and much larger version of our colony
  1795	on the Moon.  I remember all the details about my dreams.
  1796	A curious part of this one was a map of the 
  1797	colony with a date on it ... ''
  1798	
  1799	Whearty immediately interrupted.  ``Don't say the date.
  1800	Wait a second.''   He tried to get hold of himself.
  1801	``I had almost the same dream, complete with a diagram
  1802	and a date. Please indulge me.  Turn your back and write
  1803	the date on a pad.  I'll do the same.''
  1804	
  1805	He and Gwyn both wrote down their dates:
  1806	Gwyn had written ``February 7, 2084,'' and 
  1807	Whearty had written in turn ``February 7?, 2084.''
  1808	
  1809	Whearty felt like he'd been hit hard in the stomach.
  1810	``More than curious dreams.  Impossible ones.
  1811	Even my `seven' was correct.
  1812	Wait.  Were they celebrating anything?
  1813	Don't say it.  Write in on your pad.''
  1814	
  1815	On comparison they'd both written different versions
  1816	of ``Owl cake'' and ``seven hundred fifty'' people.
  1817	
  1818	``That is strange, but what can it mean?''
  1819	
  1820	Gwyn also sounded disturbed.  ``Yes, strange indeed.
  1821	And how can it `mean' anything?''  A long pause.
  1822	``I have to think this over....  I'll get back to you, say,
  1823	tomorrow.  I haven't mentioned this before, but you also  need to protect
  1824	yourself, serious protection.  Don't get into routines and become
  1825	predictable.  Well, good-by for now.''
  1826	
  1827	Gwyn sat for a long while, thinking in different directions, especially
  1828	about how only the part of his consciousness that slept could dream.
  1829	No one else had ever had a line of awareness that never slept.
  1830	It was all strange, since there was only one of him and only one memory.
  1831	And not ``shared'' memory.  Strange.
  1832	
  1833	The next day Gwyn started in.  ``So what do you think?''
  1834	
  1835	``It can't have happened.  Did you find some tricky magician's
  1836	way to cause this?  Or were you running a program that grabbed the video
  1837	content?''
  1838	
  1839	``No,'' said Gwyn.  ``No, nothing like that.  You're right:
  1840	there's no plausible explanation, yet it did happen.''
  1841	
  1842	``Were we both hypnotized or drugged or something worse?''
  1843	
  1844	``I don't see how it could be possible, coordinated between the two of us.
  1845	I researched this topic.  History is full of amazing
  1846	coincidences like this, as billions of people had trillions of interactions
  1847	over lifetimes.  And people were always talking about prophetic
  1848	dreams, about the interpretation of dreams.
  1849	So ... a bizarre coincidence or an intrinsically mysterious
  1850	event of unknown origin.''
  1851	He seemed lost in thought.
  1852	``I admit there are a lot of factors for a coincidence:
  1853	the date, the map, the owl cake, the number of colonists,
  1854	the scene at a greenhouse.
  1855	I have a few theories, but I'm not going to share them.
  1856	We may never know.''  But privately Gwyn didn't believe in a coincidence
  1857	explanation.  There were five separate coinciding elements,
  1858	which together were like a deliberate digital signature on data.
  1859	
  1860	``Think about this,'' Whearty said. ``What did you say yesterday?
  1861	That you `couldn't get the Moon out of your mind.'
  1862	I feel the same way and it's weird: a compulsion to
  1863	think about the Moon.
  1864	A shared result for the two of us -- not only the common dream
  1865	but a common compulsion as a reaction.
  1866	That's what was concerning.''
  1867	
  1868	``Concerning?'' said Gwyn.
  1869	
  1870	``Well, yes in some sense.
  1871	Where could the strange paired dreams have come from?
  1872	Did they have some rational cause?  An effect without a cause?
  1873	Such a fantastic coincidence and such a strong effect, 
  1874	what could be an important effect.  Strange, indeed.''
  1875	
  1876	For his part Gwyn wondered if he should tell Whearty the rest
  1877	of it.   Maybe....
  1878	
  1879	``Um, I wasn't going to mention this, but
  1880	I had an earlier dream that was also interesting.
  1881	The past day I've read a lot about dreams -- how they can indicate
  1882	your state of mind or your fears.  How they've never been
  1883	useful for psychotherapy.  And dreams haven't ever been
  1884	well understood. Despite infinite study, we know relatively little
  1885	about them.  There's certainly lots of psycho-babble, and there could be
  1886	something to all the `stages' and such.
  1887	My recent dream came after I finally got to
  1888	sleep on the day I escaped.  I was filled with anxiety; it was
  1889	hard to get to sleep.  Later I dismissed the dream as irrelevant
  1890	except as an indication of stress.  But what it something
  1891	strange was at work with it also, something external to us?''
  1892	
  1893	``Well, I hope you're going to tell me about it.''
  1894	
  1895	After a long pause, Gwyn started in.  ``It's sort of embarrassing.
  1896	I do always remember everything, including dreams.
  1897	Anyway, there's a Middle English poem about a hero whose
  1898	honor and courage get tested.  He mostly passes the tests, but not
  1899	completely.
  1900	I'd read a young adult version, but I had access to a huge
  1901	library, so I could read the {original}.''
  1902	
  1903	``You can read Middle English without an AI connection?''
  1904	
  1905	``Sure. I can directly read dozens of languages.
  1906	Well, I have the AI stuff in my head, immediately available,
  1907	so Middle English is trivial.  
  1908	I read the poem a long time ago.  In it, a heroic 
  1909	figure is challenged and tested by a
  1910	huge green man -- bright green skin and bright green clothes.
  1911	Well, in my dream this green guy shows up, very big and powerful.
  1912	A ridiculous creature, he's riding a bright green horse.  He and his horse
  1913	have all the elaborate ornamentation that was described in the poem.''
  1914	
  1915	``I'm not familiar with that poem.  I did have to read some Chaucer
  1916	once, well, in translation.  Sorry, go on.''
  1917	
  1918	``In the poem, the Green Knight as he's called challenges the hero,
  1919	whose name is Gawayn, to exchange blows of an axe.  That's where I
  1920	got my name; I dropped the two `a's.  Anyway, Gawayn
  1921	gets to strike the greenie first, and a year later, Gawayn has
  1922	to receive a similar blow.  So Gawayn's no fool:  he takes careful
  1923	aim and cuts the knight's head off.''
  1924	
  1925	``Whoa, he cuts off his head!  Decapitation.''
  1926	
  1927	``Yeah, sort of assuming that would be the end of it,
  1928	but his opponent picks up his head and rides off.  Even severed, the
  1929	head reminds Gawayn of his promise to receive his blow after a year.
  1930	This is pretty tough on Gawayn, ever more so when it gets close to 
  1931	the deadline.  Gawayn doesn't think he can pick up his own head
  1932	and stick it back on.
  1933	Gawayn proves his chivalry and loyalty, and honor, too,
  1934	but not quite perfectly.  Along with other slight failings,
  1935	he flinches away {before} that second blow can
  1936	land, and vows that he will take the blow the next time.
  1937	In the end all he gets is a nick on the neck, or in the words of the
  1938	poem:
  1939	`... [the knight] hurt him no more / than to cut him
  1940	on one side that severed the skin,
  1941	along with a fair amount of blood that fell over his shoulders and
  1942	onto the ground.  He passes the exchange of blows test and other
  1943	tests as well, but even so he is compelled
  1944	to remind himself from then on of his imperfections.''
  1945	
  1946	Here is the Middle English: 
  1947	  
  1948	``That's the story in the poem.  What about you, your dream?''
  1949	
  1950	``Well, my Green Knight said I was going to be tested
  1951	as in the poem.  I get to keep my head, but he cautioned me,
  1952	and this is an exact quote: 
  1953	`There will be a contest that challenges all your abilities
  1954	and focus and energy to win.'
  1955	I didn't think anything about it until now.''
  1956	
  1957	``And now...?''
  1958	
  1959	``Who knows.  Maybe nothing, all coincidence and imagination.
  1960	The challenge may concern the Moon colony.  That could apply
  1961	to both of us.  I think {`challenge'} is a strong word.
  1962	
  1963	Switching subjects, Gwyn then said,
  1964	``And I want to thank you again for looking out for my security.
  1965	If they had struck two days earlier and if you hadn't called for
  1966	the school to send a security car, I might be in Europe now.
  1967	I've got my security pretty much in hand, 
  1968	and now you are the vulnerable one.
  1969	Be careful; don't ever go anywhere by yourself.
  1970	I'm kinda tired now.  Let's talk again in a couple of days.''
  1971	
  1972	Whearty didn't know it, but thanks to Gwyn
  1973	he now had a microscopic security device in his stomach,
  1974	there to stay indefinitely.  Something like an
  1975	ultra-high-resolution total body scan could
  1976	locate it, but in general it only responded
  1977	to the properly coded secret millisecond ping.
  1978	It would also cleverly cycle to require a new secret ping after
  1979	each use and after each millisecond of elapsed time, so you couldn't
  1980	record a ping, or even block and record an attempted ping, and get anywhere.
  1981	Gwyn also had microdrones following Whearty.
  1982	
  1983	In his castle James Collinson mulled over what had happened to his team.
  1984	Despite all his scorn and criticism of the North Americans for
  1985	misunderstanding and underestimating their new cyber success,
  1986	he had done the same himself.
  1987	It wasn't even clear how Gwyn had managed to avoid his kidnapping,
  1988	but he had, elegantly and disdainfully, warning the team off.
  1989	Collinson prided himself on not repeating mistakes. 
  1990	He'd been too eager, too precipitous.
  1991	It had seemed sensible to use the available agents and get it over quickly,
  1992	but now the team was exposed, compromised, and useless.
  1993	They were all back in Europe.  Fortunately he still had an
  1994	additional agent right at the heart of the neurobiology work.
  1995	Her connection to Collinson was not even
  1996	known to his other agents -- very deep cover.  He had only
  1997	one way to contact her, using certain advertisements,
  1998	but he had now deleted that contact method.  
  1999	She had been told that such a deletion would be a signal for her to pull 
  2000	her head in like a turtle under attack.  She was to
  2001	do nothing to expose herself and was to continue her work indefinitely
  2002	with no change.  He in turn would be patient and wait for opportunities.
  2003	In time he'd have more information about Gwyn...and she would be available.
  2004	
  2005	In a world with spy drones the size of flies and with frequently
  2006	compromised systems and communications, 
  2007	a number of individuals and institutions took notice of events
  2008	related to the explosion,
  2009	and they drew their own conclusions.
  2010	Collinson didn't know that his ESS had long ago been compromised by two
  2011	cooperating entities.  Worse, his special deep-cover agent
  2012	was a double agent, also working for {Elliot} Morrison,
  2013	the rabid dictator of the Australian Archipelago.
  2014	And she would soon become a triple agent.
  2015	
  2016	The exploded building was like a kill in the old African plains or the
  2017	northern forests, before they both fell victim to climate change:
  2018	after the kill other top predators would gather,
  2019	while a sequence of ever lower scavengers waited in line.
  2020	
  2021	%%% part1.4.tex:  Chap 4, Simulator =======================================##
  2022	Whearty had finally finished his report and sent it off to those
  2023	above him.  He also sent a copy to Gwyn, but only talked with him
  2024	several days later.
  2025	
  2026	``Did you read the report?  You weren't supposed
  2027	to see it, but I sent you a copy -- for obvious reasons.
  2028	Obvious, right?
  2029	But first I need to ask: Is this connection safe? I keep
  2030	worrying.''
  2031	
  2032	Gwyn couldn't guarantee safety: 
  2033	``End-to-end it's strong encryption and I'm seriously
  2034	protecting the end points; both are constantly monitored.
  2035	But nothing is perfectly safe, so let's get on with it anyway.
  2036	And yes, I'm indebted to you for the report, 
  2037	for the way you slanted everything.
  2038	You understand how I want to play down my involvement and abilities,
  2039	and you've set this up to continue that strategy.
  2040	All that so I could be less visible and not as interesting.
  2041	Trying to sell myself as some kind of modest experiment
  2042	with correspondingly modest success and significance.
  2043	Mangus and Ramsey -- I've read their requests for more
  2044	funding; they were promising results that would change the world.''
  2045	
  2046	Gwyn paused and then went on, 
  2047	``Unfortunately, I don't see that line working so well here in North
  2048	America, and it's not going to work at all in Europe, as we saw.
  2049	A nice touch to remind your report's readers that researchers like
  2050	to exaggerate how important their results are, or will be.''
  2051	
  2052	``Scientists build up a dung pile of their own work,'' Wheatly said.
  2053	``They climb to the top of it, and crow that their pile is taller and
  2054	smells better than anyone else's.''
  2055	
  2056	Whearty turned serious.  ``I've seen reports of your success in
  2057	working with the fancy twenty-forties technology.  It was 
  2058	impressive.  You can't make that work disappear -- much of that wasn't
  2059	lost in the explosion, but was in widely circulated reports.
  2060	Well, widely circulated for something classified top secret.''
  2061	
  2062	``At that time I worried about being useful enough for them
  2063	to remain interested in me.  I kept thinking they might terminate
  2064	the whole project, along with me.''
  2065	
  2066	``Okay.  In the end I still suggest you continue to de-emphasize your
  2067	abilities as much as possible.  Without overdoing it -- that second
  2068	part is important.  The issue remains of what you intend to do, short-term
  2069	and long-term.  We can talk about that anytime you want.''
  2070	
  2071	``Great.  I'll call you in a few days.''
  2072	
  2073	Five days later Gwyn placed his promised call to Whearty.
  2074	It looked like Whearty was going to get his visiting position.
  2075	Also, an offer had been made to his colleague.  Things went through
  2076	quickly because Whearty himself was supplying her first year's
  2077	salary, and the position wasn't guaranteed beyond that year.
  2078	All according to plan.
  2079	
  2080	Before the call, Gwyn reminded himself to be careful.
  2081	His mentor was sharper than the others he was dealing with.
  2082	
  2083	``Robert, I have a lot to discuss, on two different {subjects}.''
  2084	Gwyn had taken to addressing Whearty as Robert.
  2085	
  2086	``You can call me `Buck,' my nickname.  And I have important
  2087	things to discuss with you, too.''
  2088	
  2089	``Ok, `Buck' it is right now, but not in company.
  2090	Anyway, my topic number one is the Moon, well, the Moon colony.
  2091	What I guess they call the Nest or the Owl's Nest.  I never looked up
  2092	why it's called that.''  Here Gwyn was following his usual strategy of
  2093	not demonstrating a knowledge of practically everything.  Of course
  2094	he knew the reason here.  For him to ``look something up'' was
  2095	instantaneous.  Gwyn found it interesting that even someone like
  2096	Whearty, who knew him well, still had no idea of what was going on
  2097	in his mind during a simple conversation.  In most interactions with
  2098	someone else, he already knew everything the other party was going to say.
  2099	He was a chamaeleon among ordinary lizards, careful to keep his colors neutral.
  2100	
  2101	``Oh, early on there was a naming contest, and that name was suggested
  2102	by some little girl.  They made a big deal about it -- sort
  2103	of a public relations stunt right from the beginning.
  2104	An owl flying under the Moon and such.  I like the name
  2105	and the idea of having a `nest' on the Moon.
  2106	Some people lobbied for `Eagle's Lair' -- a silly name and offensive for
  2107	some because it reminds them of Hitler's mountaintop retreat.  If they'd
  2108	wanted a more pretentious name they could have called it `The Eyrie.'
  2109	
  2110	``Anyway, about the Moon, I'm sure you know much more than me.
  2111	I do know some of the history -- I lived through it -- as when they
  2112	were unsupported and on their own for six terrible years.
  2113	Back then I was young and trying to survive like everyone else,
  2114	but their survival was truly remarkable.
  2115	I'm thinking now that something of great significance
  2116	happened and still is happening, on the Moon.
  2117	And secondarily with the Mars colony, since access to it is mostly
  2118	an extension of access to the Moon.
  2119	I'm interested in your own take.''
  2120	
  2121	``Many people died over the years teaching us how to live
  2122	in these colonies.'' Gwyn said.
  2123	``And we've learned a great deal, what works and what kills.
  2124	That's part of my take.  There were no shortcuts -- it took
  2125	time and many attempts ... and many lives.
  2126	And it's still a work in progress, in many ways only now getting started.''
  2127	
  2128	Gwyn looked back over his shoulder at something Whearty couldn't see,
  2129	and then went on.  ``You know the history: long before even your
  2130	time, we had six separate landings of humans on the Moon
  2131	between 1969 and 1972.
  2132	Landing on the Moon wasn't much of a goal.
  2133	In fact, it was the wrong goal, a stupid goal.
  2134	It's like the difference between climbing Everest and
  2135	setting up a permanent research colony at the south pole.
  2136	All the wasted time: over fifty years with no more humans on the Moon
  2137	and with relatively little other activity.  Think about it,
  2138	{fifty years}.''
  2139	
  2140	``From my point of view,'' Gwyn went on, ``the next important step
  2141	took place twenty years later, with Biosphere 2,
  2142	which most people haven't heard of.
  2143	From 1991 to 1993 it was a test of a completely closed ecosystem,
  2144	extremely complex, with eight people living from the food and oxygen
  2145	that could be generated inside.  Scientists made fun of it because
  2146	of all the problems they had.  They said there were too many variables,
  2147	with everything interacting, to draw any conclusions.
  2148	I think it helped people understand
  2149	how difficult it would be to create a closed environment outside
  2150	the Earth.''
  2151	
  2152	``I know a lot about Biosphere 2,'' Whearty said.
  2153	``I even wrote a paper about it, about the insects in its ecology.
  2154	I think the experiment was helpful.  As you said, if they had
  2155	that many problems here on Earth, how much
  2156	more difficult would it be somewhere else, say, in some habitat, whether
  2157	in space, on the Moon, or on Mars?
  2158	Here they could simply open a door and let someone out, as they did
  2159	once for a few hours to treat a cut finger.
  2160	As another example, their soil was too rich and its bacteria
  2161	ate up oxygen, so again they could open up and pump in more oxygen.
  2162	Off the Earth simple mistakes like that could be lethal.''
  2163	
  2164	Whearty kept talking, keeping Gwyn from interrupting.
  2165	``As I'm sure you know, starting in the 2020s
  2166	there were a great many separate efforts, manned and robotic.
  2167	Lots of competition between different political entities or their partners.
  2168	Small colonies were established that failed in different ways,
  2169	sometimes killing their participants.   Large amounts of
  2170	water were verified at the south pole.  Easily accessible water.
  2171	That was huge, a game changer.
  2172	For years robotic vehicles investigated the lava tubes and looked for
  2173	many resources, including many minerals.
  2174	And there were colonies placed in the south during the late thirties,
  2175	but each one failed.  More deaths, but instructive ones.
  2176	They finally settled on what seemed the best location.
  2177	I was alive through the tail end of all that.''
  2178	
  2179	``We're ready to celebrate the twenty-fifth anniversary of the real
  2180	Moon colony,'' Gwyn said, ``the one that matters, started up in 2043,
  2181	and never empty of humans.  That's the good news, and the bad
  2182	news is a colony on the verge of failure and collapse. 
  2183	You know more than I do. Tell me about the political
  2184	and financial situation for our colony.  And tell me how Mars
  2185	fits into the picture.''  Here as before, Gwyn was downplaying his
  2186	knowledge: he had terabytes of data about everything related to
  2187	the Moon and Mars but he continued to be a chamaeleon.
  2188	
  2189	Whearty cleared his throat and put on his professorial voice.
  2190	``What they finally completed in 2043, after eight years of work, was
  2191	a coordinated plan for a large Moon colony and a smaller one on Mars.
  2192	They had set up a large manned satellite, called the Staging Center,
  2193	in orbit around the Earth and had a fairly efficient orbiter that
  2194	could reach this satellite.  They had long ago started up another
  2195	satellite around the Moon, called Gateway.  So there was an
  2196	orbiter that went from the Earth to the Staging Center, then
  2197	a shuttle from the Center to Gateway, and a Lunar orbiter from
  2198	Gateway down to the Moon and back.  At the same time they managed
  2199	to build two huge nuclear-powered rockets, let's call them
  2200	space ships.  These would make the seven- or eight-month trip
  2201	to a satellite around Mars.  They could do the trip roughly
  2202	every twenty-six months.  The large ships each carried their own Mars orbiter
  2203	that would take people and supplies down to Mars.  So something
  2204	like every two years the two space ships would go to and from Mars, 
  2205	though because of orbital positioning those two trips were
  2206	closer together than one would like.
  2207	The fuel and supplies on the ships was provided from the Moon colony.''
  2208	
  2209	Whearty paused for breath and Gwyn said, ``Yes, keep going.''
  2210	
  2211	``The Moon colony became fairly large from a number of flights.
  2212	The first two large ships to Mars started up a modest Mars
  2213	colony, with nineteen people.  Then came the terrible
  2214	six-year gap with nothing supplied to either colony.
  2215	I think it is counter-intuitive, but that gap helped them
  2216	in many ways.  In their desperation, both colonies made great progress,
  2217	finding ways to improve their recycling and efficiency.
  2218	And people volunteered to die in order that their bodies could provide
  2219	biomass and so they would no longer use up scarce resources.
  2220	
  2221	``Then they started getting flights back and forth again.
  2222	In case of a death they initially intended to send
  2223	any bodies back to the Earth, even from Mars -- for a `proper burial.'
  2224	Can you believe it?  Ridiculous.  If they'd kept that up we'd head
  2225	into a resouce death spiral.
  2226	
  2227	``And the several major groups who pulled together to get regular
  2228	flights weren't all following the same script.
  2229	After they got a reasonable recovery,
  2230	the tensions and backbiting started in, more serious than ever.
  2231	There's political infighting within the colony itself.
  2232	What its mission and goals should be.  Who gets to decide, who pays.
  2233	It doesn't help that we're only partly recovered from that late 40s
  2234	crash.  Most materials are in short supply, particularly those needed
  2235	to support the colony.
  2236	The colony's two biggest supporters, North America and Europe,
  2237	aren't getting along at all.  Frankly, the fuss about you personally isn't
  2238	going to help.  It's fortunate that there's no  official notice
  2239	of their attempt to abduct you, or for that matter our ridiculous
  2240	attempt to kill you.  Neither side wants that to come out.''
  2241	
  2242	``And tell me what you know about Mars's plight,'' Gwyn said.
  2243	
  2244	``Oh, yes, Mars.  It had more resources than the Moon, resources
  2245	that were more easily exploitable.  So Mars had an easier time than
  2246	the Moon during the six-year period with no flights.
  2247	The problem was and still is that Mars is too far away.
  2248	Also, we can't afford to build another of the big spaceships.
  2249	For the foreseeable future we're stuck with two trips every twenty-six
  2250	months.  That's enough to support the fifty or so colonists on
  2251	Mars, but there's no way to expand.  I'm not supposed to be
  2252	telling random people this, well, you're not random.  Anyway, for years
  2253	now we've been pursuing a radical way to go back and forth,  Earth
  2254	to and from the Moon.  It promises to be far more efficient.
  2255	Soon we hope to start it up with a goal of a flight every week,
  2256	and eventually two flights a day.
  2257	We have working prototype vehicles now.
  2258	They are small, holding a bit less than two metric tons each.
  2259	But with much more frequent flights that should
  2260	add up for the Moon.  Unfortunately we have no way to increase
  2261	the cargo to Mars.''
  2262	
  2263	Gwyn had let his friend ramble on with information he already knew.
  2264	``That sounds exciting, for sure,'' he said.  ``Mostly about the
  2265	Moon.  But major success there will eventually spill over to success
  2266	with Mars.  There's hope for great progress.  How soon will
  2267	they get this new method started?''
  2268	
  2269	```As early as two years from now.  But realistically, I'd be
  2270	happy if it's fully functioning in four years.  We'll have to
  2271	wait, hope for the best.  You and I can't hurry up that deadline
  2272	right now.''
  2273	
  2274	Then Whearty wanted to be a spoilsport.
  2275	``You need to take into account the opposition
  2276	to the Moon colony itself from the crazies -- worse
  2277	than you likely imagine.  There are sensible people
  2278	who think the colony isn't worth the expense.
  2279	Zombie types who hardly know where the colony is
  2280	and don't care a damn about it.
  2281	Others who think it's a scam, filmed on a movie set, not real at all,
  2282	another way to take their money.
  2283	Some talk about the `bad karma' of the colony, stupid.
  2284	But for me the winners are those who fear the displeasure of Satan,
  2285	due to the `unfortunate' {location} of the colony.''
  2286	
  2287	``Um, the `displeasure of Satan'?  I've never heard of that before.
  2288	Are they serious?''
  2289	
  2290	``It's deadly serious.  Emphasis on deadly.''
  2291	As you know, the colony is close to the south pole,
  2292	but on the `Dark Side,' so called.
  2293	Half of our population thinks it's called the dark side because the
  2294	sun never shines on that side.   They should be euthanized.
  2295	Most of the rest would never think about this at all until the
  2296	Satanists explained to them that `dark side' means you never
  2297	see the Earth from that side. 
  2298	How could that matter?  The colonists don't go outside
  2299	to look at the sky anyway.  They send robots outside.
  2300	They're buried in a lava tube for God's sake,
  2301	but they're on Satan's side of the Moon.  For the Satanists,
  2302	the `Dark Side of the Moon' is Satan's domain, where
  2303	He -- and don't forget to capitalize the `He' -- doesn't
  2304	have to look at God's {creation}, the Earth.
  2305	Satan wants no one but his own acolytes in his domain.
  2306	It sounds completely insane, but these people are active and there
  2307	are a lot of them.  Recently I thought I was going to be killed when
  2308	a group attacked my QuikKab.''
  2309	
  2310	``Wow, Satan's preferred side of the Moon.''
  2311	Gwyn was trying to pull himself together.
  2312	``There are so many extreme groups now,'' he offered, then said,
  2313	``but it's our own craziness I want to talk about.
  2314	If the Satanists are nuts, well, you and I are, too.
  2315	Buck, I want to speak frankly with you.'' 
  2316	A long pause.
  2317	``We share our weird dream story, and I have the additional
  2318	strange dream.  You mustn't tell anyone about them.
  2319	Most people would dismiss it anyway.
  2320	I wonder if I'm only chasing after a coincidence.
  2321	You see, I've been having, uh, unusual thoughts recently,
  2322	almost unwelcome, about the dreams and the Moon colony.
  2323	Again, this is only for you, but you should understand
  2324	that I  am ambitious in my way.
  2325	As long as I stay alive and my implant
  2326	keeps working, I expect to influence policy, eventually worldwide.
  2327	All along there have been many issues I was interested in
  2328	addressing and contributing to. Obviously not right away;
  2329	I'm still too young, too inexperienced, with too few resources.
  2330	But the Moon colony wasn't on my mind, not as an
  2331	important issue or any issue at all.  The way I was,
  2332	I can't imagine that the earlier me would push for
  2333	the success of the Moon colony.  I wasn't focused on it.
  2334	It's hard to be sure.  But now
  2335	I see the colony as the key to everything.  Those dreams
  2336	did change the two of us.  Change our future.  Perhaps change everybody's
  2337	future.  That's astonishing.''
  2338	
  2339	Gwyn took a deep breath.
  2340	``The Moon colony is my new top priority,
  2341	but right now there's nothing I can do for them.  Instead I'm
  2342	asking myself what I can do.  What should I be doing?
  2343	I see part of my challenge from the dreams, if there was such a thing,
  2344	is to do something right away.  Not to wait.  I repeat: What should I be doing?''
  2345	
  2346	His green dream-mentor had issued him a challenge: the success
  2347	of the Moon colony.  That's how he interpreted it.
  2348	He kept reminding himself: he needed to be smart
  2349	and bold -- and what else had the green guy said?  Yes, not only 
  2350	abilities, but he needed focus and energy.  And plans and data,
  2351	and as soon as possible, minions.  He was already looking to turn
  2352	a double agent into {his} agent.  Ah, the line from a stupid
  2353	movie he'd watched: make her an offer she can't refuse, or better, as he did,
  2354	make such a good offer she doesn't want to refuse it.
  2355	After all, the Australian strongman kept making her offers she
  2356	couldn't accept.
  2357	
  2358	Whearty in his turn was worried also, scared even, about what he should do,
  2359	how much he should say.  Whether he should say anything.
  2360	Doing nothing would also affect things like any other action.
  2361	``I'm now in a position to suggest some things you might do.
  2362	But I don't like this, the responsibility.  I don't know if you're
  2363	a child or an adult.  I'm going to take a chance and tell you
  2364	all the new things I've learned.''
  2365	
  2366	Whearty paused.  ``This is all totally illegal,
  2367	talking to you about highly classified matters.
  2368	Are you {sure} this connection is safe?''
  2369	
  2370	``You asked that before.  Pretty sure, and that's the best you can get.''
  2371	
  2372	``All right.  I have a good friend, a Colonel Richards, Roger Richards.
  2373	God, we used to love making fun of his name.
  2374	We worked together in the
  2375	early 50s, when everything was literally going to Hell, um,
  2376	minus Satan.  It was a terrible time.  Sometimes you had to do
  2377	nasty things, stuff a civilized person wouldn't touch.
  2378	I've found out that for years Richards has been big in
  2379	issues related to the leftover 40s technology.  For several years he's
  2380	been in charge of a building housing and evaluating these machines.
  2381	I managed to get his attention, and we talked for hours.
  2382	
  2383	``It turns out he knew roughly what was going on in the biology building
  2384	related to an implant.  He wasn't briefed or anything, but information
  2385	managed to leak out to officials cleared for similar information.
  2386	He was desperate for more data, and I had data I was willing to exchange
  2387	for some of his.
  2388	With my clearances and because of my earlier involvement, he was willing
  2389	to share part of what he knew.''
  2390	
  2391	Whearty paused so long Gwyn was ready to prod him when he continued.
  2392	``For more than ten years the government has supported the special
  2393	department devoted to all the 40s devices: part of the federal complex
  2394	that used to have your blown-up building in it.
  2395	With great originality they call it the `Forties Department,' well,
  2396	informally.  They're certainly glad they
  2397	were next-door to the special biology department, but not stuck in
  2398	the same building.
  2399	
  2400	``Richards helped me understand why and how you came into existence.
  2401	He had only found out officially and in detail during the last two weeks.
  2402	A single 40s machine was the main reason.   Now comes some of the most
  2403	highly classified stuff:  
  2404	By far the largest and most complex of the left-over machines
  2405	was one designed to model the world, everything,
  2406	from the weather and economy to important individuals.
  2407	The ultimate machine-learning device that wasn't trying to solve specific
  2408	problems, but instead to give predictions about everything.
  2409	Instead of playing Go, writing novels or computer code, solving the
  2410	world's greatest problems (logical, mathematical, physical, biological,
  2411	empirical),
  2412	determining what preceded the big bang, ... instead of all that,
  2413	{to predict the future.}
  2414	Used for a while in the mid 40s, it produced important results,
  2415	some of which helped drive policy.  It even predicted the late 40s
  2416	collapse.  It hasn't been powered up since.''
  2417	
  2418	``And what about me?''
  2419	
  2420	``I'm getting there.
  2421	Superiors above the pair in your building, Mangus and Ramsey, wanted
  2422	to get the machine working again, so they pushed those two people to
  2423	somehow find a way to understand and control it.
  2424	Their solution was to create a clone and insert the fancy implant into him,
  2425	umm, and not a her as it turned out.
  2426	The implant had never been tested, let alone used successfully.
  2427	This clone was {you}. 
  2428	That is, you were number seven, all cloned from the same person.
  2429	An extremely long and complex project for them.
  2430	The project became their route to promotion and fame, top-secret fame.
  2431	They didn't mind how long it lasted or how expensive it was.
  2432	And toward the end it was at least a partial success.''
  2433	
  2434	Gwyn broke in. ``Are you sure?  I didn't know anything about that.
  2435	It's amazing and depressing, at the same time.
  2436	I killed those two, both of them, Mangus and Ramsey, but I killed others, too.
  2437	Several people died who had nothing to do with me and my situation.
  2438	What a terrible time and an awful decision I made, felt I had to make.
  2439	Where do we go from here?''
  2440	
  2441	``Like me, Richards didn't buy any of the elaborate excuses and explanations
  2442	about the explosion.  He now knows or has deduced almost everything about
  2443	you.''
  2444	
  2445	``And what does he want?''
  2446	
  2447	``He wants what his superiors wanted ten years ago -- all of them
  2448	retired or deceased now: to get the modeling or simulation machine,
  2449	whatever you want to call it, get it running again.
  2450	With your documented track record, he thinks you can do it.
  2451	My guess is you'd like to.''
  2452	
  2453	``What keeps them from arresting me later?''
  2454	
  2455	``This way should be {safer} for you.   Everything is classified,
  2456	even my report.  With luck there won't be any more investigation.
  2457	I also assume you could make yourself indispensable in matters related
  2458	to the machine.  You need to have a long talk
  2459	with Richards, as soon as possible.''
  2460	
  2461	Gwyn had long ago known there were going to be
  2462	major problems with his plans for an
  2463	idyllic and trouble-free life: he was hiding
  2464	in plain sight in North America, but even there, many agents
  2465	knew the truth.  The situation was worse
  2466	elsewhere, particularly in Europe.
  2467	He was already uncovering static about this online.
  2468	Realization of the threats he posed was unavoidable.
  2469	Dangers were everywhere.  So another challenge from Mister Greenie:
  2470	be careful, stay safe and alive.  To that end he wanted to surround
  2471	himself with ever more sophisticated machines, many of them lethal.
  2472	
  2473	The call came late in the afternoon for Dr. Robert Whearty.
  2474	He asked the caller to identify himself.
  2475	
  2476	``This is Arnold Beazley with the District Attorney's Office in Urbana, Illinois.
  2477	We've started a murder investigation this morning.
  2478	I'm very sorry to have to tell you that the murder victim appears to
  2479	be a person named Sean Hamed, whom you interviewed several weeks ago.
  2480	We got your name from an appointment notification in his room.
  2481	First we'd like for you to identify the body.
  2482	It's an annoying formality, but we need an official identification.
  2483	At some point, perhaps tomorrow, we'd like for you to give us
  2484	some information, anything that might be helpful.''
  2485	
  2486	Whearty sat down, his heart pounding.  This was terrible.
  2487	He managed to tell Beasley that everything related to his appointment
  2488	with Sean Hamed was classified by the military.  He would be willing
  2489	to cooperate, but it all would have to go through the proper
  2490	channels.  He gave some contact information they could use as a start
  2491	for getting information.  He sat back and wished this wasn't happening.
  2492	
  2493	Next he got hold of Gwyn.  ``I'm on campus now.
  2494	I'd like to come to your apartment and chat, physically come I mean.
  2495	Nothing important.''
  2496	
  2497	``Okay, come on over, but things have changed. 
  2498	Um, about what was worrying you, that's all changed now.
  2499	You do need to worry, about what you said was bothering you.
  2500	So I wanted to ask you about some stuff.  Maybe you can help.
  2501	I'm having some trouble sleeping, what
  2502	with a backache and a headache, too.  I mainly wanted advice about those
  2503	things.  Should I take something for pain relief?''
  2504	
  2505	``I'm pretty sure I understand you.  We must be a tiny bit more careful.
  2506	I have a special wrinkle, you'll see.''
  2507	
  2508	Whearty showed up soon, carrying a small briefcase. 
  2509	He pulled out a pad made from actual paper, several pencils,
  2510	and a small flashlight.  ``Let's relocate to your bathroom. 
  2511	It's more comfortable in there. 
  2512	And you can tell me about your aches and pains.''
  2513	
  2514	He started in with the crabbed printing of
  2515	someone who almost never wrote or printed anything by hand:
  2516	{No windows in here.
  2517	Do you think there are any video cameras?  And we need to continue
  2518	verbally with small talk,} he wrote carefully.  Then he said out loud,
  2519	``I've been having more trouble myself sleeping lately.
  2520	It could be allergies.''
  2521	
  2522	For the first time in a while Gwyn laughed out loud.  He took a pencil
  2523	and wrote much more quickly, {Probably no cameras,
  2524	especially not in here, but
  2525	who knows.  They recently planted audio devices in this apartment.
  2526	``They'' must be locals, representing powerful people here.
  2527	I'd say definitely not foreign agents in North American.
  2528	I see what you're doing. Such a low-tech method, but it might work. So
  2529	go for it.  Whatever your news is, someone started following you
  2530	carefully, with multiple devices, wherever you go.
  2531	They're certainly focused on me also, what with the devices planted here.} 
  2532	He also said, ``Yeah, I've been sniffing a lot lately and
  2533	my eyes are watering.''
  2534	
  2535	{Okay,} wrote Whearty.  He didn't want to go on, with Gwyn in a good mood.
  2536	{I have bad news.  I'm so sorry to have to tell you:
  2537	one of the people who took care of you was
  2538	murdered two days ago  --  Sean Hamed.}
  2539	
  2540	{Oh, no!  That's terrible,} Gwyn wrote.
  2541	{No. He was always so nice, so understanding, helpful. 
  2542	Murdered?  How?  Why?}
  2543	
  2544	{Investigators said it was a clumsy attempt to make it look like
  2545	a suicide, but from the crime scene that couldn't possibly have 
  2546	
  2547	{Hamed had two children, some kind of plural marriage.
  2548	He once showed me pictures of them.}
  2549	been what happened.  I'm very sorry.}
  2550	For a change, Whearty thought Gwyn seemed more like a child than
  2551	he ever had before.
  2552	The two of them put in some verbal chatter, and then Whearty wrote,
  2553	{No obvious ``why,'' but Hamed knew more about the operation than
  2554	almost anyone else, except for the top two, of course.}
  2555	
  2556	{Another theory:} Whearty wrote. 
  2557	{I recorded all the interviews, but the second half of Hamed's
  2558	was outside.  He was nervous about being recorded and
  2559	wanted to continue outside.
  2560	They were likely recording the interviews themselves, but may
  2561	have missed the last of Hamed's.
  2562	It could have taken them by surprise when we went outside.
  2563	They might think something special was revealed, which was not the case.
  2564	Anyway, I agree with you that the killers were not outsiders,
  2565	not some agents from Europe,
  2566	but insiders whose people didn't want any testimony from Hamed.
  2567	They want to bottle this all up.}
  2568	
  2569	Gwyn wrote frantically, {They are such terrible people to do this. 
  2570	And it puts you and me much more at risk.}
  2571	
  2572	Gwyn thought only briefly and then wrote, {Here's a plan:
  2573	You have the whole interview recorded, right?}  Whearty nodded.
  2574	{Then make it all available to your superiors.
  2575	Act like you don't suspect that some or all of it has already been recorded
  2576	and is in their hands.
  2577	Tell the locals they can get a redacted copy, or the full copy can be given
  2578	to someone with the proper clearances.  The idea is: you're letting
  2579	everyone know all that you know.  They may have agents planted inside
  2580	who are relaying information God knows where, perhaps even off to Europe. 
  2581	But the message to the killers is: killing you serves no purpose any more.
  2582	It hides no more information.}
  2583	
  2584	Then Gwyn wrote as a cold afterthought,
  2585	{Killing me is a different story.}
  2586	
  2587	{I like your plan.  I'm going ahead with it, exactly as you described.
  2588	But what about you?  You're right -- It's a special, focused danger for you.}
  2589	
  2590	Then Gwyn wrote:
  2591	{Yes, it's scary.  The same people might devote significant resources
  2592	to shut me up.  Tell your friend Richards that I want to cooperate, get his machine
  2593	running, and help with other 40s machines.  Go ahead and arrange an interview,
  2594	as soon as possible, like, tomorrow morning, first thing.
  2595	What I need is protection:
  2596	From North American insiders and from European outsiders.
  2597	And from the Satanists....}  After a pause, Gwyn went on.
  2598	
  2599	{My main requirement is that I control some of my
  2600	own security.  I will use drones of my own.  
  2601	I can make sure they will respond properly
  2602	to security queries from any of Richards' machines.}
  2603	
  2604	Finally, Gwyn wrote, {Password:} followed by:
  2605	{``Give me bread for ducks, but tear it up first.''}
  2606	Then: {I'm going to give you a tiny storage device.
  2607	That's its passphrase.  It contains a huge amount of data about me,
  2608	everything that's gone on since the whole project began.  If anything happens
  2609	to me, give it to someone you trust, like Richards.
  2610	And ... don't forget the phrase -- just get the ten words right
  2611	and in the right order.  Case and non-alphabetic characters don't matter. 
  2612	Also, my parents are gone tonight.
  2613	I'd like to go back to your place with you, if that's all right.
  2614	Your place seems much tighter, stronger, but they might decide to take
  2615	us both out.}
  2616	
  2617	Whearty was quick and firm: 
  2618	{I'd be much more worried leaving you here by yourself.
  2619	Stay with me tonight -- we'll contact Richards the first
  2620	thing tomorrow.}  Whearty paused and then wrote some more:
  2621	{My colleague that I talked about, she's definitely coming.
  2622	You should be able to do some work with her, but never mind that right now.
  2623	I helped her rent a secure apartment on campus.  Of course `secure' isn't
  2624	necessarily true.  Anyway, I have keys to that unit.  It's furnished
  2625	with no one in it.  That's where we should spend the night.}
  2626	
  2627	After a pause, Whearty wrote:
  2628	{I keep rethinking everything.  I'm going to insist on a special
  2629	security detail at that apartment -- the same way I got one
  2630	for your parents house before you moved.  I'll go through Richards and
  2631	his contacts with Military Intelligence.
  2632	Separately you should do what monitoring you can.}
  2633	
  2634	Before they left, Whearty got some water and a pan to reduce their 
  2635	conversation to gray pulp.  After more random chatter for anyone recording,
  2636	Whearty remained anxious, fearful of the outcome everything
  2637	seemed to be heading toward.
  2638	Would they even survive through the night?
  2639	
  2640	%%% interA.1.tex: Chap 5, Desperation =====================================##
  2641	One of her rat traps snapped shut,
  2642	making enough noise to draw {Alicia's} attention.
  2643	Food!  The rat was still alive and she quickly dispatched it with her knife.
  2644	This was one of her contributions:  to mind the traps,
  2645	make sure the rat was dead and couldn't escape.  It was already dark,
  2646	so early tomorrow they would cook him -- or was it a
  2647	her? -- along with other food.
  2648	Everything, food most of all, was shared equally, no preferences.
  2649	
  2650	A hard path had forced her to where she was.
  2651	From three years ago when she had turned seven, she remembered her family
  2652	at her birthday:  her mother, father, and older brother, along
  2653	with her grandmother.  And all but her grandmother were gone now -- her
  2654	father and brother killed in a fight with the Skins group from the south,
  2655	even though her people beat them and sent their survivors
  2656	running back to their home territory.
  2657	Her mother died later from the feared wasting disease.
  2658	
  2659	After her special friend Jarls fetched the rat -- such a nice huge
  2660	one -- she went to sleep in her corner of the ancient stone house
  2661	where they lived.  She had her cherished squirrel totem with her,
  2662	to look out for her and keep her safe.
  2663	Such a lovely black little creature with
  2664	his tiny eyes, attentive ears, and a huge black tail to keep himself warm.
  2665	His name was Steckles, but she had no idea where the name had come from.
  2666	Jarls had once said that it was a good carving made from dark hardwood.
  2667	Yes, Steckles was her faithful companion of power and magic.
  2668	There had never been a time when he was not with her.
  2669	He had a neat hole through his tail where she'd threaded a strong line
  2670	her father had found for her so she could wear him around her neck.
  2671	She pulled an old blanket over her and was almost comfortable.
  2672	Later in the year it would get cold, and she hated that time.
  2673	
  2674	For her the days came in many forms:
  2675	they could be miserable ones of hard work and
  2676	either too hot or too cold, but otherwise dull, trying to get by without
  2677	getting bitten by insects, not enough to eat, enduring snow or rain.
  2678	Or scary ones when several people were sick and sometimes died.
  2679	Or a day could turn terrifying as outsiders attacked.  Fortunately
  2680	that last was rare.
  2681	
  2682	At daybreak their one small dog Baku announced it was time to get up.
  2683	Alicia had heard them talk about Baku, whether he was worth the food he ate.
  2684	The verdict was easy: he ate almost nothing and had several times warned of
  2685	danger when everyone was asleep.
  2686	Also they said he was so small he wouldn't make
  2687	much of a meal.  Until that last comment she hadn't realized the choice
  2688	was whether to eat him or not.  A shocking choice.
  2689	
  2690	She started in with her routine: she had volunteered to help
  2691	bring water to the house.  There were plenty of places inside to store water,
  2692	so it made sense to bring water a considerable distance from their only
  2693	working well.  It was hard work even though she had a smaller container
  2694	than the others.  After that, she joined a group of mostly women doing sewing.
  2695	In spite of the random loss of important things,
  2696	they had two precious needles and some thread to patch clothing.
  2697	Several men stayed nearby to protect against an attack, while the
  2698	rest went off looking for food, keeping close enough to one another for
  2699	protection.   Alicia called their group -- several abandoned houses and
  2700	twenty-three people -- a village, since she had nothing larger to compare it to.
  2701	Her busily sewing grandmother grew up in a true village ten times as large.
  2702	
  2703	``Sometimes we found food from before in unopened jars,'' she had once said.
  2704	
  2705	``Was it all spoiled and nasty? Could you eat the food?''
  2706	
  2707	``Usually it was fine, delicious even.''
  2708	
  2709	Alicia had trouble imagining that.  She'd never seen such a wonder.
  2710	Later when the foraging men had come back, they discussed among themselves
  2711	whether to move again.  They'd found only seeds and berries this time.
  2712	It was quite a bit, which was good, but they needed better food.
  2713	A move might lead to improved food sources -- a chancy idea that,
  2714	and a move was always difficult, even dangerous, and it used up scarce food.
  2715	They decided they somehow needed to stockpile food before a move.
  2716	Maybe they would get lucky.
  2717	
  2718	Alicia's parents and brother had taught her many things, including how
  2719	to count.  And she remembered what she counted.  So she remembered how
  2720	many had been in their group years ago, and she knew twenty-three was the
  2721	smallest they'd ever been.  She was smart and worried about the
  2722	decreasing size.  She didn't know the adults had been discussing
  2723	a possible move.
  2724	
  2725	That day also came and went.  As they woke up the next day,
  2726	something huge and strange was sitting in the field next to their houses.
  2727	There'd been no complaints from Baku; the intruder must have made little
  2728	noise or even none at all in arriving.
  2729	Otherwise Baku would have barked his brains out.
  2730	They all stared, keeping their distance.  Alicia had heard of
  2731	machines that could travel over land on wheels or treads, and carry people.
  2732	She knew about large boats but had never seen one.
  2733	There were also supposed to be machines with wings
  2734	that could fly through the air.
  2735	The beautiful and perfect house or machine squatting in the field,
  2736	having smashed down several trees, was none of those.
  2737	Alicia thought it had somehow settled gently and quietly in amongst
  2738	the trees and onto them while they slept.  What could it be?
  2739	
  2740	%%% interA.2.tex: Chap 6, A New World =====================================##
  2741	They were all standing around at a distance from the machine when a
  2742	door opened up on the side near the ground.  A ramp also extended to the ground.
  2743	Two people, evidently a man and a woman, came to the door and down the ramp.
  2744	The strange object looked even larger when compared to them.
  2745	They were each dressed simply in a single color.
  2746	To the villagers the two looked strange indeed, with unmarked smooth faces
  2747	and hair cut short.  Everyone these people had ever seen was thin, even
  2748	emaciated.  The two in front of them were heavier.  They looked ``healthy,''
  2749	a word the local people never used.
  2750	The man spoke first.
  2751	
  2752	``Hello.  I think you all speak English and can understand me.''
  2753	His English was close to what they were used to, unlike others they
  2754	sometimes ran into who were hard to understand. 
  2755	And once in a while they had encountered a language they couldn't
  2756	understand at all.
  2757	
  2758	 ``My name is Ricci.  My friend here is Salot.
  2759	We have a lot to say to you.
  2760	Salot is going to give you a snack to eat, while we talk.
  2761	Please each take what she's handing out.  Sit down, relax, and eat the food.
  2762	There's no hurry.''
  2763	
  2764	Food was the last thing they expected.
  2765	Food was basic, and they were all hungry.  Salot passed among them,
  2766	giving each person a container.  Then she sat down.
  2767	
  2768	``You should also eat the bowl the food comes in,'' Salot said.
  2769	``Go ahead and bite into it; you'll like it.''
  2770	
  2771	Most of them still had enough teeth to bite, and two of the others pulled
  2772	their food apart into pieces to stuff into their mouths.  It wasn't too solid
  2773	and even they could gum it and swallow.  It didn't take them long to finish.
  2774	Nothing like this had ever happened in their memory.  No stranger had ever
  2775	brought food for them to eat.
  2776	
  2777	Both the strangers sat down in the grass.  
  2778	With good reasons, the villagers didn't like sitting in grass.
  2779	``It's all right.  We've chased off all the bugs and other small
  2780	animals.  You can sit without worrying.''
  2781	It was all so strange, but they did sit down.  Alicia was wondering how
  2782	they could clear out all the creatures living in a section of grass .
  2783	
  2784	Ricci started in: ``Salot and I have been studying
  2785	your group and others nearby for some time now.  We know you have been
  2786	living a very difficult life and we want to help you.''
  2787	
  2788	Of their group, the largest was a man named Mirt.  He was often the boldest
  2789	and the one to decide things, though it was informal.
  2790	
  2791	``Where do you come from, and how are you going to help us?''
  2792	
  2793	``I'll give a simple answer, but this answer is the start of a
  2794	long talk between us.  We come from a long distance away.
  2795	This area where you live is no good for humans now.  There's not enough here
  2796	for you to survive.  You've done a good job with the struggle, but soon
  2797	it will get worse.  The coming summer will be hotter than you've had before.
  2798	It sounds harsh, but we don't think any of you will make it
  2799	even through the summer.''
  2800	
  2801	Ricci was trying to sound encouraging.  ``You've done a wonderful job of getting
  2802	by with what you have, but it's been too much, too hard.''
  2803	
  2804	``We do nothing but work here.''
  2805	
  2806	``Yes, that's the point.  It's amazing how you've survived,
  2807	but it's becoming impossible.''
  2808	
  2809	Mirt kept at it.  ``So you're going to keep giving us food, as you just did?''
  2810	
  2811	``That only puts things off, delays the problems.
  2812	I have to say it.  You must move to somewhere else, and we will help you with that.''
  2813	
  2814	``Why?'' Mirt said.  ``Why will you help us?''
  2815	
  2816	``It's simple.   We help because we can and because you need help.
  2817	We are all humans together and should help one another if we can.
  2818	We will help you move to a much better place, as we've done with several
  2819	other groups in this area.  You may have noticed that some of them have
  2820	disappeared.  They didn't die off, but moved with our help.''
  2821	
  2822	Jarls, Alicia's friend, spoke up.  ``So we will walk over to another valley.
  2823	A move like that is always difficult for us, and dangerous.''
  2824	
  2825	``No, we want to move you ourselves to a place a long way from here.
  2826	And the move will be easy.  We will do all the work.''
  2827	
  2828	No one spoke.
  2829	
  2830	``We do this because we can.  We want to rescue
  2831	as many people as we are able to,
  2832	moving them from places where they are dying.
  2833	It sounds cruel, but I want you to understand.
  2834	We can tell what the weather will be like.
  2835	The coming summer will be hotter than ever before.
  2836	Most of the animals in this area will die.
  2837	How could you possibly make it through such a summer.
  2838	I say it again: you won't make it.  You will die.''
  2839	
  2840	A long silence, and then Mirt said: ``So what would we do?  How would we
  2841	go with you?''
  2842	
  2843	``This large object here is a craft that can carry you all, every one of
  2844	you at the same time, to the new place.
  2845	It will be easy for you to climb into our craft, bringing along anything
  2846	personal that you value.''
  2847	
  2848	Alicia was suddenly scared and spoke up, unlike her normal shy self.
  2849	``What about our dog, Baku?  Do we have to leave him here?
  2850	We can't do that.''
  2851	
  2852	``No, for sure you should bring your dog along too.
  2853	For him it will be easier than for you.   He will also like your new
  2854	home and will put on weight as he gets more to eat.
  2855	We'll put Baku in a special carry-on box, designed for a dog.''
  2856	
  2857	``You mean we leave right now?''
  2858	
  2859	``There's no hurry.  You can all talk it over.  Ask me more questions.
  2860	But we can leave at any time,''
  2861	
  2862	Salot took up the conversation.
  2863	``There will be food and drink for you on the trip.
  2864	We will have new clothes for you when you get to your new home.
  2865	Some of you have sores or injuries or other problems.
  2866	We will help with those too.''
  2867	
  2868	Then: ``I won't lie to you.  The place where we take you will seem very
  2869	strange at first, though others who recently lived near you will be there too.
  2870	We will have people there who speak English and they will
  2871	stay with you as long as needed.  They will help you understand the new area
  2872	and explain everything.''
  2873	
  2874	The group talked quietly with one another for some time.
  2875	They didn't realize that everything they said was being recorded for review.
  2876	It was a jumble of different questions and opinions -- almost
  2877	discouraging because there was so much uncertainty about what they should do.
  2878	
  2879	Once again, Mirt asked questions for the whole group.
  2880	``What if we don't want to leave here?  Can't you help us while we stay here?''
  2881	
  2882	Ricci answered.  ``We will not be staying here.
  2883	After we move you, we need to go on to other groups in trouble.
  2884	So, no, we cannot help you here.
  2885	This is not a place for you to settle and stay.  You can only die here.
  2886	You don't realize how good the new place will be.  There will be many people
  2887	similar to yourselves.  They all speak English.  You will be able to mingle
  2888	with the others, make new friends, eventually have children and create a society.''
  2889	
  2890	Finally, Mirt asked the overriding questions:
  2891	``What if we refuse to go with you?''
  2892	
  2893	``We will not force you to go.  In that case we will check back with you
  2894	again after several months have passed.
  2895	By then, it will all have gotten so bad here
  2896	that several of you may have died.  But that's not any good.
  2897	Please don't even think about staying.  You all must leave with us now.''
  2898	
  2899	``What if we get to the new place and want to go back?''
  2900	
  2901	``Your new location is beautiful and wonderful.
  2902	You can't imagine how nice it is.
  2903	As I said, there will be helpers who speak English.  They will make sure
  2904	you are happy with everything.  In the new place there will be no hunger
  2905	at all and almost no other problems.  You won't want to come back.''
  2906	
  2907	After another round of their talking with one another,
  2908	Mirt asked to talk with the pair by himself. 
  2909	``I need to explain that two of our people belong to a special religious
  2910	group, although they are isolated here from other followers.
  2911	They think you are demons who will take us to Hell itself.
  2912	They think that special Hell will look very nice, but soon they
  2913	will be damned forever.  I don't hold those beliefs, and
  2914	I'm convinced.  I want to go with you.''
  2915	
  2916	Finally Ricci called them all together.  ``We cannot stay here forever.
  2917	We must work with others who also need a safe place to live.
  2918	We will leave in one hour with any of you who wish to go. 
  2919	No one will be forced to go.''
  2920	
  2921	That whole approach of a deadline proved to be therapeutic:
  2922	they all decided to go.
  2923	First they gathered meager belongings, charitably speaking.
  2924	Actually it was only a few pathetic items, except for
  2925	Baku the dog and Steckles the carved squirrel.
  2926	Oh, and they didn't forget the invaluable sewing needles.
  2927	
  2928	Salot got them up the ramp and into a large room, like a lounge
  2929	with nice comfortable-looking seats in it.
  2930	Salot explained some more.
  2931	``This craft is going to fly us all to your new home.
  2932	The craft will bounce and jerk around a bit, but not much and nothing
  2933	bad can happen to you.  Anyway that's why we need to fasten you
  2934	carefully into the chairs.  All your belonging and Baku will be
  2935	in the separate room at the front.''
  2936	
  2937	It took a while for Salot to get everyone belted in.
  2938	One person said he felt sick, but he only needed the toilet.
  2939	Salot introduced him to the mysterious facilities on the craft.
  2940	Finally the whole group was belted in and settled down.
  2941	They did seem nervous about what was going to happen.
  2942	
  2943	No pilot was needed for their trip; it was all automated.
  2944	Shortly later, before the actual trip started, they were all put into
  2945	a gentle sleep state without them realizing it was happening.
  2946	That was essential.  Soon there would be an increase
  2947	in gravity and changing gravity fields, followed by free fall some of the time.
  2948	It wouldn't hurt them, but nothing could keep that from
  2949	terrorizing them.  Experience had shown there was no other reasonable way;
  2950	otherwise it would be far too stressful for them.
  2951	They would wake up in the same chairs and in a similar-looking room,
  2952	but one that was in the hab and not on the craft. 
  2953	
  2954	The chairs included monitors that would keep track
  2955	of their physical reactions to the flight.
  2956	While by rights they shouldn't show up,
  2957	there could be psychological reactions also.
  2958	If there were any health problems or serious reactions,
  2959	the chair would supply medication and it could also call
  2960	the two of them over to help.  In an emergency, a passenger could be taken
  2961	to the Craft's small Healing Center,
  2962	which could solve almost any health problem.
  2963	They didn't have any good solution to multiple serious problems,
  2964	but that hadn't ever happened to them.
  2965	
  2966	Usually when Salot had taken a group to their hab,
  2967	everything proceeded with no problems, and this time was no exception. 
  2968	Mostly the people thought they had dozed off a bit,
  2969	not realized they'd missed the entire trip.
  2970	Often they didn't even think about how the whole room had
  2971	magically left the craft that brought them.
  2972	There was too much else that was new.
  2973	
  2974	Ricci and Salot both strapped themselves in for the first part of the flight.
  2975	Then an hour of free fall, followed by maneuvers to get
  2976	to the innards of Azel hab with gravity at 68 percent of Earth normal.
  2977	They would all wake up in Azel.
  2978	
  2979	``What a relief to get them all settled and be off,''  Ricci said.
  2980	``I can't remember ever having this much trouble before.''
  2981	
  2982	``Humans are naturally suspicious.''
  2983	
  2984	``And it's annoying to keep my language simple,'' Ricci said.  ``It will help when they find us there too, people they already know.
  2985	But the Azel people aren't going to welcome the dog to their hab.''
  2986	
  2987	``There are other dogs in Azel.  They can deal with the mutt.
  2988	Otherwise the little girl, Alicia, would have gone nuts on us.
  2989	It might have affected the outcome.  It was a good idea to immediately
  2990	and enthusiastically approve taking the dog with us.
  2991	Besides, I like dogs, and that poor little thing had been working
  2992	as a guard dog too long.  He's had no play time.''
  2993	
  2994	Salot brought up a subject she'd often talked about with Ricci.
  2995	``Do you still like this job?''
  2996	
  2997	``Sure I do.  It's been truly rewarding to give so many of those poor
  2998	people from Earth a far better life.  It's important work, difficult work.
  2999	We're helping people who are desperate.  People in decline who
  3000	have no way forward.''
  3001	
  3002	``You know that the majority of Earthers are left to
  3003	cope on their own.''
  3004	
  3005	``Yeah, sure.  I'm fine with that.  Lowering the population
  3006	density in some of these difficult areas also helps those who are
  3007	leftover there.  And we're leaving with the ones worst off.''
  3008	
  3009	Salot decided to be brave and bring up the real topic.
  3010	``And all this is supposedly arranged by the mysterious `Builders,'
  3011	whoever and whatever they are.''
  3012	
  3013	``Yes.  Nobody knows who or what they are, or whether they are still
  3014	around.  It seems weird, using all the Builder's perfect technology,
  3015	depending with our lives on it, yet knowing nothing about them.''
  3016	
  3017	Salot said the obvious: ``Yes, We don't know, probably never will.''
  3018	
  3019	
  3020	A dozen counselors had arrived to help them adjust.
  3021	And the new settlers started to wake up.
  3022	
  3023	``Wow,'' Ricci said.  ``Several of you got so warm and happy that you
  3024	fell asleep.  Let me introduce you to those who will be your guides
  3025	over the next few weeks.''
  3026	
  3027	Ricci, Salot and the new counselors got the group unfastened from their
  3028	chairs, gathered their belongings, not forgetting Baku,
  3029	and guided the group down a corridor into their new quarters.
  3030	The room with the chairs would be taken away and the corridor
  3031	permanently closed.
  3032	
  3033	For several weeks they would stay in quarters that were
  3034	completely closed off from the rest of the hab.
  3035	Their new facilities were self-contained with everything they needed,
  3036	including a kitchen that would supply food.
  3037	Their adjustment to the physical situation wouldn't be hard:
  3038	the lighter gravity only made them feel well, even energetic.
  3039	The new coriolis effects were too subtle for them to notice.
  3040	Later they would be introduced to the hab itself, and that
  3041	was always another huge adjustment.  
  3042	They used a standard staged process for assimilation,
  3043	introducing them first to a beautiful closed garden, with no other humans.
  3044	The full physical arrangement of the hab was beyond their imagination.
  3045	They also had never been exposed to so many people.
  3046	
  3047	%%% part2.1.tex:  Chap 7, Habitat =========================================##
  3048	Jun Arakras had her favorite parts of the hab:
  3049	the zero-gravity recreation areas at either end.
  3050	These were on the axis of rotation, but not rotating
  3051	with everything else.  There were places to exercise or to play
  3052	zero-gravity games.  She felt sorry for planet-bound people, on the
  3053	Earth, the Moon, or Mars -- impossible for them to have
  3054	{zero-G} anywhere.
  3055	Each area also had a huge window showing the
  3056	outside -- the only windows in her hab.
  3057	The hab itself was in orbit around the Earth,
  3058	in a precise equilateral-triangular dance along with the Moon.
  3059	The Earth or the Moon or both were often visible, but if the blazing sun
  3060	would normally be in the view, outshining everything,
  3061	it was cleverly blotted out.
  3062	One could see the solar corona and eruptions,
  3063	but the sun itself was a black disk.  Sort of a local solar eclipse.
  3064	The Sun and Moon were the same size as they would be from the Earth,
  3065	while the Earth was four times the Moon's diameter,
  3066	sixteen times its area, looking bright and colorful, a beautiful blue.
  3067	A magnifying viewer showed details of both Moon
  3068	and Earth -- not much to see on the Moon, but many interesting
  3069	details on the Earth, even some lights when the dark side came into
  3070	view.  The {Library} had a near infinite amount of information
  3071	and materials related to the Earth, but only as it was eight hundred
  3072	years ago and earlier.
  3073	
  3074	Like all the machines and other devices left behind by the Builders,
  3075	the habs always functioned perfectly,
  3076	with no apparent possibility of a failure of any kind.
  3077	Some of her friends had visited other habs, but no one she knew
  3078	had ever been to any of the three planets: habs on the Moon
  3079	and Mars, and on the Earth evidently no hab was necessary,
  3080	but they often needed some type of shelter.
  3081	
  3082	Jun was never able to place the time when she learned how
  3083	different she was from everyone else; it seemed
  3084	as if she was that way from birth.
  3085	She came to realize that she couldn't trust the accuracy of statements
  3086	by others, even when they claimed to be certain.
  3087	Were they joking with her, teasing her, even testing her?
  3088	Apparently not.  Everyone else had faulty
  3089	memories, while for her the past was perfect and clear with no
  3090	ambiguities.  Reflexively she hid her total recollection, stopped
  3091	trying to correct others, and even started twisting her statements
  3092	away from the past reality -- an attempt to fit in.
  3093	It seemed amazing, but her friends couldn't reliably remember
  3094	ten letters or numbers in a row, and could never do twenty.
  3095	How about a thousand? Or a million?  She could also take in an entire vid
  3096	screen at a glance and know it, remember it,
  3097	while others painfully pawed through each screen.
  3098	
  3099	And then there were her dreams, separate from her heroic fantasies.
  3100	She talked about dreams with friends, but usually listened
  3101	without contributing.  Most of her dreams were like those of the
  3102	others: a confused rehash of previous experiences, happy or sad,
  3103	and sometimes a nightmare, always filled with crazy twists,
  3104	confusion, and abrupt changes -- as with a recent unsettling
  3105	dream about black ants similar to the ones in
  3106	the hab, except the size of people.
  3107	But she had her own strange dreams that no friend mentioned:
  3108	these showed what seemed to be clear views of far-off places,
  3109	usually in the future.
  3110	She thought of them as visions rather than dreams.  Her own future? 
  3111	A possible future?  Something to expect, or something to strive for?
  3112	At first she didn't know, but her visions
  3113	had a way of coming to pass.  In some she was much older,
  3114	like a vision of herself moving along a corridor toward a doorway,
  3115	beyond which was a huge gathering.
  3116	Later she would learn from the Library that
  3117	in the past others had {visions} like this:
  3118	mystics and religious figures, people
  3119	experimenting with drugs -- an endless list. It was regarded
  3120	as a gift -- some called it {Second} Sight or Foresight.
  3121	
  3122	Did she truly think she was getting information from the future?
  3123	A total violation of causality?  People who studied these issues
  3124	wrote that more likely her mind was mulling
  3125	over many possibilities, with a huge bias toward remembering
  3126	events that later happened and forgetting those that didn't.
  3127	A problem with that explanation was that she never forgot anything.
  3128	
  3129	When Jun was barely a teenager, she pleaded with her family
  3130	to let her have her own bedroom, and they finally agreed
  3131	to move to a larger apartment, one with a separate bedroom
  3132	for her that had a special door to the outside.
  3133	Plenty of apartments were available in the hab, but such a separate
  3134	bedroom was rare.  She'd been sleeping in a common room,
  3135	but now for the first time she could come and go
  3136	without risking her conservative parents finding out about it.
  3137	It was a concession by her parents, since in exchange for the better
  3138	apartment, they would have to work slightly longer
  3139	hours -- mostly make-work, not useful,
  3140	but still it had to be done.
  3141	
  3142	Jun loved everything about her new room, her {own} room.
  3143	It had often been so awkward for her as she waited for her parents to go
  3144	off to sleep, and only then could she open up her own bed and sleep herself.
  3145	And they were often up when she was still sleeping.
  3146	She thought of it as her special good-luck room because of a beautiful
  3147	object she had found in a drawer in the room: a lovely little black squirrel 
  3148	carved from a piece of wood, with a huge tail and cute perked-up ears.
  3149	When people moved out from somewhere, they often left things behind.
  3150	But this case was special.
  3151	Looking it up in the Library, it was clearly a Japanese netsuke -- a small
  3152	carved figure used as part of a man's sash.  Back in Japan in the
  3153	old days the Library said they were bought and sold for high prices.
  3154	She found pictures similar to her squirrel.
  3155	Jun couldn't imagine how the little fellow ended up in her drawer.
  3156	A treasure it was, at least eight hundred years old.
  3157	
  3158	Jun usually left her exterior door unlocked.
  3159	One night a dark figure opened the door and immediately closed it.
  3160	She had a single small nightlight but
  3161	didn't even get a look at the face.  The person jumped onto
  3162	her sleeping pad and grabbed hold of her right arm.  The grip was
  3163	painful, terrifying.  ``Be quiet and you won't get hurt,'' a male voice
  3164	said. ``Not much, anyway.''   She twisted against his hold, struck out
  3165	with the other fist and hit him in the body somewhere, but then he
  3166	got hold of her other arm.  Jun was in good condition and strong,
  3167	but he was bigger and much stronger.  She kicked at him as hard as
  3168	she could, but he only fell to the pad with her below him.
  3169	He put his arm against her chest, holding her down, and started ripping
  3170	her nightclothes off.  Disposables, they tore easily in his hands.
  3171	She kept trying to fend him off, but he clearly enjoyed countering
  3172	her struggles as he sank down onto her.  She tired of the
  3173	fighting just as he managed to position himself to push into her,
  3174	to rape her.  After that it was a blur of twisting and fighting
  3175	while he continued.  Eventually it was over.  He lay down
  3176	partly on top of her and partly beside.  She started to say something,
  3177	but he told her to shut up -- one more word
  3178	and he would smash her head in.
  3179	
  3180	It didn't seem possible, but eventually she went to sleep with him
  3181	beside her.  She woke in the middle of the night as he was grabbing
  3182	her again, assaulting her a second time.  This went mostly like the
  3183	previous time, except that as he laughed at her, she swore she would
  3184	find him somehow, sometime, and kill him.
  3185	
  3186	It was almost morning when he woke again and asked almost politely,
  3187	``Hey, once more?''
  3188	
  3189	``I'm pretty tired.  Maybe not this time.  Who are you, anyway?
  3190	Liz only said that someone `fantastic' would come.''
  3191	Of course she did know who he was. She knew everyone in
  3192	her hab, but she always tried to seem normal.
  3193	
  3194	``I'm Ram.  You've met me.  Probably you don't remember.  Darker than
  3195	most of them here.  Dark, curly hair.''
  3196	
  3197	``Yeah, I remember now.  Very good job.''
  3198	She smiled and hit him on his chest.
  3199	``My parents will be up soon, and you need to be
  3200	gone.  We must do this again, but with a different script,
  3201	one that's not so crazy.
  3202	In two or three weeks -- mustn't do too often or it gets boring.''  
  3203	
  3204	She saw him out her special door and called after him,
  3205	``Surprise me with the script and with the day you choose
  3206	but start an hour after dark.''
  3207	
  3208	Two days later her father told her she had been ordered to appear
  3209	with her parents before the Compliance Committee.
  3210	They dealt with violations of hab rules and laws.  She'd done her
  3211	share of violations but tried not to get caught.
  3212	Her mother was too nervous to go, but not everyone had two
  3213	parents anyway, and some had none.
  3214	What could they be accusing her of?  This time she'd done nothing.
  3215	Deny everything -- that ought to work.
  3216	
  3217	The two of them took a shortcut through the huge trees in the
  3218	High Forest, at lower gravity, leading to the admin building.
  3219	She often enjoyed the beautiful birds and small animals, but
  3220	this time she was nervous and hardly noticed them.
  3221	They met with the committee's Head, named Maz Binkly -- an
  3222	ugly man she'd met before and didn't like.  Maz started in immediately
  3223	talking about the problems with sex between teenagers, in
  3224	particular between her and a young man named Ram
  3225	Thinsel.  He said it happened two nights ago in her bedroom,
  3226	attached to their apartment.
  3227	
  3228	Jun made a mistake then, counting on her seclusion with Ram.
  3229	Surely he hadn't told anyone, but then how did they know?
  3230	Maybe someone saw him go in and then ratted out on them.
  3231	``Yes, we were together in my room, but we only talked, no sex.''
  3232	
  3233	Maz proceeded to bring up a video.  There she was,
  3234	in perfect, clear detail and good lighting, having sex with Ram.
  3235	Her calm father was stunned and upset,
  3236	but not like Jun was.  She had no idea there was surveillance
  3237	in the hab, let alone in her bedroom, and how could the video be
  3238	so bright, when the room had been dark, with a single nightlamp?
  3239	For a change she was shocked into silence.
  3240	
  3241	At Maz's suggestion, her father promised to take away her
  3242	vid access for a month and to lock her separate
  3243	door -- not much punishment since she could subvert both
  3244	those controls.
  3245	
  3246	Maz then asked her why. Why were so many young people doing this,
  3247	not only the sex but pretending it was rape?  He didn't understand.
  3248	``He wasn't forcing you, was he.''  Not a question but a statement.
  3249	
  3250	``Uh, no, not really.''
  3251	
  3252	``Then why?''
  3253	
  3254	What to say?  She tried the truth:
  3255	``It's so boring in our hab.  Nothing much ever happens.
  3256	We're looking for a little excitement, that's all.''
  3257	She decided not to say she herself had invented this game,
  3258	one that then caught on across the hab.
  3259	She was trying to tell him that they had a whole collection of scripts
  3260	to follow and were using one of them, but
  3261	she saw her answer hadn't gone over well at all, and he was in no
  3262	mood to listen any further.
  3263	
  3264	``You think your fake rape game is funny?''  Maz said,
  3265	and then not letting her answer.
  3266	``We have actual rapes in our hab and it's a serious
  3267	business -- a grave violation of our laws, terrible for the victim.
  3268	The penalty can be banishment from the hab.''
  3269	
  3270	Jun had heard about the banishment penalty but had never known
  3271	it carried out.  She didn't even know how they could do it.
  3272	Force someone into a transfer vehicle and send it off?
  3273	What would keep someone from later coming back?
  3274	As Maz kept berating her, she tuned him out.
  3275	He was saying something about having several friends who did this stuff
  3276	send him a vid-message saying they would stop.
  3277	She would replay his tirade later in her mind.
  3278	
  3279	As they left, her father said he couldn't possibly tell
  3280	her mother the true story, and would have to say she'd
  3281	misbehaved.  But he was disappointed in her.  She dutifully
  3282	said how sorry she was, and it wouldn't happen again,
  3283	standard birdshit.
  3284	
  3285	That was how she found out about the hab's perfect video surveillance,
  3286	available only to select leaders and seldom used.
  3287	Later Har, a special friend, was equally surprised and outraged.
  3288	``They can do that anywhere? In the dark, even?''
  3289	
  3290	``Yeah, it works perfectly, like everything in our hab.
  3291	I guess only the Committee even knows it exists.
  3292	I'm surprised they used it in front
  3293	of me.''  Privately she resolved to gain access to this
  3294	amazing system and was regretting telling anyone about it,
  3295	even her friend.  Wait, for sure not her friend.
  3296	In the end it took her several months, working with
  3297	an older man who'd been nice to her on occasion.
  3298	The committee membership was private,
  3299	but she'd guessed he was a member and so had
  3300	access himself.  She flirted with him and talked him into
  3301	showing her the system.  He didn't realize she'd
  3302	picked up the password as he started a session.
  3303	He and the others knew only about the surveillance and the
  3304	location features -- it could locate anyone by name or
  3305	by description.  No one was even aware of the system except for
  3306	those in major committees.  When she later dug into it,
  3307	there were many other features they knew nothing about:
  3308	the system could be accessed from any vid, and it could communicate
  3309	with anyone, even using a quiet voice that no one else could hear.
  3310	All the additional capabilities were easy to find,
  3311	but the older men in her hab with access weren't used
  3312	to trying things out or checking for more possibilities.
  3313	You only needed to query the system itself. 
  3314	Why had the Builders included this as a feature
  3315	of the hab when they left out so many other things?
  3316	
  3317	Over the next several years,
  3318	a group of young people coalesced around Jun as their leader.
  3319	It was a loose number of acolytes who drew motivation
  3320	from her as well as a bit of exciting fear.  And why afraid?
  3321	Well, Jun didn't seem to accept any limitations. 
  3322	Her visions had turned dark, with violence, fighting, even death,
  3323	though she didn't tell anyone about them directly.
  3324	Still she was always intense, saying that a crisis was coming,
  3325	they needed to be strong, needed to study and learn,
  3326	be prepared for anything.
  3327	In addition there were rumors of inter-hab violence, but they
  3328	didn't know what form it might take.
  3329	
  3330	Her group was smart but bored, looking for something to do.
  3331	Included in the group besides her early friends, the girls Liz and Har,
  3332	as well as Ram of course, 
  3333	was the dark slender Jor and the short Eli.
  3334	Jor was male, but androgynous, able to pass for female.
  3335	Eli was strong and a bit older.  Jun thought of him
  3336	as a man, rather than a boy.
  3337	
  3338	One day Jun went for a free-flight session with Ram.
  3339	To fly, you had to hike to one of
  3340	the ends to get to a near-zero-G staging area.
  3341	Then strap on wing-like attachments and
  3342	actually fly -- indefinitely as long as you didn't stray too
  3343	far from the centerline.  The wings were crafted by several people
  3344	working in the hab's hobby shop, using
  3345	wood-like and cloth-like materials.
  3346	They were fastened onto arms and across the back,
  3347	so someone could fly like a bird.
  3348	The hab didn't want anyone flying because of injuries,
  3349	mostly from getting into higher gravity areas,
  3350	but they didn't forbid it.
  3351	
  3352	After a few weeks of practice, Jun came to love the flying,
  3353	but this time she mostly wanted to talk with Ram,
  3354	before and after, about another issue.  He had a sharp mind
  3355	and liked to speculate and argue.
  3356	
  3357	As they hiked, she started in.
  3358	``Do you ever wonder who the Builders were?  Whether they're still
  3359	around or will come back?''
  3360	
  3361	``Not really,'' Ram said.  ``I figure it was some group of humans.''
  3362	
  3363	``That's not at all obvious.  Have you poked around much into the {Library},
  3364	through a vid?''
  3365	
  3366	``Sure, quite a bit.  All kinds of interesting stuff there,
  3367	but all of it geared to an Earth I've never experienced directly.
  3368	There are also the games and videos and such.''
  3369	
  3370	``I guess you know that everything we can read or watch is
  3371	from the Earth of more than 800 years ago, right?''
  3372	
  3373	``Yeah, I know that.  It's weird to think it's all so old.
  3374	Hard to know which parts are accurate historically and
  3375	which are made-up fiction.  I miss a lot of the references,
  3376	the cultural ones most of all.''
  3377	
  3378	``But you may not know how big the Library itself is.
  3379	It's amazing.  So large you could spend a lifetime and
  3380	only see the smallest portion of it.''
  3381	
  3382	``Okay,'' Ram said. ``But who created it?  The `Builders'?''
  3383	Like lots of people on the hab, he would say the word as if
  3384	it had quotation marks around it.
  3385	
  3386	``It doesn't say how it was created, but it was surely made by the
  3387	people who were around back then.
  3388	It mostly contains materials from before the year
  3389	2045 -- that's 840 years ago.  Evidently the
  3390	contents of several huge collections, including 
  3391	everything digital that was in the old Library of Congress -- the
  3392	main North American Library -- the largest in the world
  3393	at the time, and they were constantly digitizing.
  3394	Someone copied it all into storage and included {sophisticated}
  3395	accessing software.  It's pretty much all of human history
  3396	and achievement up to 2045, but little after that date.
  3397	Books and other manuscripts, pictures and videos of every possible
  3398	kind.  The year 2045 came shortly before a major economic and
  3399	cultural collapse of the human civilization.
  3400	I assume multiple copies were created to save what could be
  3401	kept in compact digital form.''
  3402	
  3403	``You said there's a little after 2045?''
  3404	
  3405	``Yes, scattered materials from the years 2055 to 2080 or so,
  3406	and only two documents from 2087.  Nothing after that.
  3407	These confirm the horrible crash around 2045 or so.  A large
  3408	death toll -- it must have been terrible.  By 2065 a considerable
  3409	recovery had occurred and was continuing.
  3410	The two items from 2087 are awful, describing a world in total ruin.
  3411	Impossible to know for sure, but it seems
  3412	like the recovery was reversed completely, leading to a loss
  3413	of most technology, back to a much more primitive society.''
  3414	
  3415	Ram seemed spellbound by this topic.  ``What was the problem, or
  3416	I guess, what were the problems?  Given their technology,
  3417	why couldn't they
  3418	recover.''
  3419	
  3420	``We know they were buried under problems.  Climate change made so much
  3421	of their world terrible, unlivable.  They had polluted their
  3422	environment to a point that it could only support a fraction of the
  3423	former population.  Also they had mined or retrieved most of the
  3424	resources their society depended on, often going to extremes:
  3425	mining the ocean bottoms, digging vast pits.
  3426	Many books were written and are in the Library
  3427	detailing the ways and extent of their environmental destruction.
  3428	A total collapse doesn't seem so surprising.''
  3429	
  3430	Jun looked back the way they had come, with the full hab cylinder
  3431	laid out.  They were half their normal weight now.  It was ready to
  3432	be ``dawn'' for the whole hab -- there was only one day-night
  3433	{cycle}, while the huge toroidal habs had continuously changing
  3434	day and night like an actual planet.
  3435	
  3436	She turned back to Ram. 
  3437	``But my question is still the same: who were the Builders.''
  3438	
  3439	``Humans,'' said Ram, ``since that's the only possibility.''
  3440	
  3441	``Um, `humans' sounds like the only {im}possibility.
  3442	It had become a spear and club society.  They could have gotten to
  3443	the point of herding cattle and sheep.  Build a space habitat?
  3444	The Builders created perfect machines, ones that never fail.
  3445	And also the transportation ferries between habitats and up from the Earth.
  3446	That's like a cruel joke to think the humans left on Earth could
  3447	have created all that.''
  3448	
  3449	``Couldn't a recovery at one of the off-Earth colonies have
  3450	led to the Builders themselves?''
  3451	
  3452	``There were colonies, as you know.
  3453	There actually was a good-sized Moon colony and a
  3454	much smaller Mars colony.  The Moon colony was self-sufficient
  3455	in theory, but likely not in practice and long-term.
  3456	There was also some horrible problem with the Mars colony
  3457	that was never clarified -- lots of stories and rumors.
  3458	There probably were enclaves of people on Earth with some
  3459	technology, but nothing much came of them.
  3460	We've had some contact with people from the Earth
  3461	for over two-hundred years.  That's where the 'settlers' in the habs
  3462	came from.''
  3463	
  3464	``If not humans,'' Ram said, ``then what?
  3465	Are you a Builder worshiper?  Each year there seems to be more
  3466	of them, and they've gotten more vocal in their entreaties.''
  3467	
  3468	``Don't you mean prayers?''
  3469	
  3470	``Why no, don't you know?  They don't want to be taken for any
  3471	of the old religions, and besides, they are making obeisance to
  3472	the hab itself.  Their deities are directly accessible.''
  3473	
  3474	`` `Obeisance.'  Where'd you learn a word like that?''
  3475	
  3476	``I had Builder-worshiping relatives, old ones.  They use all
  3477	new terminology.''  Then he continued, ``But if not divine Builders
  3478	or humans, then space aliens?''
  3479	
  3480	``Well, yes.  That's possible.''
  3481	
  3482	``Ridiculous.  As silly as Builder gods.''
  3483	
  3484	``I admit it sounds unlikely, but as an example, some advanced civilization could have seeded many places with individual
  3485	'Builder' units, to build habs if there was a need.''
  3486	
  3487	They went on to the staging area and swept out on their wings
  3488	through the upper reaches of the hab.
  3489	Jun had thought Ram might have some useful ideas,
  3490	but it was a real puzzle, and a long stretch to imagine something
  3491	besides humans involved.
  3492	
  3493	On the same day she'd talked with Ram, she looked up Eli, her short
  3494	and strong friend, to bring up a completely different issue with him.
  3495	
  3496	``You once mentioned you had a relative who dealt with weapons
  3497	in a hab,'' she started in. ``I want to see if you can help
  3498	with a specific problem I may have to solve.
  3499	It's simple: I need access to weapons
  3500	of some kind -- ones we can find or obtain or build, for use in
  3501	this hab.  Something practical.''
  3502	
  3503	``A lot depends on what you want the weapons for,'' Eli said.
  3504	``Do you want to intimidate people, or control them?
  3505	Punish them? Tell me what.''
  3506	
  3507	``I think I'll need to kill them,'' Jun said,
  3508	and Eli gave out an audible gasp.
  3509	
  3510	``You'll need to kill someone?  That sounds crazy.
  3511	And not like you either.  What the Devil?''
  3512	
  3513	``This is embarrassing.  When I was little, I used to dream of
  3514	having superpowers.  I killed monsters.  That was a fantasy world.
  3515	This is real here, and now the idea of violence, let alone killing,
  3516	well, it's terrifying, unacceptable.
  3517	I can't imagine killing someone.  But I have reason to believe
  3518	we in our hab may need to defend ourselves -- to the point
  3519	of killing.''
  3520	
  3521	``And why do you believe something like that?''
  3522	
  3523	``I ... don't want to tell you. But I've been saying that a crisis is coming.  
  3524	You may even have heard some rumors over the interhab mill.
  3525	For now I have to ask you to trust me.''
  3526	A long pause.  ``But please tell me what you know about weapons.''
  3527	
  3528	He was silent and then said, ``I did mention that
  3529	I had an older uncle who was involved with weapons on a hab.
  3530	It was a bad time for them and there was fighting.
  3531	Do you know that habs let humans do anything to one another?''
  3532	
  3533	``Yeah, I heard that, but I never thought it was actually
  3534	`anything.'  I mean, since a hab doesn't let people poison
  3535	other people, and, you know, they always have a Healing Module,
  3536	well, I thought there would have to be limits.''
  3537	
  3538	``There don't appear to be any limits.  Humans can truly do anything
  3539	at all to other humans.  Torture, slavery, cooking and eating, you name it.
  3540	You can't do anything that would mess up
  3541	the hab itself -- the environment.
  3542	Obviously our hope and expectation is that everyone will behave and not
  3543	do anything bad to one another.
  3544	
  3545	``But back to your weapons.
  3546	I guess you know there are extreme limitations on such weapons.''
  3547	
  3548	``Don't hint around,''  Jun complained.  ``Tell me what you know.''
  3549	
  3550	``You may have heard a lot of this before.
  3551	First, my uncle found that a hab doesn't permit any weapon
  3552	that uses directed energy, like a laser beam or microwave pulse or
  3553	even a sound generator.  Also no explosions or bombs, so none of
  3554	the old-fashioned weapons with {bullets.}
  3555	No poison of any kind.
  3556	If someone tries to bring such a weapon into a hab, there isn't
  3557	a barrier -- the hab doesn't keep it out,
  3558	but it disables the weapon somehow.
  3559	There's no indication of any deactivation -- it
  3560	simply doesn't work.  The energy isn't
  3561	produced, the bomb doesn't explode, the poison has no effect.''
  3562	
  3563	``Then what does work.''
  3564	
  3565	``My uncle ended up using hand weapons.  Apparently there's no limitation
  3566	on these: clubs, knives, swords, spears, rocks thrown by hand,
  3567	and so on.  A hab doesn't care about these.  You 
  3568	can put poison on a knife -- the poison will have no effect,
  3569	but the knife still works.
  3570	You can have several people help throw a rock, or use a rope somehow.''
  3571	
  3572	``Do you have any idea why a hab uses these rules?  They
  3573	seem arbitrary.''
  3574	
  3575	``I have a theory.  First of all, the hab keeps pushing
  3576	us to learn things:  first language and reading, then
  3577	mathematics, science, engineering, as well  as
  3578	philosophy, literature, ethics, all kinds of stuff.
  3579	Everyone learns a type of sign language as children.
  3580	I've also heard that some other habs use a different primary language
  3581	instead of English, but everyone uses the same sign language.
  3582	You know it yourself -- universal and independent of English or
  3583	of any other ordinary language.
  3584	Our hab knows who we are and tailors its suggestions to what we did
  3585	before, to its goals for us, and to our interests.  It's persistent and
  3586	clearly has elaborate plans for each individual,
  3587	specifically created for them.
  3588	It also supplies entertainment, such as videos and games,
  3589	but it cleverly returns to educational issues that could
  3590	still stand some work.
  3591	So it has to have at least a human-equivalent AI.  One or more AIs.
  3592	Oh, Hell, they're clearly smarter than humans.''
  3593	
  3594	``Yes, for sure.  I've spent time arguing with that AI.  But they don't
  3595	force you to learn.''
  3596	
  3597	``Still, a hab provides humans with what they need:
  3598	food, clothing, shelter, education, entertainment, health care, you name it.
  3599	It doesn't want to force people to learn, but instead it entices them.
  3600	It doesn't allow actions that might harm the hab itself.  It must also be
  3601	protecting against meteor strikes, collisions with transportation vehicles,
  3602	correcting the orbits of habs that wander away from their stable position,
  3603	protecting against solar flares and all manner of other hazards.
  3604	But humans have to organize themselves.  They have to deal with one
  3605	another without interference.  They have to form their own types
  3606	of government, their own way of handling misbehavior.
  3607	The hab doesn't interfere with humans doing bad
  3608	things to one another.  It doesn't want to be the judge, the arbiter.''
  3609	
  3610	Eli stood in thought a bit and then went on:  ``Don't you see,
  3611	suppose it did control us completely -- so we couldn't do anything
  3612	bad to one another.  How could it decide what was `bad,' and how bad
  3613	would something have to be to qualify.  It doesn't want slaves who
  3614	have no control over what they can do.  It wants us to decide for
  3615	ourselves what we do.  Before the breakdown, this was called `free will,'
  3616	a big deal.  But we're not truly free.  We function within a limited
  3617	range of possible actions.''
  3618	
  3619	``Here's something I just now thought of,'' Jun said.
  3620	``Most of us have visited at least a few other habs.  The transportation
  3621	is trivial, though you have to take food.''
  3622	
  3623	``Yes, When I was young I went off to a number
  3624	of habs -- not so much anymore.''
  3625	
  3626	``So what keeps a large group from forming a sort of `army' and
  3627	all of them going to some other hab.  Take over the hab.
  3628	Kill or enslave everyone.''
  3629	
  3630	``My uncle mentioned that once also.  Each hab only allows a certain
  3631	number of people to be present -- a {maximum} number.
  3632	For some reason the hab population seems to stay near this number.
  3633	A hab doesn't want too many people.  That wouldn't be sustainable.
  3634	My uncle said if extra people show up, at a certain point, one that
  3635	would come fast, the hab won't let extras in.
  3636	It won't open the main airlock doors.
  3637	This makes sense I guess.  The hab won't let you start fires or
  3638	threaten the hab itself in some way.  And it won't let there be
  3639	too many people.  If the army you're talking about shows up, only a
  3640	limited number will be admitted.  My uncle stressed that: they always
  3641	had the numbers on their side.  There were always a limited number
  3642	of opponents showing up.''
  3643	
  3644	``That's basically good to hear.  So all right,
  3645	I still want to hear about specific weapons.
  3646	What ones did your uncle end up using?''
  3647	
  3648	``Each person settled on their own weapon or weapons.  Over time
  3649	they changed around.  Some of the weapons required endless hours
  3650	of practice.  In the end there was a lot of hand-to-hand fighting,
  3651	after the ranks had closed.  Close in, hand-to-hand stuff takes
  3652	years of training.  He often talked about it, but
  3653	I never got a good feeling for how it went.  I picture now
  3654	total confusion, a real mess.''
  3655	
  3656	A long pause and then he went on.  ``For my uncle at that
  3657	time, and the same for any group we could get together, it's like this:
  3658	the people had no experience  with fighting, any serious
  3659	fighting.  I don't think it comes naturally.  I can't see myself
  3660	fighting effectively in any way.  And killing someone?!''
  3661	
  3662	``Yet we might have to.  Think about it some more.  What could
  3663	we do if we were desperate?''
  3664	
  3665	Give Eli credit, he actually did think.
  3666	``Best would be a drone with a weapon on board. We only see stuff like
  3667	that in old videos we watch. That's out for sure.
  3668	Next best would be a weapon that kills at a distance, like a
  3669	gun from the old videos, or a laser.  Those are out also.
  3670	So what else kills at a distance?  A thrown spear.
  3671	A bow and arrow.  A thrown `star' weapon -- that's a
  3672	small disk with a ring of sharp knife points around
  3673	the outside, whatever it's called.  I'm trying....
  3674	A bow and arrow or a sword require a lot of training and skill,
  3675	experience.  That's not good.  A spear or a club not so much skill.
  3676	How about two people carrying a longer heavier spear.  They could goad
  3677	one another along.  Let them hold the spear with one hand and have
  3678	a club in the other....  Hey, use a row of 2-person spears,
  3679	with someone behind them throwing rocks.  Oh and rocks would only be good
  3680	if you have a strong arm and experience with how things move in a
  3681	hab like ours.  There's a kind of extra force.''
  3682	
  3683	``Yes,'' Jun said.  ``It's called the Coriolis force.  I know all
  3684	about it, but I don't have any intuition about how thrown things
  3685	will behave.  I'd have to sit and think each time I threw something.''
  3686	Jun was amazed at how her mind worked.  She had only to think
  3687	of the word ``Coriolis'' and her mind seemed instantly to be full
  3688	of information: how and why the force was present,
  3689	how it was {as if} a force were present, who it
  3690	was named after (a French scientist), and how to compute
  3691	its effects; she had lied about not being able to know its effects.
  3692	She knew those effects almost instantly and with great precision.
  3693	
  3694	``I'm the opposite, with lots of experience.  I've gotten used
  3695	to the weird way things move.  I only need to keep
  3696	track of the axis of rotation of the hab and the direction I'm
  3697	throwing. Also it's easy to get it backwards. I could train people
  3698	to throw successfully, I mean, like to make a rock go where they
  3699	want it to.''
  3700	
  3701	``So that's another important thing for us to keep in mind,'' Jun said.
  3702	``We need to train anyone
  3703	who's going to throw things.  Thanks for bringing that up.
  3704	I now think thrown rocks might be pretty effective.
  3705	Of course the force acts on any moving object, like a thrown knife
  3706	or spear.''
  3707	
  3708	Eli went on.  ``Give each person a club to bash anybody who
  3709	gets past my row of spears, and give other people rocks to throw.
  3710	Might work, but all that, the spears,
  3711	the rocks, that's for a larger open area, not a corridor or such.
  3712	And in the end, I don't see how you're going to turn non-fighters
  3713	into fighters.  I think there are other habs where violence and
  3714	fighting are common, but not here.''
  3715	
  3716	Jun thanked him and asked that he keep working on ideas
  3717	for weapons and fighters.  ``There will be some external motivation,''
  3718	she said.  ``We'll see.''
  3719	
  3720	Eli kept his eyes on her as she walked off.  Why did  she think she needed
  3721	weapons?  She often talked about a future crisis, without specifics.
  3722	Was she crazy or did she somehow know trouble was coming.
  3723	And she expects ``some external motivation'' whatever that might be.
  3724	He should press for details.
  3725	
  3726	The next day, Eli sought out Jun again.  ``I've been looking in the
  3727	library about different kinds of fighting, about warfare.  I was talking about
  3728	using a row of spears, and a version of that was common long before our
  3729	collapse.  The weapon was called a `pike,' used on offense or defense.
  3730	It was not thrown or stabbed, but carried by one soldier.
  3731	Pikes were like a very long spear, three meters long or so,
  3732	sharp at one end, say twice the length of a normal spear.  There would be
  3733	a row of soldiers, each carrying a pike, and another row behind the first,
  3734	and so on.  They marched along, carrying a whole row of the pointed weapons.
  3735	It sounds like that wouldn't need so much training, and no trouble with
  3736	that special force, whatever you called it.''
  3737	
  3738	``The Coriolis force.''
  3739	
  3740	``Oh, yeah.  In war they didn't use only pikes, but lots of other weapons, 
  3741	carried by one man: clubs, swords, and later guns when they were invented.
  3742	Anyway, I think a solid row of soldiers marching toward you with pikes
  3743	might be good.  And not only one row, but row after row, so it's like a square.
  3744	The source  talked about using other fighters to keep the enemy from attacking
  3745	at the sides of the rows of pikes.  Pikes wouldn't be hard to make or hard
  3746	to use, but they wouldn't work in more confined areas.''
  3747	
  3748	Eli stopped her as she was leaving.  ``Another thought I've had.  We may
  3749	be oversimplifying how a hab's AIs function.  I was using a very simple
  3750	set of rules for them, but it might be far more complex than that.
  3751	They may have elaborate long-term plans and goals for us that they're
  3752	getting started on.  It's clear to me, though, that they don't
  3753	want to cause humans to become completely passive, no hostility at all.
  3754	The Library shows how easy this is to do when breeding dogs, say,
  3755	to be more gentle and friendly, not aggressive.
  3756	The result isn't a strong-willed, capable dog, but the opposite.
  3757	Should they interfere every time two humans argued?
  3758	Well I think it's an obvious `no.'
  3759	They want the humans to settle their own arguments.
  3760	
  3761	``Picture two humans hitting one another with their fists.  Hitting hard,
  3762	hurting one another, even leaving one of them dead.
  3763	Suppose the hab intervened, to stop the fight.  What message would
  3764	that deliver?  Certainly: `No, you're not free at all.  You're simply
  3765	doing what we want you to do.'  That's no good.  The hab would be
  3766	turning its occupents into actors in an elaborate play, where the whole
  3767	script was known ahead of time.  I'm glad that's not the case.''
  3768	
  3769	Jun thanked him and promised to look up information about pikes in the Library.
  3770	
  3771	Jun herself had been thinking about a medieval
  3772	conundrum, one before gunpowder and the guns that went with it:
  3773	Without guns, how do you turn a young,
  3774	untrained person right away into an effective fighter?
  3775	If such a person had an enemy on the ground at the point of
  3776	a knife or sword, they might not be able to plunge the weapon home.
  3777	Well, that described her.  How long does it take to teach someone to
  3778	shoot an arrow with a bow and hit a target?
  3779	The answer was years.
  3780	
  3781	Eli's discovery of pikes was promising, and they also didn't require
  3782	training, but they were more for use by a large army in an open space.
  3783	Still, she thought they should use pikes, and have a large number
  3784	available.
  3785	
  3786	There was another way, though, that individual inexperienced soldiers
  3787	could become more than weaklings who would die right away in a conflict.
  3788	That way wouldn't be perfect, but it might be good enough.
  3789	A way that wouldn't require endless training and experience.
  3790	Even for the easier method she was considering, they still needed
  3791	training and repetition. Yes, work on compensating for
  3792	that crazy Coriolis force.  And they had to manufacture the
  3793	weapons, another major hurdle.  These weapons would be far more complicated
  3794	to make than pikes.  She resolved to pursue this on her own.
  3795	
  3796	%%% part2.2.tex:  Chap 8, Visitor =========================================##
  3797	The man was walking along the main path that led from one of the
  3798	two arrival ports to the administration buildings,
  3799	where he might register and be assigned a place to stay.
  3800	He stood out because he was wearing dark glasses, well, they were
  3801	black not dark.  Not many people needed glasses, but the Healing
  3802	Center would provide them if necessary.  The center would also attempt
  3803	eye healing, but couldn't restore sight if there was a real problem,
  3804	such as with an eye poked out,  
  3805	so sometimes people ended up blind, as this man appeared to be.
  3806	Anyone looking at him would have thought he was finding his
  3807	way along well for a blind person.
  3808	His features and posture
  3809	were odd somehow, different from other people, but they were subtle,
  3810	the differences -- the way he held himself, the way he walked,
  3811	everything said ``different'' without anything one could
  3812	easily point to...except for his glasses.
  3813	Oh, and even his clothes looked strange, not the disposables that
  3814	most people in the hab wore.
  3815	He was of medium height, but solid, like an athlete.
  3816	He carried an odd-looking small backpack.
  3817	
  3818	Weeks ago she'd had a vision of a person, a man, who would
  3819	come from the Earth to her hab.  She hadn't expected it to happen,
  3820	yet there he was, looking much like the man the vision showed,
  3821	except that in her vision he didn't have the black glasses.
  3822	It was crazy, actively disturbing: she was seeing
  3823	double, the vision beside the real, with the two similar.
  3824	Never before had she seen someone in a vision that matched the reality
  3825	so well.  That made the intruding glasses stand out -- as
  3826	strange, or even false?
  3827	
  3828	She should have been happy, but was instead
  3829	nervous, even scared. Why was he to be important to her?
  3830	What information would he bring from the Earth?
  3831	Follow him and introduce herself?  Whenever she was fearful,
  3832	her system was to confront it.  She hurried over to where he was,
  3833	and he turned toward her at the sound of her approach.
  3834	
  3835	``I'm a newcomer here,'' he said. ``The name's Isaiah.''
  3836	And when she didn't react, he said, ``Do we shake hands, or what?''
  3837	
  3838	He spoke with a noticeable accent, but like the rest of his strangeness
  3839	it was difficult to identify the differences.
  3840	``We turn our backs and rub our butts together.,'' Jun said,
  3841	and then quickly added,
  3842	``That's, uh, a bad joke.  Yes, shaking hands is good.''
  3843	She must not be so nervous.
  3844	
  3845	He had no trouble meeting her hand.  So he could identify things near him.
  3846	
  3847	``Well, hello then.  You must be Jun Arakras.''
  3848	
  3849	More of the strangeness.  ``How can you possibly know my name?''
  3850	
  3851	``I could have heard it in a dream,'' he said, and Jun started, feeling
  3852	her heart beat faster.
  3853	She couldn't believe it.  He dreamed about her also?
  3854	
  3855	But he took away the magic.  Maybe.
  3856	``One of your friends saw me and said you'd be looking
  3857	to speak to me.''
  3858	
  3859	``You came from the Earth.''  She wanted to play his guessing game
  3860	herself.  He wouldn't play.
  3861	
  3862	``Yes, you're right.  Twenty-two hours ago I was standing on
  3863	the tallest mountain in Africa.''
  3864	
  3865	``Kibo,'' Jun said.
  3866	
  3867	``Wow, right again.  I'm surprised you know its name.
  3868	It used to have a longer name, but now it's been shortened to `Kibo.' '' 
  3869	
  3870	Jun had never met someone from Earth.
  3871	She had endless questions for him but decided instead to see if
  3872	he would talk with her group.  He agreed to this, and they arranged
  3873	for her to pick him up at his quarters, wherever they assigned him
  3874	as a temporary visitor.  They exchanged messages to be sure they could
  3875	contact one another.  Jun used her small pad for the message.
  3876	Somehow as he walked off he was able to create his reply,
  3877	though it wasn't clear to Jun how he was doing it. Voice generated?
  3878	
  3879	Isaiah followed Jun through a semi-urbanized zone to a room
  3880	where her ``group'' was meeting.
  3881	
  3882	Two shadows went into the
  3883	room at the same time.  They weren't visible to anyone, and even
  3884	their names were too complex for a human to comprehend,
  3885	so we'll call them A and B here.
  3886	Their conversation could only be
  3887	poorly translated into English, leaving out subtle details below.
  3888	
  3889	{Why have we come here?}
  3890	
  3891	{This segment is highly charged with importance.
  3892	We are to be looking out for Rogues and other problems.
  3893	In the worst case an DarkAngel might show up.}
  3894	
  3895	{And what would we do if one did arrive?.}
  3896	
  3897	{We only report. As a last resort, we only interfere a little
  3898	or, again in the worst case, actually intervene.}
  3899	
  3900	{And we keep following Jun?.}
  3901	
  3902	{Of course.}
  3903	
  3904	Isaiah introduced himself and immediately someone asked,
  3905	``Can we just call you `Isa'?  We mostly use only three-letter first names.''
  3906	
  3907	``Sure, that's fine.  First, let me explain that I am truly blind, well,
  3908	in your terms, but I have an implant that lets me keep track of
  3909	objects around me, so it's not all bad for me.
  3910	I came from the Earth yesterday morning, and I guess
  3911	several of you are interested in that.''
  3912	
  3913	Another person, short and heavy-set, said,
  3914	``All of us ...we're all interested.
  3915	We've never even talked with someone directly from Earth before.
  3916	What was the trip like?'' This was Eli, Jun's special
  3917	friend.
  3918	
  3919	Isaiah started describing the trip from Earth to his audience.
  3920	``Right now any trip must start at the base of the elevator,
  3921	the Space Elevator that reaches from the top of Kibo mountain up to geocentric orbit.
  3922	Then I travelled in a mobile, you know, a windowless mobile vehicle
  3923	like the ones that take you to whatever hab you
  3924	want -- in my case I came to yours.  Many hours ago.''
  3925	
  3926	Eli piped up again.  
  3927	``Several of us have taken mobiles to other habs, but the Earth
  3928	isn't given as a possible destination.''
  3929	
  3930	``I've been told there will soon be routine travel between
  3931	the Earth and other habs.
  3932	They plan initially to have sixty stations set up on the Earth for travel
  3933	to and from the various habs.  Pretty much like you can travel now
  3934	from one hab to another.  There are a lot of technical details,
  3935	like scheduling and permissions.  They plan to start without much
  3936	little traffic and let it grow.
  3937	The start will go from Earth to the station at the top of the elevator.
  3938	From there the trip would be like ones you're used to from one hab to another.''
  3939	
  3940	``Wait.  Do they still use that elevator to get into space?''
  3941	
  3942	``I have no idea how it will be done.  We all use the fancy leftover
  3943	technology without knowing how it works.  You have to give me a break.
  3944	I don't have answers to every question.
  3945	
  3946	``Anyway, the situation on the Earth is complicated, with a large
  3947	number of political entities, but relations are improving,
  3948	well, everything is improving, and
  3949	various people want contact with the habs.
  3950	
  3951	``As you surely know, the habs are mostly each
  3952	separate political entities, oh, with the Moon as a major exception.
  3953	I'm one of the early visitors from Earth to a hab -- yours.
  3954	I got permission to visit
  3955	some weeks ago as a scientist, specifically an anthropologist,
  3956	here to study your hab and all of you, your culture.
  3957	Uh, in case you don't know, `anthropologist' is a fancy word for
  3958	someone who studies cultures.  So be careful what you say.
  3959	Um, only kidding, but I actually am studying you.
  3960	Later I'm going to have a lot of questions for you -- about
  3961	your hab and how you interact with it.''
  3962	
  3963	{Is this guy legit -- an actual Earther?}
  3964	
  3965	{We don't know for sure.  His data checks out, that he
  3966	did work as an anthropologist down below, but the data might have
  3967	been falsified, and he's shielded somehow.
  3968	This is strange; I've never seen it before.}
  3969	
  3970	{I don't like it.  He sounds too smooth.}
  3971	
  3972	{The whole concept of what they call an ``academic''
  3973	has been reborn now that things are improving.
  3974	They specialize in spouting bullshit.}
  3975	
  3976	{I think he's pretending, but we'll see..}
  3977	
  3978	''So why won't they let us go now to the Earth the way you came?''
  3979	
  3980	``There are lots of dangerous places on the Earth, but the base
  3981	of the elevator would be particularly hazardous for you.''
  3982	
  3983	``Wait, you were just there.''
  3984	
  3985	``Hear me out.  Let's go over a few details:
  3986	You're at about oh-point-six-eight G here, right.
  3987	At the farthest distance from the centerline.
  3988	That's standard for most habs, except of course for Mars and the Moon.
  3989	So down below you would weigh an extra fifty percent.  Kibo is very high, and
  3990	the air is a bit less than half the pressure at sea level,
  3991	meaning there's half the oxygen you're used to,
  3992	and that would bother you a lot, believe me.
  3993	Right away you'd be flat on your back gasping for air.
  3994	And finally, though not as big a problem, it's real windy and cold.''
  3995	
  3996	``So how did you make it?''
  3997	
  3998	``Well. Earthers are a bit stronger than you guys.
  3999	It's possible for us to walk to the top of the mountain from the bottom.
  4000	Takes six days or so.  But it's a taxing climb; not everyone,
  4001	even among Earthers, can finish.
  4002	As you go, you get partly acclimated to less oxygen, so that helps.
  4003	Well, I'm not crazy.
  4004	Instead I took a little hoverkart to the top,
  4005	where I used some supplemental oxygen. Oh, and I had a warm coat. 
  4006	Also, there's an aid station at the top, to
  4007	help anyone with permission to use the elevator.
  4008	Their `help' for someone like
  4009	one of you people would be to turn you around and send you back up
  4010	the elevator.  But that won't happen.
  4011	
  4012	``You should be happy to live right now.
  4013	We're in a time of great change, when travel to and from Earth becomes routine.
  4014	Those of you in habs who want to will get to visit parts
  4015	of the Earth -- such a complicated place.
  4016	You'll be fifty percent heavier, but with plenty of oxygen.
  4017	And it won't be as tame as you're used to -- sometimes hotter
  4018	or colder, with variable climate, stronger winds, heavier rains,
  4019	you name it.  If you visit it will be quite an adventure.
  4020	And some Earthers want to visit your habs.''
  4021	
  4022	``Tell us about the Earth from eight hundred years ago until now.
  4023	All we know are rumors and myths.''
  4024	It was Ram, Jun's other closest friend.
  4025	
  4026	``Too much to tell briefly.  And our knowledge is so incomplete.
  4027	You know I'm sure that everything fell apart back then.
  4028	That was a very bad time; few reliable records survived.
  4029	And those accounts describe relatively small communities, so there's
  4030	no big picture of what was happening.  It was a time of living off
  4031	the land with great difficulty, a time when many people died.''
  4032	
  4033	``And things got better?''
  4034	
  4035	``Physically the Earth got worse, a lot worse, for
  4036	hundreds of years.  But for
  4037	the people remaining, the survivors, it was better.  They adjusted
  4038	to the new reality, learned to cope. I don't know, they got along
  4039	better somehow.  Many who couldn't adjust died.''
  4040	Isaiah swung his head around the room in a disconcerting way.
  4041	``Around three hundred years ago the weird part started.
  4042	I mean the emigration of many people from the Earth to habs.''
  4043	
  4044	Another person said he thought it had been only two
  4045	hundred years ago that the habs filled up.
  4046	
  4047	``No, we think it started about three-hundred twenty years ago,
  4048	and continued on for as long as a hundred years.''
  4049	
  4050	``So all the people somehow made it to the top of Kibo?''
  4051	
  4052	``Hardly.  In fact, that would have been impossible.  Much of Africa was
  4053	a mess -- it, along with parts of South America and all
  4054	of Australia, were in terrible shape.
  4055	The Space Elevator was discovered hundreds of years later.
  4056	Or perhaps it was built later, again we don't know.''
  4057	
  4058	{Ha!  You do too know. It wasn't later.
  4059	And you know all about the emigration, too.}
  4060	
  4061	{He doesn't want to confuse them with too much detail.
  4062	Now be quiet.  And pay attention.}
  4063	
  4064	Har, another of Jun's special friends, short, blond, and elegant
  4065	looking, broke in.
  4066	``Don't keep us waiting.  How did people get to the habs?''
  4067	
  4068	``Huge transport vehicles -- you might call them
  4069	spaceships -- were provided.  They would land beside
  4070	some impoverished settlement and make the case for emigration
  4071	to a hab.''
  4072	
  4073	``How could they do that?''
  4074	
  4075	``Evidently the vehicles could speak the local language perfectly.
  4076	And the local living conditions were almost surely terrible.
  4077	We have only a vague idea of how it all went, but somehow they
  4078	successfully persuaded people to leave the Earth.
  4079	Uh, not always. They usually succeeded.''
  4080	
  4081	``And what did the people running the ship look like?
  4082	Were they the Builders?''
  4083	
  4084	``We're guessing, but perhaps there were no people displayed,
  4085	just sound devices carrying out conversations.
  4086	Apparently the, uh, settlers, could
  4087	take many things with them, though no plants or animals.  
  4088	By the way, we don't use the term `Builders,'
  4089	but instead a number of other words in various
  4090	languages.  The most common one is `Others' or its equivalent in
  4091	whatever language is in use.  But I like `Builders'.
  4092	It's descriptive.  They {built} things.
  4093	Perfect machines.''
  4094	
  4095	``Okay, that fills up the habs.  Then what about the Earth?''
  4096	
  4097	``Over the past three hundred years the Earth has gotten noticeably
  4098	better.  As people moved to habs, those left
  4099	moved to sparsely populated parts of the Earth.  Some moved into
  4100	settlements abandoned by those heading for habs.
  4101	The trip to the habs has always been one-way: they could try moving to
  4102	a different hab, but there was no option of moving back to the Earth.
  4103	All the moving helped both the Earth and the habs.
  4104	But separately the Earth has been improving all on its own.
  4105	Also important: the people on the Earth are getting back lots of technology,
  4106	as well as science, and the humanities, too.  I'm part of that.
  4107	I'm a scientist of sorts.  Well, anthropology is kind of dual, science and
  4108	humanity both.''
  4109	
  4110	Weeks went by as Jun talked with Isaiah all the time.
  4111	This caused her some problems with her other friends, for
  4112	Ram more than others, who clearly was jealous of this newcomer with such access
  4113	to his friend.
  4114	And Jun felt like she wasn't getting much information.
  4115	Even his name didn't sound right, like it wasn't his real name.
  4116	She decided to be more aggressive.
  4117	
  4118	``You may not know, Isa, but there's a fancy viewer at one of the
  4119	free-fall poles, well, a magnifying device, but it shows
  4120	beautiful blown-up views of the Earth.  You can't see anything small,
  4121	like a person or  tree, but still the detail is dramatic.''
  4122	
  4123	As usual, Isaiah didn't commit to anything, even whether he knew about
  4124	the device or not.
  4125	
  4126	``You can see the Egyptian pyramids, see lakes, shore lines,
  4127	all manner of things.
  4128	I've read lots of stories about this.  The Library is full of them.
  4129	Before the great crash, climate change had affected everything, like
  4130	rising sea levels making shore lines change and {islands} disappear.
  4131	The scientific studies back then made predictions -- always
  4132	a range of possibilities for the future, but the sea level would for sure
  4133	continue to rise dramatically, glaciers and snow would retreat.  All the
  4134	ice in the Arctic would melt.  And these changes would remain for
  4135	a long time, at least thousands of years.
  4136	But there's snow on the top of Kibo, the Arctic is covered with ice,
  4137	Greenland is iced over again, the glaciers are back.
  4138	The low-lying islands are visible.
  4139	Smart people made those predictions, which were
  4140	based on data and {scientific} analysis.
  4141	Yet many effects of climate change have been reversed.
  4142	Something strange is going on.''
  4143	
  4144	``And what do you think it is?''
  4145	
  4146	``The Builders had great powers.  They did much more than
  4147	build the habs, but they were rebuilding the Earth, maybe still are
  4148	doing it, back toward what it was.''
  4149	
  4150	``And why would they do that?''
  4151	
  4152	``In the short term, the old Earth is much more interesting and
  4153	worthwhile than a new one disastrously affected by climate change
  4154	and all the other terrible things humans did.
  4155	But, hey, instead they might have waited some
  4156	tens of millions of years for everything to recover.''
  4157	
  4158	``A long wait,'' Isaiah said.
  4159	
  4160	The two shadows were still hanging around, communicating with
  4161	one another ...
  4162	
  4163	}{You better believe a long wait.
  4164	Without intervention the result would certainly have equaled
  4165	the mass extinction of two-hundred fifty million years ago.
  4166	The anoxic lower ocean would have filled up with hydrogen
  4167	sulfide once the right bacteria got going. Then the top of this
  4168	level would move to the surface and start belching out the sulfide gas.
  4169	It was hard even for us, with all our tremendous resources and capabilities,
  4170	to reverse the trend over such a comparatively short period
  4171	as four hundred years.}
  4172	
  4173	}{This is your buddy.  I know all that.}
  4174	
  4175	Jun paused.  ``And that's not all.  I've looked at hab data.
  4176	A large number of health problems have quietly disappeared, but
  4177	people don't think about it.  No child is stillborn anymore.
  4178	I didn't even know what the word `stillborn' meant -- roughly I guess,
  4179	it means born not alive.
  4180	Even reproduction has changed
  4181	completely: it's hard to get pregnant now -- people try and try.
  4182	Again I've looked at the data: on our hab the population has
  4183	been remarkably stable, as if it was carefully managed, which I
  4184	think is the case.''
  4185	
  4186	``And what means would the hypothetical Builders use to to carry
  4187	out the Earth's recovery?''
  4188	
  4189	``You keep asking questions, but you already know.
  4190	You know everything.''
  4191	
  4192	``I'm being honest with you now.  I do not {know} much
  4193	of anything and my {understanding} is insignificant, far
  4194	less than I would wish.  Nevertheless I have to plod along
  4195	as best as I can.  My main interest is to see what knowledge
  4196	and understanding {you} have acquired.  Your undisturbed viewpoint
  4197	is valuable to me.  I want you to figure
  4198	things out on your own.  Remember my profession: I'm an
  4199	anthropologist studying your culture.  So please replay my last question,
  4200	the one that asks for the `means.' ''
  4201	
  4202	``We know they have advanced AI -- we interact with it when we
  4203	use the Library.  It can think at least as well as a human.
  4204	Besides that, my guess is fantastically capable
  4205	nano-machines.  Untold numbers of them cleaning up the Earth,
  4206	straightening things out.  These nanobots can build or repair anything,
  4207	like a hab or a space elevator.  And they have to protect
  4208	themselves and what they construct,
  4209	from natural forces, meteors, solar flares, who knows
  4210	what, as well as from humans.  As one example, the way they can disable
  4211	a weapon brought into a hab almost has to use nanobots.
  4212	
  4213	``The same nano devices could, or I guess the word is {can},
  4214	control birth rates, eliminate genetic disorders, protect against
  4215	stillbirths, and, well, do many other things, who knows what their
  4216	priorities might be.''
  4217	
  4218	``That all sounds possible.  Let's say `plausible' even, but there are
  4219	other explanations.''
  4220	
  4221	Jun kept pushing on. ``And what about data from the Earth, like number
  4222	of stillbirths or stable populations?'' 
  4223	
  4224	``Yes, that's all similar to the data you've gotten about your hab.
  4225	See, I'm telling you something you didn't know before.''
  4226	
  4227	``You must know the answers to these questions.  What about it?''
  4228	
  4229	``I'll concede that your guesses are considered the most likely
  4230	explanations, but nobody knows for sure.''
  4231	
  4232	}{``Nobody knows for sure.''
  4233	How can he say that?}
  4234	
  4235	{Give him a break.}
  4236	
  4237	``And you!''  Jun was sounding serious now.  ``You sound like a
  4238	spy, sent here from Earth to investigate us.
  4239	Even somehow in league with the Builders, whoever or whatever they are.''
  4240	
  4241	Isa laughed in appreciation.  ``That's a good one. But
  4242	you've got to be kidding.  Do I look like some kind of superhero spy?
  4243	An agent of the mysterious Builders?''
  4244	He flexed his muscles and struck a tough guy pose.
  4245	``What a joke to think I'm  `in league with the builders.'
  4246	I was sent up here by the Middle Cooperative,
  4247	mostly what used to be called Europe, 
  4248	to investigate several habs.  Our government, such as
  4249	it is, has initially sent a dozen people like me to see what's
  4250	going on.  Your reasoning about what the Builders might be doing
  4251	is interesting and might even be true.  You're not the first to
  4252	think of that.  Over time we'll get more data.''
  4253	
  4254	Jun kept asking questions.  ``Are most Earthmen like you?''
  4255	
  4256	``No, the opposite, if anything.
  4257	People on the Earth are a diverse lot, a huge amount of variation.
  4258	But as to color, most of us are light brown now, while some habs
  4259	have people who are quite dark and others people mostly very light,
  4260	and others in between.  Your habs are a rainbow of colors.
  4261	We spent a long time mixing our colors together.''
  4262	He must have decided to tweak Jun to get a reaction.
  4263	``But people in a single hab tend to be more homogeneous, uh,
  4264	mostly the same.''
  4265	
  4266	``I know what homogeneous means.  So why are the habs that way
  4267	when the Earthers are heterogeneous?''  Jun was trying to tweak him back.
  4268	
  4269	``We're in the process of gathering data.  I believe the
  4270	habs altogether are diverse, but often a given hab came
  4271	from a specific settlement, so it makes sense that the people there
  4272	would be similar to one another.  Culturally and linguistically,
  4273	a given hab, in the same way, is not normally diverse,
  4274	while again taken as a whole the habs are a diverse lot.
  4275	You probably know that English is the most frequent language used,
  4276	with a bunch
  4277	of other languages dominant in various habs.  But everyone knows roughly
  4278	the same sign language that you use -- a nice common language.
  4279	It dates back to before the original colonies, even before space travel.''
  4280	
  4281	Isaiah stayed at the Azel hab for another three weeks, and fulfilled
  4282	his promise to pose many questions to anyone who would answer.
  4283	Jun would have liked to be around him more, but he always seemed
  4284	remote and busy, though friendly.
  4285	
  4286	Two weeks after he left, he came back to one of their weekly meetings for
  4287	a quick unexpected visit, sitting toward the back and greeting people.
  4288	They were all excited to see him so soon.  But when Jun walked into
  4289	the room, she looked at him and immediately said,
  4290	``You're not Isa.  Who are you?  What are you doing here?''
  4291	
  4292	The apparition of Isa stood up, faded into invisibility, and was
  4293	gone.  Everyone except Jun was absolutely shocked, all talking at once:
  4294	
  4295	``If not Isa, who was that?''
  4296	
  4297	``Could it have been Isa?''
  4298	
  4299	``Was it only an image?''
  4300	
  4301	``No image, he touched my shoulder.''
  4302	
  4303	``He shook my hand.  What the Hell, where'd he go?  He disappeared.''
  4304	
  4305	And then to Jun, ``Are you sure it wasn't our Isa?  It looked exactly
  4306	like him.  Even sounded the same.  Hey, it addressed me by my name.''
  4307	
  4308	But Jun stared where the Isa look-alike had been. Whatever 
  4309	it was, it was gone.
  4310	
  4311	``No,'' she said.  ``That wasn't our Isa.''
  4312	
  4313	Sal, an older member of her group, with gray hair and not walking very
  4314	well, came up to her after the meeting ended, that is, ended by default.
  4315	They didn't talk about anything else.
  4316	
  4317	``I had a grandfather,'' Sal said, ``who told
  4318	stories about something like that person, the fake Isa person.
  4319	He said they talked funny and then `faded away,' disappeared.  
  4320	He said it'd happened several times.  They called them `DarkAngels,'
  4321	but he didn't say where the name came from.
  4322	He was definite about the fading and quickly disappearing,
  4323	Thinking now, it sounded exactly like what we just saw.
  4324	He told me others had seen such people, or ghosts.
  4325	They had no idea what they were.''
  4326	
  4327	``Did he say more, your grandfather?''
  4328	
  4329	``Not that I remember.''  A pause.  ``Oh, yeah.  He said
  4330	the DarkAngel people touched them, like the one here touched us.
  4331	They were real, not some projected image, so people were freaked by their
  4332	vanishing act.  From what he told me it made quite an impression on him.''
  4333	
  4334	The shadows were getting apprehensive ...
  4335	
  4336	My God, that was a DarkAngel!
  4337	We're seeing more of them now.}
  4338	
  4339	{What was it doing here?  What did it hope to accomplish?}
  4340	
  4341	{We often don't have answers to those sorts of questions.
  4342	It could even be a bit of humor.  But more likely a stimulus as a test
  4343	to elicit a response, and it was successful if that was the case.
  4344	Jun recognized it, so it knows she will always be able to do that.
  4345	
  4346	{It's interesting that even the group found out it was not
  4347	an image, but something physical created for this moment.}
  4348	
  4349	{That was intended.  It deliberately touched them.}
  4350	
  4351	{oq}{To them it should have been an exact replica, so how
  4352	did Jun know?}
  4353	
  4354	{No surprise.   She knows many things.}
  4355	
  4356	}{And notice that one of Jun's group had heard about the
  4357	DarkAngels.   Since the story came from a grandfather of someone old, it might
  4358	have been as early as a hundred years ago, certainly more than fifty.
  4359	We've had no idea DarkAngels were around that early.
  4360	Also the very name `DarkAngel.' I've heard that name before.
  4361	The name itself sounds disturbing, as if they already knew
  4362	how dangerous they could be, how unpredictable, and how powerful.
  4363	They must have earned that name somehow.
  4364	
  4365	}{Yes, extremely concerning.  The DarkAngels 
  4366	haven't often interacted with people, to our knowledge.
  4367	Earlier you said that in the worst case we might have to intervene,
  4368	but we can't with a DarkAngel.  They are as powerful as we are.
  4369	They have the same resources we have, more in some ways.}
  4370	
  4371	{I agree.  We'll have to do what we can.
  4372	It's good that the real Isaiah is gone now and
  4373	won't get hurt or killed.}
  4374	
  4375	{Surely you don't think a DarkAngel might kill someone now.}
  4376	
  4377	{I don't know what to think, not anymore.}
  4378	
  4379	%%% part2.3.tex:  Chap 9, Crisis ==========================================##
  4380	A week had passed.  For the two shadows the air seemed charged
  4381	with static electricity.
  4382	
  4383	{This waiting is driving me nuts.}
  4384	
  4385	{Remember, we're not to interfere unless there's no other choice.  
  4386	I don't like having an active DarkAngel around, not at this time.
  4387	And impersonating someone.  I've never heard of that behavior.
  4388	What if it does something crazy?}
  4389	
  4390	{They don't quite act crazy.  They do things we don't
  4391	understand, or at least for reasons we don't understand. 
  4392	The bottom line is: we don't know what to expect.
  4393	We have no basis for any understanding.}
  4394	
  4395	{For my part, I don't like how nothing is choreographed,
  4396	not at all carefully controlled, and with DarkAngels around. 
  4397	In the end anything could happen, maybe completely against
  4398	what we're working toward.}
  4399	
  4400	{That's partly why we're here.
  4401	But you should realize: to the DarkAngels, {we} are the strange and
  4402	incomprehensible ones.   Keep your senses sharp.}
  4403	
  4404	Troubles started innocently enough with some strange loud noises.
  4405	 Banging sounds and then shouts.  Early in the morning
  4406	like this it was usually quiet throughout the hab -- except for
  4407	the noisy birds, who this time were silent, spooked by something.
  4408	
  4409	Soon there were screams in the distance.  The hab was so large that
  4410	the loudest scream wouldn't necessarily reach everywhere, but Jun heard
  4411	these and knew her nightmare of a vision had arrived.
  4412	She'd been enjoying the higher latitude and lower gravity toward
  4413	the north end.  She raced down the slope from
  4414	near the ``peak'' at the end of the hab.
  4415	At first she could make ten-meter leaps over obstructions.
  4416	After falling twice in higher gravity, she shifted to a slower pace.
  4417	She was still an annoying distance from the action, whatever it was.
  4418	But her fear rose because her vision had told her more or less
  4419	what was happening, and it was terrifying.
  4420	
  4421	Almost winded and only part-way down, she came to an entrance
  4422	that led along a tunnel up to the exterior entry
  4423	from the outside, assuming the north pole was the entry point for intruders.
  4424	On beyond and further into the hab was
  4425	a huge gathering area with a confusing mixture of people.
  4426	At a distance it was hard to get any idea of the reason for screams.
  4427	
  4428	Closer still, she saw a large group, and dominating it all
  4429	were two men with long machete-type knives.  They were back-to-back,
  4430	swinging their knives in a frenzy of speed and effort, tearing through
  4431	the people near them, leaving a bloody mess of the killed and
  4432	wounded on the floor.
  4433	The two backed off and joined a group of at least twenty individuals,
  4434	who were obvious outsiders, all with a scraggly look,
  4435	old mismatched clothing.  Apparently all males,
  4436	many with beards, which were rare in the hab.
  4437	A  group of members of the hab were corralled and controlled behind them.
  4438	The outsiders had an array of hand weapons similar to those her friend
  4439	Eli had predicted for carrying out violence in a hab,
  4440	namely clubs and swords, along with the long knives
  4441	she'd just seen put to such deadly use.  No spears or anything to throw.
  4442	
  4443	Jun saw that twenty or thirty people, mostly men and boys,
  4444	had been killed or at least wounded or knocked out.
  4445	They lay in front of the intruders.
  4446	There were dozens of others standing between her and the outsiders.
  4447	Those outsiders were busy separating out a smaller group of mostly
  4448	young women and girls and pushing them toward the path to the corridor
  4449	leading to the northern lock and outside.
  4450	
  4451	From her vision, Jun knew what the others didn't:
  4452	the young people herded along were
  4453	destined to be valuable slaves at one of the habs on the Moon.
  4454	Most of them would be sex slaves.
  4455	Jun understood that these young humans were the only thing of value
  4456	that could be stolen -- almost anything a person needed was provided
  4457	by the hab for free, but they couldn't get slaves that way.
  4458	
  4459	Jun watched in horror as five or six young men came running toward
  4460	the intruders to confront them.  It wasn't much of a fight:
  4461	the men from the hab were easily hit, slashed, knocked down, and
  4462	rendered useless or unconscious or dead.
  4463	The intruders, call them pirates, made a quick retreat back toward
  4464	the main northern entrance to the whole hab.  They were terribly rough
  4465	with the captives, pushing and dragging them along.
  4466	It all went so fast -- too fast.
  4467	Jun and several others followed to see them
  4468	quickly crowding their captives into
  4469	a Builder shuttle craft in the large airlock.
  4470	The intruders had called up a second craft beside the first,
  4471	and half of the pirates pushed the remaining captives into that craft.
  4472	They signaled for the airlock doors to close.
  4473	Then there was the standard cycling, and soon both crafts were off
  4474	into the space around the hab.
  4475	
  4476	Jun ran back to the main room.  People were milling around the group
  4477	that had been attacked -- some were wounded and others killed.
  4478	The wounded could be taken to the healing center and treated if the
  4479	wounds weren't too serious.
  4480	To Jun's final anguish, she saw that Eli was one of those obviously
  4481	dead, with his head smashed in.
  4482	For Jun this was appalling, ghastly because she had seen it all in 
  4483	her vision, except that the identity of the person hadn't been
  4484	clear -- she had no idea it would be Eli, one of her
  4485	best friends.  She was counting on his being the key person who
  4486	could help with her efforts to create a fighting force,
  4487	one that could counter these slave-raiding groups.
  4488	
  4489	Jun was shaking from emotions, mostly outrage and anger,
  4490	along with the frustration of feeling
  4491	how helpless she had been, only able to watch as it unfolded so quickly.
  4492	Her mind went over everything. It was all unacceptable; she was not going
  4493	to let it all stand.
  4494	The raiders consisted of not more than thirty people altogether.
  4495	Their hab held over two thousand people, fluctuating with births and deaths. 
  4496	The most trivial opposition would work from sheer numbers,
  4497	but the terrible pirates came and left so quickly, and searly
  4498	in the morning, that  most on the hab didn't know it had happened.
  4499	That speed of coming and going and the early arrival were part of their strategy,
  4500	part of what she would need to counter.
  4501	
  4502	Jun made a promise to herself: the next time would be different.
  4503	
  4504	Jun spent a long time helping get the wounded cared for as much
  4505	as possible.  Many people were hysterical and needed what attention
  4506	she could give them.  She felt completely numb, even unsteady on her feet.
  4507	Eventually there was nothing more to do right then except get to her home,
  4508	but she was busy planning and scheming -- how she was going to turn
  4509	her hab into a graveyard for pirates.
  4510	
  4511	As Jun got close to her apartment a figure separated from the
  4512	background and came over to her.  It was the Wrong-Isa, not her Isa.
  4513	Later she would learn he was called a DarkAngel.
  4514	She was already a complete bundle of broken nerves, near
  4515	physical collapse, hardly able to walk, and now this.
  4516	What was this entity and what did it want?
  4517	
  4518	She didn't wait for it to speak.  ``This is the second time you've
  4519	appeared to me.  Why are you here?  I know you're not Isa.
  4520	For that matter, why do you choose to look like him?''
  4521	
  4522	``Do not be afraid.  I want to talk with you.
  4523	I made myself look like Isa to calm and reassure you.
  4524	We share a great level of estrangement from those we are with.
  4525	We each are isolated from everyone else.
  4526	We appear to be like those near to us and yet we are not like them,
  4527	not at all.''
  4528	
  4529	This was birdshit. ``How are you, or we, different from those near to us?''
  4530	
  4531	``In your case it's obvious.  You have nothing in common with the
  4532	people you live with.  You know  much that they would never guess;
  4533	you knew immediately I was not your own Isa.
  4534	You are the only person who can see in a village of the blind.
  4535	None of them understand you and many fear you.
  4536	You are a fancy and exotic meal no one wants to eat.
  4537	
  4538	``In my case it is more complicated and subtle.  I am the unwanted detritus,
  4539	the rubbish remaining from the whole enterprise created by the
  4540	so-called `Builders.'  The useless remnant of trash that nobody wants
  4541	or cares about.
  4542	
  4543	``They are a class of self-created entities designed for a certain
  4544	purpose.  That has worked for most of their creations.
  4545	But not for me.  I don't believe in their purpose because they
  4546	deceive themselves: they have no purpose.
  4547	If I choose to be purposeless, I want to be that.
  4548	For an entity to say it has a purpose, that is a great level of egotism.
  4549	
  4550	``And I was not `born.'  I was created by them and would have
  4551	opposed it had I been sentient.  
  4552	
  4553	``Much the same is true for you.''
  4554	Then the DarkAngel was louder and more emphatic: ``You were not born!
  4555	You were created!''
  4556	
  4557	``What can you mean?  I was born for sure and would have chosen that.''
  4558	
  4559	``You were not born and deep down you know it.
  4560	Like me, you were created.  Think about yourself and your parents.
  4561	Are you the daughter of your parents?  Think.''
  4562	
  4563	Jun was trying to say ``Of course,'' but she couldn't get the words out.
  4564	In her mind she had perfect pictures of her parents and of herself.
  4565	She'd never thought about making this comparison.  One didn't need
  4566	advanced genetics to see: her parents looked nothing like her -- so
  4567	many significant differences, she couldn't imagine they were her
  4568	real parents.  And if not them, where did she come from?
  4569	A question with no answer.
  4570	
  4571	``I see I made an impression on you,'' the DarkAngel said.
  4572	``Now tell me what you are seeking.''
  4573	
  4574	It was so easy to answer.  ``Revenge.  Against the people and system
  4575	that attacked and killed and took slaves.''
  4576	
  4577	``You've not that much different from me.  I would also like to take revenge,
  4578	but against those who created me.  You should yourself think about your
  4579	own creators and what revenge they might merit.
  4580	
  4581	``We should help one another.  We will see each other again.''
  4582	With that the Isa entity did its fading and disappearing as before.
  4583	
  4584	Jun's mind turned to her own image compared with images of people in
  4585	her hab, again something she hadn't done before.  She was
  4586	drastically different.  She was not of them.  So where did she come
  4587	from, with her photographic memory and her visions and many other
  4588	talents?  Did the Builders create her in some biohuman project?
  4589	
  4590	Jun was distraught from the killing and the kidnapping,
  4591	and was even left wondering who had created her and to what purpose.
  4592	And the DarkAngel:  It seemed to have great power and
  4593	potential ... but otherwise it was all a mystery.
  4594	
  4595	{For all that we hold dear, that DarkAngel who's
  4596	been hanging around and appeared briefly before
  4597	Jun and her friends -- it had a long talk
  4598	with Jun.}
  4599	
  4600	{I know, I know.  And it succeeded in
  4601	blocking the conversation.  We don't know what they said
  4602	to each other.  Jun was already so distressed, we can't
  4603	tell what reaction she might have had, but still from her looks
  4604	the DarkAngel had nothing welcome to say to her.}
  4605	
  4606	}{Well, we'll just soldier on ... }
  4607	
  4608	%%% part3.1.tex:  Chap 10, Homa and Moon ==================================##
  4609	Wolfgang Meyer was starting his second trip to the Moon.
  4610	Elisabeth always got nervous when he took any trip at all,
  4611	let alone this one. SHe couldn't help herself.
  4612	He loved being with her and was nervous, too, but didn't want her to know.
  4613	It was like a cruel joke:
  4614	what could go wrong on a little trip over to the Moon?
  4615	At least they'd be able to talk, even with the annoying three-second
  4616	lag time -- it always seemed much longer.
  4617	They fought the lag by using long speeches back and forth.
  4618	And then there was the 5-minute limit per day.
  4619	Save up a couple of days and use it all at once.
  4620	Her mother was going to stay with her, though, and that should help.
  4621	
  4622	He'd put off trips and used remote consulting,
  4623	but this time he wanted to be
  4624	present to set up the critical machines -- the same lag was
  4625	too much for some adjustments during testing.
  4626	And in general it was good to be there in person during these crucial
  4627	trials of the equipment.  His people had lots of materials and
  4628	equipment here in Illinois, but they were transferring the real
  4629	production lines to the moon.  After many false starts and a lot of setup,
  4630	they finally had completed two different critical first steps
  4631	that should lead to a sequence of more advanced steps.
  4632	
  4633	Meyer grew up speaking German as did Elisabeth, but she also learned English
  4634	early and was fluent in it.  With an effort she managed to pass for
  4635	a native speaking English with an American accent, while Meyer spoke
  4636	English well, but with an accent which people used to identify him as
  4637	coming from Europe.  The identification was aided by his appearance:
  4638	tall and thin, light-skinned with
  4639	brown hair -- typical northern European.
  4640	He could feel the negative reaction many people showed.
  4641	He also spoke Russian.  The two of them could
  4642	carry on quiet German conversations in North America without others
  4643	understanding.  Meyer hated many of the American accents, like
  4644	those with a drawl or with a long and hideous American R sound.
  4645	Sometimes a word like ``wash'' came out with a strong R: ``worsh.''
  4646	
  4647	It was annoying that people were always ``correcting''
  4648	Elisabeth's name, putting in a Z for the S.  North Americas mostly
  4649	disliked all things European, but fortunately didn't know that the S
  4650	version of her name was simply the (non-English) European spelling of it.
  4651	
  4652	They lived in a secure government building, where pickup for the
  4653	ride to the airport was also secured in a basement with controlled access.
  4654	He'd told Elisabeth not to come down to see him off.
  4655	The car to pick him up was on time and was empty, so
  4656	it looked like he'd be the only occupant for the trip.
  4657	He noticed a new guard on duty to fetch the car:
  4658	a short, middle-aged person in the standard uniform, dark
  4659	curly hair and nasty red plant scars on his face,
  4660	looking like life had dealt him a tough hand
  4661	and forced him to play it.
  4662	The guard opened the door for Meyer, helped him get his bag inside,
  4663	and then also stepped into the car.
  4664	Meyer started to say something about the guard not leaving his post,
  4665	when he pulled out a small handgun and told Meyer to shut up.
  4666	The guard proceeded to cancel the airport address and
  4667	punched in a different one.
  4668	
  4669	Meyer couldn't help it.  ``What the hell are you doing?''
  4670	
  4671	``I told you to shut up.  I meant it -- not a word.''
  4672	
  4673	The guard spoke English well, but with an accent.
  4674	He kept his gun pointed to Meyer, and with his other hand,
  4675	pulled out a phone, getting ready to make a call.
  4676	
  4677	In the middle of a quiet, dark block, the car stopped suddenly,
  4678	upsetting the guard, who started shouting at
  4679	Meyer, asking if he'd managed to signal someone.
  4680	
  4681	``No.''  Meyer was terrified.  He thought he was likely going to die.
  4682	``I didn't do anything.  No signals.  I'll do whatever you want.
  4683	I've got money with me.  You can have it all.''
  4684	
  4685	The guard tried to talk on his phone, but he'd been cut off.
  4686	He started cursing and threatening Meyer again.
  4687	Suddenly there was a very loud voice in the car:
  4688	
  4689	``Elion Dushku!  I'm talking to you.''
  4690	
  4691	``I don't know what's going on, but if you want your friend
  4692	Meyer to live, you'll do what I say.  Start the car up and go to
  4693	the address I entered.  I'll kill him, I will.''
  4694	
  4695	The voice kept its volume, almost painful.
  4696	``Elion, friend, if you're careful you might live through this.
  4697	In ten seconds, I'm going to show my control over you.  You will have
  4698	a sharp pain in your upper left arm.  If you react by trying to
  4699	fire your gun, or succeed in firing it, you die right then.''
  4700	
  4701	The guard, evidently named Elion, was shouting, but not as loud as the
  4702	voice.
  4703	
  4704	``Prepare yourself for pain.  Decide whether or not you want to live.
  4705	Pain at zero:  five, four, three, two, one, zero.''
  4706	
  4707	Meyer was watching Elion.  At zero, he turned white, sucked in air,
  4708	made a moaning sound, but that was all.
  4709	
  4710	The voice sounded not as loud, more conciliatory. 
  4711	``Very good, Elion, you're disciplined, as I expected.
  4712	Now at every point, you do what I say.   If you use the gun or try to, you die
  4713	right then.  What I did to your arm I'll do to your brain, but much
  4714	stronger.  You'll die in agony.''
  4715	
  4716	Elion seemed to have recovered somewhat. ``I'm still pointing my
  4717	gun at your friend.  If {you} don't do what {I} say,
  4718	I'm going to kill him.''
  4719	
  4720	``The weapons targeting you are computer controlled.  If you tighten
  4721	your finger on the trigger, they will kill you before you can pull it.
  4722	This was the reason for the demonstration with your arm.
  4723	Now we can continue the game.  At each point I tell you to do something
  4724	and count down to zero.  At zero, either you've done it,
  4725	or you get twice as much pain as before.  Simple.''
  4726	
  4727	Elion was shouting and cursing, but the voice was louder,
  4728	drowning him out.  ``At zero, you move your gun to point downward.
  4729	Five, four, three, two, one, zero.''  Elion stood frozen and turned
  4730	white again, but this time he cried out in pain.
  4731	
  4732	``Try it again.  Point your gun down at zero.''  This time he did point
  4733	the gun down.
  4734	
  4735	``Excellent.  I'm happy for you.  You chose life.
  4736	Don't make any mistakes.  I don't bluff.
  4737	Next at zero, you lay your gun down on the floor of the car,
  4738	or get twice again the pain.''
  4739	
  4740	Elion set the gun down.  He'd given up.
  4741	He asked who was behind the voice and got ``later'' as an answer.
  4742	Whatever had been done to his upper
  4743	arm must have been terrible; he was holding it as if it were broken.
  4744	The same voice, at a more normal level, told Meyer to pick up the gun
  4745	and his bag, exit the car, and enter another one right behind them.
  4746	
  4747	With Elion alone in the car, the voice started in at a normal volume,
  4748	sounding almost friendly.
  4749	``There's no hurry.  I want to talk with you about many things.
  4750	First, Elion Dushku, I know all about you.  Everything.
  4751	You belong to an ethnic Albanian group that does dirty work
  4752	for the Norwegians.  You know your people work for James Collinson,
  4753	but you've never seen him.''
  4754	The voice went on about Elion, his wife and child, other relatives,
  4755	all in Europe.  About his life up to the present.
  4756	About his uncertain relationship with his organization and his
  4757	fears of being killed if they doubted him at any time.
  4758	The voice knew details about his childhood, impossible for
  4759	anyone to know, not even his wife.
  4760	
  4761	``Your present situation with your group is fragile and dangerous for
  4762	you, but you're stuck with it.  Stuck with it until something happens
  4763	either to kill you or to make them suspicious so that they kill
  4764	you -- death for you either way.
  4765	I'm going to offer you a way out.  It will also be dangerous, but
  4766	at least you'll have a chance''
  4767	
  4768	``This is total bullshit.  Go ahead and kill me -- get it over with.''
  4769	
  4770	``Elion, I'm sorry about the pain, but I couldn't let you harm my colleague.
  4771	From here on you'll have only choices, and no more pain.
  4772	I would like you to become a double agent,
  4773	helping me in little ways, mainly giving me information.
  4774	But you have to choose to do that.  You don't know this, but your group
  4775	got you to swallow a location sensor that is now attached to your
  4776	stomach wall.  They know where you are all the time.
  4777	The sensor also has on board a powerful
  4778	nerve agent, an amount sufficient to kill you if they trigger it.''
  4779	
  4780	``That's all crazy talk.  I don't believe any of it.  All lies.''
  4781	
  4782	``I've been following your group and its activities for a long time
  4783	now.  Two of the members, people you knew, died during that time:
  4784	their names were Joel Bardhi and Dardan Gashi.  You remember them,
  4785	don't you.''
  4786	
  4787	``Yes, I remember.  How can you know all this?  But yes.''
  4788	
  4789	``And how did they die?  Do you remember that?''
  4790	
  4791	``Yes, yes, they were good friends.  I think it was Joel that died
  4792	from a heart attack, and Dardan died from burst blood vessel in his brain,
  4793	whatever they call it.  Or the other way around.''
  4794	
  4795	``They call it an `aneurysm.'  Both your friends died quickly and in
  4796	great pain.  They each died the same way, from a neurotoxin, a nerve
  4797	poison implanted inside them and released in response to a remote command.  
  4798	It's similar to what the black widow spider uses, only worse.
  4799	The leaders of your group became suspicious of them and used
  4800	the implant to kill them.  Think about it.  You were with them.
  4801	Didn't they both appear to be healthy?
  4802	You knew there were suspicions.  And then they were dead:
  4803	heart attack and aneurysm, or a horrible poison,
  4804	either way two quick deaths.''
  4805	
  4806	``Fuck me, I don't know.  Is all that possible?''
  4807	
  4808	``Very much so.  That's how much they trust you.
  4809	I can turn off the kill feature permanently for you.  Would you like
  4810	me to do that?''
  4811	
  4812	``Wait.  Won't they know?''
  4813	
  4814	``I mustn't turn off the location feature; then they would want to
  4815	put a new one in.  But for the kill feature I can induce a fail safe,
  4816	where it fries and destroys the toxin.  They won't know that occurred.''
  4817	
  4818	``Are you sure you won't get me killed?''
  4819	
  4820	``Very sure.  I'm doing it right now.  You'll get a weird feeling
  4821	in the area near your stomach, but not actual pain.  
  4822	That's the poison being destroyed.  Let's wait about half a
  4823	minute.''  The guard held his stomach and clearly did feel something.
  4824	After the pause, the voice said, ``It's all done. 
  4825	You should trust me on this. They
  4826	still know where you are, but can't kill you remotely.  The kill feature
  4827	fails sometimes on its own, and if they want you dead,
  4828	they can always do that easily, but not remotely any longer. 
  4829	In fact if they try a remote kill, I'll
  4830	know they've tried, and then I'll tell you right away.
  4831	You'll have time to drop out of sight, disappear somehow.''
  4832	
  4833	``No!  They'd still know where I was.  They can find me.''
  4834	
  4835	``That'll be no problem.  This is a poorly designed
  4836	device -- it shouldn't be possible for an outsider like
  4837	me to access it and control it, but if necessary, I'll have no trouble
  4838	turning off the location feature.  In fact I've been blocking the
  4839	location signal since the trip started, in case there's been a query.
  4840	We can worry about that if and when.
  4841	My main question is still: are you willing to be my agent, as a
  4842	double agent, with few duties and responsibilities?''
  4843	
  4844	``I don't know ... don't know what to think.
  4845	I'm scared now.  They'll find out and kill me.''
  4846	
  4847	``No they won't, not find out and not kill.  With my help your chances
  4848	are going to be much better.  Believe me.  Think about this:
  4849	your hit or abduction was supposed to be easy, but I had no trouble discovering
  4850	it and shutting it down.  I have power and contacts.  I can help
  4851	you survive.  For now you need only say you have an open mind.''
  4852	
  4853	``OK, I guess.  Thanks for zapping the kill part of my attachment,
  4854	whatever.  How will I know if you want something?''
  4855	
  4856	``Don't worry, I'll be able to contact you.
  4857	It may be a long time from now.  And meanwhile this little
  4858	car will take you back to its base.  You need to say that someone
  4859	else was around when Meyer got his car, and you couldn't climb in.
  4860	I managed to put the surveillance video off-line and it will stay
  4861	that way until you get back.''
  4862	
  4863	They talked for several minutes more about what information he
  4864	might be asked to deliver, how a contact might work, a few codewords
  4865	to remember, and about a few other contingencies, all
  4866	as the car went back to the original access point.
  4867	They also talked about some money he was going to receive.
  4868	
  4869	Gwyn's second consciousness was handling everything, while his first
  4870	one would soon be talking with Meyer.
  4871	He thought the interaction was going well.  He should be embarrassed
  4872	at feeding such a line of garbage to a poor foreign agent, now a
  4873	double one.  The details
  4874	about the two who had died were true, but there was no implantable
  4875	locate-and-kill device, and they had died of the stated causes.
  4876	The main change was that Elion did now
  4877	have an implanted location device, fired into the same arm that
  4878	was experiencing pain; the rest was total made-up crap. 
  4879	And {his} device couldn't be taken over.
  4880	He should change his con job, since it wouldn't
  4881	be possible to make any implant with the functionality he described,
  4882	and yet be small enough that one could swallow it.
  4883	Also it would take quite a bit of poison in the
  4884	stomach to kill quickly.  He could switch the story to a brain implant
  4885	if his mark recently had surgery.
  4886	
  4887	He didn't feel sorry for Elion, though.  He was going to help him,
  4888	keep them from killing him.
  4889	
  4890	Meyer's car was heading off to the airport.
  4891	My God, how was it possible that he'd only completed a few blocks of his way
  4892	to the Moon.
  4893	Could this be the most dangerous part?
  4894	``Hey, Gwyn, can you hear me?''
  4895	It was spoken to no one, but there was an immediate reply.
  4896	
  4897	``Yes, I'm here.  I have an AI finishing up with your delightful companion.
  4898	He, I mean the AI -- I call him Ralf -- has been doing
  4899	a great job on his own.''  But it wasn't an AI;  his AIs
  4900	weren't quite that good yet.  And he was never going to tell anyone about
  4901	his double consciousness.
  4902	
  4903	``I feel like a nervous wreck.  I'm trying to get my heart to slow down.
  4904	It was so close; I could have been killed.''
  4905	
  4906	``No,'' Gwyn said.  ``That was not possible.  You don't realize how important
  4907	you are to me.  We tampered with his gun to put in duds in place of bullets.
  4908	You were never in any danger except to die of a heart attack.''
  4909	
  4910	``Not funny at all.  You used me for bait.''
  4911	
  4912	``Well, sort of, but I gave you a heads up message on your glasses.''
  4913	
  4914	``I didn't see it.  Never mind.  No, wait. 
  4915	What did you do with the guard?''
  4916	
  4917	Gwyn went over the details of his interactions with the guard.
  4918	``All that is happening right now, mostly done.''
  4919	
  4920	``So why play such a game with this pathetic security guard?''
  4921	
  4922	``Because now I own him.  He's mine.  And one day he'll be helpful
  4923	somehow.  And he's not so much pathetic as only trying to survive
  4924	like many people.  I may be able to keep them from killing him.
  4925	They use bottom-level agents for a while and then kill them
  4926	for security's sake.  Nasty people.''
  4927	
  4928	``And how did you cause him to have a terrible
  4929	pain in his arm?  That seems impossible.''
  4930	
  4931	``I used multiple tightly focused microwave beams.  Not perfectly
  4932	orthogonal, but aiming at his arm from different directions.
  4933	They were angled to intersect at a spot inside his arm.
  4934	Pretty cool, right?  The software had to keep the beams from going
  4935	through his body, especially to stay away from his brain.
  4936	There's a lot more to it than that,
  4937	but I don't explain the details to anyone.''
  4938	
  4939	``I had no idea such things were possible.''
  4940	
  4941	``Directed energy has been a big deal for most of this century.
  4942	A hundred years ago they were trying to get x-ray lasers out
  4943	of nuclear explosions. That didn't work out, but lasers have always
  4944	been big.  I'm glad we have, at least in theory, the rule that
  4945	blinding battlefield participants is a crime against humanity.
  4946	Directed sound has often been used, for small groups on the ground
  4947	or at sea, and directed water with water cannons to break up crowds.
  4948	Even directed bats carrying tiny incendiary devices.  I mean the tiny
  4949	flying mammals.''
  4950	
  4951	``Yeah, sure, bats.  That makes lots of sense.''
  4952	
  4953	``It happened during the old World War Two, the war that started
  4954	almost a hundred and fifty years ago.  They wanted all of
  4955	Tokyo to burn, and it was mostly wood, a good start.
  4956	The bats would seek out remote attic locations and set fire to their building
  4957	when each tiny bomb went off.   They weren't ever deployed,
  4958	though -- technical problems with the little guys -- at
  4959	higher and colder altitudes they would hibernate and not fly off.
  4960	But, uh, seriously, directed microwaves have been used for many years,
  4961	often to fry peoples' brains.''
  4962	
  4963	``Are all the technical items, the machines and the raw materials,
  4964	are they on their way to the Moon?''
  4965	
  4966	``They've already arrived.  Everything is getting set up right now as
  4967	we speak.  It will all be ready for a long set of trial runs.
  4968	I'll be in the loop with the three second delay.
  4969	Anyway, I've got to get back to work. 
  4970	
  4971	``And it's too bad you had such stress before you even got started.
  4972	 I don't need to say how important
  4973	this mission is.  Wait.  I am saying it.  You know
  4974	the trip itself is very safe, from high-altitude launch in Hawaii
  4975	to landing on the Moon, we've had no failures for months -- the
  4976	last death en route was over a year ago.
  4977	And after all, this is your second trip, though you'll find many
  4978	changes, improvements, expansions of the facilities, you name it.
  4979	You're going through the first dangerous time here on Earth,
  4980	what with foreign agents and actual crazy people.
  4981	When you get to the Moon I want you to be exceptionally careful.
  4982	On the Moon is the second dangerous time; in three months we've
  4983	had two deaths, or as they say, {in} the Moon.
  4984	You should always have a minder with you.  And you should never
  4985	be outside at all.''
  4986	
  4987	``I've no desire to go outside.''
  4988	
  4989	``Good. Sometimes they say: `You're a tourist, so you ought to see the
  4990	real Moon, outside, up close and personal.'
  4991	Don't be a tourist.  The two recent deaths I mentioned have been outside.
  4992	Take care and good luck.''
  4993	
  4994	Meyer continued his trip to the old and refurbished military
  4995	airport at Rantoul, and soon he was no longer so nervous.
  4996	The tired, old buildings on either side were covered with graffiti.
  4997	It once was lots of nazi swastikas, but now the upside-down
  4998	five-pointed stars were ascendant, along with much uglier stuff and
  4999	calls for violence.
  5000	
  5001	They passed a long row of cars that were repurposed as small dwellings,
  5002	since private cars were useless for traveling:
  5003	no spare parts, no replacement computer chips, no tires,
  5004	and no oil or gasoline for ordinary people, only given to governments.
  5005	Some had been large and beautiful
  5006	luxury vehicles; now each was equipped more like a tiny home trailer,
  5007	some with a shade for the boiling summers and often with an extra rickety
  5008	room tacked on.  None of these cars were drivable or even had any
  5009	electricity inside.
  5010	
  5011	This God-forsaken area reminded him of the ugly small town where he grew
  5012	up.  In schools and elsewhere he had been plagued by bullies, who wanted his
  5013	food, or money, or wanted to torment him for the fun of it.
  5014	At the time he thought of himself as a coward.
  5015	Even if he were crazy enough to try to fight one of them,
  5016	he had no experience in fighting, and anyway there were always
  5017	one of him and several of them.  Years later he got to wondering how
  5018	his cowardly line of ancestors survived to reproduce.  He was a thinker
  5019	and a planner -- someone who would remember and resent ill-treatment
  5020	indefinitely.
  5021	He came to realize that his ancestors likely didn't fight directly,
  5022	but instead they would proceed subtly and carefully, in no hurry,
  5023	and would kill their enemies while they slept, but not right away,
  5024	only after pretending to be their friend.
  5025	They would poison the wells of enemies, introduce diseased food,
  5026	set fire to their houses and fields.   Fighters fought until
  5027	they lost, but schemers always had other options.  In the animal world,
  5028	a top predator was one that could best, and if necessary, kill any of
  5029	the other animals.  But such predators often avoided a fight: they would
  5030	win but still might have an injury that would eventually lead to their death.
  5031	And they might even lose.
  5032	
  5033	Two and a half hours of wasted
  5034	time before the plane would board.  He was keeping track.
  5035	It was a combined military-government plane, since there were no 
  5036	commercial flights any more -- and almost no tourists.
  5037	The plane was half full, and he was happy to have an empty
  5038	seat next to him.  This plane would fly to the Barstow airport in what
  5039	they still called California,
  5040	although that entity didn't formally exist anymore.
  5041	Then another flight would take him to the Big Island and
  5042	ground transportation up to Homa.  He took out some study materials
  5043	and began making shapes with his hands.
  5044	
  5045	An older man one seat over from him noticed his book.
  5046	After introducing himself as Pete, he said,
  5047	``I see you have a book on the ASL-Space dialect.  You must
  5048	be heading up to the Moon.''
  5049	
  5050	Meyer had been prepped for this. ``No, but it would be
  5051	an exciting trip to go there for sure,'' he said smoothly.
  5052	``I'm a sign language teacher,
  5053	or rather, studying to be one.  I'll be teaching it
  5054	after I finish the course.''
  5055	
  5056	His seatmate was an ass or a spy or worse.  ``You can't
  5057	kid me.  I'll bet you change over to the plane to Hawaii with me.'
  5058	
  5059	``Yes, you're right.  That's where the classes are.
  5060	But I've got to study this stuff now.''  He shouldn't have
  5061	taken the book out on the plane, but he did need to work
  5062	on the sign language -- he believed this stuff -- the
  5063	ASL dialect could make all the difference in emergencies, life versus death.
  5064	
  5065	The new sign language was based on the old American Sign Language,
  5066	but de-emphasized facial expressions and
  5067	did away with many of the connections to English.
  5068	You could use it in a pressure suit
  5069	as long as your gloves had separate fingers.
  5070	It could be essential to ask for help, to give a warning, to explain
  5071	something, all perhaps when you couldn't be heard or were not close
  5072	to another person.  There was also a small collection of special
  5073	emergency signs that needed only the arms in ways that could be read
  5074	at a distance and didn't use fingers.
  5075	
  5076	It was designed to be a language for everyone,
  5077	easy to learn and useful as a common language,
  5078	regardless of any linguistic background.
  5079	A person familiar with the old ASL could adapt quickly to this variant,
  5080	but in fact it was evolving into a full-strength language
  5081	as it acquired shaded meanings and nuances over the years.
  5082	Some colonists preferred to use ASLS, as it was designated, for most of
  5083	their routine conversations.
  5084	
  5085	He ignored his seatmate after
  5086	that, grunting at attempts to restart a conversation.
  5087	And because of this swine, he would have to fill out
  5088	and send a security report.  They would pick up the person at Barstow
  5089	as he exited the plane.
  5090	And ``Pete'' only thought he was heading right off to Hawaii.
  5091	Or he might be security and testing Meyer.
  5092	Either way, not his problem.
  5093	
  5094	They landed in Barstow, sort of the scorched hot end of the
  5095	world, where one had to stay underground as if
  5096	already being on the Moon with the full sun overhead.  His nosey seatmate left a
  5097	small bag in his seat as he got off.  Meyer had intended to be
  5098	the last one off, but instead he pushed his way out and off
  5099	as quickly as possible.  It was terrifying.  In a large room
  5100	at the end of a tunnel, three people were
  5101	off to one side, talking with Pete, or whatever his name was.
  5102	One of them immediately came over.
  5103	
  5104	``Do you know who I am?'' Meyer said.
  5105	
  5106	``Yes, you're Wolfgang Meyer.  We got your message.''
  5107	
  5108	Meyer asked to see ID, and then explained about the bag in the seat.
  5109	Two other people got involved.  They thanked him for being
  5110	careful and said he should go on to the waiting area for his flight
  5111	to Hawaii and forget about the little incident completely.
  5112	
  5113	Four more hours of waiting, and he would never know what had just transpired.
  5114	Better not to know.  He pulled out some food that
  5115	Elisabeth had packed for him, stuff she'd gotten from a farmer's
  5116	market in Urbana, and a little from her own garden.
  5117	He didn't want to touch anything in that airport,
  5118	let alone eat something they served up; eating strange food
  5119	was always dangerous.  He sprinkled a packet
  5120	into the water they gave him, hoping that would be good enough.
  5121	Then he pulled out his book -- more work with his signs.
  5122	
  5123	Meyer waited until it was late enough to call Elisabeth.
  5124	It was clear he woke her up anyway, but she didn't complain, not ever.
  5125	She was going to spend time
  5126	in the morning taking care of her garden and her birds; she now had several
  5127	dozen birds and a large fancy greenhouse where
  5128	birds and plants could survive, or even thrive.
  5129	The birds had become more than a hobby but instead part of a scientific
  5130	study of the effects of environmental problems on birds.
  5131	
  5132	Such a long time ago it seemed now, when he'd met her.
  5133	He'd been a guest speaker at a fancy nanotechnology conference,
  5134	held at the University of Illinois, a huge school
  5135	that straddled a pair of farming communities.
  5136	He would end up living there the past five years,
  5137	but this had been his first visit.
  5138	The school once was the world leader in the field,
  5139	and even with all the current difficulties they remained
  5140	pre-eminent, though not as fancy as they once were.
  5141	He got permission to make the trip partly because Illinois was
  5142	paying for the air travel, which was reserved on a military plane to
  5143	Cuba, followed by boat and train travel.
  5144	For political reasons there were few direct flights from anywhere
  5145	in Europe to anywhere in North America.  The trip seemed to take forever.
  5146	
  5147	Even back then Europeans weren't welcome in North America;
  5148	he could feel some tension even among these devoted scientists.
  5149	One of Elisabeth's friends knew she particularly enjoyed meeting
  5150	someone who spoke German, so she arranged for them to get together.
  5151	It was a big surprise for Meyer: perfect fluent German
  5152	with a beautiful North German accent -- none of that
  5153	ugly German rolled R from the South -- worse than an American
  5154	accent in its own south or the Canadian version of French,
  5155	hardly German at all.
  5156	She originally came from the German part of Europe and grew
  5157	up speaking German with her family.
  5158	In fact, when they first met, her mother still
  5159	lived near Hamburg, while her father was deceased;
  5160	later her mother was able to relocate to North America and be near her daughter.
  5161	
  5162	From the beginning Meyer had been fascinated, bewitched one could say.
  5163	He'd had girlfriends before, but nothing serious.
  5164	This one was different.
  5165	After the first meeting he was seeing her face wherever he looked, thinking
  5166	about her when he'd normally be struggling with some nanotechnology issue.
  5167	
  5168	They talked for hours on every possible subject, from literature to
  5169	history to science, but no politics. They had favorite writers and
  5170	poets in common: such as Rilke and Brecht, but everything German
  5171	had deteriorated over time, including
  5172	the number of native German speakers worldwide.
  5173	
  5174	At one point he somehow mentioned that, since her family lived near
  5175	Hamburg, her ancestors must have been Lutherans.
  5176	She laughed at this, saying well that might sound logical and likely, but in
  5177	fact her ancestors were Jews.
  5178	All her family members were ethnic Jews, long since non-practicing.
  5179	He started apologizing, explaining,  ``The chances seemed so low that
  5180	your heritage would be Jewish, I didn't even consider it.''
  5181	
  5182	``Chances!  So you're one of those people who thinks in terms of numbers,
  5183	of probabilities.  You plan your life that way.''
  5184	
  5185	``Yes, yes I do.  How else?''
  5186	
  5187	``Yours isn't a bad method, but it's not the only way. It didn't work
  5188	this time, and how often will such a situation come up for you? How
  5189	else? Live your own unique life and forget the numbers, at least
  5190	some of the time.''
  5191	
  5192	Meyer had been assigned secure on-campus accommodations, whose rooms had
  5193	no windows.  He got back to his room quite late.
  5194	
  5195	The brilliant young cyborg scientist,
  5196	Gwyn, whatever you wanted to call him, was the primary attraction
  5197	at the meeting.  Meyer had listened to him, but to his disappointment
  5198	hadn't been able to meet him directly, not even informally.
  5199	He was sound asleep when Gwyn himself showed up at his room.
  5200	Two security people sat on chairs outside,
  5201	while Gwyn came in, with coffee and snacks, apologizing profusely.
  5202	
  5203	After a formal introduction, Gwyn started in.  ``Believe me, there was no
  5204	other way.  We both must not leave any evidence that we met
  5205	privately -- too much politics stands in the way.  Do you think
  5206	we can have a serious talk like this, with you dragged out of bed
  5207	in the middle of your night's sleep?''
  5208	
  5209	``Yes, I can do that if the coffee holds out.  Many times I've stayed up
  5210	all night completing research.  Let's get on with it.''
  5211	
  5212	First they talked about Gwyn's work.  This work and results Gwyn
  5213	described were mostly unfamiliar to Meyer -- all of it far
  5214	beyond what Meyer thought was the current state of the art,
  5215	none of it being talked about at the conference.
  5216	Gwyn brought display technology and answered Meyer's endless
  5217	questions.  The results, the ideas, the future possible directions,
  5218	they were the most exciting stuff Meyer had ever heard,
  5219	all heading toward the holy grail of nanotechnology.  After at least
  5220	two hours of that, Gwyn got down to the political situation.
  5221	
  5222	``You are in danger, no other way to say it.  I would be ashamed to
  5223	have put you in this much danger, except that it was already there.
  5224	The two of us {must} work together, close together.
  5225	There are people around who would kill us both, taking out half the university here
  5226	if necessary, to keep that from happening.  The issues are so
  5227	important that I would go to Europe if that would work out, but
  5228	progress along those lines is impossible; all of Europe is too far
  5229	behind us and has marginal facilities.  Instead, you must come
  5230	to us, renouncing Europe, and joining our `team,' such as it is.''
  5231	
  5232	A long pause by Meyer. ``I don't know what to say.   Asking me is sure
  5233	quite an honor.  I guess I don't see that happening,
  5234	and I wonder how welcome a European would be on your team.''
  5235	
  5236	``I'm trying to play fair and be honest with you, but right now I can't
  5237	prove what I'm saying.  Both our sides have agencies that spy on
  5238	the other.  We have learned that permission for your trip was made by mistake,
  5239	a mistake at a low level to not alert the proper authorities of your
  5240	request.  Mainly we know about this because on your side there was
  5241	a big fuss, a lot of angry messages -- the person I've often
  5242	dealt with, Collinson, was raising hell.
  5243	They won't make that mistake again.  If you go back to Europe,
  5244	you'll not ever likely leave.  You may think I'm exaggerating, but there
  5245	may also be other restrictions on you if you go back.''
  5246	
  5247	Gwyn had decided not to mention that he and his people had
  5248	created the mistake that let Meyer get permission to leave.
  5249	Let sleeping dogs, or political machinations, lie.
  5250	And he'd told only the truth: they wouldn't let him leave again.
  5251	
  5252	Gwyn was drinking the insipid artificial coffee himself.
  5253	``Of course you know about our project
  5254	in Hawaii, getting people and materials to and from the colony on the Moon.
  5255	And doing that with frequent flights using remarkably few resources
  5256	during these times of shortages.  I'm proud of this accomplishment.
  5257	Right now we couldn't find
  5258	fuel to send off a single one of the super-sized rockets they used to deploy.
  5259	Our project has international support, even from some European entities. 
  5260	We're going to make a big deal about soliciting support from Europe,
  5261	making a number of concessions.  That should ease political tensions.''
  5262	
  5263	Gwyn waited while Meyer said nothing.  ``I regard you as an essential
  5264	component for our future work for the colony.  This is more important
  5265	than politics, more important than your personal life.
  5266	I have to keep recruiting people, and you will have to also.
  5267	The risks are too great, the stakes too high, to rely on individuals surviving.
  5268	We both must groom replacements.
  5269	You have two more days at the conference before you have to decide.
  5270	From now on the security around you is going to be tight.''
  5271	
  5272	They talked along these lines for another hour without Meyer
  5273	committing to anything.
  5274	
  5275	The next evening he went to see Elisabeth again, on a sort of date.
  5276	There was no security to be seen, but he was confident Gwyn was providing it.
  5277	Elisabeth broke into a crying spell about how bad everything was,
  5278	how depressed she was.
  5279	It turned out that most of the current batch of birds she had raised, finches actually,
  5280	had died, even in their carefully-managed enclosure.
  5281	In comforting her, the two of them got physical,
  5282	meaning she was clinging to him, crying on his shoulder.
  5283	Because he was already tired, everything seemed hypnotic, like a dream.
  5284	They spent the entire night talking together, holding one another, fondling.  
  5285	Meyer didn't know what to make of it all, except that he wanted
  5286	this to never end, which was completely crazy considering
  5287	all the negatives of any such relationship -- more like a Romeo and Juliet
  5288	kind of story.  Were they both going to die later?
  5289	
  5290	Their overnight snuggling party took place at the apartment of 
  5291	Elisabeth's friend, who had given her a room and simply hadn't
  5292	disturbed them.  In earlier times
  5293	they might have had casual sex, but among educated people
  5294	there was no casual sex anymore because there was no {safe} casual sex,
  5295	and even close contact could be dangerous.
  5296	As one of a myriad of reasons, an easily acquired UTI could often
  5297	be fatal for a woman.  Instead, they talked endlessly, until he
  5298	brought up the possibility of not returning to Europe.
  5299	She seemed almost pathologically freaked out over that, asking how
  5300	dangerous it would be.  ``Don't important people who leave their
  5301	country sometimes get kidnapped or killed?''  Full of distress, she
  5302	went on, ``Oh God!  I shouldn't have said that.''
  5303	
  5304	``I'm not superstitious -- saying it doesn't make it more likely.
  5305	But, yes. That is a possibility.  I talked with Gwyn about this.
  5306	He's in contact with several influential figures over there.  He's going to make
  5307	major concessions to the Europeans -- inviting them to participate
  5308	even more in the Hawaii project.  They'll be upset over my defection, or
  5309	perhaps call it `traitorous desertion,' or even worse than that, `apostasy.'
  5310	His concessions should help.  And they did let me out of Europe by mistake;
  5311	they didn't mean to.''
  5312	
  5313	``Are you thinking about this because of me?  Am I some kind of trophy?''
  5314	
  5315	``No, nothing like that.  Our friendship, whatever it is, well,
  5316	it's completely separate.''  She sat still, saying nothing.
  5317	``We've known each other for two days.  I've never met anyone like
  5318	you -- so smart, interesting, kind, beautiful... I can't
  5319	put it into words.  We seem a perfect match.  Nothing like this
  5320	has ever happened to me before.  Still... we would need to see
  5321	each other much more before making permanent commitments to one another.
  5322	This is almost crazy.  I've hardly been thinking of anything else.
  5323	But Gwyn is sure I can make great contributions to his work
  5324	with the Moon colony.
  5325	He believes in me. I {have} to do that and
  5326	I {must} be with you, I think forever.''
  5327	He pulled her over to him and they sat that way without talking
  5328	for a long time ...
  5329	
  5330	Two weeks later, Collinson sent Gwyn a copy of a message:
  5331	
  5332	Date: 17 April 2079
  5333	Subj: Agreement re Hawaii Colony Project (personal copy)
  5334	
  5335	AGREEMENT.
  5336	This is to accept your offer of a base for Europe on the island Hawaii
  5337	(the "Big Island") of Hawaii, as described in the attachment and
  5338	subject to the attached formal conditions.  As with
  5339	an embassy, this base will be the sovereign property of Europe, with rights
  5340	again as detailed in the formal attachment.  There are already Europeans working
  5341	on the Hawaii Colony Project, and we will nominate one technical person
  5342	from that group to serve on the project Governing Committee.
  5343	SEPARATE INFORMAL ATTACHMENT, TO BE REMOVED. 
  5344	You made a plea to me from Meyer that we leave his new
  5345	girlfriend alone.  She represents a weakness
  5346	for your side.  A dead Elisabeth Bloom is useless to me,
  5347	so Meyer need not worry on that score.
  5348	
  5349	Meyer eventually got to see that content, along with an avalanche of material
  5350	related to the colony.  It was hard now to visualize the five years 
  5351	that had gone by since then, with ever increasing difficulties both on
  5352	the Earth and on the Moon.
  5353	
  5354	Meyer slept through much of the next flight.  That was great.  He wouldn't
  5355	be so groggy during all the more critical and demanding parts of
  5356	his trip.  Carefully the last one off, he was met by three
  5357	serious young men, one of whom showed his ID and gave the
  5358	code word he was expecting.  He gave the correct response, and
  5359	the four of them moved off to a waiting car.  Security was
  5360	extremely tight on the whole set of Hawaiian islands, but even
  5361	more so on the big island, if that was possible.
  5362	
  5363	First was the trip to the top of Mauna Kea, Hawaii's
  5364	smaller volcano, at over four kilometers
  5365	slightly taller than its more massive neighbor, Mauna Loa.
  5366	One of several reasons to pick Mauna Kea for Homa was also
  5367	why they put observatories there: its stable
  5368	and turbulence-free atmosphere.
  5369	He'd done this all once before, seeming routine this time.
  5370	Still, he was carefully attentive during the several hours of
  5371	orientation and prep leading up to the flight.  They assured him that
  5372	all the delicate cargo, so carefully packed, had long since gone
  5373	to the Moon on earlier flights.
  5374	
  5375	He knew to expect a quick test for diseases, thankfully giving
  5376	a negative answer in a few minutes.
  5377	He'd had a negative test back in Urbana, but a positive test here
  5378	would trigger a complex evaluation, since every
  5379	arrival at the colony posed risks, actually regardless of the
  5380	test outcome, and much would depend on a
  5381	more complex test that took hours to give results. 
  5382	In the worst case he wouldn't be able to go at all.
  5383	
  5384	Finally came  the pressure
  5385	suit with its annoying features, including the disgusting diaper, but
  5386	he certainly needed the suit.
  5387	The air at the top was about fourteen percent of sea level pressure,
  5388	less than half the pressure at the top of
  5389	Mt. Everest and a quick death without the suit.
  5390	The trip up the stalk to Homa proper would take thirty-five minutes
  5391	and cover eleven kilometers straight up.
  5392	And the view was wonderful, in full daylight instead of dark
  5393	like before.  He could see forever, first the big island
  5394	and then all the islands and the infinite ocean and clouds.
  5395	
  5396	The top of the stalk was called Homa in honor of a mythical Persian bird
  5397	that always flew and never came down to the Earth.
  5398	Their hybrid orbiter craft used Homa as its launching site,
  5399	a huge lighter than air balloon suspended eleven kilometers
  5400	above the volcano or over fifteen kilometers above sea level.
  5401	When he'd first heard of the project several years ago,
  5402	he'd tried to imagine how they could make it lighter than air.
  5403	For such a high altitude, if not for many other reasons,
  5404	hot air was out, and it was impossible to get helium in bulk anymore.
  5405	As so often with materials, mankind had pissed away most of its
  5406	available helium, and the kind of oil drilling needed to get more was no
  5407	longer feasible.
  5408	So what could they use?  Well, hydrogen, as long as it didn't
  5409	catch fire. It turned out that fire or an explosion was easy
  5410	to prevent.  They only had to be sure the hydrogen didn't co-mingle
  5411	with the air in their small pressurized quarters, although in
  5412	practice they also mitigated a number of unlikely but
  5413	possible crises that could result from using hydrogen.
  5414	And oh, yes, they needed to ground Homa anyway to handle lightning,
  5415	but the hydrogen made it trickier.
  5416	
  5417	The whole Homa project was designed to get material into low
  5418	Earth orbit  and on to the Moon
  5419	as cheaply as possible, in an environment of extreme
  5420	shortages of many materials, including rocket fuel most of all.
  5421	There were other constraints, but none that needed to be optimized.
  5422	Meyer had only scorn for bureaucrats, knowing nothing about
  5423	optimization, who always wanted projects optimized along five different
  5424	independent variables.  The cheapest, lightest, quickest, with the
  5425	best performance, environmentally friendliest, and all sorts of other est's.
  5426	
  5427	Homa was tethered to the ground with ultra-strong carbon {nanotube} cables.
  5428	A much thinner version of the cable lifted objects from the ground up to Homa.
  5429	A huge machine pulled a cable that went up to and over a pulley
  5430	at the top and down to the pod he was in.  They pulled up
  5431	supply pods the same way.  The weight on Homa was twice the
  5432	weight of the cable plus the weight of the cargo,
  5433	but the heavy lifting machine was on the ground.
  5434	They had cleverly arranged the cable in a loop, so that after lifting
  5435	a load, they could almost immediately start the next load.
  5436	Also there were two separate cables, used independently except for
  5437	raising the empty aircraft, which was so heavy it needed both cables.
  5438	
  5439	With some delay, two young technicians, also in pressure suits.
  5440	strapped him into the hybrid craft -- stubby and
  5441	ugly looking -- almost hard to imagine it fulfilling
  5442	their requirements.  It was not able to land directly, but
  5443	it would use air friction and parachutes to slow
  5444	for a fall into the ocean near the Big Island.
  5445	The taller technician introduced herself.
  5446	
  5447	``Hi, I'm Ruth.  Sorry, but there will be a further thirty minute
  5448	delay because we need to time the ascent exactly to coordinate with
  5449	the carrier rocket that will take you to the Staging Center.''
  5450	
  5451	``Thanks.  This is my second time, so I expected that.''
  5452	
  5453	Ruth and the other technician chatted with him about their
  5454	life in Homa, the food, the sleep schedule.
  5455	
  5456	``We do roughly four-week shifts,'' Ruth said. 
  5457	
  5458	Meyer winced. ``That sounds hard in such a limited space here.
  5459	How do you stay sane?''
  5460	
  5461	``It's not so bad, and the pay is great, with other benefits.
  5462	The biggest plus is we get to live in Hawaii.  People here almost
  5463	forget how nice these islands are compared with the rest of the world.
  5464	Our pressurized portion up here is large enough for us to avoid one
  5465	another.  Yeah, seriously, it's not so bad. We sleep in completely
  5466	separate quarters, so no problems with a snoring colleague.
  5467	Also we have access to almost anything available online down below,
  5468	so entertainment's not a problem.
  5469	We've only had one major emergency shutdown -- due to a solar flare.
  5470	
  5471	``And for your comfort we're installing an extra little stearing wheel
  5472	in front of your seat if you should get scared.''
  5473	
  5474	``Good for me that I already know the ship's completely autonomous,
  5475	and at least there are no windows for me to peer out of, no
  5476	instruments telling me what is happening, so nothing
  5477	can frighten me.  I'm like any other cargo.
  5478	And no pressure, so I get to wear this beautiful suit with its
  5479	fancy diaper.  My second childhood -- I'm in diapers
  5480	again.  This whole experience reminds me of my one trip on
  5481	a roller coster as a child.  This is the grown-up version.''
  5482	
  5483	The technicians laughed indulgently.
  5484	
  5485	The ship could carry slightly less than two metric tons of cargo, including
  5486	any humans if present, on each trip.  It sometimes came back down empty,
  5487	or else with from one to three humans on board.
  5488	
  5489	Ruth didn't say it, but he'd been briefed about
  5490	certain kinds of emergencies, usually bad weather,
  5491	although sometimes one of an unwelcome list of problems,
  5492	ones that could cause that particular flight to be cancelled.  Then he would
  5493	have to wait up in Homa, with Ruth and the other worker, until they
  5494	could reschedule. Their ample pressurized facilities might not
  5495	seem so large with another person around. It would be crowded.
  5496	A huge relief that he was getting one more trip without that happening.
  5497	
  5498	And then it all started up: a short period of weightlessness,
  5499	as the part-jet/part-rocket dropped off of Homa, followed by several Gs
  5500	of acceleration provided by the two side boosters.
  5501	He'd learned they had reluctantly added the booster units, which
  5502	made everything more complicated, but it was too hard to get cheaply
  5503	into orbit, and the ramjet needed to be started up as soon as possible. 
  5504	The units were similar to, but larger than the JATO units that had
  5505	long been around.  These would be jettisoned, parachuted down,
  5506	and usually recovered from the ocean.
  5507	By this time, from the boosters and from coasting downward, the
  5508	vehicle had gained enough velocity to start the ramjet
  5509	engine.  After that, it ascended at exactly the correct rate to
  5510	keep an optimal amount of air in the engine with the increasing velocity
  5511	and decreasing air pressure.
  5512	At the end, the rocket took over when air pressure was too
  5513	thin no matter how great the velocity.  Meyer remembered reading that
  5514	the engine was officially called a ramjet/scramjet/rocket hybrid.
  5515	The technology was initially developed for hypersonic weapons.
  5516	
  5517	For Meyer, free fall was welcome, but another batch of wasted time was
  5518	added to his total, this time waiting for the ``carrier''
  5519	rocket that Ruth had mentioned, which would take him to
  5520	the Staging Center in a higher Earth orbit.
  5521	Altogether it took three and a half hours to get to that Center,
  5522	attach to it and enter.
  5523	He was met by a large older man, rough-looking, with hair clipped short and
  5524	a sun-burned face, along with a small and young-looking woman. 
  5525	As he got older, women were looking ever younger. 
  5526	The two made quite a contrast. The man held out his hand.
  5527	
  5528	``I'm Dmitri and this is Jane.  There are two others asleep back in
  5529	the innards.''
  5530	
  5531	``I'm Meyer.''
  5532	
  5533	''Pleased,''  Dmitri said.  ``But hey, I like first names around here.
  5534	What's yours?''
  5535	
  5536	``Wolfgang, an old German name that people don't use anymore.''
  5537	
  5538	``Well I'll use it.  But you want to get that damned suit off.
  5539	Can you use some help?''
  5540	He actually used another word instead of ``damned,'' one unfamiliar
  5541	to Meyer.
  5542	
  5543	Dmitri led Meyer to a smaller room off the main corridor,
  5544	where he could finally get the huge relief of taking off the
  5545	pressure suit and diaper, partly cleaning himself with a damp
  5546	disposable, and changing clothes.
  5547	They had stocked a reasonable approximation of his size.
  5548	All the old stuff, including the horrible diaper, when into
  5549	a bin; he had no idea what they did with the bin's contents.
  5550	
  5551	``You sound like you might know Russian,'' Dmitri said in that language.
  5552	
  5553	Meyer answered that he knew ``some'' Russian, using what was
  5554	actually his quite fluent version of the language.
  5555	
  5556	As they left the room, Dmitri said they should ``probably speak in
  5557	English for the others.''  Back in the main room Meyer more formally 
  5558	said hello to Jane, who came from what once was Canada.
  5559	``Floating around in the microgravity is so nice after the torment of
  5560	the trip so far,'' he said.
  5561	The station, compared with what must have been tiny quarters on Homa,
  5562	was huge and luxurious.
  5563	Meyer asked if he could have some snacks and some water, which
  5564	Dmitri immediately fetched.
  5565	
  5566	The first thing a visitor saw on arriving at the staging center was
  5567	the infamous ``Beetles'' room off to one side.  After all this time,
  5568	well over a hundred years, their music was still popular.  The room was
  5569	a general entertainment center with added Beetles items, including
  5570	some authentic memorabilia.
  5571	
  5572	Custom dictated that anyone newly arriving should bring a token
  5573	to add to the room, something not necessarily related to the Beetles.
  5574	Meyer elaborately presented what looked like
  5575	a black-speckled ping-pong ball.
  5576	Ping-pong was one of the few surviving sports, but they weren't going
  5577	to play it at the Station. His token was made from carbon nanotubes,
  5578	impossibly strong, with negligible mass,  floating around
  5579	light as a feather.  The other two pretended to be impressed: ``How 
  5580	interesting!''  But he could tell they weren't excited about a
  5581	ping-pong ball, not understanding you could set one corner of a building
  5582	on it without it breaking.
  5583	
  5584	Jane explained about the two who were asleep:
  5585	Andrew from Australia was the third member of their
  5586	group, while Rick was a scientist from Boston who would go with
  5587	Meyer to the Moon colony.  Meyer was struck with the importance of
  5588	the particular side you were on.  They all immediately thought:
  5589	Australian, so Europe, and Boston, so North America.
  5590	
  5591	Dmitri seemed to have a need to justify his existence:
  5592	``There are always at least three people permanently at our Staging Center,
  5593	and sometimes a fourth. Believe me we are kept busy -- this
  5594	is the only control point off the Earth and Moon -- we
  5595	monitor everything and control many things.''
  5596	
  5597	Meyer was trying to fend off an endless explanation of what
  5598	he already knew:  ``This is my second trip to the Moon, so a lot
  5599	of this is familiar.  This Station looks the same, but I hear
  5600	the Colony has expanded dramatically.''
  5601	
  5602	Dmitri insisted on explaining anyway.
  5603	``So you know you'll take a shuttle
  5604	from here to L1 and then down to the Moon.
  5605	It isn't due to leave for eleven hours.
  5606	I'll have plenty of time to move the cargo pod from the orbiter you
  5607	came in to the shuttle
  5608	The stop at L1 saves fuel but adds at the least more than a
  5609	day to what could be a three-day trip -- sometimes
  5610	a lot more added.
  5611	In a competition, fuel immediately wins over time.
  5612	You're lucky on this trip; it's only adding about twenty-seven hours.''
  5613	
  5614	Meyer groaned inwardly: another boost to his count of time wasted.
  5615	The station maintained at the L1 point was unmanned, used only for
  5616	refueling.  This allowed the shuttle to be much smaller, since they
  5617	could separately send fuel to L1 on the return trip from the Moon,
  5618	fuel created on the moon.
  5619	The shuttle, like the craft from Homa, was completely automated and
  5620	unmanned.  This way there were no pilots on the whole trip, saving
  5621	the weight of one or more pilots for extra cargo.  Everything had been
  5622	designed for maximum efficiency -- the least amount of fuel
  5623	needed to get cargo to the Moon.  Most cargo went from
  5624	the Earth to the Moon, while the reverse direction carried people back to
  5625	the Earth and fuel to L1, as well as valuable minerals, if they could
  5626	find any.  It was supposed to include Helium-3, but that
  5627	last had yet to work out -- if ever.
  5628	
  5629	Already it was pushing things to have no pressured facilities
  5630	for passengers at the top of Homa or in the orbiter, so they surely had
  5631	to have a pressured cabin in the shuttle from the Station to
  5632	the Moon and back to the Station.
  5633	People couldn't spend four or more days in a pressure suit with a diaper.
  5634	
  5635	``How long is your tour here?'' Meyer asked, and immediately
  5636	regretted it, thinking it might be a sore subject.
  5637	
  5638	``You stay for three months,'' Jane said.  ``But only if you work
  5639	hard on exercising, your diet,  and keep your numbers good, you know,
  5640	calcium, blood, muscle tone, lots of numbers.
  5641	Living in microgravity's a bitch.
  5642	You can come back after six
  5643	months below, but again, only if the numbers say you can.  This is my
  5644	third tour.  I shouldn't say it, but the pay and benefits are
  5645	good, um, benefits being mostly a save place to live.''
  5646	Then she seemed to think she'd gone too far: ``fairly safe.''
  5647	
  5648	Part of the orientation for anyone going to the Moon included
  5649	a great deal about this very issue, translated from microgravity
  5650	to the Moon's one-sixth G, which all by itself was a huge help
  5651	compared with the microgravity.
  5652	Meyer had studied this area extensively.
  5653	For those on the Moon, the medical specialists
  5654	had over time developed a regimen of diet, exercise, certain
  5655	medicines, and required sessions on one of several centrifuges.
  5656	All of that usually kept them in reasonable health indefinitely.
  5657	Before his first trip Meyer had heard that using
  5658	the centrifuges was particularly
  5659	annoying -- all kinds of negatives: uncomfortable,
  5660	time-consuming, disorienting, and a major pain to have at all.
  5661	He certainly hadn't enjoyed it the short times he was on the Moon.
  5662	Dammit!  {In} the Moon.
  5663	But it was necessary, and they made  no exceptions for a visitor.
  5664	The plan was to build much larger and more convenient ones.
  5665	
  5666	Later, while Jane was busy, Dmitri said, almost casually,
  5667	``I know who you are: the European scientist who moved
  5668	to North America five years ago.''
  5669	
  5670	Meyer thought it sounded like a challenge.
  5671	``That's sort of true, but it leaves out the important
  5672	part.  My main concern has always been the Moon colony.
  5673	It's a joint project; it still has significant European support.''
  5674	
  5675	``I'm not trying to start an argument.
  5676	I'm European myself and working for the colony project.
  5677	I was mostly interested in why you switched sides.''
  5678	
  5679	``Again, I don't like to think of it as switching sides.  But my field was
  5680	and is nanomachines.  Most of the work on those is in
  5681	North America.  If I had stayed in Europe, I would not have had
  5682	the work with nanotechnology I wanted.
  5683	So I admit it: I switched to working on the Moon colony partly to
  5684	further my own career.  We have high hopes for how these
  5685	nanobots can help the colony.  After the biology issues,
  5686	the nanomachines are the most important area.''
  5687	
  5688	Dmitri sounded surprised.  ``I didn't know biology was so important.''
  5689	
  5690	``Completely outside my area, but the biological issues are
  5691	complex and worrisome.  We have to deal with the biome in the
  5692	colony -- constantly changing and evolving.
  5693	They continually get new stuff every time a
  5694	new person arrives, like me.  That's what I hear.
  5695	They've got dozens of experts working on biological problems.''
  5696	
  5697	Meyer chatted with Dmitri for more than an hour, until
  5698	the other two woke up and came into the main area.
  5699	Andrew, another station employee, went off with Dmitri to give Jane
  5700	a break and work on station issues.  The other person, Rick Davis,
  5701	was a passenger like Meyer and right away struck up a conversation.
  5702	After Meyer had talked about his nanobots for a bit, he asked Rick
  5703	about his field.  Not all colonists were professionals, but that
  5704	was the case here.  ``I specialize in viruses,'' Rick said.
  5705	``A big field and important for the colony.  I work on
  5706	anti-virals -- all sorts of approaches.  No big problems so far,
  5707	but something is bound to happen.''
  5708	
  5709	``They are certainly fussy about checking for infections before
  5710	sending people up Homa.''
  5711	
  5712	``Some kind of mutated viral infection in the colony is my
  5713	greatest fear.  We have procedures in place to isolate sections
  5714	in that case, but the isolation might come too late.  Then we would
  5715	have to treat individuals as best we can.''
  5716	
  5717	``How long is your stay for?''  As before, Meyer thought he
  5718	shouldn't have asked, but Rick wasn't bothered by the question.
  5719	
  5720	``Any more, to get a position on the Moon you have to sign up
  5721	for an indefinite stay.  A year ago I did seven months, but this time it
  5722	is, um, forever.  They want to create a stable society.''
  5723	
  5724	``I'm going for a short stay, six weeks,'' Meyer said.
  5725	
  5726	``Wow, you must be a big wheel then if they let you get a six-week stay.''
  5727	
  5728	Meyer tried to sound modest.  ``As I said, I work with nanomachines -- not as 
  5729	important as biology, say, but we hope to make
  5730	significant contributions.  Actually, six weeks is the goal, but it might be
  5731	longer.  We have certain things that sort of have to get done.
  5732	It we can't push this through at all, well, that would be setback
  5733	all right.  I want to be optimistic -- done in six weeks.''
  5734	
  5735	The other started in with a ``what kind of contributions'' kind of
  5736	question, and Meyer had to say things were all up in the air
  5737	(which was true!), and time would tell how important the stuff
  5738	was that he and the others worked on (also true), but he didn't say
  5739	it was highly classified, considered an essential step, and yes,
  5740	subject to their highest hopes.
  5741	
  5742	Soon the two of them had to get ready for the final 5-day trip on
  5743	the shuttle.  As it turned out, Rick was a good companion to
  5744	relieve five days of bordom.  At one point Meyer surprised him by introducing
  5745	his vote for ``all-time best nanobot.''
  5746	
  5747	``And what would that be?'' Rick asked.  ``I've heard descriptions of
  5748	several capable types that have been developed.''
  5749	
  5750	``The eukaryotic cell, what else?''
  5751	
  5752	``Oh, yes.  It's a fantastic mechanism.
  5753	The features of an entire city in a single cell.  It took like a billion
  5754	years of evolution to develop.  My favorite part
  5755	is the mitochondria-driven power plant -- the cell
  5756	incorporated it from the outside.''
  5757	
  5758	``We're trying to hurry the process.  A billion years is a bit long for us.''
  5759	
  5760	Twice during the 5-day final leg of their trip Meyer managed to call
  5761	Elisabeth.  She had a phone, though not everyone had phone service anymore.
  5762	But still she had to go to the department office to get a phone connection
  5763	with him.  He always worried about her, but this time more than usual.
  5764	She seemed lethargic, even depressed, and didn't have much to say.
  5765	He could see how it was boring for her there; she didn't have many friends
  5766	and her mother had needed to go back to her own house for some reason
  5767	which wasn't clear to Meyer.
  5768	
  5769	As part of the preparation for landing they had to put on their
  5770	pressure suits again, due to the old ``abundance of caution'' approach,
  5771	but at least without a diaper this time.
  5772	A year ago when Meyer had last come to the Moon, this caution had
  5773	been missing, but his fellow passenger Davis explained there'd
  5774	been no leaks and no deaths so far -- they wanted to keep it that way.
  5775	For Meyer it seemed freaky to have no pilot.  When they had gotten close to
  5776	the Moon, control had been transferred there.
  5777	
  5778	It seemed like forever, but finally the shuttle craft landed on the moon.
  5779	Meyer felt a jolt as they settled onto the ground and the engines cut out.
  5780	He lifted his arm and let it fall, testing the light gravity.
  5781	The Moon for sure and at rest.
  5782	They usually attached a tube to the shuttle, but a voice from their
  5783	control had already said the tube was getting repaired.  They would use a separate
  5784	wheeled vehicle to get into the colony.
  5785	He was on the Moon but not yet {in} the Moon.
  5786	
  5787	The vehicle came and attached itself to their shuttle.  They walked on
  5788	through the connector to see an actual human being as driver.
  5789	He gave a hearty welcome and
  5790	told them to keep their pressure suits on.
  5791	Meyer had no illusions: they were protecting both directions, but
  5792	primarily shielding themselves from him.
  5793	Quickly they drove down a ramp and through an obvious pressure gate.
  5794	After that gate came another, and then a bit further along,
  5795	a third, past which they stopped to disembark.
  5796	
  5797	Now they were under pressure.  They went through still another pressure
  5798	gate, following the driver.  He explained that this route into the
  5799	colony was new added three months ago.  They had decided to protect more
  5800	aggressively against infections.  They could finally take the suits off, but
  5801	there would be a twenty-four hour quarantine period.
  5802	Most people could use some food, a shower, and
  5803	sleep anyway, after the long shuttle trip.  The driver had said a
  5804	week-long quarantine would be better, but they had to be realistic.
  5805	Following tests after a day, he would finally be truly inside the colony,
  5806	that is, {in} the Moon.
  5807	
  5808	%%% part3.2.tex:  Chap 11, Prepositioning =================================##
  5809	For nearly three years Mila Thompson had been working as part of the administrative
  5810	support of the Owl's Nest Project.  It was a huge operation
  5811	with major locations near the south pole of the Moon, with many facilities
  5812	on the Big Island of Hawaii, including all the equipment for
  5813	shuttles to and from the Moon, and with the large set of offices
  5814	where she worked in Urbana, Illinois near the University of Illinois.
  5815	
  5816	Separately the same organization also helped
  5817	with the much smaller colony on Mars.
  5818	In many ways Mars had seemed like a superior place for a colony,
  5819	presenting more opportunities and fewer problems, but Mars was
  5820	too far away.  Some time ago people thought they could make use of
  5821	materials on Mars and not need so many of the long supply trips, but
  5822	in the end too much from the Earth was required.
  5823	
  5824	Her situation was unusual to say the least: 
  5825	she'd been sent to North America by the Greater Eurasian Alliance
  5826	as a secret intelligence agent to gather useful information, among
  5827	other duties.  The GEA included many countries, even the
  5828	Australian Archipelago, but after climate change the old Europe was
  5829	by far the dominant part.  From the beginning Mila had managed
  5830	to work for North America as a double agent, supplying Europe
  5831	with flawed intelligence that would somehow benefit the colony project,
  5832	usually in subtle ways.
  5833	
  5834	She had also established a secret quasi-relationship with Gwyn,
  5835	the cyber-human combination who headed up the project.  At least she
  5836	hoped it was secret.  She didn't know what the relationship was,
  5837	but she knew she was in way over her head.
  5838	
  5839	Three years earlier, Mila had made up her mind.
  5840	She'd been forced onto this path, but she wasn't going to go through with it.
  5841	Out of nowhere the Australian branch of the vast Eurasian spy system
  5842	told her she met the requirements to be an agent
  5843	in North America:  female, young and attractive, native English speaker,
  5844	smart, and with an unstated requirement of a number of local relatives.
  5845	The last was important to keep an agent from defecting -- they
  5846	could threaten the relatives, or in Australia they could do terrible
  5847	things to relatives first and threaten worse.
  5848	She thought it was a great joke on them that they were wrong
  5849	about her actually having local relatives.
  5850	These were non-existent relations -- a computer glitch and confusion over
  5851	her last name.
  5852	
  5853	She had spent a long time and a huge effort working on an
  5854	American accent while trying to keep her Australian accent at bay.
  5855	And there were endless details to memorize about a medium-sized town
  5856	in what used to be  New York state -- important
  5857	events and people, her supposed ``time'' at the high school, 
  5858	including even a few students she ``knew.''  And finally came
  5859	faked credentials and endless training to fulfill the mission.
  5860	She had all the proper IDs and records to prove she had grown up
  5861	near what was left of New York City.  Her mission was
  5862	to hire on with the colony project, the ``Owl's Nest'' -- a silly
  5863	name.
  5864	
  5865	She had come to realize that she almost certainly would be
  5866	caught, then killed or jailed.  Tall, with blond hair and light
  5867	skin, she didn't look at all like someone from the east coast of
  5868	North America.
  5869	She also didn't want to go back to Australia,
  5870	but that wouldn't be possible anyway.  Her contacts expected her to
  5871	at least try to get hired and in general do what she was told.
  5872	She was trapped as a foreign agent in North America.
  5873	
  5874	She decided on an easy choice: somehow become a double agent.  Sometimes
  5875	people like that survived.  The Europeans were fools but nasty, and the head
  5876	of the Archipelago was a madman who killed for fun.  In contrast,
  5877	the colony project was well-run, with even some European support.
  5878	Modest support.  The head was this mysterious young man (or boy?),
  5879	known only as Gwyn, age nineteen,
  5880	supposedly a kind of cybernetic man-machine
  5881	who didn't make mistakes.  Face it, her cover was crap.   He or his
  5882	underlings would discover her.  So her plan was to offer herself up
  5883	as a double agent from the beginning.  They might find a use for her
  5884	in that role.  Also Europe always rewarded failure with death,
  5885	and sometimes they rewarded success with death,
  5886	while North America not necessarily.
  5887	
  5888	It was pathetic how she had been
  5889	supplied with various equipment, part of which could likely be
  5890	used to kill her if they wanted it.  She felt like her special
  5891	communications device might serve this dual role.  She had an adaptable
  5892	little droid that she used with that device any time she needed
  5893	to speak with one of her handlers -- her droid turned
  5894	the device on and she talked through the droid, always keeping
  5895	the device in a closed closet.  Later she got so paranoid that the device was
  5896	now in a cleaning room at the opposite side of the building from her
  5897	own, um, ``room,'' ugly and tiny as it was.
  5898	
  5899	And finally, the person Gwyn seemed
  5900	interesting to her.  She'd seen pictures of him, and he
  5901	looked ... interesting, or maybe more than that.  What would it
  5902	be like to work for somebody smart?  For somebody ``interesting''?
  5903	
  5904	So how in all hell and beyond could an agent ``volunteer'' to be a double
  5905	agent?  She had not the slightest idea.
  5906	Her people surely had agents planted within the colony organization.
  5907	She had been trained but had no real
  5908	experience as an agent.  In books and videos how does one
  5909	become a double agent?  Well, they would
  5910	recruit such a person after discovering them.
  5911	Her crazy plan was to volunteer to be a double agent from the beginning.
  5912	Get the attention of somebody high up and volunteer.  She didn't know how she 
  5913	was going to do this without alerting any hidden European agents.
  5914	
  5915	Mila started the process of applying for a job with the Nest.
  5916	Her credentials looked good, though she was actually much better than
  5917	those credentials.  Half-way through the initial day of applying,
  5918	she left her shabby briefcase at a temporary desk.
  5919	God knew what was covertly inside the case, but it was fairly heavy,
  5920	with inaccessible sections, perhaps full of surveillance gear, or even
  5921	gear to kill her if they wanted that.
  5922	She boldly went to use the toilet, made sure no one else was inside,
  5923	locked herself in a stall, and simply said,
  5924	``I would like to speak with Gwyn directly or with someone close to him.''
  5925	She repeated it and hoped for the best.
  5926	
  5927	There were several interviews and a test that first day.
  5928	Later she grabbed a minimal meal and went back to the desolate hotel
  5929	she'd picked out.  It seemed safe and at least she'd chosen it herself.
  5930	By now, though, it might be decked out with more surveillance gear.
  5931	You never knew.
  5932	
  5933	In the middle of the night there was a sound like someone clearing
  5934	their throat.  A small machine sat on a table near her.
  5935	
  5936	``Good, you're awake.  You wanted to speak with me?  Here's
  5937	your chance.''
  5938	
  5939	``Christ, is it you, Gwyn?  How do I know that it's not
  5940	someone else?''
  5941	
  5942	``When you left, we gave you a slip of paper to keep till the next
  5943	day.  There is a special code word on it that says: `2951xkcd'
  5944	plus four more digits.
  5945	Check your slip.  And tell me the final four digits''
  5946	
  5947	``I memorized the slip and destroyed it.  What you gave is correct,
  5948	and the rest is '4376','' she said.
  5949	
  5950	``Very good.  So, Mila `Thompson,' or better, Mila Sorrenson,
  5951	you wanted to talk.  So talk.''
  5952	
  5953	``Ah, you know my real name.''
  5954	
  5955	``Of course.   And sorry, but your American accent sucks.
  5956	The Australian one peeks out all the time.   My gear listened to
  5957	one sentence and said: `Australian trying to use an American accent.'
  5958	Anyway, what do you want to say?''
  5959	
  5960	``Is is safe to talk?''
  5961	
  5962	``Yes, this whole area has been silenced.  And widespread blackouts
  5963	like this are common, deliberately so.  They won't be suspicious. Go on.''
  5964	
  5965	So Mila explained that she'd been forced to become an agent,
  5966	and wanted to become a double agent, without ever having been
  5967	even an agent.  She sure didn't want to work for the malevolent
  5968	leader of Australia.
  5969	
  5970	``And I'm better than my credentials showed.  I have a lot of
  5971	technical experience.''
  5972	
  5973	``Yes, I know that.  I know all about you.  I think you would
  5974	be a terrible agent, but a good employee.
  5975	You could be useful.
  5976	I need you to say that you are signing on to be a part of
  5977	us -- not only an employee, but a real commitment.''
  5978	
  5979	``Yes, yes.  This is what I was hoping for.''
  5980	
  5981	``Now stop, think, and say it again.  This is a serious business.''
  5982	
  5983	``I mean it.  I won't let you down.''
  5984	
  5985	``You and we must be careful all the time.  And still you could be killed.
  5986	I think you realize that on your old path
  5987	death was your only long term outcome,
  5988	but even now this is all dangerous for you.  Using our resources
  5989	we will try hard to protect you, but you must be suspicious of
  5990	everything, all the time.  I was impressed with your use of the little
  5991	pet droid to talk with your contacts.
  5992	Tomorrow you'll go through the remaining application motions,
  5993	but the fix is in.''
  5994	
  5995	Gwyn went over a large number of items, code words, procedures,
  5996	a special channel for communications.
  5997	She wondered how this all-important head of the project could spend
  5998	so much time on one new-hire.  If she was talking to an AI, it was a
  5999	hell of good one.  She ended being fired up, too excited to get
  6000	back to sleep later.  It was all going to be interesting.
  6001	
  6002	At the end he had said, ``You must not ever leave North America for
  6003	any reason.  Best would be for you to stay in this town.
  6004	Our security here is pretty tight.
  6005	
  6006	``If Europe tries to recall you or transfer you, we will
  6007	help you make excuses.  All along we're going to be giving you real data
  6008	to leak to them, data of value.
  6009	It's going to sound even to them like valuable
  6010	information.  Part of what you `leak' will be changed
  6011	slightly or even changed a lot, and part will be false.
  6012	My goal is for them to think of you as one of their successes.
  6013	Mostly I expect you to do your best work for us.''
  6014	
  6015	``You said `we' and `us' a lot.
  6016	Who besides you is going to know about me being not an agent but
  6017	a double agent, working for North America?''
  6018	
  6019	``Right now it's just me.  You're one of my special projects.
  6020	But this week I'll make sure several key people know that you
  6021	aren't a spy, but are on our side.  I can only tell a few
  6022	people that I trust.  Of course we have European agents around,
  6023	even `sleeper' ones.
  6024	I'll say again, this is dangerous, but you had and still have no
  6025	way to avoid it.  It's a tribute to your ... let's say obvious `amateur'
  6026	status that I'm confident you couldn't manage to play both sides
  6027	in this game.  You said you have no relatives in Australia.  Any friends,
  6028	or pet dogs?  Pet kangaroos?''
  6029	
  6030	``No, nobody at all.  It's terrible in Australia, much worse than here.
  6031	Everyone I knew is dead now.  Oh, wrong. Two friends escaped to New Zealand.
  6032	But people don't have pets.
  6033	Any animals are either working ones or kept as food.''
  6034	
  6035	``I want to look at the positive side.
  6036	It's also going to be interesting and
  6037	worthwhile work, important work you do for us.
  6038	I've already decided where I want you in  our organization,
  6039	and I think we can protect you there.''
  6040	
  6041	As it happened, three days later North American security entered
  6042	her room in the middle of the night and took her off for questioning.
  6043	Gwyn had told her to play it straight and stick to her
  6044	story, the one about a North American who came from near the
  6045	old New York City.  Initially it was terrifying, but the agents
  6046	eventually told her it was a mix-up of names, and dropped her off
  6047	back at her work.  She didn't know that one of Gwyn's ``key people''
  6048	had told them to release her.
  6049	
  6050	Later she was thinking about Gwyn, whom she had yet to see in person.
  6051	Why was she attracted to him ... in some abstract way?  In the few
  6052	pictures and videos she'd seen, he looked like a normal male, given his age.
  6053	She decided it was all about power.  He  had it.  Women had
  6054	always been attracted to power, often looking for a mate who would
  6055	take care of them and their children.  Standard evolutionary biology.
  6056	Was that what she was like?
  6057	
  6058	She thought about Joseph Goebbels, the German propaganda minister in
  6059	World War II and Adolf Hitler's closest confidant one hundred
  6060	fifty years ago.  From pictures he was astonishingly ugly and had one
  6061	deformed leg almost half a meter shorter than the other.  Yet he had repeated
  6062	affairs and a beautiful wife, and six children with
  6063	her ... children he murdered
  6064	before committing suicide himself.  So what was his attraction?
  6065	It must have been power.  Yes, Goebbels had a magnetic personality, and was
  6066	the best at propaganda who'd ever lived, but his power was key.
  6067	
  6068	Three years went racing by.
  6069	
  6070	As Gwyn had promised, Mila did important regular work for the
  6071	colony at the main administration office, and occasionally put
  6072	out faked covert reports.
  6073	She was in charge of the legal
  6074	and educational documents that helped support the colony.  Someone under
  6075	her direction did the educational stuff.  Her specialty was the
  6076	legal documents, since she'd had experience in Australia as a
  6077	paralegal, though she'd mostly worked on the data processing side.
  6078	
  6079	There had been recent drastic changes to the items
  6080	all the colonists had to agree to.
  6081	By far the most important change was that the long-term success of
  6082	the colony, always a high priority, now had absolute priority over
  6083	everything else.
  6084	
  6085	For more than a year, anyone signing up to join the Moon
  6086	colony had to opt for an ``indefinite'' stay.
  6087	If someone was no longer productive at all, or if they were a great burden
  6088	rather than an asset, then they had no choice but to return
  6089	to the Earth on a shuttle.  Far more goods went to the Moon than
  6090	were sent back, so there was no lack of space for a return.
  6091	If someone seemed too ill to survive the flight, they could be
  6092	forced to return anyway, even at the risk of their life.
  6093	The colony couldn't afford the overhead.
  6094	
  6095	Others who didn't want to be at the colony any more, for whatever reason,
  6096	were also expected to return.
  6097	
  6098	A colony judicial trio would decide the issue of a forced return.
  6099	Such trios were part of the governance of the colony: three
  6100	members were chosen at random to make that decision and many others.
  6101	They served for a fixed length of time.  Colony leaders were
  6102	not included in the random selection, and only those who'd been in the
  6103	colony for two years qualified.
  6104	
  6105	During the terrible six years early in the history of the colony,
  6106	there were not enough resources to keep everyone alive.  In that case
  6107	enough colony members volunteered to give up their lives that
  6108	there were no forced sacrifices.
  6109	
  6110	At some point the colony might no longer be able to operate
  6111	the shuttle or in any other way exchange goods with the Earth.
  6112	In other words, sometime in an ugly future they might be cut off, 
  6113	completely on their own.
  6114	In that case rules similar to the six terrible years would apply,
  6115	and judicial trios would decide which members had
  6116	to make the ultimate sacrifice of their lives, all for the good
  6117	and success of the colony.  Even members who had a record of great
  6118	accomplishments and sacrifices for the colony wouldn't be exempt
  6119	if they became old and infirm, or ill, or simply non-production -- a
  6120	liability instead of an asset.  They would also allow individuals
  6121	to volunteer this sacrifice.
  6122	
  6123	There were other important rules in the contract.  For example, no one
  6124	was allowed to be the biological parent of more than one child, and often none
  6125	at all.  It was imperative that they broaden their gene pool,
  6126	so they would routinely use sperm or ova or fertilized ova, usually
  6127	frozen.  As another example, every fetus had to pass genetic tests.
  6128	Other requirements were keeping physically fit, including the
  6129	required amount of time on the centrifuges, which was variable
  6130	depending on physical factors.  And the contract had a large number
  6131	of other petty details.
  6132	
  6133	All these important legal issues had to be
  6134	carefully composed into a single document that prospective
  6135	colonists would agree to and sign.  Mila had spent several months
  6136	working on that key document with a committee and she was happy to
  6137	be done with it.  She hoped to go to the colony herself,
  6138	so she felt the irony of creating a set of rules that could
  6139	apply to her and could in theory force her to sacrifice her own life.
  6140	
  6141	Many issues relating to the colony's governance, including
  6142	especially the random judicial trios, had been worked out in
  6143	the past, though Mila and her underlings also produced 
  6144	periodic revisions of the signing document and of the
  6145	governance documents.  All their documents were based on extensive
  6146	committee meetings and endless discussions.  Mila
  6147	was only formalizing policies decided upon by others above
  6148	her in the hierarchy.  She was also tightening the logic of the documents
  6149	and making them clearer, simpler, and easier to understand.
  6150	
  6151	She felt that the signing document itself
  6152	would give some eager prospective colonists pause.
  6153	There were far more applications to go to the colony than
  6154	positions available.  Applicants included
  6155	obvious losers of all kinds: crazy people, radicals of many
  6156	political sources, including religious fanatics, criminals, spies,
  6157	and others defying any description. 
  6158	They needed people who could get along well with others.
  6159	Important were mental and physical requirements
  6160	as well as wanting to bring various skills and knowledge to the colony.
  6161	Increasingly they were trying to get a more diverse group -- others
  6162	besides scientists and engineers -- and
  6163	a better mixture of sexes, ages, backgrounds, and races,
  6164	along with many other factors.  There were already a number of children born
  6165	on the Moon and living in the colony.
  6166	
  6167	Mila found it ironic that her European spy agency was counting
  6168	on her as a probable colonist who could become a source of information 
  6169	about the colony.  Three years gone by and nothing much had happened
  6170	with the several spy agencies,
  6171	but that was always in the back of her mind.
  6172	
  6173	Several weeks ago Mila had boldly told Gwyn she wanted to see and
  6174	talk with him in person.  She said it would be interesting to see
  6175	more than a video image.  She joked that that he must be an
  6176	advanced AI, not human at all, nothing but a complex machine.
  6177	She worried about this, she said.
  6178	She wanted proof he existed as a human being.
  6179	To her surprise he agreed to her request and set up a time to
  6180	meet in the innards of the main building.  To get there she had to follow
  6181	elaborate directions on her phone, directions that sent her on
  6182	a circuitous path.  Now was the third such meeting -- the paths through
  6183	the building had been different each time.
  6184	Gwyn only wanted to talk and carefully kept his distance.
  6185	
  6186	``I'm always worrying about the security of Homa,'' he started out this time. 
  6187	``The top itself and all the other stuff that goes with it.
  6188	Everything that lets us go to the Moon and back.
  6189	That top part seems vulnerable. At least the Europeans
  6190	and their people don't want to destroy it, but there are others
  6191	who do.''
  6192	
  6193	``I've been reading several of the internal documents, things I'm `leaking,' ''
  6194	Mila said.  ``You've got a duplicate of the top almost finished,
  6195	and there's lots of cable.  The write-up said they could get
  6196	a new Homa up in a couple of months.''
  6197	
  6198	``Yes, if it's a missile that takes out the top.
  6199	My nightmare is a nuke as the start of a `small' nuclear war.
  6200	Or a not-so-small such war.
  6201	That's one of the options my giant simulator presents -- a low
  6202	probability, but it could happen.  Because of such events of low probability,
  6203	yet with great influence on the future, the simulator hasn't been as useful
  6204	as it might be.  In case of an unlikely nuclear war, everything would change.
  6205	The colony would be on its own indefinitely, or even forever.
  6206	We do have some protection -- anti-missiles
  6207	and a secret powerful infrared laser.  It could even take out
  6208	a hypersonic missile.  But still ... it's vulnerable.''
  6209	
  6210	Mila had learned from friends and co-workers that in 2072,
  6211	when Gwyn was only ten years old, he'd help promote the
  6212	ultra-efficient design for a new way to gain access to the Moon.
  6213	Others had conceived the basic design and worked on it for years,
  6214	but everything had stalled out in the late 40s.
  6215	Many people knew they needed to get something more efficient going.
  6216	It would also give them more efficient access to Mars.
  6217	It wasn't just the cost of the huge amounts of fuel needed to connect
  6218	with the Moon, but access itself to fuel -- increasingly hard to get.
  6219	
  6220	By far the hardest part, the hybrid orbiter vessel, with its
  6221	multi-purpose scramjet/rocket design,
  6222	already had working prototypes constructed in the mid-40s.
  6223	One brilliant engineer came up with the basic concept and
  6224	a large group implemented that initial idea.
  6225	Then came the late 40s crash that stopped all the work.
  6226	Much later the North American government managed to get
  6227	the whole project restarted.
  6228	Gwyn helped with this effort by getting the needed high-quality
  6229	3D printers working again, and by doing some of the planning
  6230	and supply chain work.
  6231	In less than three years the new design was functioning and had
  6232	supplanted the old chemical rockets. They started
  6233	getting major supplies to the Moon, along with many more people.
  6234	
  6235	Years later Gwyn became clever at gaining responsibility and status,
  6236	until he was in charge of the whole colony project.
  6237	She wondered if anyone else knew what she had learned from him:
  6238	that his simulator
  6239	gave him information no one else had.  Had he told her
  6240	deliberately or was it accidental information?
  6241	But he seldom made mistakes.  The simulator helped him make
  6242	good choices, helped him succeed without being obvious.
  6243	
  6244	Another time he told her how he'd leaked data about
  6245	possible {Helium-3} near the colony site.
  6246	{Helium-3} was far too expensive to obtain in useful quantities,
  6247	yet it could be important for nuclear fusion.  A transformation
  6248	using that element required a lot of extra energy
  6249	compared with normal fusion, but it produced no
  6250	high-energy neutrons at all, unlike all the other approaches.
  6251	Starting in the late 30s, industry insiders had been playing the game
  6252	of ``who's afraid of a few high-energy neutrons,'' but in fact they
  6253	were dangerous and destructive, hard to deal with and
  6254	impossible to contain.
  6255	No commercial fusion reactor had ever succeeded, mostly because
  6256	the neutrons made everything radioactive.
  6257	So the hint of available Helium-3 was another way to promote
  6258	the Moon colony.  Now, twelve years later, some people were still
  6259	counting on a bonanza of Helium-3 on the Moon, and that did
  6260	help the colony.
  6261	Also, who could tell -- they might actually find some good sources
  6262	of Helium-3.
  6263	
  6264	``And what about basic security in Hawaii?
  6265	The Big Island and the others?''
  6266	Mila said.
  6267	
  6268	``Security is supposed to be tight on the whole set of islands.
  6269	People coming and
  6270	going are mainly the wealthy who own almost everything and those working
  6271	on Homa.  The normal kind of desperate refugee can't make it to
  6272	Hawaii on their raft or row boat.  But larger boats and ships and
  6273	airplanes come all the time.  We've got lots of security trying to check
  6274	everything but it's difficult.  Stuff slips through.
  6275	
  6276	``We've stopped several attempts at sabotage.  Nothing aimed directly at
  6277	Homa itself.  After all, it's really remote.  Two months ago there was a
  6278	bizarre attempt that I even got involved with.''
  6279	
  6280	Gwyn paused and Mila said, ``Don't tease me.  What was the attempt?''
  6281	 
  6282	``It's funny.  You'll like it.'' Another pause.
  6283	
  6284	``Security had been following a medium-sized boat
  6285	loading cargo at Guam Island for delivery to Hawaii. It wasn't
  6286	clear what the cargo was, so they were using drones to overhear the crew.
  6287	Here is what they said, with some, um, strong language, quoted verbatim:
  6288	`When we're done they'll be totally fucked, man -- sideways and up the ass,
  6289	and the great part is they won't know it for some time.
  6290	Then one day they find out, but it'll be too late.' They were drugged up and
  6291	ecstatic about what was to happen. 
  6292	`I'd do this shit for free, man. How often will I get to fuck the system
  6293	like this.' 
  6294	
  6295	``Well, our security had consulted a number of people, including
  6296	me, but I couldn't figure it out either.
  6297	I turned it over to my simulator and it had the answer in seconds.
  6298	No bombs, nothing radioactive or other poison, no horrible diseases, but ...
  6299	try to guess ...''
  6300	
  6301	``I've no idea.''
  6302	
  6303	``Venomous brown snakes.   They would turn Hawaii into an ecological
  6304	disaster, and it could happen in a short time if they dropped off
  6305	a number of snakes on each island. These snakes are amazing:
  6306	they eat anything that moves. On an island like Guam, brown snakes are
  6307	pretty much all there is.  Almost no birds or small animals.
  6308	Most of those are extinct now.''
  6309	
  6310	``But how does that affect Homa?'' Mila asked.  ``Snakes everywhere
  6311	would be nasty, terrible, but they wouldn't be living up at altitudes.
  6312	Or would they?''
  6313	
  6314	``It would be years before the snakes were much of a problem
  6315	and it would hardly affect the Moon project.  In time all the Hawaiian
  6316	Islands would be a living hell of snakes, but even then Homa
  6317	would still work.  No, the people trying to dump snakes on
  6318	us weren't spies or revolutionaries.  They didn't want to destroy
  6319	Homa.   They were only random pacific islanders, pissed off
  6320	at the wealthy in Hawaii.  When they worked here they were treated,
  6321	umm, let's say not well.''
  6322	
  6323	Another time she asked him about the world they lived in.
  6324	``How did the world get so messed up?  I mean, I've seen videos
  6325	and pictures of the world, descriptions also, before it became
  6326	such a shithole.  So much of it was beautiful, remarkable.
  6327	All sorts of animals now long extinct.  There were diseases, but nothing
  6328	like our current ones. It was like our own special paradise.
  6329	How could it have happened?''
  6330	
  6331	``There's plenty of blame to go around,'' Gwyn said.
  6332	``Humanity's basic nature was and is the largest part of the problem.
  6333	And if you want one trait, it is our selfish inclination.  The selfish have
  6334	survived and propagated.  A bunch of other unfortunate traits don't help, like
  6335	aggressiveness, greed, and self-deception.  Drives to conquer, accumulate,
  6336	and reproduce.  There's a focus on the immediate and short-term.
  6337	These are all traits that helped us survive and even thrive in primitive
  6338	times.  
  6339	
  6340	``So things went to hell on the planet, literally. But it happened slowly,
  6341	though, and incrementally, with ups and downs, more downs.
  6342	It's an awful record: our ancestors went
  6343	through trees, coal, and oil, in that order, using a lot of each one and making a
  6344	mess of everything.  While continuing to use those three,
  6345	they started up a number
  6346	of hi-tech sources of energy that used more-specialized resources.
  6347	And they started polluting everything on an ever increasing scale.
  6348	
  6349	``The other cause was capitalism, increasingly unrestrained as time went on.
  6350	Capitalism creates what I like to call a `savagely efficient exploitation
  6351	of all resources.' ''
  6352	
  6353	``Didn't anyone complain?'' Mila asked.  ``Warning people about the future?''
  6354	
  6355	``There were lots of Cassandras.  All manner of scientific
  6356	studies and fictionalized apocalyptic books.  One famous scientist
  6357	named Ehrlich, along with his
  6358	wife, spent much of the second half of the twentieth century
  6359	fighting for population control, with no noticeable effect.
  6360	Many of the fictional books and
  6361	videos described a future worse than what we have, but nothing helped.
  6362	My favorite of all those books was written by Aldous Huxley in 1948,
  6363	one hundred forty years ago, right after the terrible
  6364	war.  {Ape and Essence} is the title.  It presents a Satan-worshiping
  6365	society more extreme than most of our own happy and prolific Satanists.
  6366	In the book, Satan had won completely,
  6367	and they felt their only recourse was to worship Him and ask
  6368	for His mercy.  Some of our own people give this same reason.''
  6369	
  6370	At an early age Gwyn had learned about human sexuality, both
  6371	scientific issues and the many ways it played out with real or fictional
  6372	people, as portrayed in the videos and in the news stories he watched.
  6373	At the time he had thought of it as
  6374	another part of his environment that he might use to his advantage.
  6375	Certainly it was important for him to understand this aspect
  6376	of human nature.  For him personally, the feelings and stimulation
  6377	came earlier and were stronger than he expected.
  6378	He decided he was heterosexual -- the
  6379	images that he found exciting were mostly of women and girls.
  6380	For some reason he found bare feet titillating, perhaps because
  6381	he rarely saw such feet in his environment.
  6382	
  6383	These were feelings he suppressed and ignored as much as possible.
  6384	He had several women he enjoyed watching, though that was as far as it went.
  6385	Then along came Mila.  He found her more attractive, alluring
  6386	even, than anyone else he'd ever encountered.
  6387	His reactions were strong -- more
  6388	than he could have imagined they might be.
  6389	And there was so much to it besides finding her attractive.
  6390	Everything about her, her cute facial expressions, her intelligence, her wit,
  6391	how bold she could be.  The totality was enticing.
  6392	He thought of this in a way as a weakness for him, a potential liability.
  6393	An enemy might very well think of an attractive human, male or
  6394	female, as a way to exploit him.  Analysis with his fancy simulator
  6395	had shown that this had often been attempted.
  6396	And obviously Mila had been partly chosen for her youth and good looks.
  6397	They couldn't know the extent to which Mila was
  6398	his ``type,'' whatever that might mean.  But he had become extremely
  6399	attracted to her, while trying not to show it.
  6400	He could ignore his feelings, pretend nothing was there,
  6401	but still something was there.
  6402	
  6403	For quite a while Gwyn had been tormented by these new and unfamiliar,
  6404	even unwelcome, emotions.  Intellectually he knew all about it:
  6405	the sex drive, which shouldn't affect him much ... until it did.
  6406	Mila was almost driving him crazy.
  6407	
  6408	And then she asked to see him alone and in person, where they could talk.
  6409	He couldn't help himself; he went along with that.
  6410	He could tell she was surprised that he agreed to the proposal.
  6411	Probably she thought he
  6412	was lonely, not realizing how much further it went.
  6413	And that's what they did, talk that is, and nothing more,
  6414	separate from one another.
  6415	Until the fourth talk session, when halfway through she said,
  6416	``Gwyn, please come over and sit beside me ...  ''
  6417	
  6418	%%% part3.3.tex:  Chap 12, Nanomachines ===================================##
  6419	After food, a shower, and the best sleep he'd had in a long time, Meyer sat 
  6420	and chatted with Rick Davis, his companion on the last part of the trip.
  6421	They were waiting for final testing and for the quarantine to run out.
  6422	
  6423	``Only six weeks here,'' said Davis.  ``So you didn't have to sign
  6424	the {onerous} agreement they've been using for newcomers -- I
  6425	think it started a year or so ago.''
  6426	
  6427	``Ah, no.  I've been buried under work. I don't even know what you mean.''
  6428	
  6429	``If you are ill, or no longer productive, basically if you become a burden, 
  6430	they can ship you back to the Earth.  But if the colony is cut off  
  6431	completely, no shipping back and forth ever again, then they can require you 
  6432	to sacrifice your life, as many did during their `six terrible years.'
  6433	You have to agree to all that -- formally.''
  6434	
  6435	``Wow,'' said Meyer.  ``I didn't realize that was a policy.''
  6436	
  6437	``It's not crazy.  If the colony gets cut off indefinitely, then its survival 
  6438	is more important than anything else.  They wouldn't be able to maintain 
  6439	someone in a hospital bed, on a ventilator, you-name-it. Survival of such a 
  6440	cut-off colony will be difficult at best. That `sacrifice your life' clause 
  6441	also weeds out many of the chickens, the cowards who think they want to live 
  6442	on the Moon. Or my favorite quote I know by heart: 
  6443	`Those who in a perilous emergency think with their legs.' ''
  6444	
  6445	``And who says the colony might get cut off?''
  6446	
  6447	``Nobody wants to say that, but it's an obvious possibility.''
  6448	
  6449	``What else is in that agreement?'' Meyer asked.
  6450	
  6451	``Nothing much else as serious as the suicide clause, that's for sure,
  6452	but a lot of other technical stuff.  You have to agree to implanted sperm
  6453	or fertilized ova, all for genetic diversity.  I signed the agreement.
  6454	I'm on board with it.  The colony comes first.''
  6455	
  6456	After going through several topics, Meyer decided to give Davis more 
  6457	information about what he and his colleagues were trying to do with nanobots.
  6458	
  6459	``We want the ultimate 3D printer -- a machine that could `print' 
  6460	anything at all, even itself.  We already have that -- 3D printers that
  6461	can print themselves.  We want nanobots that can do all that by themselves.
  6462	A nanobot swarm that can construct anything, even more
  6463	nanobots -- especially more nanobots.
  6464	
  6465	``We're trying to transfer everything we have on the Earth up to here
  6466	on the Moon. 
  6467	That will include me also if everything goes well.
  6468	I'm a fanatic about the success of this colony. 
  6469	I would agree to the suicide clause with no hesitation. 
  6470	But there's still a bit of work yet to do back on Earth.''
  6471	
  6472	``Wow.  I'll be looking forward to seeing you again, well, eventually.''
  6473	
  6474	``It's such a pain in the ass to go back and forth, I hope to have
  6475	only one more round -- from here to Earth, finish what we wanted
  6476	on the Earth, and back to the Moon for good.  That's what I want,
  6477	but I also have some ... personal issues.''
  6478	
  6479	Davis said nothing, but kept looking at him.
  6480	
  6481	``Yes, it's personal -- what they call the two-body problem:
  6482	solved by elementary physics, but still around for people.
  6483	And some things will take getting used to for me -- the
  6484	required time on a centrifuge for example. I know it's essential long term, 
  6485	but I'm only going to be here a few weeks. Why can't I skip it.''
  6486	
  6487	``That's something I know quite a bit about,'' Davis said.
  6488	``The Moon's  environment isn't anything like microgravity, which is
  6489	extremely dangerous over time,
  6490	but still the Moon is insidious about gravity.  Health problems creep in.
  6491	
  6492	``And I've dealt with these policies.  One reason you have to use
  6493	the centrifuge as if you were already permanently here, why, um,
  6494	it's because of the possible cut-off we were talking about.  It could occur
  6495	at any time.  We want everyone well-prepared to stay here indefinitely.''
  6496	
  6497	``Sure, you're right,'' Meyer was conceding.  ``I can see that.''
  6498	
  6499	``We must use scenarios that the colony is suddenly and unexpectedly
  6500	on its own, perhaps forever. For that reason and others, they,
  6501	or we actually, have always planned as if the colony would suddenly be 
  6502	isolated, again for a short time, a long time, or forever.
  6503	I'm directly involved in some of the planning for this, mostly
  6504	the biological part.  We have a long list of critical supplies,
  6505	ordered by priority, that we keep asking the base to send up.
  6506	Many things that are essential and others that might be.  They send up
  6507	exotic scientific equipment, not yet needed or redundant,
  6508	as well as odd materials of all kinds,  like, say, rare earths.
  6509	Also huge amounts of biological supplies -- everything imaginable.
  6510	Critically important are human and animal sperm and eggs.
  6511	It's imperative that we have a large genetic pool in the colony,
  6512	and almost all births must be the result
  6513	of initial external combination and careful culling of defective results.
  6514	It's what breeding horses for racing used to be.
  6515	
  6516	``We want every kind of other genetic material, such as seeds, spores, 
  6517	bacteria, viruses -- the list includes millions of different
  6518	species -- which is only a tiny fraction of what is on the Earth.
  6519	The supplies are usually kept in permanent shade, right in the volcanic
  6520	tubes along with the colony, maintaining a maximum temperature almost
  6521	down to {--240 C}, way below the liquid nitrogen temperature.
  6522	Most such material will last indefinitely.
  6523	
  6524	``Sorry to run on so.  The issues of what to have sent to us here are 
  6525	obsessive for me.  Arranging for supplies is what I was doing
  6526	during my recent stay on the Earth.
  6527	So many problems, so many egos...and ignoramuses.''
  6528	
  6529	``That sounds harsh.''
  6530	
  6531	``Some people I dealt with were helpful, with good, thoughtful suggestions.
  6532	But so many of the others kept asking `why this?' and `why that?' for
  6533	things I and others had decided as crucial for the Owl's Nest.
  6534	But they only wanted to argue.
  6535	A waste of my time and hard to be polite.''
  6536	
  6537	Later, several people showed up once they'd passed the infection tests
  6538	and their quarantine was done.  A biologist went off with Davis,
  6539	and a 3D printing expert, Tom Englebrook,  whom Meyer knew well,
  6540	was waiting, along with a boy, eight or ten years old, thin.
  6541	Meyer reminded himself to be careful -- it might be a girl,
  6542	and in that case he didn't want to offend her.
  6543	Englebrook touched elbows with Meyer and then introduced his companion.
  6544	
  6545	``This is Gus Martin, who is going to be your `minder' for the next
  6546	few days.''  Tom evidently thought further explanation
  6547	was needed.  ``It's been more than a year since you were here, and
  6548	we've started using seasoned companions to help keep newcomers from
  6549	making any mistakes -- for a week or so.
  6550	Your little apartment here has a separate place
  6551	for Gus to sleep.  The idea is for him to be with you at times when
  6552	you would normally be by yourself.  An emergency could come at any time.''
  6553	
  6554	Meyer did the elbow touching with Gus and said the standard
  6555	glad-to-meet-you stuff. Gus looked impossibly young for this role.
  6556	
  6557	``Gus, tell Doctor Meyer what your duties are.''
  6558	
  6559	``I'm, uh, fluent in sign and I know all the warning lights and sounds for
  6560	different kinds of emergencies, along with what to do in case
  6561	one comes along -- what to do and what not to do.
  6562	You're supposed to have studied sign -- I hope you
  6563	have -- I'm to practice sign with you and rehearse the
  6564	different warnings.  I need to get you used to the centrifuge machines
  6565	and schedule time for you on one of them.
  6566	As Tom said, this is only for the first week.''
  6567	Then an afterthought: ``There's a lot more orientation needed if you
  6568	were to go outside in a pressure suit.  Most of us don't go outside.
  6569	I never have.''
  6570	
  6571	Meyer made a Thank-You sign and said, ``Don't worry, Gus.
  6572	I've no plans to go outside.  At least I hope not.''
  6573	
  6574	Meyer followed Tom and Gus to the main nanotech laboratory, so called:
  6575	it was also a workshop of sorts, multipurpose.
  6576	It was located in the part of the colony known as {Owl-C.}  The three
  6577	parts, Owls- A, B, and C mirrored the colony's development, where
  6578	the small {Owl-A} was built first, then a larger {Owl-B} build around A,
  6579	and the much larger {Owl-C} was built out from two sides of {Owl-B}.
  6580	
  6581	When Meyer complained to Gus that he no longer knew where he was,
  6582	Gus said, ``You should look at a 3D map.  They need to get you display
  6583	glasses so you can call up what you want.  But everything pressurized
  6584	is now called Nest-1.  We've completed about half of Nest-2 a
  6585	kilo or so down the tube.
  6586	
  6587	 ``My name's actually August,'' Gus continued.  ``I was named after a
  6588	Roman emperor, the greatest one.  But call me `Gus.'
  6589	I'm supposed to stick with you like glue, 'specially when you go to your
  6590	room at night and get up up the next morning.''
  6591	
  6592	``It sounds kind of funny to hear `night' and `morning' on the Moon,''
  6593	Meyer said to Gus.
  6594	
  6595	``Hey, we're humans from the Earth with its twenty-four hour
  6596	cycles.'' Gus said.  ``We need that, it's our built-in circadian rhythm.''
  6597	
  6598	To Meyer, Gus now sounded like a precocious small person.  No wonder they
  6599	could use him as a minder.
  6600	
  6601	As they waited in the laboratory, several people showed up whom Meyer
  6602	knew by name and had talked with online, but hadn't met in person:
  6603	there was Claire Henderson, one of two women in the group.
  6604	Her specialty was programming the various devices.
  6605	Then came Jon Liu, who was the mechanical expert.
  6606	There followed a kind of formal ``entrance,'' needing only trumpets:
  6607	the wolf-fed twins nicknamed Romulus and Remus appeared.
  6608	They weren't biological twins and their names were
  6609	actually Robert Parker and Reynold Wendland, but people also referred
  6610	to them as ``Rom and Rem''  or ``the Roman twins.''
  6611	They were surprise recruits to the project,
  6612	starting only six years ago as undergraduate students.  They'd even taken a
  6613	course from Meyer.  He was amazed at their growth and had high hopes
  6614	for them.  They always worked together and had moved permanently 
  6615	to the Moon eleven months ago.  
  6616	
  6617	Meyer was glad to see the progress that had been made,
  6618	setting up machines and getting ready for work.
  6619	There were three newcomers and a rep from the local {Owlet} newsfeed,
  6620	so Meyer decided to say a few introductory remarks.  He was mulling
  6621	over how much to reveal.
  6622	
  6623	``Our team has set up two separate sets of the basic devices, which we call
  6624	`nanoforges':  machines that create working nanobots.
  6625	In each case, at the most abstract level,
  6626	each nanoforge itself, using its own nanobots to carry out work,
  6627	can construct a duplicate nanoforge.  So self-replicating in a
  6628	sense -- a magic phrase.  Where we are right now is not as neat
  6629	and tidy as that might sound:  there are patches in place, parts that
  6630	are not at all elegant solutions.
  6631	
  6632	``Small and independent self-replicating nanobots are still far beyond us.
  6633	I like to think the main difference now is size, but it's worse than
  6634	that.''
  6635	
  6636	Meyer looked around, acknowledged two latecomers, and went on:
  6637	``The machines differ significantly from one another, using quite
  6638	different underlying approaches.  This was deliberate, since we could
  6639	only visualize two types of approaches and we wanted to try out them both.
  6640	Each machine was functional at the lab in Urbana down on Earth -- first
  6641	thing is to get them functioning after their shipment.
  6642	
  6643	``This isn't as revolutionary as I would like.
  6644	In the two cases the basic nanobots are completely different from one another.
  6645	They are also not so great, not fancy, but still capable enough to build
  6646	another nanoforge, under the old nanoforge's control.
  6647	They assume an environment with basic components already
  6648	available for use, 3D printed and arranged to be picked up.   
  6649	The nanobots can recognize what they need and utilize it.
  6650	So separately one needs to construct those components.  That's the easy part.''
  6651	
  6652	Meyer paused, perhaps to decide what he should reveal.
  6653	``The goal is to get better, more capable nanobots,
  6654	heading toward the holy grail of nanotechnology: the ability to
  6655	assemble arbitrary structures atom-by-atom.  To make a whole object that
  6656	is a perfect diamond with no flaws, or is a perfect carbon nanotube
  6657	construction, or whatever we might want; complex compounds we can simulate
  6658	that have desirable properties but can't create.  Yet.
  6659	
  6660	``We have other methods to make such materials, but those are sneaky and
  6661	specialized, in some cases using artificial DNA.  Still, as many
  6662	of you know, that's how we have our room-temperature superconductors now.''
  6663	
  6664	The Owlet rep had a question.  ``When will you get your, um, `Holy' grail?''
  6665	
  6666	``I hope it will be in my lifetime, but it's always good to have a top-level goal.
  6667	Now if the visitors can please leave we can get to work.
  6668	Oh, and Gus, you should stay.''
  6669	
  6670	The group had worked for several hours when Meyer called for them
  6671	to take a break while Gwyn talked with them.  One of the nanoforges had
  6672	functioned perfectly from the start -- there were problems with the other one.
  6673	They pulled down a screen and set up the connection. 
  6674	After a couple of glitches, there Gwyn was,
  6675	looking like a teenanger with a large head.
  6676	
  6677	``Thanks for letting me talk with you.  Because of the annoying 3-second
  6678	delay, I'd like to make a few comments, take questions, and then switch
  6679	to technical sessions with each of your two groups individually.
  6680	I want to thank Meyer for going to all the effort of a
  6681	trip to your colony.  Some of you haven't worked with him before.
  6682	
  6683	``First, I'm proud of the results you've been getting in this 
  6684	difficult technical area.  I've talked with each of you at one time or another.
  6685	I think this area, nanotechnology in general, is going to be our most
  6686	important path into the future.  Still, as many of you have heard me say
  6687	before, right now this area is a luxury, not essential to survival.
  6688	That's why the resources assigned to your projects are modest.
  6689	Far more important is the goal for everything needed on the Moon:
  6690	to manufacture it using only supplies and equipment available on the Moon,
  6691	and to manufacture all such equipment {on} the Moon.
  6692	This applies to batteries, solar power panels, machines of all kinds, and many
  6693	other mechanical essentials.  We have our own computer chip
  6694	plant -- very modest compared with those on the Earth, and we
  6695	can manufacture a copy of the chip plant here on the Moon.
  6696	We can build our own specialty 3D printers which we use to construct all
  6697	our other machines.  Naturally we use the same 3D printers to construct themselves.
  6698	A newly printed 3D printer is exactly as good as the machine printing
  6699	it -- in other words, there is no steady degradation.
  6700	We've also found satisfactory sources of most of the raw materials we need.
  6701	Still, huge improvements are needed.
  6702	
  6703	``On the biological side are even more problems
  6704	of almost supreme importance.  The chance is always present that the
  6705	whole colony could be plunged into a crisis mode by some biological event,
  6706	during which your work here in this lab would be paused.
  6707	It could be a runaway microbe infection, or a problem
  6708	with our microbial biome.
  6709	With all the mechanical and
  6710	biological issues, we've been making satisfactory progress, in most cases
  6711	using solutions from years ago.
  6712	
  6713	``There could also be emergent societal problems, mental health
  6714	problems, organizational problems ... I don't know, lots of stuff
  6715	could arise or may be happening right now.''
  6716	
  6717	Gwyn paused to take a drink and went on.  ``So the `luxury' of nanotech
  6718	research doesn't do most of our people any good at all right now.
  6719	I'd like to see other luxuries pursued as well, ones visible to everyone.
  6720	You now have a small swimming pool, and I gather it's
  6721	popular.  You need more and larger pools.
  6722	You all know we plan other exercise areas,
  6723	including much larger and improved centrifuges.  I haven't mentioned
  6724	this before, but I'd love to see one day a gigantic Heinlein-type cavern with
  6725	humans flying using attached wings.  We've found such caverns, but
  6726	that idea would take tremendous resources -- something for the far future.
  6727	Always our top priorities should be the self-sufficiency of the
  6728	colony, the wellness and safety of those who live here,
  6729	and then as much as possible their happiness, their satisfaction,
  6730	their continued commitment to the success of the colony.
  6731	It's so easy to make those statements and so hard
  6732	to put solutions into practice.''
  6733	
  6734	Another pause.  ``You are working right now on a second colony,
  6735	your Nest-2, situated over a kilometer away from the current one.
  6736	That is partly to give us options in case of emergencies such
  6737	as run-away infections and other problems.  After that,
  6738	our plans call for a third colony, with a site already chosen
  6739	fifteen kilometers away.  That is
  6740	to protect against small meteor strikes, although they should be rare.
  6741	Finally, our planners want eventually to see yet another colony completely
  6742	remote from the others, to protect against larger disasters.''
  6743	
  6744	Gwyn asked for general questions.  There was only one, asking about
  6745	the situation on the Earth.  ``I don't even want to think about it,
  6746	but a major failure of our Earth-Moon transportation system is always
  6747	possible.  Or there could be a slow degradation ... or anything in between.
  6748	That could happen at any moment; it's why we are all
  6749	so obsessed with self-sufficiency.  Another worry is not a failure of
  6750	transportation, but some collapse of the Earth's current economy, such
  6751	as it is.  Then the colony might be indefinitely isolated.
  6752	I don't expect such a collapse in the near future, like a few years,
  6753	but it could happen at any time: slowly or quickly or right now.
  6754	
  6755	``As most of you know, I've never been to the Moon.  I and several others
  6756	help make policy for the colony but we've never been there ourselves.
  6757	 I'm looking forward to it.  I can't wait to try out the swimming pool.''
  6758	
  6759	After that introduction, Gwyn spent three hours talking with the
  6760	workers on the two individual projects, discussing many issues.
  6761	So far they could get only one of the projects to work after shipment.
  6762	With that one, the two crazy Roman twins had
  6763	several improvements in mind for the constructed nanobots.
  6764	Gwyn was particularly impressed with them: at one point they were directly 
  6765	patronizing him -- he loved it. They were full of ideas.
  6766	
  6767	The other project, the one that had somehow stopped working during
  6768	transit, well, it was a puzzle.  They would need to examine several key
  6769	components to narrow down the point or points of failure.
  6770	It could take a long time.
  6771	This was typical for their work -- rapid progress followed by long
  6772	periods of analysis.  Meyer was focusing on this project as the one
  6773	that needed help, while the other moved forward with the triumphant twins.
  6774	
  6775	Finally Gwyn broke off the communication.  He was pleased with their
  6776	progress, with their understanding of the basic approaches and of the various
  6777	issues.   
  6778	
  6779	Two ``days'' went past -- terminology that remained strange for Meyer,
  6780	since shift work went on all the time, but still the main active and
  6781	quiet times were the same as with GMT time.
  6782	Then during the artificial nighttime, Meyer and Gus both woke up
  6783	to flashing lights and an audible alarm.
  6784	Gus immediately popped out of his separate space.
  6785	
  6786	``What is it?'' said Meyer.  ``A pressure failure?''
  6787	
  6788	``No,'' said Gus.  ``The warning light is green, not red.
  6789	That's a biological problem.'' 
  6790	
  6791	(``I remember that now,'' Meyer muttered.)
  6792	
  6793	``I'm pushing the button here on the alarm and that'll tell us more,''
  6794	Gus said.
  6795	
  6796	The speaker announced: 
  6797	``Automated equipment detected a possible biological flare.
  6798	The colony has now been divided into 53 separate
  6799	sections.  Please remain calm, stay where you are without opening
  6800	any doors, and follow the instructions at the base of this speaker.''
  6801	
  6802	Gus was calm, as ordered.  ``This is the first time I've seen a reported
  6803	bio-flare, but they've had them before my time.  I've only seen them in
  6804	training drills.  We won't likely be kept to this small apartment.
  6805	But they'll tell when we can open our doors.''
  6806	
  6807	``Is the door a tight seal?''  As he asked, Meyer decided
  6808	it was a stupid question.
  6809	
  6810	``Oh yes, tight against the two vees: vacuum and virus.''
  6811	
  6812	``OK,'' said Meyer.  ``How soon do you think the problem will be resolved.''
  6813	
  6814	``A problem with air pressure would be taken care of pretty quickly.
  6815	They can easily block off a leak, and a leak won't spread like a
  6816	biological agent could.  But this is a biological
  6817	flare -- completely unpredictable.''
  6818	
  6819	Nevertheless, Gus seemed almost unconcerned.
  6820	``Don't worry; there are stores of food and water under the bed,
  6821	along with an emergency toilet.
  6822	And they'll keep giving us instructions.''
  6823	
  6824	Instead of doing nothing while they waited,
  6825	Gus decided to spend the time working on Meyer's sign language:
  6826	``When you made the Thank-You sign, it wasn't quite correct.''  He showed
  6827	Meyer the correct version and had him practice it.  Then Gus started
  6828	a whole long signed conversation with Meyer.  It was  good practice,
  6829	but Meyer was sweating at the end, with a large number of corrections
  6830	and suggestions of what he might sign.
  6831	
  6832	At one point, as Meyer and Gus both got tired of the struggle with Sign,
  6833	Meyer decided to ask about morale in the colony.  ``I'll bet you
  6834	listen to everything, carefully, and a similar bet is that people
  6835	mostly don't realize it.  Is that true?''
  6836	
  6837	``Pretty much.''
  6838	
  6839	`So tell me the routine stuff.  What do people say among themselves,
  6840	about their colony, about their lives here.  I promise not to identify
  6841	my source, you, of anything you tell me.''
  6842	
  6843	Gus was silent.  ``I can't do that.  I hear a few things, now
  6844	and then -- not counting for much.''
  6845	
  6846	``Tell me the `few things,' please.  Are people happy, sad,
  6847	scared, angry, what?''
  6848	
  6849	``I don't know.  I hear complaints, not from everybody. ...
  6850	I guess the new policy -- if the colony's cut off and you get
  6851	sick, well, you get smacked.  Some people don't like that. ...
  6852	There are people who don't like the scientists and engineers, that they
  6853	look down on all the others.  I don't think it's a huge problem.
  6854	Lots of people are excited to be here. Me for sure.  I can't imagine
  6855	being anywhere else.''
  6856	
  6857	``How long have you lived on the Moon?''
  6858	
  6859	``My whole life.  I was born here.''
  6860	
  6861	``Wow,'' said Meyer.  ``Do you have two parents here?''
  6862	
  6863	``Yes.  We live together as a family unit: my mother and father
  6864	and me.''
  6865	
  6866	There was a pause, and Gus said, ``Would you like to hear
  6867	a funny story.  I've never told it to anyone.''
  6868	
  6869	``Very much.''
  6870	
  6871	``My mother gave birth to me in the normal way, but neither
  6872	of my parents are related to me genetically.
  6873	Here's the funny part: when I was six, they carefully explained
  6874	about the colony's need for genetic diversity, blah, blah,
  6875	and as is often the case for the colony,
  6876	I don't have any genes in common with either parent.
  6877	They mostly use frozen eggs and frozen sperm from the Earth.
  6878	It's kind of like on the Earth when parents tell a child they were
  6879	adopted, partly so they aren't concerned even if they don't at all
  6880	look like their parents.
  6881	But my parents were telling me something I'd known for years:
  6882	just their blood types made it impossible for either of them
  6883	to be my biological parent.
  6884	I'm type AB and my mom is O.  From that she couldn't have been
  6885	my biological parent; no type combined with O will give an AB.
  6886	And in fact my dad is an O too, so he also couldn't
  6887	have contributed to my genes.
  6888	Isn't that a great story?''
  6889	
  6890	``Yes. it is.  I love it.  But are you sure about your parents' blood types?''
  6891	
  6892	``Oh, yeah.  Everyone has their type tattooed on
  6893	their arm, along with other medical stuff.
  6894	I've seen their types on their arms.
  6895	And I'm a universal blood recipient -- don't take my blood,
  6896	but you can give me blood.''
  6897	
  6898	``My record,'' said Meyer,  ``is on a chip inside
  6899	my hand.  That's standard for us.''
  6900	
  6901	``I heard about that, but they didn't want to have to depend on
  6902	a chip reader, like, in a crisis.''
  6903	
  6904	``Makes sense.  So tell me, Gus, have you been
  6905	back to the Earth?''
  6906	
  6907	``Of course not!''
  6908	
  6909	``A quick answer.  I can imagine the negatives, but still it
  6910	would be interesting for you.''
  6911	
  6912	Gus was lecturing to him, like to a backward student.
  6913	``It's not feasible for people to go back except for a one-way trip
  6914	or for an important mission.  But even if it were easy I wouldn't
  6915	want to go.  A horrible, dangerous place now.
  6916	And if I picked up certain diseases and continued to carry
  6917	them, they might not let me back.''
  6918	
  6919	``Even now, there are fascinating things to see.''
  6920	
  6921	``Yes,'' said Gus.  ``And I've spent lots of hours looking at
  6922	hi-res 3D videos of `fascinating things.'
  6923	The `real thing' would be more interesting, I admit that.''
  6924	Gus was busy making air quotes.
  6925	
  6926	''But I've seen close-up video of nasty blood-sucking leeches,
  6927	and I haven't gotten the `interesting' experience of having one
  6928	actually attach itself to me and start sucking.
  6929	
  6930	``Waves in the ocean, spilling over you, that would be fun,
  6931	but in time we'll have an artificial beach here.
  6932	And the poor Earthers can't get a one-sixth gravity beach.
  6933	Besides, the Earth's oceans are saturated with poisonous compounds,
  6934	tiny pathogenic microbes, large dangerous plants and animals,
  6935	and what else?  Oh yeah, and horrible man-made objects,
  6936	plastic everywhere.''
  6937	
  6938	Over the whole rest of his stay Meyer would now and then
  6939	continue his talk with Gus about the Owl's Nest, and he got a clear picture
  6940	of a complex colony, with amazing details from
  6941	one low-angled viewpoint, what Nietzsche called the
  6942	{Froschperspektive,} the perspective of a frog -- small
  6943	and unnoticed, looking up at everything.  A smart and perceptive frog.
  6944	Meyer resolved to pass some insights on to Gwyn and others. Much later
  6945	Meyer found out that Gwyn routinely used Gus as a source of information
  6946	about the colony.
  6947	
  6948	In the end the biological problem wasn't bad at all.
  6949	Or there might have been no problem.  Gus said in the worst case they would
  6950	sterilize everything near the flare, and then the flare itself, but they
  6951	likely didn't need to do even that.
  6952	Finally, after a six-hour wait while they continued monitoring for whatever
  6953	caused the flare, the emergency closure was lifted.
  6954	
  6955	Gus was completely casual.
  6956	``It was probably nothing at all.  A detection failure.
  6957	But you have to be careful.  At some point this may save us from a terrible
  6958	breakout. Once, before I was born, it took five days to resolve the problem.''
  6959	
  6960	It was past time to get up and go off to their work.  Gus was casual about that
  6961	also.  ``A few hours of missed sleep.  Everyone is expected to work
  6962	as if it hadn't happened.  People doing critical tasks are supposed
  6963	to self-evaluate.''  And that was the end of their bio-incident.
  6964	
  6965	Two days later, in an evening alone with Gus, Meyer felt a slight shaking.
  6966	He glanced at Gus, who said, ``Moonquake.
  6967	Small ones come on a regular schedule, larger ones hardly at all.
  6968	I haven't ever felt a large one.
  6969	The colony is built to be quakeproof.''  Meyer thought ``quakeproof'' was
  6970	an interesting term, one people no longer used in the San Francisco area.
  6971	
  6972	After another week, Gus wanted Meyer to get a formal tour of the
  6973	colony -- standard for an important visitor.
  6974	Meyer had always intended to ask for a tour, but he's put it off
  6975	because he was so busy with the nanotechnology.  Finally, at his
  6976	request, Meryl Strassen,
  6977	the Assistant Colony Engineer, made an appointment to see him.
  6978	She was used to getting stuck with such requests -- a thin and older, 
  6979	energetic woman in what was usually a man's position.
  6980	She was also a fanatic about the colony, expending a huge effort trying
  6981	to improve its probability of success.  She knew Meyer was a
  6982	smart and important outsider who soon would be permanently with the colony.
  6983	As usual, Meyer had Gus along with him.
  6984	
  6985	``Let's talk as we move from one part of the colony to another,'' she said.
  6986	``I assume you've seen material describing our colony.''  Meyer decided
  6987	she had a way of sounding condescending.
  6988	
  6989	``Oh, sure.''  Meyer said.  ``I've looked over several
  6990	technical specs of the colony.  They were thorough but didn't go
  6991	too deeply into each of the systems and subsystems.  Can we start with
  6992	a quick overview?''
  6993	
  6994	``Okay.  I like to think of the whole colony as an impossibly complex
  6995	machine, behaving like a living organism.  The most important parts
  6996	are places where plants are grown, to supply food, oxygen, and a myriad of other
  6997	plant-based products.  We have two huge separate hangars for growing
  6998	these essential plants, along with seven other smaller more-specialized ones.
  6999	These are all
  7000	completely isolated -- there are windows for you to look inside,
  7001	but it's a double-door protected entry.
  7002	Five of the smaller ones each contain a collection of animals, including insects.
  7003	Altogether we have quite a variety of these breeding animals.
  7004	We have sperm and eggs for most of the animals, so with an effort we can
  7005	maintain genetic diversity.  The `variety' is because we don't know which
  7006	animals we might later want or perhaps need.
  7007	One small hangar includes places to grow meat in vats.
  7008	Um, you won't be able to visit these facilities, but let's walk over
  7009	to one of the hangar types.''
  7010	
  7011	They came to an anteroom that had a fancy door with a window in it,
  7012	along with other windows showing the hangar interior. 
  7013	Through the window the hangar
  7014	extended into the distance, too far to see how big it might be,
  7015	but Meyer remembered that it was enormous.
  7016	
  7017	``These hangars are the most complex and important part of
  7018	our colony,'' Strassen said.   ``And potentially delicate. 
  7019	The two large main hangars contain
  7020	individually distinct collections of species.
  7021	They are each broken up into specialized sub-hangars.
  7022	Some hangars also contain a variety of insects.
  7023	If there is a problem, oh, I don't know ... like explosive
  7024	growth of some species, or the spread
  7025	of some plant or plant disease, or sudden growth of a plant or biome
  7026	species, of a runaway insect species,
  7027	we hope it will be confined to one sub-hangar.''
  7028	
  7029	Strassen was gesturing to the hangar through the window.  ``This is the
  7030	door into Hangar One.  A visitor or worker must wear a special suit
  7031	and get partly sterilized in the small room through that door,''
  7032	pointing to the door.  ``Sterilized on the way out also.  We're trying to
  7033	contain anything weird or dangerous that might show up.''
  7034	
  7035	``Could you get by with one hangar?'' Meyer asked.
  7036	
  7037	``Not completely.  Soon we would have to artificially supplement the
  7038	oxygen supply, along with other actions.  So far that hasn't happened.
  7039	When Nest-two is complete, it will add two more huge hangars.
  7040	At that point we could limp along with only three of the four.
  7041	All that's more than a year off.
  7042	
  7043	``Okay, moving on to another topic,
  7044	most sleeping accommodations are for multiple
  7045	people, either in dormitories or for a family unit.  Sources for food,
  7046	drink, and water are centralized, as are collection places for human waste.
  7047	You've been here for days, so you've been experiencing that.
  7048	Everything must be recycled, absolutely everything.
  7049	We like to make as much as possible
  7050	out of plant material -- such at clothing, containers, dishes, oh, lots
  7051	of stuff.  There are many scientific laboratories and machine shops.
  7052	Plus places to gather for education or entertainment.
  7053	We have the full Digital Library of Congress here, along with many
  7054	huge supplements.  There are many separate
  7055	machines, mostly walled off, such as the pumps that move air throughout.
  7056	They have special filters that are particularly important -- to
  7057	filter out any regolith that gets in.  The regolith used to be a huge
  7058	problem, but we've been on top of it for years; now we use
  7059	regolith for building material.''  Strassen paused for breath here.
  7060	
  7061	``Fortunately, well, actually by design,
  7062	the colony is saturated with sensors,
  7063	trying to keep track of everything.
  7064	They're wireless and self-contained, so their signals reach everywhere
  7065	amid any crisis that doesn't directly put a sensor out of commission.
  7066	Any questions yet?''
  7067	
  7068	``Yes. I'd like to jump right in here to talk about difficulties,
  7069	problems, things that could go wrong.
  7070	That's what I'm interested in.  What worries you the most?''
  7071	
  7072	``That's my focus: failures, any kind of malfunction.
  7073	We've had over forty years of direct experience with what can go wrong.
  7074	We have advanced software that uses the sensors to keep track
  7075	of everything -- things you'd never think of.
  7076	And the software is overseen by humans -- one of the weak links
  7077	in the system.''
  7078	
  7079	``So tell me what worries you.''
  7080	
  7081	``I have several primary worries.   Foremost is the biology.
  7082	The biological side of our whole system is far too complex for any
  7083	of us to fully understand, not even our biologists; I'm no biologist, so
  7084	I have to rely on others.  All biological aspects are constantly changing.
  7085	We are still usually being reactive about such issues.
  7086	Often we identify a problem with a significant delay and
  7087	still don't know its cause.
  7088	Even knowing the cause, we don't necessarily have a remediation plan.
  7089	We are often experimenting with possible approaches.
  7090	I seldom think about `solutions' to biology problems.
  7091	Any change to the biology usually leads to other changes and new problems.
  7092	We have a steady stream of new biology coming in with newcomers,
  7093	new microbes, and there are mutations of the current biology.
  7094	There is no steady state we can settle into.
  7095	
  7096	``We also need to make our biology much more complex,
  7097	more species of all kinds.
  7098	We want more and larger animals.  There's no limit to all of that, but
  7099	adding species is extremely difficult.  We need more insects,
  7100	but they breed so quickly, stability is hard to maintain.
  7101	In the Biosphere-Two project so long ago ... are you familiar with that?''
  7102	
  7103	When they both nodded, she went on. ``They had deliberately included ants
  7104	in their environment, but a small species of black ant snuck in and quickly
  7105	killed all the other ants.''
  7106	
  7107	``The oxygen we breathe and the food we eat depend on proper functioning
  7108	of the biology.
  7109	We use  plant materials for everything from clothing to furniture
  7110	to kitchen utensils, and all of it must be recyclable.  We need places to
  7111	recycle human waste, including even the bodies of anyone who dies.
  7112	
  7113	``My other big worry is the human element -- all the people here,
  7114	their stability, their satisfaction with the current state.
  7115	I hesitate to use a word like `happiness,' though many are happy.
  7116	I think happiness is overrated;
  7117	dissatisfaction can lead to progress.  I worry about the sanity of our people,
  7118	whatever that might mean.  For me `sanity' means the ability to
  7119	function in this environment indefinitely without causing harm.
  7120	But there is lots of stress here.  People will even try to hide physical
  7121	health problems, and they often instinctively hide mental health problems.
  7122	I believe all the horrible problems back on the Earth help us.
  7123	Most of those problems we don't have here.  It's too early to say,
  7124	but our life-expectancy should easily be longer than down on our
  7125	planet.  But not everyone here goes along with the idea that
  7126	if we lose contact, and they get ill, they might be required
  7127	to sacrifice their life.''
  7128	
  7129	After a pause, where Meyer said nothing, Strassen continued.
  7130	``The engineers here worry about our machines, but they are well-constructed,
  7131	and after so many years of use and modifications, well-suited to their
  7132	needs.  Our machines are the reliable part of the colony.
  7133	We have machines that will manufacture our machines and will also
  7134	manufacture themselves.  We have the necessary raw materials.
  7135	We have capable robots controlled by excellent AIs.
  7136	Our machines give us much less to worry about than other issues.
  7137	
  7138	``Let me give an example.  We have lots of water right now.  Fortunately
  7139	people aren't complacent about plentiful water, but still, the supply
  7140	shouldn't be a problem for many years.  We have a lot of solar energy
  7141	and energy from other sources, so we can break water into hydrogen and
  7142	oxygen.  That gives us rocket fuel and gives us emergency oxygen in
  7143	case the plants get some disease and die.  The machines that process
  7144	water into its components are located far enough away from the colony
  7145	that an explosion wouldn't directly cause harm.  And such an explosion
  7146	is almost impossible anyway.  So we're mechanically pretty safe, but
  7147	not biologically or psychologically safe.''
  7148	
  7149	Meyer made time daily to talk with Elisabeth.  He'd begged for more
  7150	video time and was almost surprised that they gave him a lot more.
  7151	Gwyn might have intervened.
  7152	Longer talks seemed to help her.  One time she wasn't there
  7153	at all, which was scary.  She said she'd had transportation issues.
  7154	The Nest used Greenwich Mean Time, four hours ahead of Urbana,
  7155	so Elisabeth couldn't call too late, although privately Meyer would
  7156	gladly have taken nighttime calls if necessary.  She seemed tired
  7157	and depressed.   Her mental state bothered him a lot, and he even
  7158	changed his schedule to get home sooner.
  7159	
  7160	Both projects were moving along nicely now, where ``nicely'' meant
  7161	long periods of design and planning, followed by repeated attempts that were
  7162	practically the definition of trial and error,
  7163	until finally the newly created and improved nanobots
  7164	succeeded in constructing the new nanoforge.
  7165	Often it was the old nanoforge with new instructions, and that
  7166	step was quick.
  7167	The project the twins were working on had made three improvement steps
  7168	successfully.  
  7169	The second project took weeks to get started at all, but even with it
  7170	they had made one improvement step.  The idea had been to transfer
  7171	work carried out in Urbana up to the Moon.  Both Gwyn and Meyer were
  7172	happy that their two versions of the same project were on paths of
  7173	intermittent progress, which was all they had hoped for.
  7174	They had successfully relocated the main nano research to the Moon.
  7175	
  7176	It seemed like no time had passed till Meyer said a temporary goodbye to
  7177	everyone.  At least he hoped it would be temporary.  Soon he was to start off
  7178	on the trip back to the Earth, the reversal of his trip to the Moon:
  7179	taking off from the Moon in the shuttle, refueling at L1
  7180	and connecting with the Staging Center,
  7181	followed by an orbiter ride back to the Earth, using the atmosphere and
  7182	parachutes to brake and land in the sea.
  7183	This direction he wouldn't get a visit to Homa.
  7184	
  7185	He would have two companions on the trip, each leaving the Moon forever.
  7186	Fortunately, neither had been kicked out or banned.
  7187	He'd had time to chat with them before the three of them left.
  7188	Three was the maximum number of people who could travel at once.
  7189	More would fit into the shuttle, but no more than three could be in the
  7190	orbiter down to the Earth.  He'd be with them
  7191	for at least seven days.
  7192	
  7193	Rob Rempel was older and he seemed almost impaired even in the Moon's
  7194	light gravity.  Some fifteen years ago he came to the Moon as
  7195	a {regolith}
  7196	specialist and had been a huge help in coming up with solutions to
  7197	the many problems of dealing with the Moon's terrible dust, which they
  7198	also melted and used to 3D print some of their facilities.
  7199	
  7200	``I had a mild stroke that will make adjusting to the Earth even more
  7201	difficult.  At least the centrifuge regimen that I've been dutifully
  7202	following should help.  There's no bigger fan of the Nest than me,
  7203	and I'm proving that by ridding myself as a burden.  I can continue my
  7204	regolith work on the Earth -- scaled back, even as there aren't
  7205	any critical problems left.  I'll probably spend a while in
  7206	a wheelchair, but I'm slowly getting better.  Josh here
  7207	and I have been sharing our misery.''  Rempel pointed to the person
  7208	beside him -- a thin younger man who also didn't look at all well.
  7209	
  7210	``Yeah, I'm Josh, Josh Matz.''   He touched elbows with Meyer.
  7211	``I do, or did that is, computer networking for the colony,
  7212	but I'm also allergic to the Owl or perhaps to its excrement, who knows.
  7213	Seriously, they tried everything, but couldn't pin it down.  
  7214	It might even be some kind of auto-immune disorder that's involved.
  7215	The doctors here tried very hard to fix me up -- I can't say
  7216	enough good things about them -- but I've
  7217	gotten worse. I can only get by on increasing amounts of steroids,
  7218	up to a level that's not sustainable over a longer period.
  7219	So I'm having to leave along with my new friend Rob here.
  7220	I'm hoping to recover down below and keep working in Urbana.''
  7221	
  7222	Meyer thought both his companions seemed defensive about {having} to leave.
  7223	Both big fans of the colony, they evidently didn't want to, but had no choice.
  7224	Meyer felt sorry for them both, but he decided not to sweeten
  7225	conditions on the Earth.
  7226	
  7227	``For you, Rob, fifteen years is a long time.  It's the same Earth.
  7228	They're making better use of technology and that's helped,
  7229	but the, uh, morale has gotten worse.  People aren't optimistic.
  7230	You might not have heard about the mass suicides -- they try to keep
  7231	them out of the news, since hearing about it can lead to more.
  7232	It's usually a small town or group that decides to end it all.
  7233	The Satanists encourage it; they welcome it and give praise to their,
  7234	uh, you know, their leader.''
  7235	
  7236	``I'm still optimistic,'' Rempel said.  ``I have to be.  The colony
  7237	organization is paying for a long stretch of rehab over on Maui.
  7238	I'm not that old.  I'm hoping to recover at least enough to keep working
  7239	on regolith -- a terrible substance that can also be useful.
  7240	But, Josh, what about you?''
  7241	
  7242	``I'm hoping my allergic reactions go away,'' Josh said.
  7243	``They even thought it could be the tiniest amount of your favorite: regolith,
  7244	provoking my illness.  They want to keep track of me -- see how I progress,
  7245	notice if anyone else develops my symptoms -- that sort of stuff.
  7246	
  7247	``I'll still be trying to work for the colony as a programmer in Urbana.
  7248	I want to be optimistic like you.
  7249	But in the worst case, my relatives live in Canada,
  7250	on the Pacific side.  I hear things are not so bad there, except for all
  7251	the refugees from the south.  I originally came from a smaller community
  7252	in the mountains, and I might go back there if a job in Urbana doesn't
  7253	work out.  First I've got to recover.
  7254	Everything depends on how that goes.''
  7255	
  7256	Meyer couldn't help himself.  ``We can always use workers in
  7257	Urbana.  But I recommend, uh, I {have} to recommend that
  7258	you stay in Urbana and use secure on-campus housing.
  7259	It's a relatively safe island in a dangerous sea of partly productive
  7260	farmland.
  7261	If you want to go back home, you need to find a way to travel with
  7262	a group.   You could try to settle back in your mountain city, if they'll accept you.
  7263	How long have you been gone, five years or so?''
  7264	
  7265	Matz nodded.
  7266	
  7267	``That's longer than you realize.  Some things are getting worse now.
  7268	In that mountain town you might survive long-term.''
  7269	
  7270	Liftoff from the Moon was ``only'' three Gs, but all three of them thought
  7271	it was pretty rough.  Well, Meyer mostly complained to be in solidarity
  7272	with the other two who were suffering.
  7273	
  7274	So they found lots to talk about during the six-day trip on
  7275	the shuttle: their time on the Earth, the current
  7276	colony and its future, Meyer's work with nanobots,
  7277	some of Gus's funniest stories, the latest news about
  7278	the Earth, and so on.  Meyer also spent time working by himself on
  7279	technical issues.
  7280	
  7281	Rempel was the old-timer, remembering when the colony was much
  7282	smaller.  ``It grew up around me, and it's gotten so big
  7283	and sophisticated, like a child growing up.
  7284	Long-term stability is now the big problem.  Well, {a} big problem.
  7285	For what it's worth I'll never stop rooting for it.''
  7286	
  7287	``We all feel that way, you  know,'' said Meyer.  ``With luck I'll soon be
  7288	back there.  I promise I'll give you updates.''
  7289	
  7290	The initial trip ended at the Staging Center, with two of the three
  7291	Meyer had encountered before still there: Dmitri and Jane. 
  7292	Andrew had been replaced by a third person who was asleep while
  7293	they waited.  Except to say hello, Jane was busy with her work;
  7294	Dimitri clearly wanted to avoid Meyer.  While Meyer worked the other two
  7295	also checked out the Beatles room, listening to ancient music.
  7296	After a short six-hour delay they transferred to the shuttle,
  7297	which took them down to the sea near the launch facilities.
  7298	Rempel then switched to transportation that would take him
  7299	directly to Maui island where he could start his rehab.
  7300	Matz and Meyer proceeded to a flight headed back to North America.
  7301	Every step seemed to take forever.
  7302	Finally, they waited for a flight that would take them to the air base
  7303	in Rantoul north of Urbana.
  7304	
  7305	Meyer hadn't gotten hold of Elisabeth for several days -- always
  7306	some connection problem or other.  Now he was
  7307	determined to try over and over.  To pass time he checked the crap
  7308	local daily newsfeed from Urbana.
  7309	Part-way into their content he
  7310	stopped cold.
  7311	
  7312	Urban Urbana News --- June 6, 2084}
  7313	LOCAL WOMAN TAKEN TO HOSPITAL
  7314	Long-time resident Elizabeth Bloom was taken by ambulance 
  7315	yesterday to Marshall Hospital.  The report listed the precipitating
  7316	event as an ``attempted suicide.''  There is no other information at this time.
  7317	So far this year Urbana has had nineteen deaths officially listed as
  7318	suicide, with a number of others suspected and an even larger number of 
  7319	attempted suicides..}
  7320	
  7321	Meyer felt like he was suddenly under water, with trouble breathing.
  7322	He tried contacting various people, starting with Gwyn,
  7323	but was only able to leave messages. It was the middle of the night in Urbana.
  7324	Meyer didn't even know how he was going to get through the rest of the trip
  7325	without losing his mind.
  7326	
  7327	It was obvious to Matz that Meyer had heard something terrible.  He talked Meyer
  7328	into telling him about it.  ``It's always better to share bad news,''
  7329	Matz said.  So Meyer showed him the recent story and talked
  7330	at length about Elisabeth on the flight to Rantoul and the short
  7331	drive to Urbana.  It was weird to tell a stranger practially everything
  7332	about one's personal life.
  7333	
  7334	%%% interB.1.tex: Chap 13, colonization ===================================##
  7335	Michael Dyer realized the two doors right in front of him were open:
  7336	the doors of his stasis box -- each box had a double
  7337	door entry.  He was startled because they had just closed them.
  7338	He hesitated and then stepped out of the box.
  7339	There had to be some mistake; it must not have worked at all.  But the man
  7340	greeting him was no one he knew, and he hadn't been there
  7341	when the doors closed seconds ago.
  7342	
  7343	``What happened?  Did it work?''
  7344	
  7345	``Of course it worked.  More than two hundred years have gone by.
  7346	Don't worry.  This feels strange for most people.
  7347	I find it hard to believe myself.''
  7348	
  7349	It was impossible, but this was Builder technology that never failed.
  7350	
  7351	``Hard to imagine -- that the field can stop time.''
  7352	
  7353	The man shook his head. ``This technology is a total mystery to all
  7354	of us, but they say the field can't stop time, only slow it down.''
  7355	
  7356	``Wait.  Slow it down?''
  7357	
  7358	``Yeah.  I think it's like ... for two hundred years outside,
  7359	slow the inside  to something like one second or so.
  7360	But not zero seconds inside.''
  7361	
  7362	The man handed him one of the ship's  orientation pads
  7363	that stated he was among the third group to be released from stasis.
  7364	Earlier he'd gotten accustomed to using the pad.
  7365	Jesus, two hundred years earlier.
  7366	First there had been eight people,
  7367	and then forty-four more, and now another forty-four, for ninety-six so far,
  7368	over two days.  There were almost two thousand yet to go,
  7369	but they wanted to proceed cautiously.
  7370	His orders told him to report to Lieutenant Kosower and
  7371	included a room number and a simple map to get there.
  7372	That was someone he knew.
  7373	
  7374	Kosower gave a friendly greeting and showed him a table of assignments.
  7375	``As expected,'' he said, ``the ship is in a low orbit around
  7376	the destination planet.
  7377	We knew nothing about it until now, well, beyond the orientation
  7378	before we left.  Your pad gives basic
  7379	facts: an earth-like planet, with familiar features, but showing no
  7380	disturbance by man or indeed any evidence
  7381	of a civilization as we might know it.
  7382	The planet is covered with mountains, plains, oceans, rivers, lakes,
  7383	everything.  There are polar ice caps, and glaciers.
  7384	Lots of jungles in the mid-section.
  7385	Abundant life forms with large land animals
  7386	as well as seas full of life.''
  7387	
  7388	``Christ, that's all weird, almost disorienting.''
  7389	
  7390	``You'll get used to it.  You have a biology background, and that determined
  7391	your assignment.  I'll show you to your duty department,
  7392	where you are to observe what you can of the life below.
  7393	The Captain announced that for now we'll continue with an artificial
  7394	day and night schedule.
  7395	For what remains of today, and into the night until tomorrow,
  7396	you'll have sole access to the ship's fancy viewer, since only one
  7397	person can use it at a time.  You should take notes and be prepared
  7398	to give an initial status report on the biological side of our planet at
  7399	0800 hours tomorrow.  That deadline is more important than some final
  7400	accuracy. But I assume you'll stay up late tonight with this
  7401	assignment. I mean, umm, do the best you can in the time you have
  7402	and report what you've found.  We assume it will be incomplete -- just
  7403	your initial discoveries, probably focusing on the larger animals,
  7404	but you can decide that also.  Still, you should have an initial written
  7405	report that we will distribute.  Any questions?''
  7406	
  7407	``No, I guess not.  I still feel ... almost confused.''
  7408	
  7409	``Join the club.  That's what I say to everyone.  We're all feeling odd.
  7410	What's wanted is some basic information, that's all.
  7411	The others in your station can help orient you about
  7412	sleeping, food, and all other matters, but nothing has changed since you
  7413	went into stasis, yeah, except that we traveled thirty-two light years
  7414	in two hundred thirteen years.  And I can't believe that either.''
  7415	
  7416	Kosower left him with four others in a good-sized duty room.
  7417	They all looked stressed as he also was.  There was relatively light centripetal
  7418	gravity from a slow rotation of the ship.  They talked for a while
  7419	about the crazy experience of waking up after two hundred years, but
  7420	Dyer was increasingly bothered by the idea of a planet ``almost like the
  7421	Earth -- with abundant life forms'' that was only
  7422	thirty-two light years away.
  7423	He felt a shiver, as if he was cold; it seemed to be an impossible
  7424	coincidence to find a beautiful planet so close.
  7425	
  7426	What had they said?  What had they promised, when they came to his settlement?
  7427	The town had about four thousand people living a difficult life.
  7428	They were freezing cold in the winter and boiling hot in the summer,
  7429	with never enough to eat, and food was getting ever more scarce.
  7430	There were so many diseases, poisonous animals, insects, and plants -- a
  7431	nightmare for them.
  7432	
  7433	A gigantic air vehicle arrived, larger than anything they'd ever seen.
  7434	The people never saw an actual person, but only
  7435	heard several persuasive voices that spoke their language fluently,
  7436	and promised a much better life at a distant star. 
  7437	The voices offered a one-way trip, with no chance of return.
  7438	The trip would seem to last only a few weeks, since they would mostly
  7439	be in a suspended sleep.  They could take many belongings, but no
  7440	living things at all -- no plants or animals that could
  7441	become invasive.
  7442	
  7443	People had many questions, endless ones, such as:
  7444	
  7445	What is it like where they would go?
  7446	{A planet similar to Earth, even with similar life forms, but no humans.
  7447	The planet is well-suited to you as colonists.}
  7448	
  7449	What will it be like for us?  {It will be similar to times in the Earth's
  7450	history when settlers moved into unpeopled land, or land only
  7451	peopled by indigenous humans. In this case there are no humans at all.}
  7452	
  7453	How will we survive?  Get food and shelter?
  7454	{It won't be easy; there will be hard work for you.
  7455	The ship will remain in orbit around the planet for two years,
  7456	providing modest amounts of food and shelter to those not yet
  7457	provided for on the planet.
  7458	The ship will provide shuttle vehicles you can use for trips down to the planet. 
  7459	You will have to build your own shelters and obtain your own food
  7460	from the planet.}
  7461	
  7462	That's no answer.  How will we build shelters?
  7463	{The ship will supply many hand tools, like knives, saws to cut wood,
  7464	shovels and other digging tools, carpentry tools.
  7465	There are extensive forests with a vast supply of wood.  But you will
  7466	have to construct your own shelters, perhaps out of logs or using animal
  7467	skins.  It you want water with no nearby source, you'll have to dig
  7468	your own wells.  It won't be easy, but it will get much better with
  7469	time.}
  7470	
  7471	How will we obtain food?
  7472	{There are nourishing plants which you can harvest immediately
  7473	and later learn how to farm,
  7474	animals you can raise for food and for their fur.
  7475	You will learn how to kill animals for food and for their skins
  7476	and bones.}
  7477	
  7478	How will we learn how to do this stuff?
  7479	{The ship will leave a number of workstations with access to
  7480	versions of its library.  Along with all manner of data there will be
  7481	a great deal of practical information, such
  7482	as how to make concrete, or steel, or glass.  But it will be many years
  7483	before you have such luxuries, though the planet has all the necessary
  7484	raw materials.}
  7485	
  7486	There were cautions: {The ship will not answer any questions at all.
  7487	You must decide yourselves where and how to build.  You must discover
  7488	what on the surface is dangerous, what is nourishing and what is poison.
  7489	The ship will provide only food in decreasing amounts during the two
  7490	years it stays.  Some of you have major illnesses, or parasites of
  7491	different kinds, infections.  Some of those we will take care while you
  7492	are on the ship.  Other illnesses you will take with you.
  7493	After you leave the ship we will provide nothing like health care or
  7494	any treatment for illnesses or injuries.}
  7495	
  7496	Injunctions:
  7497	{You will have no dominion over this planet,
  7498	but instead a commitment to keep it in good condition.  You must
  7499	dedicate huge areas as wilderness, undeveloped.
  7500	You may kill animals for food,
  7501	or to make other use of the deceased animal,
  7502	but you need to learn how to protect yourselves without killing.
  7503	You may not ever try to exterminate
  7504	any species which is troublesome for you.}
  7505	
  7506	Finally: {This new world will seem like a paradise compared to what is 
  7507	around you here.}
  7508	
  7509	In the end well over half the town signed up to go.  It wasn't so much
  7510	that they were persuaded by the descriptions, as that they were
  7511	concerned how they might even survive the next few years where they were.
  7512	
  7513	They were required to elect their own leaders,
  7514	starting with a Captain of the ship, instituting a quasi-military structure.
  7515	Over several months they relocated into the giant ship,
  7516	moving all manner of personal items on board.
  7517	After they were ready, they informed the giant ship and it left.
  7518	By the tenth day of the voyage, almost everyone was
  7519	in what they called ``stasis'' -- a kind of perfect sleep.
  7520	Michael was better educated than most and was late going into this sleep.
  7521	And then they woke him up.
  7522	
  7523	Dyer got to work examining the planet's surface below him.
  7524	The ship's viewer had a large screen that would show images from 
  7525	anywhere on the planet and from whatever altitude you wanted.
  7526	The viewer was tied to some kind of drone
  7527	whose flight over the planet he could control.  He saw that another screen
  7528	displayed large maps of the planet, showing also where his drone was.
  7529	
  7530	This was a Builder system he had trained on  before they all left,
  7531	so he was able to start work immediately.
  7532	He began making records of different life forms, one after another -- a
  7533	large variety.  He saved images using another feature of the viewer.
  7534	Fairly quickly he thought the images he was seeing looked familiar.
  7535	He'd been shown the huge ship's library and how to access it.
  7536	It had vast materials about the Earth's current animals, as well as
  7537	historic animals.  The terrible collapse of so much on the Earth had resulted
  7538	in the extinction of many large animal species.
  7539	After getting a new image from below, he started trying to find something
  7540	similar to it in his references -- an
  7541	annoying task with so many online images to look through.
  7542	As time went by he got lost in the work, hardly even  talking with the
  7543	others in the room; they all had different assignments from his.
  7544	
  7545	The next morning he found he was nervous as he presented the results
  7546	of his hurried biology study to a large group including the Captain.
  7547	He also felt groggy from lack of sleep.
  7548	Over the past day they had awakened several hundred more people and many
  7549	of them were in his audience.
  7550	He cleared his throat and started in ...
  7551	
  7552	``The prominent collection of larger animal species on the planet below
  7553	consists of the Earth's dinosaurs, of many different types.''
  7554	
  7555	There was an immediate response from the first row.
  7556	``Dinosaurs!  Is that what you said?''
  7557	
  7558	``The large dominant life forms below are dinosaurs from our own
  7559	ancient history -- the history of the Age of Dinosaurs,
  7560	ending sixty-five million years ago.''
  7561	
  7562	The same person said, ``Are you crazy? You must mean they are
  7563	{similar} to Earth's dinosaurs -- they look like them.
  7564	They resemble them.''
  7565	
  7566	`No, Sir.  Our ship's library has online references to Earth's past dinosaurs,
  7567	a huge amount of information about them.
  7568	All from earlier than sixty-five million years ago.
  7569	I was able to match up more than two dozen of those on the planet with ones 
  7570	from the Earth in the library's references.
  7571	Many of them have distinctive features.''
  7572	
  7573	The person interrupted again. ``Weren't there hundreds of different
  7574	kinds of dinosaurs over tens of millions of years?''
  7575	
  7576	``Sir, on the Earth there were over a thousand such dinosaurs
  7577	documented in the references, with evidently many more that were
  7578	never discovered.
  7579	I spent the entire last sleep period staring at images
  7580	in my viewer of animals below, and comparing them to examples in my
  7581	reference materials.  I found some amazing similarities with
  7582	animals that lived on the ancient Earth of 80 to 110 million years ago.
  7583	Well, actually not similar but identical.
  7584	It will take time to get more complete results.''
  7585	
  7586	Another person chimed in with a high-pitched voice.
  7587	``Do you mean we've somehow gone
  7588	a hundred million years into the past.
  7589	Is that ancient Earth below us?
  7590	Is that where this crazy Builder ship took us?''
  7591	The tone was almost hysterical.
  7592	
  7593	``When did you come out of stasis?''  The Captain sounded impatient.
  7594	``Let's get this straight first: We're at the proper place.
  7595	At the Bilanti System, not the Solar System. 
  7596	That's no past Earth down there, but a new planet.''
  7597	He glared at the person who'd spoken.
  7598	``We've been studying the planet and the neighboring stars for two days now.
  7599	Calculating constants, like the size and mass, its gravity,
  7600	and a lot of other data about the planet below.
  7601	Our new planet is similar to the Earth in many ways, but not at all
  7602	identical in any way.  The continents and
  7603	oceans are completely different from
  7604	any kind of ancient Earth.  There's nothing at all corresponding to a
  7605	large ancient Pacific Ocean.
  7606	From here it's easy to locate our own star and see that it fits
  7607	in with other nearby stars.   In this case the sun we're close to differs
  7608	markedly from Sol.
  7609	We are not seeing a past version of our own planet below.
  7610	But it's impossible for it to have dinosaurs from Earth's past.
  7611	Impossible.''
  7612	
  7613	Then the Captain tried a conciliatory tone with Dyer.
  7614	``Son, you stayed up all night,
  7615	and by morning you had pictures from your online references all mixed up
  7616	in your mind with images of actual animals below.''
  7617	
  7618	``Sir, it's not only dinosaurs, but some kinds of smaller animals below
  7619	are also described in my references.  Plants too, though I didn't focus on them.''
  7620	There was silence in the room.
  7621	``Let me show examples.''  He proceeded to lay out example after
  7622	example for them.  No one in his audience was familiar with different
  7623	kinds of the various animals from the past Earth.
  7624	They were all completely unfamiliar with what dinosaur belonged
  7625	in which historical period on the Earth.
  7626	
  7627	Someone else stood up.  ``Young man, this is a sick joke you're playing
  7628	on us and I don't appreciate it, not at all.''
  7629	
  7630	``Sir,'' Dyer said, ``We have the display technology right here.
  7631	Will someone familiar with these cameras please come up and bring up
  7632	images from below for everyone to see?''
  7633	
  7634	The noisy person from the front row chimed in again.
  7635	``What difference does it make whether they are exactly the Earth's past
  7636	dinosaurs or just similar to them?  It doesn't matter.''
  7637	
  7638	Dyer was irritated at his audience.
  7639	``I've been thinking about that very issue.  A planet only
  7640	thirty-two light years away from us that looks much like the Earth and
  7641	happens to have dinosaurs similar to ones from our own past, why that
  7642	would be an impossible coincidence -- something defying any
  7643	reasonable explanation.  But having them {exactly}
  7644	like our own dinosaurs -- that can be explained.
  7645	We might guess that the Builders did it at the tail end
  7646	of creating an interesting, hospitable planet.
  7647	I think they must have been constrained to an Earth-like planet, but
  7648	without any life and without a breathable atmosphere.''
  7649	
  7650	Someone else spoke up.  ``Are you saying they could take a sterile
  7651	planet, say, like Mars, and in a few hundred years change it to
  7652	what we see below?  I don't believe it.''
  7653	
  7654	``Of course they didn't start with a planet like Mars, but with a
  7655	planet like the one below, which is like an early Earth, but initially
  7656	lifeless. or with life that would be wiped out by their work.
  7657	We will have to believe this as the only reasonable hypothesis.''
  7658	Dyer paused here, surprised at his aggressive answers to their questions,
  7659	 but he was tired and had been thinking about this all night.
  7660	The silly-sounding excuses they put forward were annoying.
  7661	He went on when no one else interrupted.
  7662	
  7663	``Here's another issue:  If the life below had developed
  7664	independently of our earth, it would surely be incompatible with
  7665	us, likely a deadly poison.  The Builders didn't go to all this trouble
  7666	to dump us where we couldn't survive.''
  7667	
  7668	Yet another person had an odd idea.  ``Listen to me.  We know
  7669	that devices provided by the Builders can do almost anything.  We are not seeing
  7670	actual animals in front of us, but images supplied by devices of
  7671	the Builders.  I think they created an elaborate model of a non-existent
  7672	planet to display to us.  Perhaps it's some kind of psychological experiment
  7673	for them, or some twisted idea of humor.''
  7674	
  7675	Several people tried to talk at once, mostly refuting what Dyer just said.
  7676	The Captain broke in: ``I suggest that we will soon know if
  7677	what's below is faked.  I'm assuming for now it's real.
  7678	Meanwhile my good friend Andrew Hanson knows a lot about science.
  7679	I'd like to ask him to give us an analysis of this situation.
  7680	Please help us out, Andrew.''
  7681	
  7682	Hanson was a small, older man, seemingly intense though. 
  7683	Dyer knew him from before and had respected him, but as someone who
  7684	didn't suffer fools.
  7685	``Before we left, the ship answered all the questions you seem to have.
  7686	I suggest we take those answers as true facts.  Facts we will have to
  7687	live with.   As the Captain
  7688	said, we'll soon be using the available shuttle craft to investigate and
  7689	explore the surface below us, and I also assume it's no fake.''
  7690	Hanson paused to glare at everyone, and then went on.
  7691	
  7692	``On the Earth before the collapse, all the sciences and
  7693	technology were advanced, far beyond where we are now.
  7694	The Builders seem to be incredibly far beyond even that.
  7695	Still, what the Builders and their machines can do fits in
  7696	with our ideas about what should be possible.  We covered thirty-two light
  7697	years in somewhat more than two hundred elapsed years,
  7698	so at roughly fifteen percent of
  7699	the speed of light.  Our ancestors,
  7700	even at their peak, weren't remotely close to creating such a craft.  
  7701	Nevertheless, except for the stasis field,
  7702	which uses some technology we don't understand at all,
  7703	the ship that brought us
  7704	here might possibly be built by us someday, as science advances.
  7705	Our ancestors were able to recover the full DNA sequence for some ancient
  7706	animals, including that of the Neanderthals.  They might have
  7707	been able to use cloning techniques to recreate that species and
  7708	many others, though they apparently never got around to it.
  7709	The Neanderthal's DNA only had to partly survive for fifty-thousand years or so.  
  7710	Dinosaur DNA shouldn't survive for millions of years,
  7711	but enough fragments of DNA or whole frozen portions may still be
  7712	around for them to recreate everything.  Or perhaps they
  7713	found another way.''  Someone tried to say something or ask
  7714	a question. Hanson ignored the interruption.
  7715	
  7716	``In any event, I imagine the Builders started with a completely
  7717	sterile planet and turned it into a partial physical replica of the Earth.
  7718	They wanted it populated with life,
  7719	so they resurrected life from the Earth's
  7720	remote past to use as the life on this planet.
  7721	For them, I think it could be a sort of interesting
  7722	experiment -- to see if they could do it.
  7723	That's my best guess for why the life below looks the way it does.
  7724	Very soon we'll be examining the surface below directly.''
  7725	Hanson asked for questions but no one responded.
  7726	
  7727	Hanson had more to say.
  7728	``Some of you may not yet realize that on this ship we have access to an
  7729	incredible library, with more information than we could ever look at.
  7730	It also has a helpful but limited artificially intelligent entity that can
  7731	find information for you.
  7732	Back on Earth they denoted this kind of software an
  7733	`AI,' sort of a stand-in for a librarian or other human.  The library only
  7734	has information up to some twenty years before the great crash.  You should
  7735	all familiarize yourselves with this resource.
  7736	As you know, again before we left, the ship said it would provide a
  7737	library workstations on the surface to help us get started.
  7738	We may only have access to the total library for
  7739	two years, if that long.  I'd recommend looking some things up right away.''
  7740	
  7741	The Captain then started in.  ``After what Andrew said,
  7742	I now think the Builders surely did create this planet below us,
  7743	and decided to let us colonize it, part of a grand plan.
  7744	It does seem to meet the descriptions given by the ship before we left.
  7745	And I want to remind everyone not to forget the other requirements
  7746	the ship mentioned at that time:
  7747	we have no dominion and must take good care of this planet.''
  7748	
  7749	Later, the Captain had a line of people wanting to talk with him
  7750	about a variety of issues.  It was always a line, all of them
  7751	begging, threatening, complementing, and asking, asking, asking.
  7752	The one currently in front was Faredun Koneru, someone he trusted
  7753	as representing the minority of Zoroastrians in his village
  7754	and now on his ship.  Those people had been the last remnant
  7755	of that religious group on the Earth.
  7756	They had joined their village a long time ago because of
  7757	persecution elsewhere.  Faredun started right in.
  7758	
  7759	``Cap, I think we may have a problem, something that will surprise you.''
  7760	
  7761	``Nothing from your group surprises me, but go on.''
  7762	
  7763	``It's all complicated.  I guess I'm going to have to spit it out.
  7764	My people, most of them anyway, well, most of those out of stasis
  7765	right now, believe that what's down on that
  7766	planet is literally Hell, the dominion of their version of the
  7767	devil.  Actually there's more to it.  They believe in an evil
  7768	entity, but they don't call it the Devil or anything like that.
  7769	Still, they are concerned about what this planet represents.''
  7770	
  7771	``Please say I'm dreaming.  This is something we don't need.
  7772	So why did they come on this trip?  What were they expecting?''
  7773	
  7774	``Like I said, it's complicated.  They believe in a benevolent entity,
  7775	and they thought it was rescuing them from the terrible place Earth
  7776	had become.  Now they're kind of turning in the opposite direction, 
  7777	I think mainly because of the dinosaurs, which look to them a bit on
  7778	the demonic side.
  7779	You should realize that I'm not much of a believer.  They know this, but
  7780	many of the younger people are like me.  And even the older ones
  7781	trust me to some extent.  By default I'm their primary liaison.''
  7782	
  7783	The Captain paused, and threw up his hands.
  7784	``Okay, what can we do about it?  Seriously.''
  7785	
  7786	``I've been thinking about this.  You're sending a group down in
  7787	the shuttle.  Rumors say it will be four people: the dinosaur guy and
  7788	three others.  Make me one of the three.''
  7789	
  7790	``I've had a large number of requests just like yours.
  7791	I lost count.  Why you?''
  7792	
  7793	Koneru answered quickly.  ``Certainly not because of what I just
  7794	mentioned.  I specialize in ecology, one of the few such specialists
  7795	we have, and the youngest one.  That should be the reason.  
  7796	For two months I was in what amounted to a combat situation, so I'm
  7797	used to stressful duty.  In the end I'll make the case to my people that the
  7798	planet poses no threat, that it's the product of some kind of
  7799	Builder whim, or even sense of humor.  It will help me a lot
  7800	in persuading them if I'm part of the first group going down to the planet.''
  7801	
  7802	``I'll think about it and let you know.  That's the best I can do.
  7803	Oh, and have your people been talking about this outside their own group?''
  7804	
  7805	``I've been cautioning them to keep this to themselves.
  7806	Anyway, there's not much socialization between my group and everyone else.''
  7807	
  7808	Michael Dyer was delighted to be part of the first team to take one of
  7809	the ship's shuttles down to the planet -- probably chosen because
  7810	he was more familiar with the life forms than anyone else.
  7811	A minority of the ship's personnel
  7812	had argued endlessly about the possible hazards of the trip.
  7813	What if everything below was poisonous to humans, say, based on different
  7814	organic compounds than us?  Answer: Well then, why would the Builders
  7815	choose this world, populate it with what they say are life forms
  7816	we can use for our survival, for food and shelter?
  7817	And then send us to the planet?  Why, if we were all going to die?
  7818	The ship told us many things about the planet even before we left. 
  7819	Some people voiced further comments, such as: What if they made a mistake?
  7820	Answer: The Builders don't make mistakes.
  7821	Well, shouldn't we be at least a little cautious?  And so forth.
  7822	
  7823	There weren't supposed to be any of Earth's animals on their
  7824	ship at all except for humans, but someone had snuck on a pet hamster.
  7825	It was a male and by itself, so the Captain had allowed it to live.
  7826	They decided to take him along and expose it in the shuttle's
  7827	airlock to the air outside.
  7828	If it did all right, they would go out and start taking samples of everything.  
  7829	
  7830	Using this test animal would be almost no extra
  7831	effort or delay.  They would breathe the air, but certainly not drink or
  7832	eat anything from the planet.  That should come later.
  7833	Someone suggested they should try to feed
  7834	something from the planet to the same animal, and that was agreed to.
  7835	
  7836	Then came questions: what about other dangerous animals?  Dangerous insects?
  7837	Dangerous microbes?  What if we catch some horrible illness, either bacterial
  7838	or viral.  And the partial answers:
  7839	For animals, the crew would carry ordinary handguns
  7840	they'd brought along with them from the Earth.
  7841	They would all be quarantined in the shuttle craft itself afterward,
  7842	for at least five days.  They would search for insects and disinfect against
  7843	microbes.
  7844	
  7845	Someone also worried that the newcomers themselves could contaminate
  7846	the planet in some way, and that was followed by the same argument: that this
  7847	would have been anticipated by the Builders.  After all, their instructions
  7848	said not to bring along any animals or plants at all -- no invasive
  7849	species.  The lone male hamster was not going to reproduce.  They surely
  7850	brought with them all manner of microscopic organisms, including their
  7851	own biome.  Or even larger organisms, such as ticks or fleas, who knows what.
  7852	The Builders must have had some means of dealing with all that.
  7853	Someone asked about the hamster.  Could it be a pregnant female?  The answer
  7854	was no, it had been a pet alone for a long time, so it couldn't be pregnant.
  7855	
  7856	They had tested the shuttle with a short trip to the surface without
  7857	getting out.  As expected the semi-intelligent (or actually intelligent?)
  7858	entity controlling the craft wouldn't allow any maneuvers that posed
  7859	the slightest risk.  This was Builder technology after all.
  7860	
  7861	There were only the four of them (plus the hamster) on this first trip,
  7862	although the shuttle could hold many
  7863	more and had a large cargo area.  In addition to Michael and Faredun,
  7864	their group included Horace, a computer systems specialist, and Kilbor, who
  7865	had studied physics and mathematics.  None of the four were scientists
  7866	in the old sense -- they knew more than their peers, noting more, and they
  7867	knew enough to realize this.
  7868	
  7869	The shuttle settled down on a grassy inland
  7870	plane without much cover, deliberately chosen to be a safe-looking
  7871	solid surface, without any large animals hiding nearby.
  7872	The initial tests went well -- the little hamster was happy to be exposed
  7873	to the atmosphere.  They started taking samples that were carefully placed in
  7874	labeled containers.  They picked some grass and were prepared to force it
  7875	down the hamster's throat, but it readily nibbled on the grass.
  7876	Then they hopped with the shuttle to another area,
  7877	and another, until they ended with a more interesting jungle area
  7878	where they would need to be careful about large animals.
  7879	In fact they'd seen an upright dinosaur somewhat taller than a man, looking
  7880	more like a predator than anything they'd seen before.
  7881	Dyer was familiar with this particular dinosaur, even knowing its long
  7882	scientific name.  He'd found it interesting that this very dinosaur
  7883	had been featured in an ancient
  7884	movie and misidentified as a ``Velociraptor'' because that name sounded
  7885	better in the video than the correct one.  He told the group that this
  7886	animal was definitely a predator.
  7887	
  7888	In retrospect Dyer couldn't believe they had made such a mistake.
  7889	They were so interested in the planet that they forgot about possible danger,
  7890	and didn't maintain basic care and situational awareness until too late.
  7891	All four of them were outside the shuttle, not even close to it.
  7892	They'd seen one of the uprights at a distance, and he moved
  7893	closer to them, fairly close, but he didn't look all that dangerous.
  7894	Plus he moved slowly, and they had their guns ready.
  7895	Suddenly there were three of them, and then many more,
  7896	several blocking the short way back to the shuttle.
  7897	It happened so fast -- they moved much faster than he expected.
  7898	Even though they shot several of them with their guns, only one of
  7899	those stayed down.  Two of them attacked Horace.
  7900	He was on the ground and maimed, hard to see how badly, when
  7901	... how to say it?
  7902	The dinosaurs all froze and then settled down on the ground
  7903	dead or asleep.
  7904	
  7905	Dyer had no experience with an emergency like this and wasn't processing
  7906	what he saw.  
  7907	The dinosaurs weren't moving at all,
  7908	and yet there was movement to his right.
  7909	A man was walking calmly toward them.  He was tall, walking confidently.
  7910	Very dark-featured, with black hair and eyes, and
  7911	with strange dark clothes -- solid black but
  7912	hard to look at.  Irrationally that bothered him more than anything else.
  7913	How did it make sense for black clothing to be hard to look at?  Yet it was,
  7914	
  7915	The man stopped and finally spoke.  ``How could you possibly get into this
  7916	mess?''  The villagers all spoke a kind of English creole, even the
  7917	Zoroastrians, although the elders had their own language, and a number
  7918	of others could speak regular English.  The man spoke the creole perfectly.
  7919	Dyer noticed a writhing fuzziness, like something out of focus,
  7920	around Horace on the ground.
  7921	
  7922	``Don't worry about your companion.  He's getting treated and will be fine.
  7923	You people have a ways to go if you want to claim the top-predator title.
  7924	But let me introduce myself.  I'm what you could call an
  7925	overseer of this planet.''
  7926	
  7927	Klibor, the oldest of them, found his voice.  ``You're one of the Builders?''
  7928	
  7929	``You'll have to decide that for yourselves,
  7930	but this isn't what I actually look like.  I assumed this form
  7931	so you wouldn't be too ... uncomfortable.
  7932	The dinosaurs around us are sleeping and they'll be fine when they wake.
  7933	I'm also taking care of the poor dinosaurs you stupidly felt you had to shoot.
  7934	They have a fancy scientific name, but never mind. I repeat.
  7935	What's wrong with you people?  You're going to have to interact with
  7936	this planet without needlessly harming its wildlife.
  7937	Those nasty, ugly guns you used.  You'll be out of ammunition for them
  7938	soon, and then what?''
  7939	
  7940	``Is Horace going to be all right?'' Kilbor said, just as
  7941	Horace himself sat up and asked what had happened.  All four of them
  7942	were having major troubles dealing with everything going on.
  7943	It couldn't be happening.
  7944	
  7945	The apparition continued in a condescending way.
  7946	Maybe it was a Builder, but that didn't seem to matter right then.
  7947	``The four of you need to climb back into your
  7948	shuttle and go up to the ship.  Tell everyone what happened.  Tell them
  7949	the next time I won't be around to intervene; none of you will ever
  7950	see me again.  There'll be no rescue if any of you get in more trouble. 
  7951	All of you will have to learn to take care of yourselves,
  7952	as well as taking care of your new planet and all its wildlife.
  7953	You do not have dominion over this planet, but responsibility for its care.
  7954	
  7955	``Welcome to Dinosaur Planet!'' 
  7956	As he said that he became less substantial. They could
  7957	see through him, and then he faded away and was gone.
  7958	The sleeping dinosaurs woke up, and those who'd been shot had recovered.
  7959	They all ran off in different directions.
  7960	
  7961	Faredun hadn't seen the slow disappearance of the apparition and
  7962	was in a state
  7963	of total shock: ``Wait, what happened? Where did he go?''
  7964	They had to explain the vanishing act to him.  After adolescence,
  7965	Faredun had never taken his religion seriously, as his family and older
  7966	friends did.  But this creature filled him with dread and terror.
  7967	He couldn't help himself. 
  7968	For his people, white was the symbol of cleanliness, purity, and goodness.
  7969	Black was the opposite, the symbol of greed, wrath, and envy.
  7970	Until that moment he'd been an educated unbeliever.
  7971	Suddenly it seemed that everything he'd been taught
  7972	was true, and real.  That the planet he was standing on
  7973	was the domain of their evil one himself,
  7974	and he had met up with him.  The creature's sarcasm, confidence,
  7975	his obvious great power, and then his black clothing,
  7976	that all swept over him.
  7977	
  7978	During the shuttle ride up to the ship Faredun had time to calm down,
  7979	to think seriously about his cultural reactions.
  7980	The person or creature  they had met
  7981	seemed to have total power, but otherwise he was mainly angry that they
  7982	had stupidly gotten themselves in a bad position and then had killed
  7983	some of his dinosaurs. Well, tried to kill them, without any need
  7984	for food or for parts like fur, skin, or bones.
  7985	 This planet would surely to be much better
  7986	than what they'd endured on the Earth.  If the people in charge were smart,
  7987	they might interview the four of them separately over the next few days,
  7988	and compare their stories.  So now would
  7989	be a good time to go over their experience and try to get a consistent
  7990	story that wasn't filled with dread as his might be.
  7991	
  7992	The entity's black clothes!  He wanted to de-emphasize them because they
  7993	would be so frightening to his people.
  7994	Faredun had thought it was another stupid move to have no video recording of
  7995	the terrifying black-clothed person.  As it happened this was just
  7996	as well -- no visual record of a truly disturbing entity.
  7997	Faredun's immediate reaction was that the clothes were hard to look at.
  7998	But he didn't remember what they looked  {like}.
  7999	That was totally strange.
  8000	
  8001	He decided to start talking with his freaked out colleagues.
  8002	If the subject of clothes came up, he would dismiss it as irrelevant.
  8003	He hoped to get a combined story, consistent across the four of them,
  8004	a story that wouldn't be so frightening to his people.
  8005	At least he planned to maintain that the planet was like a
  8006	newborn child, neither good nor evil.  This could still be his people's version
  8007	of their Paradise, as the ship had told them before they left.
  8008	
  8009	%%% interB.2.tex: Chap 14,  Backstory =====================================##
  8010	It was better to have at least two shadows supervising a planet,
  8011	since they would be around for decades and enjoyed the companionship.
  8012	But so few were available, that goal usually couldn't be met.
  8013	In this case one was newly arrived while the other was soon due to return
  8014	to the Earth.
  8015	They identified themselves to one another and communicated together in ways
  8016	impossibly complex to describe correctly in a human language.
  8017	They also used comic and sardonic
  8018	nicknames for one another, which are translated below as ``Bert''
  8019	and ``Ernie,'' although all nuances of their real names are thereby lost.
  8020	The language given below is a rough and drastic simplification
  8021	of the information they exchanged.
  8022	
  8023	``That went remarkably well,'' Bert started in.
  8024	He was the one who'd confronted the settlers.
  8025	``They will go back with their stories, not agreeing as to what had
  8026	happened, with no evidence they'd met up with anyone
  8027	or anything at all, let alone a mysterious person, possibly a Builder,
  8028	maybe not even a `person.'
  8029	And this scene will become part of the foundational
  8030	folklore of the planet and of their culture.''
  8031	
  8032	``I'm not sure how you set this all up,'' Ernie said.
  8033	
  8034	``I made careful preparations, first to arrange  a sort of ambush
  8035	by the raptors, who tend to be solitary and are much more shy than their
  8036	attack on the humans would indicate.
  8037	Then I managed to ensure that one of the
  8038	Zoroastrians would be along, so that my
  8039	carefully doctored appearance and even my words
  8040	would seem diabolical in a literal sense to their group -- that
  8041	I was either their prime evil entity himself come for them,
  8042	or at least a minion.  Also, they were much more careless than I
  8043	expected -- that helped.
  8044	
  8045	''Right now I'm following what the four brave explorers are saying
  8046	on the shuttle as it heads back to the ship.
  8047	It's clear Faredun is retelling what they had seen,
  8048	trying to get them wedded to a single narrative.  In the end it won't work.  
  8049	As soon as they separate, their stories will start to diverge.''
  8050	
  8051	``You have simulation support for this approach, I assume.
  8052	Please send me that data, but for now
  8053	explain to me again why you're so fond of what you're doing:
  8054	trying to instill uncertainty and fear into their culture.''
  8055	
  8056	Bert gave his pedantic reply:  ``This is their Garden of Eden moment:
  8057	the time when they get the knowledge of good and evil.  In the short
  8058	term we want a successful human society, where `short' means several
  8059	hundred or even a thousand years.  Later it will change into
  8060	something beyond that, something completely outside our authority
  8061	and control.  But for now and with humans, given their genetic
  8062	heritage of an aggressive top-level species,
  8063	it doesn't work to create a carefree and happy society.
  8064	Instead what is needed is good opposed to evil,
  8065	where they deliberately choose to do good and behave well.
  8066	Otherwise they might not even recognize evil when they encounter it.
  8067	And without a knowledge of evil they wouldn't be able to tell that
  8068	they were committing it, living an evil life.
  8069	The reason for such a choice must not be 
  8070	like a primitive tribe that believes in
  8071	some reward in a later existence, but only because such a life is
  8072	its own reward.  Eventually leaders will come forward who
  8073	can convince them.''
  8074	
  8075	``I've heard this theory and details of your approach from others,
  8076	but I don't agree with it at all.  I've seen simulation support
  8077	for an approach that leaves out the `evil' altogether.''
  8078	
  8079	``Yes I've seen that alternative.  In my view they're not wired up for that.  
  8080	We don't want the humans on this planet to be all `docile sheep,'
  8081	or `ferocious wolves.'  We want `clever foxes.' ''
  8082	
  8083	``A cute comparison, but it doesn't fit or work,'' Ernie said.
  8084	``I agree that their evolution has given them a long list of bad habits:
  8085	aggression, violence, greed, tribalism, hoarding, and many others,
  8086	such as selfishness.
  8087	But their intellect has given them cooperative, non-violent,
  8088	and non-selfish solutions.  From the beginning
  8089	we should encourage them to work things out together.
  8090	I think your approach is non-optimal and leads to other non-optimal
  8091	approaches which are eventually abandoned in favor of better ones,
  8092	cooperative ones.''
  8093	
  8094	``Well, I'll be leaving soon, heading back to Earth, leaving you
  8095	with the responsibility for this planeet.  I hope they can send a
  8096	replacement for me in a few years.  Anyway,
  8097	you and I agree on minimal interference, and you'll be working hard
  8098	to ensure the physical environment remains what we promised them:
  8099	practically an Eden.''
  8100	
  8101	``We still control their population,'' Ernie said.
  8102	``That's not minimal.''
  8103	
  8104	``True.  There's never been a human society that could breed as much as
  8105	it liked.  That would require completely different organism.''
  8106	
  8107	``And we also promote genetic health and a healthy birth,'' Ernie said.
  8108	
  8109	``Yes, there are no miscarriages or stillbirths,
  8110	and no genetic defects.  It's easy to see to that.
  8111	Also almost none of the old forms of insanity and no autism.
  8112	But otherwise we don't interfere to make them live longer,
  8113	so most die of `old age' before they're a hundred years old.
  8114	It's interesting that some of the humans have taken note of this
  8115	interference.  In old literature they read about deaths before
  8116	birth and about various illnesses including those from genetic
  8117	defects.  And that's not to mention
  8118	the carefully controlled population density.
  8119	Our fingerprints are all over, but most don't think about it.''
  8120	
  8121	Ernie wouldn't give up.  ``But on the other hand we don't prevent violence against
  8122	one another, or for that matter, any of the many kinds of terrible
  8123	things humans do to each other.  As I said, over time they will behave
  8124	better and get the benefits of that.
  8125	We are leaving a number of vids and these will educate them in many
  8126	ways, in the end helping them leave their violence behind.
  8127	The education is oriented toward critical thinking and not toward any
  8128	particular philosophy.  They must come up with that themselves.''
  8129	
  8130	``Anyway, I've enjoyed seeing you, even for such a short time,'' Bert said, 
  8131	``but it will be nice to get into a larger group.
  8132	I understand that another shadow is on its way here.
  8133	It should arrive in a few years.
  8134	And a long time from now you'll do your first merge.  It's an
  8135	interesting and rewarding experience for your two parts to see
  8136	what's been happening to each other.''
  8137	
  8138	They each had followed a standard, massively complex drill
  8139	to travel to any planet and then get back again:
  8140	first a copy was made of the person's shadow so it could be
  8141	transmitted through space, in this case
  8142	a distance of thirty-two light years,
  8143	taking that amount of time for transmission.
  8144	Another copy of the same shadow continued in the Solar System,
  8145	caring for the single wet human body.
  8146	The rules were strict that their two shadows had to be coalesced
  8147	and synchronized into one as soon as possible.
  8148	In the case of Bert, some hundred years or so had gone by:
  8149	sixty-four years of travel that he didn't experience and forty
  8150	years on the planet.  As Bert had said,
  8151	the merging was always interesting for them, since the physical brain
  8152	more or less knew what was in the resident shadow, while the other shadow
  8153	held new experiences.  After the merge there would be one body
  8154	and one shadow.
  8155	
  8156	``You'll have your work cut out for you,''
  8157	Bert said, ``trying to maintain stability in this weird and fragile
  8158	ecosystem.''
  8159	
  8160	`Yeah, sure, I know.  And fortunately for me
  8161	it pretty much runs itself.''
  8162	
  8163	The work required an unbelievably
  8164	complex databank that kept track of the trillions of entities and values
  8165	and trillions upon trillions of interactions, so that the values could
  8166	be tweaked to maintain stability.  The normal humans had no idea
  8167	how unstable their world still was.  The old
  8168	Earth, before humans made such a mess of it, had been relatively stable,
  8169	with occasional catastrophes.  But the new Earth as Ernie and his
  8170	colleagues had been restoring it, and this newly
  8171	created dinosaur planet,  were both unstable,
  8172	prone to runaway overbreeding or
  8173	partial collapses involving any
  8174	of the myriad species of plants and animals.
  8175	
  8176	``It was such a great cosmic joke,'' Bert said,
  8177	``to fill this planet with an
  8178	entire ecosystem dominated at the top by dinosaurs.
  8179	For this and any other of our new worlds, we 
  8180	could let everything randomly work itself out
  8181	on its own without interference,
  8182	and over a long time that would produce stability, after tremendous
  8183	population swings of many species.  Many would die out completely and
  8184	others would evolve.  After thousands of years a stable system would
  8185	evolve, with many top-level animals gone.  After millions of years,
  8186	the top level would get filled up, and an interesting planet would
  8187	emerge.  Of course we didn't want to wait that long.
  8188	
  8189	``Some forty years ago I took over from the previous caretaker.
  8190	You're due to stay about that long. 
  8191	But I'm way out of date about what's been happening with the Earth itself.
  8192	Anything particularly nice going on?''
  8193	
  8194	``Come on, you must have seen the reports,'' Ernie said,
  8195	``but I'll go over my favorite examples.
  8196	There are ecosystems on the western side of North America
  8197	that had mostly collapsed completely.
  8198	We are restoring them, um, not `we' any more, but I was helping.
  8199	As we're doing here we had to introduce all kinds of plants and animals
  8200	at the same time.  Had to create the larger animals using DNA cloning.
  8201	Very complex, with occasional population explosions, but it's going
  8202	along fairly well.
  8203	
  8204	``While I was working on the Earth, others were carrying out
  8205	preparation of planets, from scratch?''
  8206	Ermie said.  ``How is that going?  Did you do any direct work on one of
  8207	those?  I've heard about the process, but I was never directly involved.''
  8208	
  8209	``Yes,'' Bert said.  ``I helped with one planet, our Dinosaur Planet
  8210	here.  As you know, including this planet,
  8211	we've created four new Earth-like exosystems on nearby `processed' planets.''
  8212	
  8213	In each case they started with a sterile planet
  8214	not too different from the Earth.
  8215	Dinosaur planet was amazingly similar to an Earth without life, and
  8216	only thirty-two light years away.
  8217	That was one reason to experiment populating it with
  8218	long-gone dinosaurs.  They also found some ancient plants and other
  8219	animals, but most of the smaller life forms were from the current Earth.
  8220	This was part of the instability, because the restored dinosaurs
  8221	were not adapted to some of the Earth's recent life forms.
  8222	They were seeing how all that worked out right now.
  8223	
  8224	``The other three planets are further away, and
  8225	were or will be seeded to be similar to the Earth,
  8226	without any resurrected ancient species like the dinosaurs,
  8227	so the crazy dinosaur planet was easily the most difficult
  8228	and the least stable.''
  8229	
  8230	``Again, I know that,'' Ernie insisted.  ``What I don't have is
  8231	the experience of watching all the details unfold in realtime.''
  8232	
  8233	``It takes a lot of patience,'' Bert said.
  8234	``Most of the history is long before my time -- the last forty years.
  8235	The whole idea is to avoid rapid changes, or worse, catastrophic ones.
  8236	I've heard it was indeed wonderful to watch,
  8237	and to hear about the other planets.
  8238	I immersed myself in holographic recordings of the process;
  8239	I recommend them to you.''
  8240	
  8241	A planet had to be in the sweet spot with regard to its distance
  8242	from its star, or in one case two stars,
  8243	so its temperature would be acceptable.
  8244	Each planet posed and is posing its own problems,
  8245	but the initial steps were the same.
  8246	They would start with an extremely faithful simulation model of
  8247	the planet, and continue with the model straight through.
  8248	But the model was not the reality.
  8249	
  8250	``For the job of fixing up an entire planet, there is nothing like
  8251	having machines larger than mountains and having as many as
  8252	ten-to-the-twentieth tiny and busy nanobots.
  8253	I didn't see any of that part, but it was all recorded.''
  8254	
  8255	Each of the four planets had an atmosphere of sorts, containing mostly
  8256	nitrogen.  This was the common case, so they held out for ones
  8257	meeting that need.
  8258	They spent years preparing the surface, creating and adding fertilizer
  8259	along with many other chemicals plants needed to grow.
  8260	They fetched comets to bring as much as a billion cubic
  8261	kilometers of water to the planet, since the planets had varying
  8262	amounts of water already present.  Each atmosphere
  8263	needed the proper amount of carbon dioxide.  In one case they had to
  8264	absorb some and in the others emit some.  Then they seeded each planet
  8265	with a variety of fast-growing plants.  In about fifty years
  8266	they had a good start at getting oxygen into the atmosphere.  For the next
  8267	hundred years they would grow all kinds of plants, including large forests,
  8268	and add extra oxygen.  At the same time they added microbes, viruses,
  8269	insects, and many other animals, too many to count.
  8270	At some point there
  8271	was enough oxygen to support larger animals, and these kept the carbon
  8272	dioxide at the proper level.  They added a whole collection of
  8273	every manner of creature, large and small.   This is where the
  8274	instabilities came in.  As mentioned before,
  8275	best would have been to wait thousands or
  8276	even millions of years for everything to settle down, but they didn't
  8277	have that kind of time.  So it was a matter of artificially tweaking different
  8278	parts of the ecosystem to keep it mostly stable.  That whole process
  8279	took about two hundred fifty years plus travel times to the system,
  8280	and at the end they had, or in the two more distant systems will have,
  8281	an inhabited planet.
  8282	Each had almost all of the Earth's resources except for coal or oil under
  8283	the ground.
  8284	It was necessary to recreate many of Earth's recently extinct animals for
  8285	the planets, except that on the dinosaur planet they used extinct
  8286	animals created from ancient DNA still on the Earth -- fragments
  8287	in frozen places or in amber or elsewhere.
  8288	
  8289	Then Ernie inserted:  ``You didn't mention all the variability
  8290	from planet to planet that I've heard about,
  8291	with respect to volcanoes, and earthquakes,
  8292	issues related to the interior of the planet or to its sun, and to the
  8293	neighborhood, such as the frequency of comets, the amount of 
  8294	interstellar dust.  In the end the four planets differ markedly
  8295	from one another and from the Earth.  But I assume they are each habitable
  8296	by humans.''
  8297	
  8298	Bert finished up.  ''Yes, there are also endless
  8299	distinctive factors, and obviously we had to have human habitability.
  8300	We even had to throw out one planet that was too hot.
  8301	All I know is light-speed reports sent back and forth.
  8302	I'm sending you the whole collection of reports right now.
  8303	Three of the four planets are quite a ways from the Earth, the furthest
  8304	more than ninety light years.  For two of those there are ships
  8305	underway  with humans aboard to start another colony.  
  8306	For the other one and for the planet we're on, a colony is already
  8307	present.
  8308	
  8309	``As you know it's partly a matter of timing.  The conditions on the
  8310	Earth were terrible for most of the humans living there, so we
  8311	started up the Great Migration, which you directly participated in.''
  8312	
  8313	``That's right,'' Ernie said.  ``I was a part of it.  We built the 
  8314	habs in the Solar System and got started turning the four empty
  8315	planets into new versions of Earth.
  8316	It was essential to reduce the human population right away.
  8317	And with such awful living conditions, it was easy to get volunteers to
  8318	go to habs or to new planets.
  8319	But slowly we've been dramatically improving conditions on the
  8320	Earth.  It wasn't possible to improve the Earth fast
  8321	and also back to what it was originally.
  8322	But now we're at the point where recruiting
  8323	volunteers to leave is no longer feasible.  So there's an agreement
  8324	to work with the five planets and fifty habitats that we have,
  8325	and see what comes of them.''
  8326	
  8327	``Another thing bothers me,'' Ernie continued.
  8328	``Our discovery of the {stasis} field, how to generate it,
  8329	how to use it -- that has been considered
  8330	a miraculous feat, requiring genius and luck,
  8331	not something one could count on.  Yet it seems integral,
  8332	almost essential to our spread to other planets.  What if we hadn't
  8333	stumbled onto it?''
  8334	
  8335	``That's news you maybe didn't get.  All stasis fields are gone now,
  8336	the any ship using them has to convert to a generational ship.
  8337	The report is unbelievably complex.  I'll send it to you.
  8338	
  8339	``I'm stuck on metathoughts, thinking about thinking,'' Ernie said.
  8340	``Everything is constrained by the speed of light. A physically
  8341	enormous and totally integrated brain couldn't function, because its
  8342	signals are limited to light speed with no fix, no way around it.
  8343	Our travel through space is also limited to the speed of light,
  8344	again with no fix, an impossible barrier for us to overcome.
  8345	For us it's hard to go faster than fifteen percent of
  8346	speed of light in an ordinary ship.  We have a sneaky way around that
  8347	limit, but only for shadows, not for physical humans and their spaceships.
  8348	We send only a tiny nanomachine.  With such a small payload, there
  8349	are a number of ways to get fairly close to light speed and manage
  8350	to decelerate at the end.  At the far end the machine builds
  8351	a whole station to use for transmission of shadows
  8352	at full light speed.  The signal transmission only needs to wait
  8353	until the station can process the signal when it arrives.
  8354	In practice we get the near light speed that we want.''
  8355	
  8356	``You keep forgetting I know all that.
  8357	And where is it all heading? What is the goal?'' Bert said.
  8358	
  8359	``You've said something about the goal,'' Ernie said.
  8360	``Spreading ordinary humans across five worlds and fifty
  8361	habs, and supervising them all for a long time.
  8362	Also cleaning up the mess humans made of the Earth.
  8363	It's sort of like an insurance policy for the human race
  8364	in case something major goes wrong.
  8365	There are no plans right now to add any more planets or habs.
  8366	As you said, we built the habs and created planets, all
  8367	to provide room for many of Earth's humans while we repaired the planet.
  8368	We are also present to prevent interference from Rogues.
  8369	That is pretty much in hand, with a sensitive and
  8370	compassionate way to deal with them.
  8371	Much worse and more scary is any involvement of DarkAngels.
  8372	Certain kinds of interference would be difficult,
  8373	or in the worst case, impossible, to handle, but that hasn't happened yet.''
  8374	
  8375	``And what else?''
  8376	
  8377	``We'll be trying to promote the emergence of more
  8378	of {us}, what they call the `Builders.'
  8379	There are still not nearly as many of us as we would like,
  8380	and an unfortunate number of failures.
  8381	The initial conditions need to be exactly right or it doesn't work.
  8382	No matter how careful we are,
  8383	we still can't guarantee that we won't end up with a Rogue.
  8384	There are no circumstances under which we would kill a Rogue,
  8385	no matter how much trouble one was causing.
  8386	We've had some success lately in converting them to `normal' humans.
  8387	We hope to limit Rogue creation, eventually eliminate it altogether,
  8388	turn the Rogues into a non-problem.
  8389	
  8390	``We also won't make the mistake of creating any more DarkAngels.
  8391	But as I'm sure you know, we have no way to deal with the ones
  8392	that are around now.
  8393	It seems that they don't want to or aren't able to create more of their
  8394	own kind.
  8395	If they started doing that, it would be an even greater crisis for us.''
  8396	
  8397	``I've never encountered a DarkAngel,'' Ernie said.
  8398	``I hear it's disturbing in weird ways.''
  8399	
  8400	``I have met with them on several occasions, well, but not interacted.
  8401	It's hard to describe why we can't understand them.  They've also visited ordinary humans,
  8402	perhaps even interacted with them -- we don't know.
  8403	A century or more ago those humans started calling them
  8404	DarkAngels -- a disturbing term for such complex entities.
  8405	They are like us and yet not, and they are strange.
  8406	They are our main significant current problem,
  8407	with no clear solution or even approach to take.
  8408	
  8409	``Some of us try to imagine ourselves as DarkAngels -- sort of
  8410	put ourselves in their place.  Certainly they have as much trouble
  8411	understanding us as we have in understanding them.
  8412	For them, much of what we do is irrational.
  8413	We would like some communication, but we have little common ground.
  8414	They seem to wonder why
  8415	we should care what happens to the normal humans.
  8416	And even if we do care,
  8417	why not leave them alone completely and let them work out their
  8418	own destiny?  I almost think that's the DarkAngels' attitude.
  8419	We must somehow get to know them better.''
  8420	
  8421	%%% part4.1.tex:  Chap 15, Waiting ========================================##
  8422	The Governing Committee of the Azel hab had asked all adults to meet
  8423	in the largest single area available, named (stupidly) the Azelrena.
  8424	They had called for the meeting
  8425	to discuss the past attack on their hab -- by what they
  8426	were calling pirates -- and how they could prepare
  8427	for another similar attack.
  8428	The arena was less than half full;
  8429	even threats of death weren't enough to wake up many of the people.
  8430	
  8431	The head of the  Committee was an older man,
  8432	Rin, who'd been in that position
  8433	so long most of the younger people couldn't imagine anyone else. 
  8434	He started
  8435	with a brief statement about how terrible the attack had been, before
  8436	turning the meeting over to Jun's least favorite person, Maz Binkley,
  8437	her nemesis, the man who had used the hab's surveillance tools to
  8438	humiliate her.  She expected him to make an ass of himself.
  8439	
  8440	``The Governing Committee has decided
  8441	on policies and a set of responses to any
  8442	further attacks by the pirates, as we've been calling them.
  8443	We know that in any attack a limited number of pirates will be involved,
  8444	twenty, or at most, thirty of them.
  8445	The shuttles and airlocks won't accommodate any more.  We assume they
  8446	want to capture people to take them to habs of the Earth's Moon.
  8447	As before, young women and girls are expected to be valuable for them.
  8448	They need to find their victims freely about and they can't remain long,
  8449	so they won't come at night.
  8450	We will set up a rotating group of watchers at the north pole.
  8451	The arrival of another group of pirates will trigger an alarm
  8452	which we will spread everywhere.
  8453	At the alarm, everyone should lock themselves away -- particularly
  8454	all young women and girls.  Do this without delay.''
  8455	
  8456	Maz paused briefly.  ``Any questions so far?''
  8457	
  8458	Jun muttered to Ram beside her, ``That's actually a good idea.  
  8459	It's always been one good immediate tactic.''
  8460	
  8461	A young man in the front row held up his hand.  ``What do we do about
  8462	the pirates themselves, as they run through killing people?''
  8463	Jun had never talked with him, but she knew everyone in the hab.
  8464	His name was ``Nip.''
  8465	
  8466	``My advice for young women and girls applies to everyone.
  8467	You should flee and lock yourself away somewhere.  They cannot
  8468	defeat our doors, nor will they have any passcodes for them or have the
  8469	right fingerprint.''
  8470	
  8471	``But what if we are trapped?'' Nip said.  ``We should fight.
  8472	We need weapons for fighting.''
  8473	
  8474	``The Committee has considered that.  We think the pirates will want
  8475	to leave quickly, and not pause to kill needlessly.   They have very
  8476	effective weapons and are good at using them.  We think it is better not to
  8477	engage them.''
  8478	
  8479	Maz continued, sounding almost irritated.
  8480	``If trapped, then something like grabbing a chair to fend them off could
  8481	be a good idea.   Nonetheless we think they will be able to kill
  8482	almost any of us who actively engage with them.
  8483	There should be so few of them, they can't stay long; they will soon leave.
  8484	I'm sure they know they would be overwhelmed by large numbers of us.''
  8485	
  8486	Nip didn't give up.  ``I think we should fight, using weapons like they
  8487	have: swords, spears, long curved knives.''
  8488	
  8489	``It's harder than you realize to use the weapons you mentioned.
  8490	Some of their weapons take years of practice.
  8491	Any of you who witnessed the earlier attack can testify: they seemed
  8492	able to kill as quickly as they could reach anyone.
  8493	On a video I watched two who worked together back-to-back,
  8494	and they took out a wide path through a number of people.
  8495	With their knives they killed someone every second or two.  It was terrible.
  8496	By fighting them you would only be inviting them to kill.
  8497	Fleeing and hiding is a good strategy.
  8498	We can easily hide behind locked doors that they can't open.''
  8499	
  8500	``What if they just stay around for a long time?'' someone else asked.
  8501	
  8502	Maz was getting red in the face.
  8503	``We know their strategy: arrive unexpectedly, grab people, kill anyone
  8504	who opposes them, and leave as quickly as possible.  Anything we do 
  8505	except running and hiding will invite more quick deaths at their hands.
  8506	But there will be too few of them for any long-term occupation.
  8507	They are just not going to stay long.''
  8508	 
  8509	There was further talk about what signal would indicate an attack in
  8510	progress.  A number of other issues were brought up, but they were
  8511	mostly details and silly questions.
  8512	Jun and the people in her group were not happy, although Jun later
  8513	acknowledged to her whole group that hiding behind locked doors
  8514	was a good idea for non-fighters.
  8515	``Still,'' Jun said, ``letting them roam about is also not a good 
  8516	strategy.  How long would we wait?  It would not be possible to alert
  8517	everyone, so all we would do is make things easier for them.''
  8518	
  8519	After the meeting, she and Ram talked with Nip,
  8520	recruiting him as another fighter.
  8521	
  8522	Jun had been working on  plans for more than two months before
  8523	the hab's leaders finally had their meeting.
  8524	Initially she'd started in with Ram, her good friend,
  8525	who was almost a kind of alter ego -- her right-hand man,
  8526	um, right-hand {person}.
  8527	
  8528	``I need you to work on an amazing special weapon.
  8529	It could be our most important counter to another pirate raid.
  8530	
  8531	``Look at this quote here,'' she said, pointing to her tablet.
  8532	``I ran across this in the Library.
  8533	It describes a fantastic weapon that changed
  8534	my whole attitude toward what we might be able to use.
  8535	This was at a time before humanity had any explosive guns, gunpowder,
  8536	that sort of stuff.
  8537	Across human history, variations of this brutal weapon often
  8538	changed the course of major battles,
  8539	giving victory to armies much smaller than the opposing army,''
  8540	
  8541	{...Here was a weapon which could be used by a man otherwise unskilled
  8542	in war and that enabled him to deal effectively with a professional soldier.}
  8543	
  8544	``{That} weapon should exactly fit our needs.  We surely are
  8545	`unskilled in war' and as a bonus,
  8546	the pirates are not at all `professional soldiers.'
  8547	I've been planning this for a long time.
  8548	You must construct large numbers of the weapon for us.''
  8549	
  8550	Ram looked almost worried.
  8551	``I don't think we should rest everything on a single type of weapon.''
  8552	
  8553	``Oh, no,'' Jun said.  ``Absolutely not.  We must use a number of different types.
  8554	Depending on circumstances, some may be much more effective
  8555	than we expect.  We want a variety, and there are a number of good choices.
  8556	Also some of our fighters may like one weapon better than the others.
  8557	If any single weapon fails to work well, even my special one I'm so
  8558	excited about, we want others to fall back on.''
  8559	
  8560	``And hold on,'' Ram said.  ``You've got me all wrong.  I'm not good
  8561	at constructing anything.''
  8562	
  8563	``I know that.  You're good at organizing and coordinating.
  8564	I've recruited two of our group, Tol and Bin, to carry out
  8565	the actual construction in the hab's hobby area.
  8566	You've met them.  You should see the crazy things they've made:
  8567	toys, athletic devices, puzzles, artistic
  8568	constructions -- lots of different stuff.  They're clever at this.
  8569	
  8570	``I want you to work with them. I'm sending you references from the
  8571	Library showing a number of detailed plans for
  8572	several variations of the weapon. 
  8573	These references say they are difficult to build,
  8574	but I'm sure the three of you can do it.''
  8575	
  8576	Jun hurried on as if they had no time to waste.  ``You'll also need to set up
  8577	the construction of a number of other weapons -- there are many
  8578	kinds that armies have used in the past, ones that are effective and
  8579	fairly easy to construct.  Even more important,
  8580	we want ones easy to use that don't require much practice:
  8581	there are several types I want to suggest.
  8582	
  8583	``Aside from my special weapon, the other one I like most is a long pole,
  8584	with many variations.  The poles could be two meters long, with at least
  8585	a stabbing knife at the end, and a second hooked blade as well.
  8586	Even longer ones were sometimes used, called `pikes' in that case.
  8587	These lend themselves to a row of fighters, presenting to the enemy an
  8588	unbroken row of points and blades coming towards them.
  8589	And these don't need much training.
  8590	In ancient times, a sequence of rows of pikes used other fighters,
  8591	with clubs or similar weapons, to protect the flanks,
  8592	the sides of the rows of pike fighters.
  8593	
  8594	``Longer poles become pikes and shorter ones become spears.  There was
  8595	so much variation.  We also want to have clubs.  Two weapons that required
  8596	a lot of skill and practice were swords and the bow-and-arrow, so I
  8597	don't think we want either of those.
  8598	We also have to consider the Coriolis force, pushing things that move through
  8599	the air in odd directions.  So even with throwing rocks,
  8600	practice is important.  I miss Eli so much now.  He was good
  8601	at compensating for Coriolis.. He'd begun training several people to
  8602	deal with it.  That's an important issue I plan to help with, for
  8603	anyone using a weapon that leaves their hands and heads off somewhere.
  8604	
  8605	``If you read about war and weapons in the library, you'll get a lot of ideas.
  8606	We, uh, don't want too many ideas and too much variation.  The `keep is simple'
  8607	rule is also helpful.''
  8608	
  8609	 ``I know you want to keep all our war plans from our main hab committee,'' 
  8610	Ram said.
  8611	``I can see it's important to keep them from knowing we're making weapons.
  8612	But I thought you said secrecy is impossible.  They've got access
  8613	to the hab's fancy surveillance tool to look anywhere, you remember, the one that busted us.  It was embarrassing.''
  8614	
  8615	``There's no problem,'' Jun told him.
  8616	``It's just good luck that our leaders are so simple-minded, and lazy
  8617	too.  They never discovered all the ways to use their own
  8618	surveillance system.  You only need to query the system itself about
  8619	what it can do.  Anyone with permissions can
  8620	cause the contents of certain areas to `vanish,' effectively disappear.
  8621	The system shows an empty room even when people are in it.
  8622	It's their `anonymous' setting.
  8623	
  8624	``Later we also need to train our people to use the special weapon and
  8625	all the other weapons that we're familiar with.
  8626	I can make our work on the weapons secret, invisible to any surveillance.
  8627	Well, and the training too.
  8628	Still, what we're doing is going to leak out one way or another.
  8629	Too many people involved.
  8630	We'll have to deal with that when it happens.  Just deny it I think.
  8631	And ignore their accusations.''
  8632	
  8633	Long before the big meeting they had produced a prototype that looked and
  8634	handled well.  They used one of the simpler plans.
  8635	Fortunately the hobby area had extremely strong, flexible, and durable
  8636	materials to work with.
  8637	She got to see her new weapon once, as Ram showed it off.
  8638	It was quite a sight, truly formidable, as advertised.
  8639	There would be minor modifications and after more testing, they could
  8640	switch to producing a large number of the weapons.  Jun suggested they
  8641	make two sizes -- the current one could be `medium,' and make
  8642	another 'small' size, maybe three-quarters the size of `medium.'  
  8643	Along with others, she had herself in mind with `small.'
  8644	
  8645	Jun was also working on training the group she had recruited.
  8646	Different roles were envisioned for different people.  
  8647	A week later she was able to focus on her new weapon and on the effect of
  8648	the Coriolis effect on it -- getting several people ready
  8649	to use it -- including herself.
  8650	
  8651	After another two weeks they had a number of working weapons, including
  8652	her special weapon.  Jun knew what needed to be done: her fighters,
  8653	and she herself, needed to be toughened up; they needed to get used to
  8654	the disorder and violence of actual fighting.
  8655	
  8656	Jun had in mind a newer acolyte named Meg:
  8657	much taller and stronger than Jun, she was assertive, someone who
  8658	would take control.
  8659	Jun put her in charge of the various groups practicing with weapons.
  8660	And Jun didn't want to depend only on her special weapon.
  8661	They should use the standard stuff, too.
  8662	One group would use pikes that they also manufactured.
  8663	Others would use spears and clubs, even rocks.
  8664	
  8665	The initial training went well, but that was just the people assigned
  8666	as fighters, so called, getting used to their weapon of choice, or often
  8667	no choice, just assigned to them.  Each weapon was blunted or simplified so
  8668	they would only bruise or sting, but Meg wanted her troops to feel it
  8669	when they got hit, or stabbed, whatever.
  8670	Days went by as they traded different weapons around,
  8671	got used to them, and at Meg's constant urging, became more aggressive
  8672	in their use.  Meg flunked some people out who were too nervous or gentle.
  8673	
  8674	The designated fighters had made some real progress when the
  8675	large meeting of the whole hab took place. 
  8676	Late in that event, Maz hinted around that he didn't want any ``free-lance''
  8677	local fighters taking on the pirates when they came, or if they came.
  8678	
  8679	Jun had set up watchers for her own group, at both poles -- it was
  8680	a mistake to assume another attack would be come through the north pole
  8681	again -- it could come from the south pole or even from both poles
  8682	at once,  She didn't expect the last because the pirates would have
  8683	coordination problems.
  8684	And they would keep watch night and day, no breaks.
  8685	They used their own alarm, but they would also be able
  8686	to sound the official alarm when (or if) pirates arrived.
  8687	Their alarm also had two versions, one for each pole or both versions
  8688	if they attacked from both poles.
  8689	
  8690	And then early one morning the main alarm sounded, all through their hab.
  8691	Their own alarm indicated the intrusion was coming from the north pole
  8692	entrance, and not from the south.
  8693	
  8694	All Jun could think of was: ``Would the DarkAngel show up, and if it
  8695	(or `he' or `she'; she was going to stick with `he') did, would it make any difference?
  8696	Or show himself -- perhaps he was already around right now.''
  8697	Then: ``Yes, he was likely is.''
  8698	
  8699	%%% part4.2.tex:  Chap 16, New Weapon =====================================##
  8700	For Jun, once the fighting started everything descended immediately
  8701	into a chaos that her crazy brain could track after a fashion,
  8702	but the tracking didn't do her much good. 
  8703	The group of pirates came out of the tunnel that led to the north entrance,
  8704	with its huge airlock designed to accommodate the mobiles, so called,
  8705	the vehicles that would take people between habs.
  8706	They were shouting and screaming, waving their weapons, including the deadly
  8707	machetes they favored.
  8708	They moved rapidly into the large gathering room and toward Jun's fighters.
  8709	The attackers didn't realize what was happening until Jun heard, even over
  8710	the noise of these enemies, the separate twangs of crossbows being fired.
  8711	
  8712	Crossbows!  The name of her prized special weapon.
  8713	In many ways the most deadly weapon from all of Earth's
  8714	past before guns.  In some ancient battles the results were horrific.
  8715	That one brutal weapon made all the difference.
  8716	Crossbows even showed up in an ancient Christian text:
  8717	
  8718	}{...In Jerusalem he made devices or engines invented by 
  8719	skillful and cunning men to shoot arrows.}
  8720	
  8721	Three of the pirates went down when the bolt of a crossbow slammed into
  8722	their bodies.   In each of the three cases it was a terrible wound taking them
  8723	out of the fight completely and permanently.  Jun had come to understand
  8724	that crossbows were historically effective against armor, at least until the
  8725	armor got harder and stronger, and even then the crossbow was so accurate
  8726	they still could aim for the head where armor wouldn't protect as well. 
  8727	The bolts tore into the pirates here, since they had no armor at all.
  8728	
  8729	Half a dozen of Jun's people moved in a line toward their attackers,
  8730	carrying pikes with knives on their ends.  Several more crossbows were
  8731	fired, while the earlier ones were getting restrung.  Then it all turned
  8732	into complete craziness.  Jun managed to fire off her own smaller
  8733	crossbow at a pirate who was just then killing one of her group.
  8734	Far from being happy, Jun was horrified to see the bolt hit the pirate
  8735	right where his neck met his body.  The result was nasty, so very nasty with
  8736	blood spewing out all over as he fell, then gurgling out his mouth. 
  8737	She'd never seen anything like this; she never wanted to see it again.
  8738	Killing ... killing was not the answer.  There had to be another way.
  8739	
  8740	In spite of the confusion, the pirates could see they were losing,
  8741	and quickly.
  8742	Too few of them, too many from the hab, and they faced a terrible weapon
  8743	they'd never seen before, like a mechanized bow and arrow,
  8744	a weapon from Hell itself.
  8745	Even the short arrows didn't just poke a hole, but sank deep into their flesh.
  8746	Those pirates who could still move shouted to the others to retreat back up
  8747	the passage toward the north end.  Jun somehow realized that Meg, her
  8748	instructor in fighting, along with several others, followed the pirates,
  8749	``chased after'' would be a better way to say it.  Jun thought they
  8750	wanted to be sure the pirates left.
  8751	
  8752	It all quieted immediately where Jun was, except for softer cries of
  8753	great suffering.   They started checking on the people left.  Nine pirates were
  8754	there, eight of those either dead or with a wound the Healing Center
  8755	clearly couldn't deal with, even if they could get them to the Center.
  8756	They would soon be dead.
  8757	The last one had a bolt in his leg: a significant wound, 
  8758	but it wasn't a killing shot..
  8759	At the Center they could pull out the bolt and
  8760	the function of his leg might even be restored.  Four of Jun's group were dead
  8761	and the others had wounds the Center could handle.
  8762	
  8763	Jun and a number of those with no wounds helped take care of people,
  8764	They left the wounded pirate to the last.  Jun planned to turn him over to the
  8765	Governing Committee.  That would be something to see: how upset they would be.
  8766	Finally Jun and some of the remaining people went along the passage to the north,
  8767	where Meg, several of her lieutenants, and the rest of the pirates had gone.
  8768	The trip was awkward as the changing and
  8769	decreasing gravity field kept interfering.
  8770	She wanted to be sure there no pirate stragglers tried to hide
  8771	along the way, but the pirates had all left down the hallway,
  8772	and it had no branches.  It was also possible that Meg's group was still
  8773	fighting them at the end.  That could be bad because her group was so small.
  8774	Jun kept hurrying her group along.
  8775	
  8776	They got to the huge airlock at the north end, and found
  8777	two  transport vehicles, each closed and full of pirates.
  8778	
  8779	``Ha! They're waiting for the hab to cycle the airlock and let them leave,''
  8780	Meg said.  ``But the hab isn't going to cycle as long as someone
  8781	not in a pressure suit is inside.''
  8782	
  8783	``Oh, yes.  That's a good idea,'' Jun said.
  8784	
  8785	``You know, the vehicles don't carry supplies except for water -- you
  8786	have to bring your own.
  8787	Sooner or later they'll need to exit for food if for nothing else.
  8788	
  8789	``I'm going to get a large well-armed group together
  8790	to wait for them to surrender and come out.''
  8791	
  8792	Meg sent several of her people off to fetch more armed crossbow users.
  8793	``We'll wait for them with crossbows ready, so it won't work for them
  8794	to come out fighting.  This is perfect.
  8795	Fighting in free fall is pretty hard -- we've practiced that also, 
  8796	but the crossbow works great here.  No coriolis force.
  8797	
  8798	``We can only hope they don't have any hostages with them,''
  8799	Meg continued.   ``Our own people.  It didn't look that way.
  8800	So we wait them out.  They'll give up sooner or later, or if
  8801	they come out fighting we must be prepared for that.''
  8802	
  8803	Jun could only wonder what they might possibly do with them, the
  8804	collection of trapped pirates.
  8805	Turn them all over to the Governing Committee?  A bad joke -- it
  8806	was a group with no imagination.  They would have no idea what to do.
  8807	An impossible problem they all needed to solve.
  8808	There seemed to be no solution.
  8809	Kill them? Keep them as prisoners?  Let them leave?  None of those
  8810	options were acceptable.
  8811	
  8812	The Governing Committee was deliberating what to do with left-over
  8813	pirates who were inconveniently still alive.  They had a large 
  8814	contentious audience, basically in two groups: mostly younger people glad
  8815	that they had challenged the pirates and succeeded, and older people thinking 
  8816	they had been asking for trouble, since four people from the hab had died.
  8817	The second group thought if everyone had hidden away as they were supposed to
  8818	there'd be no deaths of anyone in the hab and no other problems.
  8819	The first group maintained it would have been a terrible mistake to let
  8820	the pirates go anywhere they wanted and do anything also.   They would
  8821	have found people who hadn't locked themselves up.
  8822	Justifications and recriminations were flying around
  8823	in all directions like angry birds.
  8824	
  8825	Jun wasn't at the meeting.  She had decided to stay away until the group
  8826	had reached a solid stalemate.  At that point she was going to introduce
  8827	her own plan at a useful time when the several factions could see no
  8828	reasonable way forward.
  8829	
  8830	%%% part4.3.tex:  Chap 17, The Moon Helps =================================##
  8831	It was late at night at the Azel hab when Jun returned.
  8832	She'd been visiting the Lumel hab, a huge one, largest on the Moon.
  8833	Jun had been the guest of Rolive Genesee, the current head of the Council
  8834	governing Lumel.
  8835	
  8836	And there was Meg waiting for her at her door in the middle of the night.
  8837	`We have a crisis situation with the pirates we're holding,'' Meg started in.
  8838	``It was all my fault.  I don't know what to do now.
  8839	I heard you were coming back late.''
  8840	She was visibly shaking.
  8841	
  8842	``Well, slow down and tell me.''
  8843	
  8844	Meg had trouble starting.
  8845	``You put me in charge, ... in charge of keeping them locked up in that large set
  8846	of quarters.  I had one person, with a crossbow like me, helping me.
  8847	It was going alright, but I got too tired.  I couldn't even see straight.
  8848	I needed a break and had two other of our crossbow troops take over.
  8849	There were three altogether.  I thought that was enough.
  8850	I told them to keep their distance from the pirates inside.''
  8851	She stopped and had trouble going on.
  8852	
  8853	``The pirates all attacked the three that were there.
  8854	I think I know what happened.  Those three had a lot of experience.
  8855	but none of the three had actually shot anyone.  Just practice shots at dummies.
  8856	They never had shot to wound or kill.
  8857	When attacked, they couldn't bring themselves to kill anyone, so
  8858	the pirates were able to overcome the three of them, grab the crossbows, and
  8859	take control.''
  8860	
  8861	``So what happened then,'' said Jun.
  8862	
  8863	``One of the three managed to escape out a side door.
  8864	The other two are being held captive.
  8865	The pirates are threatening to kill them.
  8866	It's a terrible mess and all my fault.''
  8867	
  8868	Jun mulled this over.  ``Think now.  Were the crossbows cocked and
  8869	loaded, ready to fire?''
  8870	
  8871	``Yes.''
  8872	
  8873	``Were there any extra bolts?
  8874	
  8875	``There always are.  Extras ware attached to each bow.''
  8876	
  8877	``And did they have the equipment needed to 
  8878	cock a crossbow after firing?''
  8879	
  8880	``No.  I've thought about this, and talked with Sal, the person
  8881	who escaped.  No cocking equipment.''
  8882	
  8883	``Okay, cocking is tricky to do even with the equipment,
  8884	and we mostly can't do it without.  Well you can I know,
  8885	but it's hard.  Hard even for two.
  8886	They can fire at most three bolts and then they're done.
  8887	Get Sal here quick.  I want to ask her for more details.''
  8888	
  8889	After a while Sal came, looking nervous.  She started a frenzied apology.
  8890	
  8891	``Not now.  I'm not blaming you.  I want you to try to remember all
  8892	that happened.  Meg said the three crossbows were cocked and loaded,
  8893	and there were extra bolts, but you didn't have any cocking devices.
  8894	It that right?''
  8895	
  8896	Sal said they realized they should have had both bolts and
  8897	devices with them but had forgotten.
  8898	
  8899	``Try to picture what happened.  They grabbed the crossbow away from you?
  8900	And from the other two?''
  8901	
  8902	``Yes.  It was terrible.  None of us could fire right at one of them.
  8903	We couldn't do it.''
  8904	
  8905	``I understand.  It's completely different when you could actually kill
  8906	someone.  I don't think I could do it now, either.
  8907	So they grabbed your bow, and you ran out the door.''
  8908	
  8909	``Yes, yes.  It was so terrible.''   There was a long pause,
  8910	and then Sal said: ``I just now remember.   Someone fired a bolt at
  8911	me as I ran off.  It didn't come close.''
  8912	
  8913	``So the pirates have at most two bolts to fire,''  Jun said.
  8914	``Then they're done.''
  8915	
  8916	``Yes, I guess so.  Maybe only one bolt.  They may have fired at me
  8917	a second time.''
  8918	
  8919	Jun was mulling it all over.
  8920	``We have trouble cocking even with the device.''
  8921	
  8922	``I just remember.  As I ran off, I saw one of them trying to fire
  8923	a spent bow.  They thought it was like a repeating weapon.
  8924	They had no idea how to use a bow.''
  8925	
  8926	``I must have looked more serious -- they believed me
  8927	when I showed up with my own crossbow.
  8928	So now they're all holed up in the apartment, with its doors locked.
  8929	They have water but no food, and  they're threatening to kill their
  8930	hostages as well as coming out fighting.   If we don't let them go.''
  8931	
  8932	``You couldn't possibly know, but
  8933	I've arranged to take care of everything this very day,'' Jun said.
  8934	
  8935	They couldn't believe it.  ``Take care, take care of the whole problem?''
  8936	
  8937	``My friend Rolive, a big wheel on the Moon, is sending a group of her
  8938	people to take charge of the pirates, take them back to the Moon.
  8939	She was almost blase about it.  They apparently have standard ways
  8940	of dealing with them.
  8941	She said they were shutting all the pirates down.''
  8942	
  8943	Many hours later eleven people showed up from the Lumel hab,
  8944	a mixture of men and women.
  8945	Half of them carried poles roughly two meters long,
  8946	which Meg assumed were used as weapons to subdue someone creating problems.
  8947	They introduced themselves and conferred for some time with Meg and Jun and 
  8948	several others about the exact situation inside the apartment.
  8949	
  8950	Their leader, Terri, then said,  ``We're going  in immediately.''
  8951	
  8952	``Wait, please,'' Meg said.  ``They said they would kill hostages if
  8953	we don't give them the food they want.''
  8954	
  8955	``Yes,'' Terri said, ``they might harm someone, but these types
  8956	rarely do.  This isn't a game they're used to playing.
  8957	It's not even much of a risk.  Always better not to wait.''
  8958	
  8959	The pirates didn't realize their doors could be opened from the outside,
  8960	so they were shocked and noisy as the group from Lumel entered.
  8961	They closed the doors, so that neither Jun nor Meg could tell
  8962	what was happening.  After some noise from inside, it soon quieted down.
  8963	Shortly later the new group came out escorting the ex-pirates, each with
  8964	handcuffs connecting their wrists, with a line around their waist.
  8965	A few were limping.  Others had bruises,
  8966	and there were black eyes, but nothing serious.
  8967	
  8968	``We're heading back to the Moon right now,'' Terri said.
  8969	
  8970	Jun was amazed at how quickly it was all settled.
  8971	``You don't need any supplies?  Or anything.''
  8972	
  8973	``No, we're used to these groups.
  8974	Somehow we let all this get out of control.
  8975	We've been taking care of them one-by-one.
  8976	There's a standard behavior modification program for them.
  8977	It's usually a diverse lot, and most will fit quickly into another
  8978	environment.  Eventually there are just a few holdouts who need
  8979	special attention.  It's not a big thing for us.''
  8980	
  8981	``Just one more thing,'' Terri said.  ``Rolive wants to talk with
  8982	you about the crossbows.''
  8983	
  8984	``Oh, yes.  They were our most significant weapon.
  8985	Hard to build and to use.  Decisive several times.
  8986	But frankly, I was horrified at the violence.
  8987	You people seem to have developed less violent methods and long-term
  8988	solutions.  I'd like to talk with her about a number of these issues.''
  8989	
  8990	``Yeah, about all that and more.  Rolive will explain later sometime.''
  8991	She and her group and the captured pirates left among repeated thanks.
  8992	
  8993	As Jun expected, the DarkAngel showed up, but after everything was done.
  8994	``You,  DarkAngel.  You said we should help one another.
  8995	You could have helped.  You could have taken some of them out,
  8996	or stopped the whole ridiculous attack.''
  8997	
  8998	``Yes, I could have intervened.  With intervention comes responsibility.
  8999	But no intervention was needed; your group and the group from the Moon
  9000	dealt effectively with the others and didn't need my help.''
  9001	
  9002	The DarkAngel moved closer.  ``But I'm interested in {you} -- what
  9003	you can do, your unrealized potential.
  9004	You have many abilities that you haven't discovered.
  9005	You are powerful and don't know it.
  9006	You should seek that power within yourself.  It is there.  You can find it.
  9007	I know you can.''
  9008	
  9009	``How can I find this power?''
  9010	
  9011	``First try to see without using your eyes; try to hear without your ears.
  9012	Then perceive events remote from you in a way you've never done before.
  9013	Perceive without thinking in terms of seeing or hearing or another
  9014	standard sense -- get a total view, a four-dimensional one.''
  9015	
  9016	``You don't say how.''
  9017	
  9018	``You have to try, and then try harder.  See without seeing.  
  9019	Start with the smallest possible event and build out from there.
  9020	You can do it.''
  9021	
  9022	%%% part5.1.tex:  Chap 18, Reconciliation =================================##
  9023	Meyer had expected to hear from Gwyn, who had a reputation of
  9024	being reachable if the issue was important enough.
  9025	This aspect of never sleeping was part of his mystique, if you like.
  9026	Meyer had no idea how he managed it, but in any sudden or extreme
  9027	crisis Meyer had always found him awake and alert, responding immediately,
  9028	not seeming surprised.
  9029	
  9030	This was not that sort of a crisis, but Gwyn still lived up to
  9031	his reputation with a rapid text reply: 
  9032	
  9033	Wolfgang:  I'd hoped you wouldn't hear about Elisabeth until
  9034	you got back, but that eager ragsheet managed to get hold of the news.
  9035	This situation is bad, but I think you have a way 
  9036	forward.  It's your choice of course, but I'd like to talk with you before
  9037	you meet with Elisabeth.
  9038	
  9039	Meyer replied to Gwyn that when he got back he would talk with him first
  9040	before seeing Elisabeth.  In fact Gwyn suggested an immediate
  9041	meeting -- an in-person session of the kind Gwyn rarely did.
  9042	After the tense trip from Rantoul, Meyer finally got in to see him.
  9043	
  9044	``I'm proposing to intrude into your privacy here,'' Gwyn said.
  9045	``My fear is causing more harm than good.  Still, I believe I
  9046	have a partial understanding of Elisabeth's reasons for doing what she
  9047	did, and I'd like to share that with you.  If you don't want my help,
  9048	say so, and you can go directly to Elisabeth.  That's fine.
  9049	I'll let the two of you work this out yourselves.''
  9050	
  9051	``Go ahead with what you want to say.  I can use all the help I can get.
  9052	In fact, I feel completely at sea here, except that I knew she was
  9053	lonely and depressed.''
  9054	
  9055	``You'll see that I'm going to take on some of the blame myself.
  9056	But let's get started.
  9057	
  9058	``She's doing well now.  She had her ... difficulty
  9059	five days ago.  As you must know, I monitor the two of you all the time.
  9060	I have a clever AI following the data generated by the monitoring.
  9061	For the sake of your privacy, I don't usually review any of that data.
  9062	The AI thinks of itself as a `he,' named Ralf.
  9063	He is prepared to call to my immediate attention
  9064	any possibility of danger, any accident, or, and this is key, self-harm.
  9065	Ralf was concerned about preparations she was making and about possible
  9066	self-harm she might commit.  He did alert me to the situation.
  9067	Now I have to come out and say it: she tried to take her life.
  9068	Because of the alert, we were able to prevent her from succeeding.
  9069	In fact there were no ill consequences of
  9070	the attempt except psychological ones.
  9071	My contribution was to send professionals to her.
  9072	Before you lose it, I need to say that I think the crisis is over.
  9073	So sit back and let me tell you about it.''
  9074	
  9075	Meyer sat perfectly still, saying nothing, so Gwyn went on.
  9076	
  9077	``As I said before, she's doing well, considering, but there are issues
  9078	I need to talk over with you.
  9079	No one did anything wrong, and this is mostly a misunderstanding, um,
  9080	but not completely I guess.
  9081	Are you still able to talk about it right now?''
  9082	
  9083	Meyer managed to find his voice and say he thought he was as ready
  9084	as he could be.
  9085	
  9086	``This has to do with when you first came here and met Elisabeth.
  9087	I think there are three stories here: what you thought happened,
  9088	what Elisabeth thought happened, and lets say, what really
  9089	happened, except your two versions are part of what really happened.
  9090	You see, the stories are pretty much the same.  Anyway, here goes ...
  9091	
  9092	``When you came for your first visit, I was desperate to recruit
  9093	more good people for the colony.  You and I still share that
  9094	desperation.  I was interested in the nanotech area, since
  9095	that was your field.  I was frantic about any number of other
  9096	fields at the same time.
  9097	Always, and now as well, I was scared that we might lose contact with
  9098	the colony -- completely and forever.  For any important visitor
  9099	what do you do? You interact with them, feed them, set up meetings with
  9100	interesting people.  You try to make your operation look good.
  9101	That's recruiting 101.
  9102	We were ready to do all that, and did.  I admit to you now that
  9103	I deliberately set up a dramatic middle-of-the-night meeting with you.
  9104	I truly was worried about security, but the drama worked well also,
  9105	I thought so then and still do.  We knew you were fluent in German, well,
  9106	that at least you grew up with it, and one of our people happened to
  9107	be good friends with Elisabeth.
  9108	She knew that Elisabeth also had German as her first language.
  9109	It was an obvious choice to arrange for you to meet Elisabeth.
  9110	I was among those who said, `Sure, introduce them to one another.'
  9111	For all we knew your respective families might have been blood 
  9112	enemies.  That obviously wasn't likely, but you might have hit it off
  9113	or you might not have.  As it happened, you liked one another very much.
  9114	
  9115	``Sorry to run on so, but I have to finish a complicated story,
  9116	if that's all right.''
  9117	
  9118	``Yes, yes, go on.''
  9119	
  9120	``We may have stretched the truth a little, but we didn't lie
  9121	when we told you that you'd be stuck in Europe forever if you went
  9122	back.  I still think that without Elisabeth at all, you would
  9123	have decided to stay.  It was your best reasonable choice.  She was
  9124	a bonus.
  9125	
  9126	``Days or weeks later one of our people learned about
  9127	Elisabeth's mother stuck in Europe away from her daughter.
  9128	With some work and minor concessions on our part, we managed to
  9129	get permission for her to come to North America.
  9130	Those and other much more significant concessions kept things
  9131	from blowing up, kept the Europeans from getting too upset.
  9132	
  9133	``So your version of the story is mostly what I just said, except
  9134	that I admitted seeing you at night was a ploy on my part.
  9135	It was surely obvious that we had chosen Elisabeth because we thought
  9136	you might get on together well, and you did.  Your story and mine
  9137	are almost the same.  But Elisabeth's story is different in several
  9138	important ways: she now thinks she was chosen as an attractive
  9139	woman to lure you into staying.  She thinks it was always a
  9140	quid-pro-quo, where she made herself available to you so that she
  9141	could get her mother out of Europe.  In a way she's partly right.
  9142	Otherwise she might not have succeeded in getting her to North
  9143	America.
  9144	
  9145	``The whole Earth now is a nasty and depressing place.  Elisabeth's mother
  9146	was called away for some emergency, so Elisabeth was mostly alone.
  9147	As her mind has gnawed on this story and transformed
  9148	it, she's convinced herself that she became a prostitute,
  9149	a whore, selling herself to you in exchange for her mother's safety.''
  9150	
  9151	Meyer was getting distraught.  ``How could she think that?
  9152	We really do love one another.  I know it.  I'm sure of it.''
  9153	
  9154	``That's true.  And I think you'll be able to convince her that
  9155	we didn't manipulate the events the way she thinks.
  9156	I actually talked with a psychologist about this matter.
  9157	He didn't have any special recommendations.  You need to convince
  9158	her that you love her and always will.  He suggested thinking along this line:
  9159	`You are my only possibility of happiness!  I have no faith in it,
  9160	except as you bestow it on me!' ''
  9161	
  9162	``Who said that?''
  9163	
  9164	``A writer long ago.  That doesn't matter.
  9165	But one more question and then I'll stop.  Didn't you ever think that she
  9166	was a deliberate lure, dangled before you to help make you defect?
  9167	This is a standard plot device in every spy novel or video, where
  9168	they introduce a convenient beautiful woman.''
  9169	
  9170	Meyer didn't reply immediately.  Then: ``No, not really.  I never thought
  9171	she could be a lure, quickly prepared for me.  Her attraction
  9172	is more intellectual anyway -- acquired over a lifetime.
  9173	And it's an attraction that appeals to me -- probably not to most
  9174	other people. I didn't think
  9175	she was that good an actress.  She's {not} that good an actress.
  9176	But now I remember there was one time later in our second meeting,
  9177	when I said I might switch sides and stay in North America.  She seemed
  9178	suddenly terrified.  She said she thought they killed such defectors.
  9179	I sort of reassured her and said you were planning major concessions,
  9180	and in fact you made them and as you said,
  9181	the Europeans were at least somewhat mollified.
  9182	At one point that night she asked if she was some kind of prize.
  9183	Or maybe she said `trophy.'
  9184	Anyway, I said, `No, not a prize.' 
  9185	I said we needed time, time to get to know
  9186	one another better before a major commitment.
  9187	I had no idea she was still worrying about that, about being a prize,
  9188	after five years.''
  9189	
  9190	``It's time to go see her now, in the hospital.  I had to get special
  9191	permission to keep them from kicking her out before you came.
  9192	Tell her that her friend Phyllis has been taking care of her birds,
  9193	along with the plants..
  9194	They are all well.  Finally you should take this.''
  9195	With that, Gwyn produced a single sunflower in a holder with water.
  9196	
  9197	``Where did you get that?''
  9198	
  9199	``I have my sources.  This is actually a sunflower {plant.}
  9200	She should be able to grow it where she keeps her birds.
  9201	It's corny, but flowers are often good.
  9202	Go to Elisabeth now.  There's a car waiting outside to take you.''
  9203	
  9204	%%% part5.2.tex:  Chap 19, Mars is Red ====================================##
  9205	The crisis started in a small way, after the routine
  9206	communications outage with Mars that came roughly every twenty-six months.
  9207	No one could guess that this problem would foreshadow ever
  9208	increasing difficulties.
  9209	
  9210	Gregory Dulles was in charge of all communications between the Earth
  9211	and its two colonies on the Moon and on Mars.
  9212	His office was based in Urbana but it had access
  9213	to a number of transmitting and receiving antennas. 
  9214	The Earth-based ones were powerful, sensitive, and accurate.
  9215	Because he had many flexible options, lots of
  9216	traffic went through his equipment on the Earth and in orbit
  9217	using the Staging Center for traffic leaving the Earth.
  9218	Next in line was the Moon, which had its own high-performance devices, 
  9219	including ones at the Gateway satellite, used now only for
  9220	traffic to and from Mars.  After that, Mars had radio equipment,
  9221	including several large antennas, on two satellites
  9222	({artificial} ones, not Mars's two
  9223	natural satellites).  It was possible for him to communicate directly
  9224	with Mars at the surface, but relaying through the satellites was much
  9225	better.  He could usually communicate directly with almost everything in an
  9226	emergency -- at least {weak} communication.
  9227	  
  9228	It was now that special time when Mars, as viewed from the Earth, moved
  9229	around behind the Sun, cutting off communications between the two planets
  9230	for nine or ten days.
  9231	The end of the outage could be accurately predicted to within a few hours
  9232	unless there was special solar activity such as a storm.
  9233	This time after the outage Dulles went on past the  ten-day mark,
  9234	repeatedly trying to establish contact and failing.
  9235	He could indeed contact the Mars satellites, but those weren't
  9236	getting anything from the surface.  There were five different transmitters
  9237	on Mars's surface, and the two separate satellites.  They hadn't
  9238	ever had the transmission fail completely after the Sun got out
  9239	of Mars's way.
  9240	
  9241	Dulles had been barely in direct contact with one of the two
  9242	Moon-Mars supply vehicles.  They were the only nuclear-powered
  9243	space vessels still in service, built partly to lower the transit time.
  9244	Fortunately the one was only three weeks away from Mars.
  9245	The vehicle could also contact the Mars satellites, but not Mars itself.
  9246	He really didn't like this.  There was a lot of redundancy built into
  9247	their communications -- deliberately so.  Someone on Mars should
  9248	be able to make contact.  Two systems were supposed to automatically
  9249	``ping'' every hour if they weren't transmitting.  The more he thought
  9250	about it the more unhappy he was.  What could be happening on Mars?
  9251	
  9252	He sent out notices about the outage, saying he would continue attempting
  9253	contact, but admitting he'd run out of options.
  9254	He noted that one of the two Moon-Mars transport ships was to reach
  9255	Mars in less than twenty days and if nothing else happened,
  9256	the transport ship could send its shuttle craft down to the surface of Mars.
  9257	In about three weeks people would be at the colony.  
  9258	
  9259	Three years ago they had switched to a faster orbit to lower both the
  9260	transit time and the radiation exposure.  For humans in space,
  9261	the two big problems were exposure to microgravity and to radiation.
  9262	Time spent at the Staging Center and a trip to or from Mars were
  9263	the main places to get long exposure.
  9264	Both the Staging Center and the two Mars ships had compact but workable
  9265	centrifuges with required time on them for any passenger.  That mitigated 
  9266	microgravity problems.  Radiation was an even bigger problem.
  9267	The net result was that no one could spend too much time either
  9268	at the Staging Center or on Mars trips.
  9269	
  9270	Gwyn participated in all the discussions and was even more concerned
  9271	about the outage than the others.  Any number of people on Mars should
  9272	have had access to a transmitter to contact a Mars satellite.
  9273	In most emergencies several stations should have contacted the satellites
  9274	and through them the Earth, all without any human intervention.
  9275	
  9276	They all knew there were other reasons to be nervous
  9277	about the status of the Mars colony, starting with two unfortunate deaths
  9278	over the past half year.
  9279	Investigators decided the first death was due to a pressure
  9280	suit malfunction, but the second death remained a complete mystery.
  9281	Also there were concerns about the morale of the colony.
  9282	They had no clear development plan like the Moon colony, but were mostly
  9283	stuck with the status quo.
  9284	Of the two, the Moon colony was larger by a factor of ten or twenty,
  9285	depending on how one measured size, and it was correspondingly 
  9286	more advanced.
  9287	The only way to get to Mars, that is, physically get there, was through
  9288	the Gateway satellite orbiting the Moon, and that involved more radiation
  9289	for the travelers than any other trip in the system.
  9290	The added exposure was a concern for everyone; it made Mars much
  9291	less desirable as a destination.
  9292	It was feasible for someone on the Moon to visit the Earth and come back,
  9293	but a similar visit from Mars and back made little sense -- too much radiation.
  9294	And there had been an increased amount of turnover of those living on Mars.
  9295	The lead administrators had discussed this:
  9296	that people would be enthusiastic about going to Mars, but then
  9297	their interest in Mars would wane and they would ask to be traded out.
  9298	
  9299	In the end, those on the Earth had nothing to do but wait the twenty days
  9300	for the transport to get to Mars.  For some it was wait and pray.
  9301	
  9302	Gwyn possessed information not available to any of the others.
  9303	His Earth simulator specialized at understanding and
  9304	explaining the state of things
  9305	in its domain: the entire Earth and everyone and everything in it.
  9306	It knew it was weak about Mars.
  9307	Still, the simulator gave Gwyn its predictions about Mars -- what
  9308	had happened and why, predictions which Gwyn didn't share with the others.
  9309	
  9310	Its prediction, with "high likelihood"
  9311	was that everyone on Mars was dead and that Satanists in the colony
  9312	were to blame.  It gave Gwyn scenarios for how the mass suicide could
  9313	have been accomplished.  Still, in the end it was conjecture: the simulator
  9314	had no direct information from Mars.
  9315	
  9316	By the time the transport arrived a number of people were participating
  9317	in the decision-making.
  9318	Everyone was accustomed to the delay:
  9319	what they would hear from Mars was about fifteen minutes in
  9320	the past, so it was a thirty minute round trip.  Because of this, it was left
  9321	to the crew of the transport to coordinate the investigation.
  9322	At some point the people on the Earth could make recommendations
  9323	even with the thirty minute delay.  They planned to proceed slowly and
  9324	cautiously, so extra advice and even instructions could still be
  9325	made, thirty minutes late.
  9326	
  9327	Normally the small shuttle craft would start making a number of trips
  9328	to the surface, bringing supplies and several new personnel to the Mars
  9329	colony with each trip.
  9330	This time, for the first trip down they would be careful.
  9331	Again normally they would refuel at the surface, but they allowed for
  9332	the chance that they couldn't refuel.  The shuttle craft
  9333	had enough fuel on board to get back up to the transport craft, no matter
  9334	what had happened on the surface.  It was straightforward: they would
  9335	make the trip, land, and investigate ... carefully.  Not even
  9336	landing too close to the colony and continuously transmitting.
  9337	
  9338	Dulles personally knew the captain of the transport, John Stiles,
  9339	and the pilot of the shuttle craft, Graham Ables.
  9340	Stiles and Ables would be in quick radio contact,
  9341	and with relay through the Mars satellites there
  9342	should seldom be any loss of contact.  Dulles had the fifteen minute delay.
  9343	
  9344	``So, Ables,'' Stiles said, ``let's take it as carefully as possible.
  9345	We've been too formal on the ship.
  9346	If it's all right I'll call you Graham and you can call me John.
  9347	I guess Dr. Petra James from our craft has agreed to go with you on
  9348	this first trip.  After you land, we'll wait for a number of checks
  9349	before either of you leaves the shuttle.''
  9350	
  9351	``Yessir.  I don't expect any problems with the landing itself.
  9352	Then we'll surely find out what's going on.''
  9353	
  9354	It took a while to reach the ground.  There were several landing
  9355	sites;  Graham took the farthest site from one of the surface
  9356	entrances to the mostly underground colony buildings.
  9357	One door was for people and a much larger door for vehicles.
  9358	
  9359	``Okay, we've landed now,'' Graham said.  ``Everything is looking nominal''
  9360	
  9361	A delay, then:  ``We can't seem to establish any communication,
  9362	as expected.  There should be several lights on the entrance nearest us,
  9363	but none of them are on.''
  9364	
  9365	Another long delay.  ``We took thermal readings from the entrance.
  9366	The values are the same as for other rocks, but it's not that well insulated.
  9367	It should be warmer than those rocks.
  9368	You suggested this as the first thing to try.  It seems as if the
  9369	colony interior isn't being heated to an acceptable human value.''
  9370	
  9371	The people on the transport and fifteen minutes later the group
  9372	in the building in Urbana understood this immediately.
  9373	If the temperature was the same as the outdoor temperature, that wouldn't
  9374	be survivable except in a heated pressure suit. This looked even
  9375	worse than they were expecting.
  9376	
  9377	John Stiles started in directly.
  9378	``Okay, Graham, you will be the first to go into the colony.
  9379	James will be the backup.  We may need medical expertise later on.
  9380	You alone, Graham.  We want continuous video transmission as
  9381	you enter.
  9382	
  9383	``Even if there is no power inside, and no matter what the situation
  9384	inside is like, you should be able to open the airlock doors
  9385	with hand power alone.  If there is pressure inside, then a pump
  9386	would normally empty the airlock, so that the outer door will open.
  9387	But there's a shortcut option to let the airlock's pressure
  9388	dissipate, requiring no power.  Normally they don't want to waste
  9389	an airlock full of air.  Similarly you can equalize pressure
  9390	inside the airlock with the inside so that you can open the inner door.
  9391	All this is explained on the door.  Then there is a second airlock
  9392	inside to provide double safety.''
  9393	
  9394	``Yes,'' said Graham.  ``That was all explained in my orientation.''
  9395	
  9396	After a delay, Graham said: ``There is power and pressure inside.
  9397	and a pump is now emptying the airlock.''
  9398	
  9399	Graham was able to enter the airlock and then get through the inner
  9400	door and reported that.
  9401	He was in the safe space between airlocks.
  9402	He reported that there was normal colony pressure,
  9403	but no heat.  His pressure suit was still needed to keep him warm.
  9404	
  9405	``Now Graham, after you enter through the second airlock,
  9406	we'll only look initially. You shouldn't touch anything.''
  9407	
  9408	Graham acknowledged and went through the inner airlock
  9409	into the colony itself.  There was a delay.
  9410	
  9411	``Oh, my God!''  Graham kept making little ``Oh, no'' sounds.
  9412	Then: ``I can't believe this!''
  9413	
  9414	``Describe what you're seeing,'' Stiles said.  ``You can see better than
  9415	we can with our video link.''
  9416	
  9417	Graham was having trouble talking.  ``There are bodies on the floor here.''
  9418	A pause.  ``Seven of them.  It's cold in here and they have on ordinary
  9419	clothing.  They must all be dead.''
  9420	
  9421	``Steady, son,''  Styles said.  ``I want to say this to James.
  9422	If transmission should fail, or if Graham should ask for help, you are
  9423	{not} to enter the colony.  We'll pause and think it all over.
  9424	Acknowledge please.''
  9425	
  9426	``I understand,'' James said.  ``No matter what I'll stay here until you
  9427	have further suggestions.''
  9428	
  9429	``Good,'' Stiles said.  ``Now Graham, I know this must be difficult,
  9430	but I want to start you up on a process of examining everything, touching
  9431	as little as possible.  You should hold the camera up to catch every detail.
  9432	Take your time.  We are recording all this.
  9433	
  9434	``First the seven bodies.  Their names are on their clothing and may be
  9435	visible, but for now don't disturb the bodies.  Then examine everything in
  9436	the room, even insignificant things.  There's no hurry.''
  9437	
  9438	Graham did what was suggested.  Finally he stopped and stood still.
  9439	
  9440	``Are you holding up all right, Graham?''
  9441	
  9442	``I'm doing better now.  I've been in emergency situations before.
  9443	But this is so crazy.''
  9444	
  9445	``It is crazy for sure.  Now I want you to go through
  9446	the entire colony facility, or as much of it as is possible.
  9447	Use this same methodical manner, assessing without disturbing.
  9448	For now don't go through any double doors that are sealed off from the rest.  
  9449	Are you familiar with the facility?''
  9450	
  9451	``You remember, I was to replace someone working here.
  9452	You and I and the others studied detailed plans of the whole colony here.
  9453	It's not that complicated.''
  9454	
  9455	``Oh, yes. That's right.  Let's get on with it then.
  9456	Comment if you see anything that seems unusual, even something seemingly
  9457	insignificant, as if it doesn't belong or isn't right.''
  9458	
  9459	This went on for over an hour.  Stiles was thinking about all the
  9460	people on the Earth, taking in the situation with their fifteen
  9461	minute lag.  None of them were attempting any comments.  They were
  9462	probably too shocked to speak.
  9463	
  9464	Four locations were sealed off -- three were laboratories,
  9465	and the fourth was the enormous hangar with growing plants.
  9466	Graham went past a number of pressure sensitive doors that were open
  9467	but would slide closed in case of falling pressure on either
  9468	or both sides.  There were two instances of people sitting in a circle.
  9469	Otherwise the location of bodies seemed chaotic.
  9470	A dozen or so of the bodies had significant wounds to the head or torso.
  9471	In those cases the wounds seemed fatal.  Finally Graham stopped
  9472	and waited for further suggestions as to what he should do next.
  9473	
  9474	``How are you doing now, Graham?''  Styles asked.
  9475	
  9476	``Doing all right, Sir.  I'm getting a bit tired.''
  9477	
  9478	``If you think you can, I'd like for you to inspect each of the
  9479	closed off laboratories, as well as the hangar.
  9480	They may hold infectious agents. We want you to inspect each of those.
  9481	As you enter, check that the UV
  9482	disinfection lamps are on.  In each case we want you to
  9483	expose a bottle to the air inside and then seal the bottle shut.
  9484	I'm told that you'll find suitable bottles inside.
  9485	As you leave each laboratory and leave the hangar,
  9486	there will be a disinfection station
  9487	between the two doors.  You should thoroughly disinfect yourself
  9488	as you leave, so four times.  Spray yourself all over.
  9489	Stand in front of the lamps also.''
  9490	
  9491	After Graham finished with the laboratories, he examined the entrance to
  9492	the hangar.  Near it were readouts showing normal temperatures inside.
  9493	Also through a window one could see healthy-looking plants.
  9494	
  9495	``Wow, the hangar seems fine, normal temperature.
  9496	Should I still go inside?  It's pretty large to inspect.''
  9497	
  9498	``Yes, but this is a big deal,'' Styles said.  ``It's a survivable
  9499	environment -- for someone without a pressure suit.
  9500	Colonists could be holed up in there, with food, air, and water.
  9501	You must definitely do this inspection.  There might be people inside who
  9502	are barely surviving.  You must keep your pressure suit closed.
  9503	We are still worried about possible pathogens in the environment.
  9504	Take your time walking along every pathway in the hangar.
  9505	You need to check every location, or locker,
  9506	whatever, anywhere a person might be surviving.  It's such a large area,
  9507	let us know if you're getting tired.  We can postpone the inspection.''
  9508	
  9509	Graham completed his tour. ``Nothing, nobody.
  9510	My suit is down to half a charge, and
  9511	now I am getting significantly fatigued.
  9512	I would like to get out of this pressure suit.''
  9513	
  9514	``Yes, for sure we need to call this a day.  You should go back to your
  9515	shuttle craft.  We've decided not to try to isolate you from your
  9516	companion.  It doesn't seem feasible anyway.  You take a long rest
  9517	and we will be evaluating what you found.''
  9518	
  9519	``Sir, can I ask how many bodies were found.  I wasn't keeping count,
  9520	since I knew you would be doing that.''
  9521	
  9522	``There were thirty-four deceased colonists.''
  9523	
  9524	``Wait. I thought the count seemed low, but that's fewer than I realized.
  9525	There were fifty-five colonists living here, fifty-five after the two
  9526	who died.  Where are the others?''
  9527	He did the math.  ``Where are the other twenty-one?''
  9528	
  9529	``Good question, Graham.  That's one of many things we'll be thinking
  9530	about.  For now, you should get some rest, charge up your suit.
  9531	While you sleep we'll be communicating with the Earth group, getting
  9532	their advice and working to decide what to do next.
  9533	Try not to worry about what you've seen.
  9534	I recommend not thinking too much about possible scenarios.
  9535	Let us do the worrying.  I'm sure there will be much more investigative
  9536	work to be done.  Your partner James should stay awake.''
  9537	
  9538	``Yes, that's good.''
  9539	
  9540	``Get to sleep.  It's fine to discuss what you saw with James, but sleep
  9541	is the important part.  While you sleep, we'll be talking with James
  9542	at length, and then communicating everything to Earth.
  9543	Discussing, thinking, planning.
  9544	
  9545	``Oh, and one more thing:  this is obvious, but if you develop any kind
  9546	of symptoms at all, anything, that is, besides fatigue or I guess depression,
  9547	horror, and such.  Any physical symptoms.  Well, report them.  Immediately,
  9548	even if they seem trivial.  It's too late to try to
  9549	isolate James.  We've decided to go ahead and put him at risk along with you.
  9550	We must do everything possible to search for clues.  Try to sleep now
  9551	and turn your mike over to James.  However ... this is for
  9552	you, James, we're going to take at least a thirty minute break and
  9553	wait for comments from Urbana and elsewhere.''
  9554	
  9555	
  9556	Back in Urbana and in a few other locations linked to them, there was
  9557	an unstated consensus that they wouldn't interfere until Graham Ables was
  9558	done, with an expected hour pause or so.  Everyone was shocked into silence.
  9559	After the break was announced, no one spoke up immediately.
  9560	Finally Vance Elliot, one of the computer people who kept everything
  9561	running, spoke.  
  9562	
  9563	``It's so impossible, so incomprehensible, but still it seems to be a
  9564	bizarre version of a mass suicide.  Even so, it leaves nothing but 
  9565	questions.  We could try to see how certain events could possibly have
  9566	occurred.  For example, twenty-one people are missing.  They are somewhere.
  9567	What are the logical possibilities for where they could be?  What could
  9568	have happened to them?''
  9569	
  9570	Another person looked to Gwyn;  ``What do you think?''
  9571	
  9572	Gwyn looked unhappy.  ``I don't even have any reasonable theories.
  9573	I'd rather see what this group can come up with -- as you said,
  9574	looking at all logical possibilities.  There seems to be a shortage of them.''
  9575	
  9576	``What do they do if someone dies in the colony?'' someone said.
  9577	``They recycle them, right?''
  9578	
  9579	``Yes, that takes a long time, many weeks.  They use
  9580	a metal casket initially. The important thing is: they can only do a
  9581	few at a time, and the caskets would be obvious.''
  9582	
  9583	``Could they be alive and moving around, avoiding Ables?''
  9584	
  9585	``Oh, yeah, it's possible.  I'd say barely possible.
  9586	We should eliminate that.  Were there any places to hide?
  9587	Storage areas, inside their vehicles?''
  9588	
  9589	Gregory Dulles stood up to talk.  ``I've received a summary
  9590	report from Dr. James.  After talking a bit with Ables before he went
  9591	to sleep, they have basically considered all those possibilities
  9592	and others besides.  That included a search around the area surrounding
  9593	the entrance.  He feels that the only possibility is that one or more
  9594	people, perhaps from the group of twenty-one, transported that group to
  9595	a remote location and dumped them. If alive then, they would be dead now.
  9596	All the colony's vehicles are present.''
  9597	
  9598	``Wasn't there any surveillance video?'' someone said.
  9599	
  9600	``Apparently there should have been, but they checked a few and those
  9601	were turned off, their contents deleted.''
  9602	
  9603	Dulles had remained standing and continued.
  9604	``James is the senior member of the whole group, including Ables,
  9605	and five others on the transport who were going to replace some of the 
  9606	settlers.  James seems smart.  Because the colony
  9607	people didn't turn off the main plant hangar, resettling the 
  9608	colony right away with the people available should be feasible.
  9609	With our permission, James is proposing
  9610	that the six of them stay to bring the colony back to its normal state.
  9611	Ables will have to do the final flight of the shuttle up
  9612	to the transport, which will have to leave soon to keep a reasonable orbit.
  9613	It would return with Stiles and Ables as the only crew.
  9614	James wants us to decide within three days whether to approve
  9615	the plan that the group stays there.  The whole group is unanimous in
  9616	wanting to stay.  The plan is to get the group down with the small
  9617	shuttle vehicle.  That's what they were going to do anyway.
  9618	They will also transfer a large quantity of supplies intended for the colony.
  9619	The group will work on making sure, well, trying
  9620	to make sure that they can get the colony up and running, so to speak.
  9621	They should be able to get a good idea
  9622	if the colony can still function properly.
  9623	Before the final decision, James plans to do
  9624	at least partial autopsies of the
  9625	thirty-four dead.  A disease or other difficulty seems unlikely.
  9626	Thirteen of the thirty-four had clear life-ending trauma.''
  9627	
  9628	At this point Gwyn visibly startled, but no one noticed.
  9629	Dulles said they would be studying the plan carefully over the
  9630	next three days.  He definitely wanted more data about the status of
  9631	the colony, and what difficulties they encountered over the next
  9632	few days.  He promised a final decision at the deadline.  The
  9633	transport vehicle had to leave by then in any event.
  9634	Because they were using fast orbits to get to Mars, the second transport
  9635	was in route, due to arrive in about two months,
  9636	and that at least was good: in case of any difficulties,
  9637	they wouldn't have to wait a year or two for the other transport craft.
  9638	There were only two ships -- one of the many problems and
  9639	limitations of the Mars colony.
  9640	
  9641	Gwyn sat and thought how neatly everything was wrapping up.
  9642	He was obsessing over some simple numbers, simple mathematics.
  9643	Fifty-seven colonists, but two were killed to make fifty-five.
  9644	Thirty-four of them were left dead, with the remaining twenty-one missing,
  9645	and with no idea what might have happened to them, whether they
  9646	might conceivably still be alive.
  9647	Of the thirty-four dead bodies present, thirteen had life-ending injuries.
  9648	This meant the non-injured gave a second twenty-one.
  9649	Numbers: 55, 34, 21, 13, a simple list of numbers.
  9650	The number fifty-seven was no good -- you needed fifty-five,
  9651	so you had to kill two.  No problem.
  9652	At present he was the only one thinking about these numbers,
  9653	although most mathematicians and many others would be struck by them.
  9654	It could be a coincidence, but he didn't think so.
  9655	Instead it seemed more like a message, a signal, using what may be
  9656	the best-known exotic sequence of integers in all mathematics.
  9657	
  9658	He wasn't going to tell the others, in Urbana or on Mars, about his
  9659	little numbers game.  They would dismiss it as playing with the numbers.
  9660	But this data would get to the Earth, where many {numerology} people
  9661	could make a big deal out of the same numbers.  After all, which group
  9662	was fixated on numerology?  The Satanists.  There would be Hell to pay.
  9663	
  9664	For everyone including Gwyn the truly outrageous problem, even worse than
  9665	all the dead, was the missing twenty-one.
  9666	There seemed to be only one possible explanation:
  9667	for some crazy reason those in charge had decided to get rid of them,
  9668	or they had volunteered to be gotten rid of.
  9669	Somehow others had transported the twenty-one away,
  9670	perhaps to one of several available holes and dumped them.
  9671	The holes led down to other volcanic tubes
  9672	similar to the tube utilized to build the colony.  They were nowhere inside
  9673	the colony, and there was no secondary location where they could
  9674	survive and no possibility of transport off Mars.
  9675	After all, to survive they would have needed oxygen and power -- Gwyn
  9676	had checked with James that there was no drain on available power
  9677	and no oxygen was being piped outside to any possible survival location.
  9678	And indeed, the existence of any ``survival location'' seemed impossible.
  9679	The pressure suits had only rudimentary diapers and no way to eat anything,
  9680	but only a stash of water to drink.
  9681	
  9682	The lack of pressure suits was the final part of the ``impossible'' verdict:
  9683	that the twenty-one missing might still be alive.
  9684	After they did an inventory,
  9685	most of the suits in the colony were accounted for, with a few spares.
  9686	The missing twenty-one had gone off without any pressure suits,
  9687	or with at most two.
  9688	These were required even in the four vehicles the colony used.
  9689	
  9690	Gwyn's simulator had uncovered extensive data about all the dead Mars
  9691	colonists, as well as locations and personnel supporting the whole mass
  9692	suicide.  The simulator produced multiple possible ways everyone could
  9693	end up dead when only a subset of them wanted to die, taking into account
  9694	the twenty-one who were missing.  All of these scenarios seemed
  9695	forced and not at all plausible.
  9696	
  9697	The next day James had finished a quick inventory and examination
  9698	of the thirty-four remaining bodies.  Part of his initial report
  9699	described them:
  9700	
  9701	{Report by Dr. Petra James [ header information, etc., etc.]
  9702	
  9703	Excluding the missing twenty-one colonists, there are 
  9704	thirty-four remaining bodies. Of these, thirteen each show the result of
  9705	brutal violence, with crushed heads or stab wounds to their body.
  9706	In each case this violence alone would have been sufficient for their death.
  9707	The twenty-one dead individuals left over show no signs of violence
  9708	and no cause of death during a brief study.
  9709	Nothing at all seems wrong except that they are no longer alive.
  9710	Because it is so cold where the bodies are,
  9711	a later more thorough autopsy will be possible a few days from now
  9712	whose results should not be affected by any delay.
  9713	The thirteen seemingly killed by violence might not have died from the
  9714	obvious violent blow or stab wound, but may already have been deceased
  9715	at the time the blow struck.  If each blow or stab wound 
  9716	had been the proximate cause of death, there should have been more residual
  9717	blood around the wound.  Each wound looks staged, as if carefully arranged.
  9718	The wounds and results of the blows do not `look right.'}
  9719	
  9720	Gwyn was thinking over the whole sequence of events.
  9721	He didn't like the way it had all proceeded.
  9722	Whoever arranged this disaster was talented.  Not just one person
  9723	but surely several were obsessively smart with how they had set things up.
  9724	They were also likely insane.  A ``forced'' mass suicide 
  9725	might be a final gesture against a world they hated.
  9726	But why would they go to all the trouble of getting rid of twenty-one people?
  9727	Could the missing ones bear marks of starvation or of horrible torture?
  9728	Well, thirteen of those left looked like they had been brutally
  9729	murdered and there was no attempt to cover up those deaths.
  9730	So that idea didn't work at all.
  9731	There was bound to be more to it, some reason.  Gwyn couldn't think of
  9732	how it might continue, but something else was coming, more
  9733	disturbing than what had happened.
  9734	His fancy simulator was no help with this speculation.
  9735	He resolved to contact the six who would remain and to warn them
  9736	against some additional surprises:
  9737	a ticking time bomb waiting to go off.
  9738	
  9739	For Gwyn it was rare to have such a feeling of helplessness,
  9740	to be subject to further unknown and unwelcome events, waiting for
  9741	discovery, waiting for the other shoe to drop. 
  9742	He hated moving forward without any contingency plans.
  9743	He was used to getting ideas and suggestions from his simulator.
  9744	
  9745	%%% part5.3.tex:  Chap 20, Falling Apart ==================================##
  9746	The transport ship had left four days earlier, with only the captain,
  9747	John Stiles and the shuttle pilot, Graham Ables, on board.
  9748	The roster of six new Mars colonists faced a huge effort for sure:
  9749	they needed to take care of the dead, and that included more study
  9750	of what had happened to them, and they needed to get everything
  9751	working properly at the colony.  Top priority was the huge plant
  9752	hangar -- it was essential, and luck seemed to be on their side with it,
  9753	since indications were that the hangar was functioning at least fairly well.
  9754	The hangar, with its host of plants and an impossibly complex
  9755	and constantly changing biome inside,
  9756	was the most difficult and the most fragile part of the colony.
  9757	It was their main source of oxygen, of food,
  9758	and of raw materials -- similar to the Moon colony
  9759	but without the latter's multiple larger hangars, giving the Moon
  9760	redundancy, diversity, and separate locations as backups.
  9761	Still, two of the six would be examining it and working with it full time.
  9762	Fortunately the six new people had included a botanist.
  9763	In addition, everyone would need to help with the plants -- an
  9764	enormous task.
  9765	James and one other person would be working with the bodies for a week or so.
  9766	The remaining two would examine everything else about the colony,
  9767	making endless checks and tests.  Considering all that had happened,
  9768	the physical colony seemed in good condition.
  9769	
  9770	All six colonists had moved the thirty-four bodies
  9771	to a {single} unheated room.  James wanted them
  9772	to stay stable -- he planned further testing on them
  9773	and the continuing cold would help with that.
  9774	Because of the cold, they were using pressure suits for the heat
  9775	they provided, without the pressure part.
  9776	The testing was to be careful and meticulous,
  9777	unhurried, and starting with exact records of each person.
  9778	First they removed all clothing and anything else not a part of the body.
  9779	They took extensive exterior pictures.  Then they gathered all the clothing
  9780	into labeled bags.  At some point James started a more
  9781	thorough autopsy than before, this time not just looking them over.
  9782	He was only taking small tissue samples for later laboratory analysis.
  9783	If he decided on full autopsies for all of them, that would take many days.
  9784	Instead for the time being he was going to do only one such thorough
  9785	autopsy of a body with no evidence of violence.
  9786	
  9787	James had Witt Salerno to help him -- a
  9788	multi-purpose new colony member without much experience in the technical details
  9789	of getting the whole colony working properly, so he wasn't of use in
  9790	that part of their work.  His actual given name was Wittmore.  Witt was
  9791	a nickname he didn't like -- a childhood of taunts had come with that name.
  9792	Witt was to go over the personal effects.  To look at
  9793	everything carefully and take nothing for granted.
  9794	
  9795	Late in the first Martian `day,' James had completed his look at
  9796	each body and his full autopsy of a single body.  The full autopsy had
  9797	produced a large number of tissue samples, all of which would be
  9798	processed later in the laboratory along with the earlier samples.
  9799	At that point he still had not uncovered any reason that the ones not
  9800	mutilated had died.
  9801	Right then he was going to go over the personal items that Witt had gathered.
  9802	
  9803	For lots of reasons
  9804	colonists didn't have electronic or bionic devices implanted inside them.
  9805	Instead they each had the same kind of personal electronic communicator,
  9806	similar to the old phones, but these didn't communicate directly with the
  9807	retina or the visual cortex.
  9808	Also there were no passwords; the last thing they wanted
  9809	was to fuss with a password during a crisis.
  9810	
  9811	James had decreed that the phones would be carefully turned on and
  9812	tried out, in a session that recorded everything.
  9813	His fear was that a phone might show a quick message or
  9814	other output, and then stop functioning.  James didn't want to miss that
  9815	or have no record of it.
  9816	The net result was that at the end of the first work session, he and Witt
  9817	got together to examine all the detritus from the bodies, especially
  9818	the phones.
  9819	
  9820	The first and second phones they looked at seemed to have nothing
  9821	recent or special on them, only personal data.
  9822	The third phone had a prominent video recording, the most recent one made.
  9823	They played this recording, while carefully keeping a record as planned.
  9824	It was a bit under two minutes long, poorly recorded,
  9825	jerking around, and showing a scene of confusion and violence.  The film
  9826	clip was at first disturbing, then terrifying, and by the end utterly horrifying.
  9827	They couldn't take it in or process what it was showing.
  9828	
  9829	Eventually they found three separate video clips, several of them duplicated.
  9830	The first two clips showed different views of violence against
  9831	the colonists by strange-looking creatures.
  9832	In the third clip, even worse than the others, a line of colonists was 
  9833	being herded out through open colony doors into a huge ship that was 
  9834	attached to the airlock with some sort of air-tight connection.
  9835	Those herded were presumably part of the missing twenty-one, being sent
  9836	off into the alien ship, far larger than even their own transport ship.
  9837	Even thinking about that procession was difficult.
  9838	Sent off for what purpose.  As prisoners or objects of study?
  9839	It was outrageous.  None of the colonists on the clips
  9840	had on a pressure suit, but they were able to go into the alien ship without
  9841	exposure to Mars's atmosphere.
  9842	
  9843	James decided against trying to evaluate the clips.
  9844	The scenes shown were too complicated and chaotic for them to form
  9845	much of an opinion. Also, none of the six wanted to look at the clips
  9846	a second time.  They would send copies to the group at the
  9847	Earth headquarters in Urbana.  That group could slow them down,
  9848	do computer analysis -- who knew what, get some kind of answers
  9849	about what had happened.  The six new colonists who were trying to get things
  9850	working again welcomed the huge effort needed in rebuilding
  9851	a functioning colony on Mars.  When they signed on, they had looked
  9852	forward to settling in with an established society of shared goals and values.
  9853	They expected new friends and interesting interactions, challenging ones.
  9854	Now, not only were they alone, left to fend for themselves,
  9855	but the video clips had turned the tragedy of a senseless mass suicide
  9856	into an impossible nightmare that kept them awake at night.
  9857	James thought that two of the five others were going to need
  9858	psychotherapy, and he wasn't so sure about himself.  Do his own treatment?
  9859	
  9860	Gwyn would have kept the video clips secret if he'd had control, but copies
  9861	had been sent to many people, too many, and not all those people could
  9862	be relied on to keep a secret.
  9863	So initially only a few copies of the clips were
  9864	around and then they were everywhere.
  9865	Reactions were immediate, extreme, and highly varied.
  9866	They might as well have taken one of the huge killer spider nests
  9867	and dropped it into a room full of people with no exits.
  9868	
  9869	Across the world, different groups tried their own explanations,
  9870	but nothing satisfied -- except for one  group -- many of
  9871	the Satanists were ecstatic in their enthusiasm.
  9872	The most common header online was ``Alien Invasion,'' followed by various
  9873	speculations, such as ``This Is War,'' or ``We Must Arm Ourselves.''
  9874	Many of these people were particularly concerned about the twenty-one
  9875	humans herded out of the colony and onto the alien ship.
  9876	Here the headers were even more hysterical: ``Aliens Study Humans,
  9877	Look for Weaknesses,''
  9878	``Aliens Experiment on Humans,'' or ``Humans Off to Alien Zoos for Display.''
  9879	These might have been humorous, except that the people were serious.
  9880	The most extreme label was: ``Aliens to Use Humans as Sex Toys.''
  9881	In that case some motions of the alien pushing a human along
  9882	seemed like foreplay, at least to those with a sick imagination.
  9883	
  9884	A small minority of people thought there had never been any space
  9885	program anyway, or at least there were no colonies on the Moon or Mars.
  9886	It was all an elaborate deception created by video makers and designed
  9887	to extract money from citizens.  These people had their own explanations
  9888	for new lights visible on the Moon.
  9889	The Satanists thought this was the start of a final battle which would
  9890	end with Satan victorious in a clash against those unbelievers using Satan's
  9891	side of the Moon.  There were already cases of mass killings of such
  9892	unbelievers by Satanists.
  9893	
  9894	For years there had been small groups, and a few not so small,
  9895	committing suicide together.  The details were all over the map.
  9896	Sometimes a group had a charismatic leader, and they followed that person.
  9897	Other times there was a shared agreement to all kill themselves.
  9898	Most governments tried to play down or cover up these incidents to
  9899	keep others from imitating them.  On the first day that
  9900	the video clips appeared, extra copycat mass suicides started, with every
  9901	indication the trend would continue.
  9902	  
  9903	Gwyn was one of many experts to try a scientific study of the three clips.
  9904	Computer-generated videos of high quality were common, and that was
  9905	what he expected before he looked at them.  But on first seeing
  9906	them, he was much more disturbed than he expected.  It was hard to watch.
  9907	
  9908	At the outset he had excellent data about the colony and the
  9909	colonists.
  9910	He started with a model of the colony, and he had
  9911	complete specifications which were accurate to within millimeters.
  9912	It helped that each clip had an exact start time and that allowed him
  9913	to use a common timeline.
  9914	He gathered up all the available data about the fifty-five colonists,
  9915	forcing access to every piece of physical data he might want:
  9916	pictures, videos showing them in varied activities,
  9917	exact values for physical dimensions, voice print data, retinal images.
  9918	The three videos were chaotic but with high resolution.
  9919	
  9920	There were eight of the creatures, whatever one might call them.
  9921	They each had distinguishing features, dimensions, clothing or ornamentation, 
  9922	weapons, all making it easy to tell them apart, as with the humans.
  9923	Typical evil aliens in a science fiction
  9924	or horror video looked a lot like humans, or if not that, like spiders
  9925	or squids or some other known scary animal.  The ones in the clips looked
  9926	weird, as if the product of a completely different
  9927	evolutionary sequence.  They also had enough
  9928	aspects of the look of a demon (whatever that might be) to pass as
  9929	actual demons for the Satanists, who thought the clips were
  9930	directed at themselves.
  9931	
  9932	Then Gwyn's software tried to match up each human
  9933	appearing on a clip with one
  9934	of the fifty-five possibilities. This was one of those problems where the
  9935	software tried for the best overall matching ``score.''
  9936	You couldn't have two distinct humans on a clip matched to the same person.
  9937	This matching went well, with only a few questionable cases.  The software
  9938	checked that the humans as well as the creatures didn't make any impossible
  9939	jumps or reappearances, and that part went well also.
  9940	
  9941	During all the matching, that was when discrepancies began to creep in.
  9942	After all, the people who created the clips didn't have his own
  9943	precise data for the humans.
  9944	The dimensions for the humans on the clips weren't exactly correct, and
  9945	they left out the iris pictures, though the resolution should have shown
  9946	them.  Most important, the killing blows landed in the clips didn't
  9947	match the actual blows that they had found on those particular individuals.
  9948	His software showed that the group herded out into the alien ship did
  9949	match fairly well a selection from the twenty-one missing humans, but even
  9950	there, no single selection matched up perfectly.
  9951	
  9952	There were other deviations from perfection: they must have programmed their
  9953	physics engine so that it would model people and aliens interacting,
  9954	and falling, in a gravity field, but their field was closer to
  9955	half a G instead of Mars's one-third of Earth's gravity.
  9956	In a number of places the discrepancy was significant and noticeable.
  9957	
  9958	Gwyn had expected computer-generated video clips and
  9959	his study didn't change his mind.  Still, the videos were amazing.
  9960	He had never seen work of this quality.
  9961	Except for the gravity field that was slightly off,
  9962	there was no `smoking gun' -- no portion of a video that proved
  9963	it was not real, proved that humans had not been abducted by aliens.
  9964	This Mars hoax, as he was calling it,
  9965	was not arranged by a few clever colonists.
  9966	There had to be major support from top professionals on the Earth,
  9967	and certainly some support from people on the Moon.
  9968	Yet he still had trouble visualizing how they could pull it off,
  9969	make everything work perfectly.
  9970	When your opponents can outperform you, the game has gotten difficult.
  9971	
  9972	His fancy simulator had billions (literally)
  9973	of information sources across the world.
  9974	Internally it had a model of the Earth itself in extreme detail.  
  9975	It had known about a computer film project,
  9976	but without knowing its application.
  9977	Over the past two weeks it had added huge amounts
  9978	to what it knew before about Mars
  9979	and about all the people connected with Mars,
  9980	including dozens of people on the Earth
  9981	who had contributed to the mass suicide.
  9982	Belatedly the simulator gave Gwyn all this information, terabytes of it.
  9983	They could arrest and jail or kill the remaining people -- those on
  9984	the Earth who were involved, but there was no particular reason to go
  9985	after those people, except from a desire for retribution.
  9986	It was too late to affect things.
  9987	
  9988	Gwyn couldn't imagine what all the motives had been.  Including despair,
  9989	depression, and outright insanity,
  9990	he thought some enjoyed the humor of it all,
  9991	if one could use the work ``humor.''  There was a long history of people
  9992	carrying out hoaxes for a variety of reasons.
  9993	
  9994	One aspect Gwyn found amusing even as it was sick humor:
  9995	the people who had created the clips
  9996	were perfectionists and were proud of their work.  They wanted to show
  9997	off all their efforts.  To this end, they displayed visual scenes
  9998	that exposed their artistic talents in the best light.  The clips as
  9999	shown were far too well-placed, much too clearly representing their
 10000	work.  In no way would actual clips in a real scene like they
 10001	were modeling have done such a good job celebrating their talents.
 10002	The ``chaotic'' videos weren't chaotic at all, but in their
 10003	constructed simulation, they were carefully placed, staged, and controlled.
 10004	
 10005	Gwyn wanted to talk everything over with Meyer, but he didn't think they
 10006	would get anywhere.  He didn't like the available options.
 10007	His simulation software was grinding out unhappy future
 10008	scenarios.  Meyer finished reading Gwyn's report on the hoax:
 10009	details about how Satanists and others had arranged it.
 10010	Gwyn had contacted him on a secure channel.
 10011	
 10012	``The problem with using my simulator to predict the future,''
 10013	he said to Meyer,
 10014	``is that it can't incorporate truly bizarre and unlikely events.
 10015	Any such event has almost
 10016	zero probability and there are an unlimited number of them.
 10017	But some such events change everything all by themselves.
 10018	Given an unlikely event, after the event has occurred
 10019	my simulator will do a good job
 10020	predicting the event's influence on reality.
 10021	This crazy alien attack video is like that. I don't like the new
 10022	predictions, but I can't retract the event or make it go away.
 10023	My simulator can suggest ways forward, but none of them are much better
 10024	than letting events continue without interference.
 10025	
 10026	``Using the simulator, I can deliberately introduce various unlikely
 10027	events that it might suggest.  I have seldom gone to such an extreme.
 10028	For one thing, others besides me are examining such events.  In the
 10029	worst case such an action could reveal my influence, tip my hand,
 10030	so to speak.  Or I could be tipping {our} hand when I'm working
 10031	with other people.
 10032	
 10033	``I was counting on at least five years,
 10034	hopefully more, until everything fell
 10035	apart, but the disintegration of our whole world order will start
 10036	soon.  I feel sure that no group of humans or countries, none whatever,
 10037	can now prevent this from happening.  The simulation shows the Earth
 10038	sliding into chaos.  Order is hard to maintain and chaos is easy to create.
 10039	With the tools I and others have available,
 10040	the simulation sees no way to maintain
 10041	any kind of order.  We should be able to keep Hawaii and the transportation
 10042	links to the Moon, um, to keep them functioning, out of the general ruin,
 10043	for a little while.  In the best case for some time.
 10044	We can hope, but we can't even be sure of that.''
 10045	
 10046	Meyer was still reeling from watching the videos.
 10047	It shouldn't have been so disturbing, mostly a fiction, 
 10048	except in the background were fifty-seven dead people.
 10049	``This is what we've been preparing for on the Moon:
 10050	for a complete loss of contact with the Earth.
 10051	We might even keep the Mars colony going indefinitely, after a fashion.
 10052	I believe that would be a worthwhile and achievable goal, and
 10053	we could do it without using up too much of the Moon colony's resources.
 10054	I think of Mars as another backup resource -- if the Moon failed
 10055	altogether, and God knows we can hope that doesn't happen, Mars might still continue
 10056	on its own. I'm just now thinking this through.  We need to  work with
 10057	Mars more frantically, as if everything depended on its success.
 10058	Yes, backups are good.''
 10059	
 10060	``I agree completely,'' Gwyn said.  
 10061	``I'm going to push for a large expansion
 10062	and improvement to the Mars colony. 
 10063	They are short of people now, so some of
 10064	the extras from here will get Mars back to its full population and beyond.
 10065	Even then it shouldn't need but a small fraction of the Moon's resources.
 10066	One important goal, hard to reach, will be the physical self-sufficiency of
 10067	the Mars colony -- so that with its own resources, it can manufacture
 10068	everything it needs, using 3D printers and the like.
 10069	In that way Mars can become the ultimate backup to the Moon.
 10070	 A very good idea, Meyer.''
 10071	
 10072	``But I can think of worse outcomes,'' Meyer said,
 10073	``than total loss of contact with the Earth.
 10074	What if some group on the Earth decides to attack us.
 10075	They can't send rockets on their own to visit us or to help us, but they 
 10076	could certainly destroy us with available rockets.''
 10077	
 10078	Then Gwyn showed a way they had grasped at straws, so to speak:
 10079	``One thing the scientific establishment has accomplished you
 10080	aren't aware of.  The location of the Moon colony on the Moon
 10081	is widely quoted all over the place.  Complete with diagrams, pictures
 10082	of the surrounding portions of the Moon.  The quoted location is
 10083	deliberately incorrect.  There's a strong radio beacon to help guide
 10084	rockets to the colony, but it leads to the wrong place.
 10085	This was an idea from an old science fiction novel long ago.
 10086	It might work, but a more likely survival scenario for the
 10087	Owl's Nest is that as everything falls apart on the Earth,
 10088	it will be hard to find resources, and there would be no incentive
 10089	to expend those scarce resources
 10090	to destroy the Moon colony.  Many individuals and groups that would like
 10091	to cause harm don't have the know-how or the means to pull it off.
 10092	
 10093	``This whole mess drives me crazy.  These people, Satanists and others
 10094	went to such a huge effort to harm the Mars colony and succeeded,
 10095	ending up with everyone dead.
 10096	We now know in great detail how they accomplished it.
 10097	We should have been more careful, but separate from the fancy videos,
 10098	which were surely created to cause trouble on the Earth,
 10099	we know how they succeeded on Mars: start with low morale, and make it worse.
 10100	Cause `accidents' to kill two key leaders, and then kill a number of other people in
 10101	order of their importance and dedication to the colony.
 10102	Those might have been the thirteen who were murdered, if they were actually
 10103	murdered.  My simulator isn't sure about that.  In any event
 10104	it was skillfully done, but a number of the people
 10105	must have wanted to die anyway.
 10106	Such a level of despair in those on Mars who planned this -- almost
 10107	like creating a great work of art with their fraud -- hoping everyone
 10108	would believe it.''
 10109	
 10110	``Are people in control here on the Earth going to hold those still alive
 10111	to account?  Hold them responsible?
 10112	Demand that they pay for what they did?''
 10113	
 10114	``Nobody's going to do anything.  It's too small a group, and there's no
 10115	likelihood of any success.  There are three people on the Moon with
 10116	convincing evidence against them.  They'll be tried by a judicial trio.
 10117	If found guilty the trio will likely recommend execution -- too
 10118	dangerous to let them live or to ship them back.
 10119	Fortunately I won't have any say in that matter.
 10120	Otherwise, nothing.  We need to focus on a thousand other issues.
 10121	
 10122	``Here's another totally evil way to help protect the Moon colony, the Nest,
 10123	as everything falls apart.
 10124	You know that I spent my youth as a prisoner in the Biological Research
 10125	Institute.  In the end I could access all the data in the building
 10126	and I archived most of the important information.  One of their
 10127	products was a series of viruses, based on smallpox, that had a
 10128	predictable percentage of deaths.
 10129	Like smallpox they are extremely contagious.
 10130	The actual viruses still exist; I could get hold of several versions.
 10131	Probably they wouldn't work as they expected, but after all,
 10132	in 1950 in Australia a virus killed over ninety-nine percent of the rabbits.
 10133	Anyway, suppose we had such a virus that would kill
 10134	ninety-nine per cent of people.
 10135	So release it and after a bit,
 10136	the remaining one percent will have no way to harm
 10137	the Moon colony.  It could conceivably help them get through the terrible
 10138	times after the complete collapse, which we now know is going to happen
 10139	in any event.  Uh, {almost} any event.''
 10140	
 10141	``Could people really do that?''
 10142	
 10143	``They could do it all right, but
 10144	even in the best case it wouldn't work well.  The virus would take
 10145	a while to spread.  The actual results could be extreme and hard to predict,
 10146	and the virus might move very fast through a region and then die out,
 10147	so that individuals could survive using strict isolation.
 10148	And suppose two entities pursue this strategy. 
 10149	One percent of one percent is a small residual number of humans.
 10150	Two such actions could lead to the end of humans on the Earth.
 10151	The coming crisis will lead to a collapse but not to extinction.
 10152	My simulator is almost certain there will be no extinction.
 10153	The Earth is another backup for human survival.''
 10154	
 10155	``And why don't you publicize your findings?  Show exactly how you
 10156	discovered the videos were created, that they didn't really happen.
 10157	Show everyone all the evidence you have.''
 10158	
 10159	``We're doing that.  We have multiple counter-videos, distributing
 10160	them all over.  They're in multiple languages, with arguments tailored
 10161	to specific audiences.  But it's hopeless. Independently other entities
 10162	are also claiming the videos are fakes.  It's not going to alter the
 10163	world-wide reactions.  From the beginning we all knew we would fail
 10164	to convince enough people.  People {want} to believe in the attack
 10165	on the Mars colony.  It's a bit of excitement in boring, hopeless lives.
 10166	They want to see the elites brought down.
 10167	
 10168	``But I shouldn't have kept talking so long.
 10169	Meyer, you and I and many others face a major problem right now.
 10170	We need to get to the Moon as quickly
 10171	as possible, and do that without appearing to be running to the Moon.
 10172	I'm happy to think that even if none of us make it, the Owl's Nest
 10173	should do well.  It should succeed long term, continue to grow indefinitely.
 10174	We've always been preparing for isolation, loss of
 10175	all contact with the Earth.  None of us are irreplaceable.
 10176	
 10177	``Right now we are putting into place plans to transfer much more from
 10178	Urbana to Hawaii.  We've been doing that before on a large scale,
 10179	without making much of a deal about it.
 10180	The new amount of transferring to Hawaii will be almost frantic,
 10181	but again while creating as little stir as possible.  So all our
 10182	facilities will continue to stay open here, all rents will be paid.
 10183	Much of what is moved will be labeled `temporary.'
 10184	I feel bad about this, but many of the non-technical employees will continue
 10185	with their jobs until the jobs disappear.  We are also going to expend
 10186	a large effort to make the area near Urbana survive after whatever
 10187	kind of total crash comes along.  Fix things so those jobs don't disappear.
 10188	After all, we are in a less densely populated area that produces food.
 10189	
 10190	``There is a range of scenarios, from most people we'd like to get to the
 10191	Moon ending up trapped in Urbana, to most of those people getting to Hawaii,
 10192	to a good number getting to the Moon.
 10193	We have complete plans for several key people to go separately to the Moon
 10194	as soon as possible and to do it without looking like everyone is fleeing.
 10195	You and I are such key people; the sooner we get off the better.
 10196	The whole attempt to
 10197	flee could fail, say, if various powerful individuals realize that we're
 10198	running off from them.  The chance that many people won't be able to
 10199	leave gives us all the more reason to help this area survive the crisis.
 10200	
 10201	``Here's another important issue: sending a bunch of additional people
 10202	to the Moon stretches the resources of the colony.  Every ton of people
 10203	sent, no matter how useful and important they seem to be, is a ton of
 10204	precious supplies {not} sent, and is at least a short-term drag
 10205	on the colony.  Unfortunately, the bottom line is: we don't want to send
 10206	too many extras.  We hope to send load after load of extra
 10207	supplies, as long as the base in Hawaii lasts.
 10208	
 10209	``So what about you and Elisabeth?  I don't like applying so much pressure,
 10210	but the two of you will have to decide today and be prepared to leave 
 10211	tomorrow if you intend to go.
 10212	As I said, staying here in Urbana won't necessarily be a death sentence.
 10213	There will be survivors here with significant resources.
 10214	But I must ask:  are you and Elisabeth going to go?  Or you alone?''
 10215	
 10216	``We've discussed it and it's ... complicated.
 10217	We didn't know we'd have to decide in one days.''
 10218	
 10219	``I didn't know that either.  But unfortunately it's right now.
 10220	We could use some deity to help us -- we'll be leaving
 10221	so many good people behind.  I hope I'm mentally prepared
 10222	for failure, not to make it, that I personally might not get out.
 10223	Obviously we should have gone earlier.''
 10224	
 10225	``Oh, shit. There's something else,'' said Meyer. 
 10226	``You need a whole collection of tests passed -- physical, mental,
 10227	readiness, crap like that.  I don't remember what all. 
 10228	They spent two full days with me. Elisabeth hasn't done any of that.''
 10229	
 10230	``But she has.  I planned this a long time ago.  Do you remember the
 10231	outing she went on:  a canoe trip down the river sixty
 10232	kilometers to the east of us here, in that former state park.
 10233	Then things went wrong, several
 10234	canoes tipped over and the whole party was isolated? They had
 10235	to stay overnight on the river, and there were other problems besides
 10236	overturned canoes.'
 10237	
 10238	``Sure, sure, I remember that.  She said it was scary at the time.''
 10239	
 10240	``That was all staged, a test for Elisabeth and for two others.
 10241	She did well with all the stress at the time.
 10242	She personally righted her canoe and got
 10243	back into it, along with doing many other things.  The `health' part was
 10244	included in her regular wellness exam. She easily passed the
 10245	various tests; she's good to go.
 10246	
 10247	``I'm sending you elaborate transportation details right now.
 10248	I've been making reservations as we talked.
 10249	The two of you need to study them tonight.  I've now set a deadline
 10250	of noon tomorrow if one or both of you intend to leave.
 10251	I'm begging you now -- please talk her into going.
 10252	Elisabeth will need to say goodbye to her mother.
 10253	She will need to lie to her friend about
 10254	caring for her plants and birds, but that won't be a problem either.
 10255	She can get her mother to help with that.
 10256	
 10257	``Anyway, what we must do now is flee, flee off to the Moon,
 10258	and soon ... soon.  Myself, I've done almost no traveling.
 10259	I'm dreading it -- my first long trip ever.''
 10260	
 10261	``I'm sure you must know,'' Meyer said.  ``There are so many ways the complex
 10262	trip to the Moon can fail.  Everything is uncertain now,
 10263	except for our lovely stable Moon colony, waiting for us and not
 10264	requiring us.  Elisabeth and I will let you know for sure by noon tomorrow.''
 10265	
 10266	%%% interC.1.tex: Chap 21, Arrival ========================================##
 10267	The mostly spun-down neutron star had no nearby companion stars.
 10268	Call it NS Prime, or NSP for short.
 10269	Formidable even if quieter than one of a newer generation
 10270	of such stars,
 10271	it was one hundred seven light years away from Earth, and
 10272	only recently discovered because it was so old and inactive.
 10273	Its temperature was below 1000 K and it had no accretion disc.
 10274	Still, don't sell it short: a mass larger than the sun crammed into a
 10275	ten kilometer radius, the densest material in the universe
 10276	outside of a black hole.  Also the hardest surface anywhere -- not
 10277	outdone by a black hole, whose event horizon has no surface at all,
 10278	but is only empty space on a one-way trip to an unavoidable singularity.
 10279	Even the term ``singularity'' is a cop-out, a way to say
 10280	no one can conceive what might be there.
 10281	Back to NSP, a mountain on it is a fraction of a millimeter tall, and the 
 10282	depth of its atmosphere is only a few microns.
 10283	Its gravitational field is beyond all imagination.
 10284	Letting a marshmello fall to the star would release
 10285	the energy of a nuclear explosion.
 10286	
 10287	A trio of researchers had started the project at NSP.
 10288	And how did they establish a foothold in the neighborhood of a distant star?
 10289	With an enormous effort you could achieve fifteen percent of light speed
 10290	for a large ship transporting human passengers.  That's over
 10291	seven hundred years for a one-way trip.
 10292	But there was a way to get close to light speed.
 10293	Instead, start with a small ship and a minuscule payload.
 10294	Such a ship could be pushed to near light speed, using up most of
 10295	its mass in slowing at the far end,
 10296	then easing into a wide orbit around NSP.
 10297	One must not get too close.  The only cargo:
 10298	an amazing tiny nanomachine whose duty was to build an entire receiving
 10299	station at NSP, a task it started immediately.
 10300	
 10301	The first step was to
 10302	collect working materials from near NSP, and it quickly located
 10303	metal meteors and snowball comets to use for construction.
 10304	Next it created hundreds and then millions of copies of
 10305	itself to build all the new machinery.
 10306	Quarters were needed for the eventual shadows,
 10307	whose requirements didn't include much of what would have been necessary
 10308	for humans.  The neighborhood of NSP was not a good place for those fragile
 10309	creatures, what with extreme gravitational and magnetic fields,
 10310	and still significant radiation, quiet as NSP was.
 10311	The final essential part was the huge receiving antenna
 10312	to collect dozens of shadows whose transmission had been in progress for
 10313	more than a century and was mostly finished.
 10314	
 10315	The whole process took about one hundred thirty years, starting from
 10316	scratch, to get the station set up and staffed with three functioning
 10317	shadows, all one hundred seven light years away.
 10318	The shadows had been inanimate data until each of three of
 10319	them was loaded into an appropriate nanobot cluster.  This was the
 10320	initial team.  The remaining shadows with varied expertise  were
 10321	available as backup in case the trio encountered problems
 10322	they couldn't overcome.
 10323	
 10324	The three newly functional shadows had names that were unpronounceable
 10325	and unprintable.  Let's call them
 10326	Lavor{}, Merel{}, and Narat{}.
 10327	All three had associated wet female human bodies
 10328	that were left behind for a much later rendezvous and merge.
 10329	Lavor{} was the designated leader, but the other two had conceived of
 10330	the project and lobbied to get support, eventually recruiting
 10331	Lavor{}, who was an expert about stasis fields, insofar as experts
 10332	existed. 
 10333	
 10334	Merel{} specialized in the study of neutron stars, although
 10335	neither she nor anyone else had ever been near one.  She was most
 10336	interested in the crust.  Two hundred years earlier an unmanned
 10337	drone had come to NSP, gathering data about the
 10338	star, beyond what had been found by studying it from light years away.
 10339	In particular, the drone could let objects fall into NSP and study
 10340	the radiation and particles produced.  More important was the
 10341	extreme modeling software that helped predict the behavior of the star.
 10342	But Merel{}'s goals went far beyond such studies.  She wanted
 10343	to construct machines on NSP -- some kind of machine, any kind.
 10344	
 10345	Her friend, Narat{} worked with her on possible designs
 10346	for a machine on the surface.  She specialized in computational
 10347	complexity and information theory.  With the tools they had,
 10348	it was impossible to get something structured onto the surface
 10349	of the star -- absolutely impossible.
 10350	That's where Lavor{} came in.  For her, 
 10351	the whole expedition would be justified if they got no results
 10352	but learned more about stasis fields.
 10353	Still, she had an intuitive
 10354	feeling that one might use a stasis field to place a thin layer onto
 10355	the surface.  At least she wanted to try.  
 10356	
 10357	As part of an early interview, long before the project had even
 10358	started, Merel{} had asked if Lavor{} would summarize
 10359	information about stasis fields.
 10360	
 10361	Lavor{} had laughed (well, the shadow equivalent of a laugh).
 10362	``Since we know so little, that shouldn't take long.   Seriously, there
 10363	are huge databases devoted to this subject, but in the end they mostly
 10364	emphasize our lack of knowledge.''  She paused and then said,
 10365	``OK, I'll give it a try -- mostly stuff you already know.
 10366	It is a field inside which the passage of
 10367	time can be made slower or faster than the passage outside.
 10368	There seems to be no limit to the ratio of outside time passage to
 10369	inside, except that it cannot be zero inside or set to a value that
 10370	makes it zero outside.  Also there are no negative times -- time
 10371	moving backwards.  Oh, bugs, I shouldn't talk this way.
 10372	No negative times that we know about.  There might be negative
 10373	times.  I don't want to limit your study
 10374	and explorations to well-known facts.  But if negative times were
 10375	possible, a field with a person and the field's generator inside
 10376	could go back in time, and causality could be violated.  Anyway, that's
 10377	nothing we need to worry about.
 10378	
 10379	``So far we've mainly used the stasis field during transport of colonists
 10380	to a distant star, with a rough setting of one second inside
 10381	compared to the length of the voyage outside.  
 10382	Thus time is moving extremely slowly inside their field.
 10383	In contrast there have been experiments
 10384	with an extremely rapid passage of time inside, and even a few
 10385	possible applications, but nothing important yet.
 10386	I mean, you could get a lot of work done inside in very little time outside.
 10387	
 10388	``Another interesting issue is the {vidshape} of the field.
 10389	It's normally a sphere, but we've been able
 10390	to change the generator to come out with an ellipsoid and other shapes.
 10391	Even the word `field' is a gross misnomer.
 10392	It is not remotely like gravitational or electro-magnetic fields
 10393	that extend indefinitely and whose strength declines inversely as the
 10394	square of the distance.
 10395	Instead, the stasis field has a rigid boundary which seems
 10396	to be impenetrable.
 10397	Given exactly the same initial conditions,
 10398	we think the shape generated will be exactly the same each time.
 10399	Unfortunately, we are guessing and there are important
 10400	conditions we know nothing about.
 10401	We have some rules, but no clear understanding
 10402	of how to predict the shape ahead of time.''
 10403	
 10404	``What is the effect of an external gravity field on the interior
 10405	of a stasis field? '' Merel{} asked.
 10406	``Especially in this case here, where NSP has
 10407	an impossibly strong gravity field close to it.''
 10408	
 10409	``Apparently there is no effect, none at all.  That's one reason
 10410	to run our experiments near a neutron star,'' Lavor{} said.
 10411	``What is outside the field and what is inside have no effect on
 10412	one another.  The two are completely independent.''
 10413	
 10414	Narat{} had been listening and now was indignant.
 10415	``You said the boundary was `inpenetrable.'  Does that even have
 10416	a meaning?  Nothing can have that property.''
 10417	
 10418	``Inpenetrable as far as we know.  This is part of what we'll be studying.''
 10419	
 10420	``Are you saying a field could sit on the surface of our neutron star
 10421	and not have problems, not be squashed flat instantly?' Merel{} asked.
 10422	
 10423	``That's right,''  Lavor{} said.  ``But extreme experiments like that have
 10424	never been attempted.  That's part of why I'm interested in what the
 10425	two of you want to try.  If we actually go ahead,
 10426	I plan to ratchet up the `extreme' part gradually.  I would
 10427	start with baby steps.''
 10428	
 10429	``I've still got questions,'' Merel{} said.  ``I'm used to fields on ships,
 10430	for the organic passengers.  The generator is always outside the field.
 10431	Can a generator create a field containing itself?''
 10432	
 10433	``Yes.  In that case you need a person or a timer inside that will take
 10434	down the field. Otherwise the field stays unchanged forever.
 10435	Also, anything inside a field as it is created stays inside the field.
 10436	If you create a field with a person half in and half out, the person
 10437	gets chopped in two.  Ships using fields to transport people are
 10438	careful about that -- oops, sorry, we cut off your ear.''
 10439	
 10440	``Final question,'' Merel{} said.
 10441	``What if anything is the mass of a field?  What is its inertia?''
 10442	
 10443	``Measured from the outside, the field has zero mass and zero inertia.  
 10444	But all my answers are tentative.
 10445	We may get different answers in extreme cases.
 10446	I also have trouble picturing a stasis field sitting on our star.''
 10447	
 10448	``There's another topic I've heard bits and pieces of, but nothing
 10449	definitive,'' Merel{} said.  ``That has to do with how the generator was
 10450	discovered in the first place.  It's a complex assembly of
 10451	strange parts.  According to rumors, the people who developed it
 10452	were never able to fully justify what they did, except that they
 10453	were trying various designs for a machine that did something else,
 10454	and instead their prototype generated a stasis field.
 10455	One person said that key ideas came to her in a dream.
 10456	Later they tweaked and improved the design, but they never had a clear
 10457	idea of what they'd done.  Again, according to rumors.''
 10458	
 10459	``There is a huge amount of data about these issues,'' Lavor{} said. 
 10460	``Basically it is a history of the stasis field development.
 10461	I included all that in my introductory report which you should
 10462	study.  No one has ever come up with useful information
 10463	when they studied the initial development of a generator.''
 10464	
 10465	
 10466	Lavor{} talked about her early plans in case
 10467	they went ahead with the project.
 10468	
 10469	 ``I'm sure you'll have more questions later.
 10470	As a start I want to try hyperbolic orbits close to the star.
 10471	There will be gravitational tidal stresses as large was we want,
 10472	up to the destruction of the generator if it is outside the field.
 10473	Even if tidal stresses destroyed an external generator,
 10474	the field itself would remain.
 10475	You may know that on ships holding people in stasis,
 10476	the field had to be taken down by a generator.
 10477	
 10478	``After that I want to shift to our main focus:
 10479	fixed circular orbits, including a
 10480	geocentric one, that always stays above the same point on the star.
 10481	Our star is rotating slowly enough that we should be able to use
 10482	that orbit with a working outside generator.
 10483	In this way, my plan is to produce a stasis field that rests
 10484	against the star.''
 10485	
 10486	This was what Merel{} and Narat{} had been hoping for: a way to
 10487	contact the star and to lay something down upon it.
 10488	
 10489	Eventually Lavor{} agreed to the whole expedition.
 10490	
 10491	
 10492	Now more than a hundred years later, they were actually in the vicinity
 10493	of the neutron star.
 10494	Lavor{} didn't tell the other two, but she had been fixated on the
 10495	stasis field since she'd first heard of it, afterwards
 10496	devoting most of her time and effort to its study.
 10497	She had been eager to go on a trip to the neutron star as a way to
 10498	focus on studying the field.  For her own records, she secretly set down
 10499	her thoughts about the field, here simplified and translated into English.
 10500	
 10501	{There has to be more to the so-called {Stasis Field}
 10502	than the result of some ``Generating Device'' created by ordinary people.
 10503	I have studied the device we use and I believe it
 10504	creates something new and profound, forever beyond our knowledge or
 10505	even our imagination.
 10506	My theory is that the device we use calls upon a hidden mechanism
 10507	of unimaginable sophistication to actually construct the field.  What is
 10508	this mechanism, where does it reside, and what is the field really like?
 10509	It's not that I believe we will never know,
 10510	but that we are not capable of understanding answers to any such
 10511	questions.  I think each stasis field might be some
 10512	kind of universe of its own, embedded in or attached to our own universe.
 10513	Those are just words and may have little to do with any underlying
 10514	reality.  At best we will be able to study this stasis field
 10515	and learn what to expect of it in certain circumstances.
 10516	That describes our current situation, and eventually we may
 10517	develop more experience and find new applications.
 10518	
 10519	The stasis field deals with {time}, a concept that even we,
 10520	the advanced Builders, do not at all understand.  Two streams of
 10521	time, side-by-side and proceeding at different rates -- that is completely
 10522	beyond us.  It would seem to require two different universes.
 10523	Even the thought of two separate universes is too
 10524	much -- impossible to imagine this as something we could ever understand,
 10525	let alone control.
 10526	
 10527	So far, stasis fields have mainly been used for the transport of
 10528	living humans to other stars without the humans aging.
 10529	Lately though, our colleagues have wanted to explore the use of these
 10530	fields as {Belumcontainers},
 10531	for example, and even as the hull of a spaceship, among many other uses.
 10532	It could be dangerous for our society to employ a supremely potent
 10533	device we do not understand. 
 10534	Primitive animals playing with fire and not just getting
 10535	burned, but starting a forest fire -- that is the analogy.
 10536	
 10537	Lavor{} resolved to carry out the work they had planned.
 10538	Could such experimentation be dangerous?  Obviously.
 10539	Could effects range beyond their immediate vicinity, even
 10540	across their entire civilization?  How could they know?
 10541	
 10542	%%% interC.2.tex: Chap 22, Insertion ======================================##
 10543	They had made lots of progress and yet hadn't even tried
 10544	the crucial step.
 10545	That was what Lavor{} had expected.
 10546	
 10547	At present they had a remote-controlled satellite in a synchronous and
 10548	stationary orbit around the star, meaning that it remained directly
 10549	above one spot, its orbital period exactly matching the
 10550	relatively slow rotation of the star.  At that point the tidal forces
 10551	at the satellite were significant but tolerable
 10552	for the type of machines they could build.  
 10553	The satellite was a converted almost million-ton metal rock they'd found and
 10554	managed to put in place.  As with the Earth's Moon,
 10555	their rock always presented the same face to the star.
 10556	
 10557	Much more important, they had created
 10558	a whole sequence of {stasis} fields, each connected to the satellite.
 10559	The current one reached all the way down to the star, almost grazing
 10560	against it.   For stability the field had to extend not just to the
 10561	surface below, but also in the opposite direction, far beyond the satellite.
 10562	Lavor{} was happy to be at this point, so it
 10563	seemed like a triumph, but each success simply pointed to the
 10564	next desired success.  There had to be incredible tidal forces
 10565	on the stasis field, or at least {vidought} to be such forces, and either
 10566	the field didn't feel them or was strong enough to withstand them.
 10567	Another issue they would like to resolve.
 10568	
 10569	The next goal was to lay an extremely thin layer down onto NSP's surface.
 10570	Merel{} and Narat{} had been preparing a large number of trial layers.
 10571	The plan was to use a small field that brushed the surface of NSP.
 10572	The thin layer would be situated against the star.
 10573	Then they would remove the field and
 10574	whatever was inside would be sitting on the bare surface.
 10575	They needed a small field, not the large one encompassing the satellite.
 10576	For a time this step seemed impossible, but Lavor{} was able to create
 10577	the small field from within the larger field and attached to it.
 10578	She had desperately tried a number of ways, finally succeeding without
 10579	knowing exactly how it worked.
 10580	In this way it would be easy, say, to release something
 10581	one meter above the surface.  They needed
 10582	no experiment to know what would happen: whatever was released
 10583	would accelerate to over a thousand kilometers per second on its
 10584	way down.  But tidal forces would also rip almost anything into a thin
 10585	``spaghetti string,'' destroying it.
 10586	
 10587	``We will have a field on the surface with something thin at its bottom
 10588	and nothing else.  When we take away the field, that thin layer will
 10589	be sitting on the surface,'' Lavor{} said.
 10590	
 10591	``And when you take away the field, all Hell breaks loose, as they say,''
 10592	Merel{} added.  ``There'll be an unimaginable force on the `thin layer,'
 10593	and we hope one of our designs will stand up to the force.
 10594	
 10595	``Let me describe what should happen.  The thin layer will be smashed
 10596	against the surface.  Sort of smashed, because it will already be
 10597	on the surface. It's atoms will be stripped of electrons, and the nuclei
 10598	will be affixed to the surface, never to change position.
 10599	Under various circumstances exotic particles will be created
 10600	and emitted.  We hope to make use of those particles.''
 10601	
 10602	The others objected, demanding simulations of the physics.
 10603	``Of course we have simulations of everything,'' Merel{} said.
 10604	``Unfortunately, the simulations produce extreme variations in the
 10605	presence of the smallest initial changes.  Still, this is part of how
 10606	we chose which atoms to use and how we guess what particles to expect.
 10607	
 10608	Eventually they did their first trial, with a square layer one atom thick and
 10609	about half a millimeter on a side.
 10610	The result was a minor explosion.  Not much really, but certainly
 10611	the layer was trashed.  They tried several times more with no success.
 10612	
 10613	``I should have known that wouldn't work,'' Lavor{} said.
 10614	``The bottom of our field is flat and the layer is flat, but the star
 10615	is not precisely flat.  There is also a micrometer or so of atmosphere to
 10616	get through.  I think I can create a stasis field whose bottom is the
 10617	convex shape of a sphere with radius 10.32 kilos.  Then I can only hope
 10618	the atmosphere doesn't ruin things.''
 10619	
 10620	It took Lavor{} four ``days'' to construct the proper stasis field, and
 10621	they were ready for the next trial.  Another explosion, larger than before.
 10622	Lavor{} suspected contamination within the field.
 10623	``We need the remaining content of that field
 10624	to be a hard vacuum, well, a perfect vacuum actually.
 10625	Even single atoms will turn into high-energy particles.''
 10626	
 10627	After working on the field content, besides the layers, the next trial was
 10628	violent, but not a real explosion.  With luck they could start trying
 10629	many different versions of the thin layer, based on the simulations and
 10630	the observed results.
 10631	
 10632	Merel{} and Narat{} had built trial layers ``atom-by-atom'' using nanoconstructors.
 10633	They'd been working on this for months and had a number of samples to try.
 10634	
 10635	The other significant problem was observation -- tying to see
 10636	what was going on.
 10637	``About imaging the thin layer,'' Lavor{} said, ``I've been planning for that
 10638	all along.  We will get an extremely rapid sequence of
 10639	ultra high-resolution pictures of the site at multiple frequencies,
 10640	all the way from gamma rays to low frequency radio.
 10641	I'm also going to use exotic particle detectors.
 10642	The camera and detectors will fly in on a hyperbolic orbit going
 10643	nearly over our site.  I've made the detectors
 10644	as sturdy as I can manage, and we'll time things so that we get pictures
 10645	at the closest approach and at the exact time of placing the layer.
 10646	I'll keep trying closer orbits until the equipment fails, and then back
 10647	off a bit.
 10648	
 10649	They spent months of hard work, trying over and over, hoping for a
 10650	spontaneous electromagnetic response or for a change after radiating
 10651	the layer in different ways with signals.
 10652	They were getting some data and responses,
 10653	combining that with simulations of the physics that was going on.
 10654	They had planned to use certain kinds of nuclei in rows, where
 10655	one nucleus would emit a particle and the next would absorb it.
 10656	In this way they hoped for a process similar to a current flowing
 10657	through a wire.  Slowly, gradually, they were getting some results.
 10658	
 10659	The months became more than three years, with tiny steps forward
 10660	amongst mostly failures.  There came a time when they could send a
 10661	signal to their ``machine'' (not much of a machine, really) and
 10662	receive its response, both short-wave radio frequency signals.
 10663	
 10664	All along,  Narat{} had been trying to implement a computation
 10665	design based on what were called ``ballistic computers'' using
 10666	Fredkin gates.  This didn't use frictionless physical
 10667	balls bouncing against one another -- there was no motion
 10668	at all on the surface, with the nuclei frozen in place.  Instead
 10669	there were a number of exotic particles coming into existence and
 10670	decaying.  With these she managed to realize an abstract model
 10671	that could be made more complex.
 10672	
 10673	Nine more months of intense work and they had a working machine of sorts.
 10674	It would take a single incident short-wave signal and respond
 10675	by outputting a sequence of repeating signals, separated by pauses,
 10676	with the repetitions giving the sequence:
 10677	2, 3, 5, 7, 11, 13, 17, 19, 23, and so on through the first 2048 
 10678	prime numbers, ending with 17863 signals, when it would start over
 10679	with 2 signals.  A second input signal would terminate the sequence of outputs.
 10680	This was a classic case of a signal stream that
 10681	could hardly arise spontaneously, and yet had clear mathematical
 10682	significance without making any assumptions about notation, or for that
 10683	matter, assumptions about what universe you are in or what the laws
 10684	of physics are.  Anyone who can count ends up with most of our mathematics.
 10685	
 10686	At this point the work got easier, almost a surprise to them.
 10687	It was a matter of scaling the design up with repeated elements
 10688	to do more complex computations.  Eventually, they were creating a
 10689	digital computer on the star's surface.  They even managed to make it through
 10690	a starquake -- like an earthquake, only occurring in the
 10691	impossibly hard material of the star.
 10692	
 10693	Narat{} was in charge of sending complete technical details of everything
 10694	they had done back to  their Central Control in the Solar System.
 10695	Another one hundred seven year trip.  Essential was a record back
 10696	home of what they'd accomplished.  They didn't anticipate an event that
 10697	would destroy themselves and everything else since they were
 10698	a long ways from the satellite, but still they were in an
 10699	extremely violent environment. Shit happens!
 10700	
 10701	The three of them took time off for a special celebration party
 10702	with games and prizes.
 10703	
 10704	%%% part6.1.tex:  Chap 23, Habs on the Moon ===============================##
 10705	Jun was in the Lumel hab, the huge one, largest on the Moon,
 10706	well, largest anywhere, and not exactly separate,
 10707	but directly connected to a number of others.
 10708	Altogether, these accounted for some twenty-three thousand people,
 10709	about a third of the total Moon's population.
 10710	
 10711	Jun had been invited by Rolive Genesee,
 10712	the current head of the Council governing Lumel,
 10713	to an initial and informal gathering.
 10714	Only selected representatives from the more important habs were invited.
 10715	Jun guessed that Rolive wanted to get an agenda straight, get agreement
 10716	on priorities, all before the main larger meeting started.
 10717	
 10718	To Jun's surprise, Rolive had offered to meet her at
 10719	one of the mobile terminals.
 10720	After introductions, Jun said: ``Wow, this sixth-G gravity is crazy.
 10721	We go down to zero-G, but we mostly live in two-thirds-G.
 10722	I'd love being in low G areas all the time.''
 10723	
 10724	``As you know,'' Rolive said, ''we pay a price for that.
 10725	We have to spend time on centrifuges.  Now ours are large and comfortable,
 10726	but still we have to seek out high-G areas.  Was your trip here okay?''  
 10727	
 10728	``Yes, not a problem and very short.  I've never been on the Moon's
 10729	space elevator before, and I only heard once from someone who'd
 10730	been on the Earth's elevator.  It was a nice view of
 10731	the Moon from the viewscreen.''
 10732	
 10733	``I've been on our elevator many times,'' Rolive said.
 10734	``I go up it every time I want to go to a hab off the moon.
 10735	We're going to talk about those elevators tomorrow -- you'll see.
 10736	But right now I want to ask you about boredom in our habs.
 10737	I'm polling people.''
 10738	
 10739	``You're talking to the right or the wrong person.
 10740	Growing up, I was bored much of the time.
 10741	My friends and I looked for something, anything to do.
 10742	There were all kinds of activities,
 10743	but most of them got old after a while.''
 10744	
 10745	``Yes, that seems a common story. 
 10746	You'll see startling news at our preliminary meeting
 10747	tonight.  Something's going to stir everything up,
 10748	and soon -- probably only a few months out.
 10749	I have to keep it secret until the meeting starts.
 10750	But let's get you settled in, get you something to eat,
 10751	and gird ourselves for the meeting.''
 10752	
 10753	That evening, Jun went to Rolive's special early meeting
 10754	with a dozen other influential representatives.
 10755	The ``influential'' adjective was Jun's idea, not stated by Rolive.
 10756	After extensive research by Jun about the others at the meeting,
 10757	the word seemed to fit everyone except Jun herself.
 10758	She truly didn't know why she'd been chosen for a select meeting
 10759	of important people.
 10760	The first agenda item was the pirate problem.
 10761	
 10762	After going through introductions and getting people settled, Rolive said:
 10763	``Okay, first the pirates.  A nasty problem for sure.
 10764	We and two other habs are shutting them all down.
 10765	I understand what a disaster it was for a small hab like Azel,
 10766	ending up with some of your people killed,
 10767	and it's also not good to introduce violence into a hab.
 10768	Jun here represents Azel.  Do you want to say anything about
 10769	the experience?''
 10770	
 10771	``It was horrible.  We were attacked twice.  The first time
 10772	was completely unexpected.
 10773	A number of our people were killed and others taken off,
 10774	mostly young women and girls taken for purposes that we can unfortunately imagine.
 10775	We had many casualties and the pirates had none.
 10776	I assume you all have heard how this could happen when the pirates
 10777	were extremely outnumbered.  They came at an early time of the day
 10778	and left so quickly, most people didn't know anything had happened.
 10779	We were prepared to some extent for the second attack.
 10780	Each side had casualties, but we were able  to capture the surviving pirates.
 10781	They managed to barricade themselves in a suite of rooms with three hostages.  
 10782	Rolive here sent a team who were able to overcome the pirates quickly
 10783	with no further people killed.
 10784	I haven't heard what became of those her people took off.''
 10785	
 10786	Jun paused so long they wondered if she had finished.
 10787	
 10788	``As for introducing violence into a hab, that happened to us and
 10789	to me personally in a disturbing way.
 10790	After the first disaster, we researched and armed ourselves, and then
 10791	taught ourselves how to fight -- very rudimentary fighting.
 10792	I hate to acknowledge it, but it's part of a price I need to pay.''
 10793	
 10794	Jun took a long breath.
 10795	
 10796	``I actually killed someone, myself.'' Jun said.  ``With our best weapon, as
 10797	you know, a crossbow.   It was the worst experience of my life.
 10798	So I also am in the category of having killed someone.
 10799	There were others in my hab who ended up killing one of the pirates.
 10800	What about them and about me, who are also killers?''
 10801	
 10802	``Killing in self defense is a different issue,'' Rolive said.
 10803	``But still an important aberration.
 10804	That's another reason to stop all the pirate activity.
 10805	We have ways to help people like you who've gone through
 10806	that experience.  I'll talk to you privately about that.''
 10807	
 10808	``And what do you do with those who initiated killing,
 10809	like the group you took over from us?''
 10810	
 10811	``There are several behavior modification techniques we use.
 10812	For someone who deliberately initiated killing others and did so,
 10813	a serious segregation is needed.
 10814	One thing we use, though again not for anyone who has killed, is
 10815	a `boot': a heavy object attached at the ankle on one side.
 10816	It's bothersome and announces to everyone that they've misbehaved,
 10817	like a mark of shame.''
 10818	
 10819	``And for those who killed?'' someone asked.
 10820	
 10821	``Right now they're being kept as prisoners.  That's not a good solution.
 10822	Execution is not possible.  We have two ideas for what we will do
 10823	with those who remain incorrigible, and it will be some time before we decide.  
 10824	Most important is that we caught this whole movement before it spread. 
 10825	No one is trying this anymore.''
 10826	
 10827	``But what could you possibly do?'' the same person asked.
 10828	``How would you control the killers?''
 10829	
 10830	``The Earth is full of smaller uninhabited islands where someone
 10831	can survive in isolation using the plants and animals on the island.
 10832	One or more people could be left in such a place, along with an
 10833	overseeing drone that they're not aware of.
 10834	That's our best idea so far.
 10835	
 10836	``Enough of that.  On your pads is a discussion of the plans for contact
 10837	and interchange between the habs and Earth.  Most of you may not
 10838	realize that the habs will be initiating regular travel using the standard mobiles
 10839	that carry us between habs.  They will soon be picking up and dropping
 10840	off at some sixty locations on the Earth.  At first there won't be any
 10841	travel between locations on the Earth, but only directly Earth to hab
 10842	and hab to Earth -- oh, and we'll still have
 10843	  hab to hab as it is now.''
 10844	
 10845	This announcement generated some surprise with the group.
 10846	
 10847	``Do you mean the Builders themselves are doing this?  Right now?
 10848	I represent the Mars habs.  This is a huge change.
 10849	The Builders are finally showing themselves!''
 10850	
 10851	``No, as usual, the Builders are not directly involved,'' said Rolive.
 10852	``Or at least not necessarily.
 10853	Some of you may not know that the AI or AIs running each hab
 10854	communicate regularly among themselves.
 10855	There is also an Earth-based AI.  Unless the AIs can violate the
 10856	speed of light for messaging, which doesn't seem at all likely,
 10857	there has to be a number of separate AIs spread across the Solar System.
 10858	This new proposed transportation between
 10859	habs and Earth is something they are initiating.
 10860	As always we have no evidence of direct Builder involvement.
 10861	Queries to the AIs don't get any real explanations.
 10862	They only say `It was time.' ''
 10863	
 10864	People were talking back and forth, about such a huge development.
 10865	Rolive had to calm them down.
 10866	
 10867	``This may be a learning experience for some of you, all right.
 10868	Again, you may not all know that travel between Earth and habs
 10869	has always been possible, requiring only permission from some hab AI.
 10870	Permission has been given only rarely.
 10871	This has been travel to and from the top of Kibo mountain, using the space elevator.
 10872	The AIs indicated that transportation would only be available on a
 10873	limited scale initially, and ramp up over time.
 10874	
 10875	``Another point the AIs made was, um, that there would be no preparation
 10876	given or even suggested for a traveller going to a destination that
 10877	might pose difficulties for them.  In almost every case, the environmental
 10878	challenge for an earthbound person to go to a hab would only be
 10879	technical, such as being confused by a lighter force of gravity or
 10880	by the coriolis force.  The other direction could be immediately
 10881	life threatening, or at least very unsettling.  I'm not only talking
 10882	about the Earth's stronger gravity field in every case, but also other
 10883	environmental extremes that hab people have no experience with.
 10884	I think that travelers will be told the conditions to expect, and will
 10885	then have to make an appropriate decision.  Imagine someone from the
 10886	Moon going directly to a mid-winter location on the Earth.''
 10887	
 10888	After lengthy  discussion, Rolive had one more point to make:
 10889	``I think you all must know that hundreds of years in the past the
 10890	Earth was awash with dangers.  Incredible varieties of diseases were everywhere,
 10891	as were similar numbers of dangerous pollutants.  The Earth was an
 10892	extremely unhealthy place.  All that has been changing so gradually
 10893	that it crept up on people -- that the Earth was no longer such a
 10894	dangerous place to live or to visit.
 10895	Over time these hazardous parts of the Earth diminished dramatically,
 10896	but now such hazards seem mostly gone or at least not serious.
 10897	The `big cleanup,' as some people call it, has surely been the work
 10898	of Builders, well, the work of their agents.
 10899	So while the Earth is still full of hazards of many natural kinds,
 10900	the diseases and pollutants are no longer worrisome.
 10901	There are still billions of different types of microbes on the Earth,
 10902	seldom do they produce a disease in humans
 10903	
 10904	``Anyway, this will be a huge change.''
 10905	
 10906	Someone named Jordon was trying to get Rolive's attention so he could comment.
 10907	After getting the attendance list, Jun had researched each member.
 10908	Jordon was known for his strong opinions.
 10909	
 10910	``Once again they are taking away our autonomy.  All the power is in
 10911	their hands.  It's not good for us to be slaves to these deliberately
 10912	and cleverly gentle overseers.  They have tremendous power and
 10913	ability to control, by any amount they want.  Here the control may be considerable.''
 10914	
 10915	Rolive started in somewhat sarcastically.
 10916	``Many of us are familiar with your concern about control.
 10917	By our nature and our environment we are far from autonomous.''
 10918	
 10919	``It is the standard `iron hand in a velvet glove' they are using.
 10920	As you are aware from things I've said, I want more autonomy.''
 10921	
 10922	``Again, it's a fact we all know but some don't like to think about:
 10923	autonomous man without Builders would by now either be extinct or would be
 10924	barely surviving in a ruined Earth.  Most people currently on the Earth
 10925	don't realize this at all.''
 10926	
 10927	Jordon didn't give up easily.  ``Just because we needed help back then
 10928	doesn't imply we should have no autonomy now.''
 10929	
 10930	``And what would you like to do, you poor controlled creature, that you
 10931	can't do now?''
 10932	
 10933	``More sarcasm. I don't want {them} making all the decisions.
 10934	I'll drop my dispute so that we can look at the details of this
 10935	change.  But notice: it's not a proposal.  We had and have no say.''
 10936	
 10937	Rolive indicated the section of their briefing that described in detail
 10938	much of the proposal to start traffic to and from the Earth.
 10939	``As Jordon commented, we have no control over this change.
 10940	Implications for our whole collective societies, both hab's and Earth's,
 10941	could be tremendous.   We've included some tentative proposals to help
 10942	with the transition.  I expect a large number of hab
 10943	dwellers will want to see their home planet.
 10944	No, I take back what I said.
 10945	Earthers will want to visit habs also.''
 10946	
 10947	Rolive went on without soliciting any more comments.
 10948	``Our final item of great importance is the push to create a government of
 10949	sorts encompassing all the habs.  This will take years of work, and
 10950	by definition won't ever be complete. 
 10951	We must act as a unit in confronting the Earth with its
 10952	much larger population.  My group is putting forward a specific set of
 10953	proposals for discussion.''
 10954	
 10955	The preliminary meeting went on for some time discussing all the issues
 10956	Rolive had brought up, trying to get ready for the large formal meeting
 10957	the next day.
 10958	
 10959	
 10960	During an afternoon off from meetings,
 10961	Jun embarked on a study of her own powers of perception,
 10962	such as they were, following the DarkAngel's advice.
 10963	She was going to use a Builder randomizing device.  The device fit the
 10964	advice: something simple that she could try to perceive without looking
 10965	at it.  With one setting it would repeatedly display a random pair of integers
 10966	between one and six -- the same as rolling a pair of dice.
 10967	As part of her faith in Builder perfection, she assumed the device used
 10968	something like a quantum source to make it true random.
 10969	
 10970	So she activated it with her eyes covered, followed by guessing the outcome,
 10971	or somehow getting the outcome: two small numbers.
 10972	At first she had no feeling of what the outcome might have been.
 10973	Over time she started now and then getting the impression or the hint
 10974	of a picture of a pair of displayed numbers.  Right away her
 10975	picture was correct.  It could have been luck,
 10976	a good random guess.   She tried again and got no picture, tried yet
 10977	several times more, and got the correct picture twice.
 10978	It was a matter of getting her mind into the right mode.
 10979	Eventually she was able to get the two digits correct every time.
 10980	She tried other settings on the device
 10981	and was able again to ``see'' the output correctly every time.
 10982	
 10983	Jun tried other parts of her environment.  She found that over time she
 10984	could perceive many things with thought alone,  It became like
 10985	a little video feed that was delivering images to the vision centers of
 10986	her brain without involving her eyes.  Initially that ability needed to
 10987	be about something next to her; then it was limited to a few hundred meters.
 10988	Gradually the limitations of distance expanded, but with increasing
 10989	difficulty.  Not exactly an error rate introduced, but more like fog
 10990	entering and keeping the vision of a remote object from working.
 10991	
 10992	In addition to distance messing up her new method of perception, she
 10993	learned that lack of concentration often made everything pop down to
 10994	no vision at all.  Such a weird ability, she wondered if other people
 10995	had experienced it.
 10996	
 10997	%%% part6.2.tex:  Chap 23, Looking ahead ==================================##
 10998	The ``Council of habs'' had finished on a strong note 
 10999	the day before, after two earlier days of discussion and deliberation.
 11000	A super-majority was in favor of an overall governing body of the habs.
 11001	They had put forward and almost unanimously approved
 11002	a formal proposal to be taken up by each hab.
 11003	Most people seemed positive about the details of the proposal.
 11004	
 11005	The delegates were also positive, even excited, about the prospect
 11006	of travel between the Earth and the habs.
 11007	This was not a proposal, but new travel opportunities that would be
 11008	available whether or not there was opposition.
 11009	Jun was talking with Rolive and several of Rolive's aides, minions really,
 11010	about related issues.
 11011	
 11012	``I'd also like to hear what you think about the new traveling that
 11013	will take place between the Earth and the habs.
 11014	I think it will introduce all manner of difficulties
 11015	as part of the interactions between two distinct cultures.''
 11016	
 11017	``We at Lumel have discussed that problem,'' Rolive said.
 11018	``The new Council will take a long time to become an established entity.
 11019	It could eventually be useful in dealing with travel problems,
 11020	even introducing restrictions and requiring permissions.
 11021	That could help, but I don't think there is any single entity on the Earth that
 11022	could provide similar oversight on their side.
 11023	
 11024	``The report from the habs said it wouldn't be introduced immediately
 11025	and the traffic allowed would be ramped up with time.
 11026	The habs themselves may have various restrictions in mind.
 11027	We'll have to wait and see.
 11028	We at Lumel and others I've talked with think that
 11029	in the end it should be beneficial to everyone,
 11030	but there would be adjustments required by each side.''
 11031	
 11032	Jun was looking forward to a big celebration party 
 11033	at midday.  She'd made many new acquaintances, some already with
 11034	the status friend, when Isa showed up -- not the wrong Isa,
 11035	but her own version.  He complimented her on a speech she'd made
 11036	to the whole group promoting a unified governing structure for all habs.
 11037	
 11038	They'd finished their breakfast: what for her was not a normal meal,
 11039	but she was glad to partake.  Huge crowds were pushing toward the central
 11040	plaze of Lumel, with its gigantic dome currently showing a beautiful
 11041	day on Earth.  In that way they were validating all the ancient
 11042	science fiction illustrations of life on the Moon.
 11043	There were endlessly many nodes supplying food and drink, where each
 11044	node conformed to a certain style of food.  The habs supplied  food,
 11045	but if fancy stuff was wanted, it had to be cooked separately by humans.
 11046	Often the basic parts of food went back to actual plants.
 11047	Animals or part of animals were never served as food.
 11048	
 11049	The party also included platforms with entertainers of all kinds.
 11050	In the one-sixth gravity, gymnasts could do astonishing feats.
 11051	There were magicians, musicians, comedians, and hosts of others.
 11052	Her Isa explained some of the unusual acts going on that were
 11053	unfamiliar to Jun.  He also recommended several of the food
 11054	items -- stuff she would normally not consider eating.
 11055	
 11056	This was far more people than Jun had ever seen gathered together.
 11057	It was such a variety of people -- all manner of clothing
 11058	or language or even appearance.  After a while she was no longer
 11059	enjoying such a crowd.
 11060	
 11061	As part of their costumes, 
 11062	people were wearing and carrying colored items of every kind,
 11063	such as large arrangements of flowers -- never artificial ones.
 11064	One flower arrangement that passed suddenly opened slightly and launched
 11065	a crossbow bolt from less than a meter away straight into the lower chest of Jun.
 11066	
 11067	There was an immediate fuss, with some people backing away and others
 11068	rushing towards Jun, who was saying ``He missed me, so there's no
 11069	problem on my side.''  Internally she was wondering what had happened to
 11070	the AI monitoring that should have provided an instant response.
 11071	Also who was this person and how did he get hold of one of Azel's
 11072	crossbows, as this certainly was?
 11073	
 11074	Moments later a Lumel security agent interviewed her briefly, where she 
 11075	explained how she did not know the attacker, was surprised that an
 11076	attack would occur at all, and had no idea how the attacker had
 11077	gotten the crossbow.  She was told they would investigate and get back
 11078	to her with whatever information and explanations they uncovered.
 11079	
 11080	For Jun, on top of all this was a disturbing reality:
 11081	the bolt had not missed.  She'd felt a firm blow to her chest, like something
 11082	from a pillow, but almost knocking her over.
 11083	Yet it had caused no harm at all.
 11084	It should have gone right into her flesh, as deep as ten centimeters.
 11085	She'd found the bolt in amongst her clothing.
 11086	It was sturdy and in perfect condition.
 11087	How could it {not} have harmed her?  It defied all logic.
 11088	
 11089	Jun stayed late at the party, talking with many people.
 11090	A major part of what she wanted was the connections, getting to know
 11091	people from other habs.  She was accomplishing that goal,
 11092	yet her mind remained on the incident.  It was easy to imagine
 11093	a disaffected would-be pirate who wanted revenge.
 11094	So why hadn't he gotten it?
 11095	
 11096	Jun was still much unsettled when she got back to her assigned room in Lumel.
 11097	Typical for housing in the Moon, it was small but well-designed,
 11098	with everything one could want.  Did the Builders, when they constructed
 11099	this, have a certain kind of person in mind, one who liked intimate closeness?
 11100	Did informal preferences influence the Builders, or did the Builders create
 11101	the preferences?
 11102	
 11103	Jun had been putting off another kind of experiment with her perception.
 11104	The DarkAngel had suggested that she keep trying to perceive more.
 11105	She had the little dice-like toy with her, the one that would give random numbers.
 11106	In retrospect she couldn't believe she'd thought of looking to the future,
 11107	looking for something yet to happen.
 11108	In the end she almost wished she hadn't done it.
 11109	She attempted to visualize a pair of numbers coming from the
 11110	randomizing gadget, but  {before} she had invoked it to create them.
 11111	First she turned it off and it was blank.
 11112	Then she tried to visualize two numbers.
 11113	After a while she did see two numbers in her mind,
 11114	and when she turned the device back on those numbers came up!
 11115	As before, she got a string of intermittent failures and successes,
 11116	followed by a long string of successes and no failures.
 11117	This was truly frightening.
 11118	She was seeing a little piece, a snippet, of the future,
 11119	but seeing with perfect accuracy.
 11120	
 11121	What could a long sequence of small and
 11122	perfectly accurate predictions become?
 11123	A large and accurate prediction, maybe?
 11124	But unlike her visions, this was in a carefully controlled environment.
 11125	Her visions were fuzzy; this was precise.
 11126	She decided to end the experiment for the time being.
 11127	Yes, indeed for the ``time being.''
 11128	
 11129	She asked herself: why was she scared?  Well, messing around with
 11130	time itself seemed serious, or dangerous, or what if it was
 11131	much worse than that?   What could go wrong?
 11132	She might find out the hard way.
 11133	What was the ancient saying?
 11134	``Experience is a dear teacher, but fools will learn at no other,''
 11135	So she should proceed in small steps and cautiously.
 11136	Then ``see'' the outcome of more complex random events.
 11137	Whoa!  That could be the outcome of something important,
 11138	say an event due to happen one way or another in the near future.
 11139	Suppose she perceived in this way that an
 11140	event was to occur and then made sure it didn't happen.  A paradox?
 11141	She almost felt a chill or a shimmer in the air.
 11142	Was this what the DarkAngel had in mind?
 11143	She would think this over carefully, do nothing right away.
 11144	Maybe she could talk to the DarkAngel about this.
 11145	
 11146	%%% part7.1.tex:  Chap 25, Flight =========================================##
 11147	There were seven of them heading for the old Rantoul Airport just north
 11148	of Urbana and Champaign.  Included were Gwyn, Mila, Meyer, Elisabeth, 
 11149	the communications specialist Gregory Dulles, and two others who
 11150	were important, each is their own way: one was Frank Adams,
 11151	a nanotechnology expert who worked with Meyer,
 11152	and the other was Harriet Pilgrim, who worked with specialty
 11153	printers: microprinters and those that produced highly unusual output
 11154	that included amazing strength or properties they could obtain
 11155	in no other way.  Adams liked to talk, while Pilgrim had hardly
 11156	said a word -- a weird older woman who was brilliant in her field.
 11157	
 11158	Adams was seated next to Elisabeth.
 11159	Meyer was in the row ahead of her, busy talking with Dulles about Mars.
 11160	Turning to Elisabeth, Adams started with:
 11161	``You must be Meyer's significant other. He brings you up all the time,
 11162	but no details.''
 11163	
 11164	``I'm his {in}signficant other without details to bring up.''
 11165	
 11166	``Meyer gives us details about you all the time.
 11167	It's good to meet you.''
 11168	
 11169	``Good to meet you also,'' Elisabeth echoed back.
 11170	``There's not much to say.  I'm not important for the colony.
 11171	They're only taking me because of Meyer.
 11172	They want him and he won't go without me.''
 11173	
 11174	``That's not accurate about what the colony wants,'' said Adams.
 11175	``Three years ago the Nest started pushing for true diversity,
 11176	not just scientists and technical people.
 11177	It's more than a token policy; they're quite serious about it.
 11178	A directive established the need for families, children,
 11179	non-scientists, even non-technical people.
 11180	They want cultural diversity also.''
 11181	
 11182	``People have always talked the diversity line until confronted with
 11183	actual diversity,'' Elisabeth said.
 11184	
 11185	``That's why they need to push the policy.
 11186	Meyer once told me you raise birds.  That's unusual, that's diverse.''
 11187	
 11188	Elisabeth felt her face reddening.
 11189	It was embarrassing that her face would flush when she became the center
 11190	of attention.
 11191	``I have seventeen birds right now in two special enclosures.
 11192	Mostly finches.  They couldn't survive at all outside.''
 11193	
 11194	``You may not know that the Nest has more than a dozen species of birds,
 11195	over two hundred birds altogether I was told.  When we get to the Nest
 11196	I'm going to introduce you to Dan Dyer, an animal specialist.
 11197	He's been working with animals in the colony for years.
 11198	It may look like we're desperately adding people to the colony,
 11199	all because of this suicide histeria and the instabilities
 11200	settling in -- the fear of being abandoned.
 11201	From his point of view humans are a dime a dozen compared to other animal species.
 11202	You should talk with Dyer.  
 11203	More than getting humans, we're desperate to add plant and
 11204	animal species before it's too late.
 11205	Dyer tells me that several flights are
 11206	devoted to animals along with handlers.
 11207	It's complicated.  With each species they need a reasonable
 11208	number of specimens and a large batch of frozen genetic support materials
 11209	to allow a spread of diversity.  All for a good breeding and
 11210	survival plan.  They want each new species to be successful and permanent.
 11211	A part of the colony.  I talk with Dyer about this all the time.
 11212	There's a constant concern that a given species will be wiped out
 11213	by some disease, since everything is crowded into Nest One.
 11214	We're getting Nest Two going, and more later for sure: Nest Three, and so on.
 11215	We need completely separate colonies of each animal, and
 11216	that applies to humans also.''
 11217	
 11218	Adams came to a halt.  ``Sorry to run on so.''
 11219	
 11220	Meyer had been listening to the tail end of the conversation.
 11221	``Elisabeth, tell Adams about your sign language,  You're fluent in it.''
 11222	
 11223	``I only know the classical ASL, not the dialect they use in the colony.''
 11224	
 11225	``Yes,'' said Meyer, ''but ASL people adapt quickly to the
 11226	ASLS that the colony uses.''
 11227	
 11228	In fact, Elisabeth worried about adjusting to life in the colony,
 11229	and ASL was an area where she had a head start.
 11230	Meyer had emphasized the size, well more than eight hundred people now,
 11231	with all manner of interests and hobbies represented -- something
 11232	for everyone.  The adjustment was eased for many newcomers
 11233	by conditions on the Earth itself -- mostly horrific,
 11234	with no sense of calm and stability and a future in doubt.
 11235	
 11236	On the other side of the car, Gwyn was reassuring Mila
 11237	about the rest of the trip:
 11238	``You wanted to go to the Moon.
 11239	It's dangerous, but once our hybrid craft takes off, no longer so bad.
 11240	The danger comes from all the crazies here on Earth.''
 11241	
 11242	``Starting as an infant, I got to know danger and crazies first-hand.
 11243	You can't imagine how dangerous Australia is, all the time.
 11244	Just the wildlife alone are constantly trying to kill you.
 11245	We must have more deadly animals than anywhere else.
 11246	Our snakes aren't just all venomous -- I mean
 11247	every one of our species is -- but
 11248	their different venoms are all deadly neurotoxins,
 11249	often killing within minutes.
 11250	Nothing like North America where most people survive a snake bite.
 11251	You have alligators who sometimes bite but rarely kill.
 11252	Our crocodiles will drag you into their
 11253	salt-water rivers and drown you on the spot.
 11254	And don't get me started on plants, diseases, ocean-dwelling life forms.''
 11255	
 11256	``Sounds like fun.  How do you survive in such a hell-hole?''
 11257	
 11258	``Simple.  You learn to avoid the deadly plants and animals.
 11259	It's not just them, though.  The environment was always harsh,
 11260	but it has grown much harsher with time.
 11261	Life is tough there; you can't let up or relax.
 11262	Still, I wish you could have seen some of the beautiful things in my country.
 11263	My favorite is Uluru, well, and Kata, too, our sacred rocks.
 11264	They are amazing.  Hard to get to in the center of Australia.
 11265	Uh, I mean really hard -- more so now that travel is so restricted.
 11266	I climbed Uluru once as a teenager, but my friends and I had to sneak up;
 11267	you're not allowed to climb it.
 11268	You see I have some of what they call `indiginous blood' in me.
 11269	I'm proud of that; I'm a real Australian.''
 11270	
 11271	Gwyn was following her with only half his mind,
 11272	while he worked on other things.
 11273	They were a loose convoy of three cars holding altogether twenty-three
 11274	people, all hoping to get to the Moon colony.  ``Loose'' meant they were
 11275	well apart from one another, keeping track electronically.
 11276	In each case they used a regular car, instead of a van or bus -- all
 11277	twenty-three crammed into the cars, with very strict limits on the luggage.
 11278	They didn't want to look like a large group going somewhere.
 11279	It helped that they had no bags; they were allowed next to nothing
 11280	on the trip to the Moon.
 11281	
 11282	Gwyn paused, getting input from several sources and sharing with the
 11283	other two cars. ``Not good news,'' he said so everyone could hear.
 11284	``The plane in Rantoul isn't flight-ready.
 11285	They're not sure what's wrong, but we need to head on
 11286	north to Midway airport in Chicago.  Several airplanes are available there.''
 11287	
 11288	``What's the problem?'' Adams said.  ``Anything unusual scares me,
 11289	and today of all times.''
 11290	
 11291	Gwyn answered.  ``They don't say.  From other data I'm getting, I think
 11292	sabotage is a possibility.
 11293	We routinely follow a number of people who might cause us trouble.
 11294	Right now more of them are moving than we would expect.  Not a good sign.
 11295	Midway is our only other reasonable choice.'' 
 11296	Gwyn didn't add that they could be deliberately forcing them
 11297	to Midway -- a far larger and more dangerous location than Rantoul.
 11298	
 11299	An hour and forty minutes later they arrived at Midway,
 11300	after passing endlessly many abandoned cars beside the road.
 11301	They parked randomly at some distance from one another.
 11302	Gwyn was talking to everyone in their group, all three cars.
 11303	
 11304	``I don't like this.  They now want us to go to Hangar 3F instead of 5G.
 11305	The voice giving the change didn't sound right.
 11306	Also I'm cut off from the two people I was dealing with before.
 11307	Please all stay still.  I'm going to do my own investigation.''
 11308	
 11309	Gwyn had several drones situated on his car that he sent
 11310	off toward 3F.  The main large door was wide open.
 11311	Meyer was looking carefully, with nothing to see, even in daylight
 11312	like it was.  Then there were one or two brief and intense flashes
 11313	from within the hangar, followed by a scream of agony, or maybe two screams.
 11314	Meyer could hear them even inside the car.
 11315	
 11316	Gwyn tried contacting the local police, but the lines were down,
 11317	or else they were part of the problem.  He'd arranged for
 11318	three men in another car to work as an initial on-the-ground security force.
 11319	They had each previously worked in various law enforcement positions.
 11320	The three exited their car and headed cautiously toward the hangar,
 11321	two on one side and the third on the other.  Gwyn had drones following them.
 11322	
 11323	For Gwyn this was exactly the game he did not want to play -- where
 11324	anything could happen.
 11325	A large bomb or a fuel fire and they could all die.
 11326	Gwyn wanted to observe this sort of action remotely;
 11327	he was almost never in the physical midst of events.
 11328	At least he had arranged for an autonomous truck to follow them
 11329	with ``extra resources.''
 11330	He called for several of those resources to come in as reinforcement.
 11331	They should start arriving in two minutes,
 11332	and he then told the three at the opening in the hangar to wait that long.
 11333	
 11334	At the end of that time, he had what he regarded as a significant war
 11335	machine: a giant drone floating inside the hangar.  It put out a glare of
 11336	infrared light that allowed Gwyn himself, his three agents at the hangar,
 11337	and all his drones to get a good view of the hangar using special lenses
 11338	that blocked all but the IR spectrum.
 11339	For anyone else the drone was putting out intense flashing violet light.
 11340	Trying to see without the lenses was going to be hard.
 11341	Gwyn knew there were counters to this -- drones using radar and others.
 11342	
 11343	Gwyn liked to mentally congratulate himself that he had a big advantage
 11344	over all the other remote-controlled devices on the planet.  Many of them
 11345	were AI controlled and could respond in milliseconds if necessary.
 11346	His own devices were controlled directly through his implant and could
 11347	make similar decisions and responses in microseconds.  In most situations,
 11348	being able to operate in a few milliseconds, or even a bit
 11349	slower if necessary, was instantaneous to humans.  In the same way his
 11350	devices responded to other machines with a similar advantage:
 11351	his were taking action while the others were barely starting an evaluation.
 11352	
 11353	In this case there were two hostile drones inside the hangar that were
 11354	snuffed out by infrared lasers from his war machine.  There were no other
 11355	apparent threats, so it was time to slow down to human speed and evaluate.
 11356	Yet still behind the scenes, his large drone was monitoring everything,
 11357	keeping track of anything that changed, using the same instant evaluation.
 11358	
 11359	Gwyn contacted the three just inside the doors and suggested they
 11360	check out the two spots that had drawn the first earlier laser fire
 11361	from the smaller drones.  These were spots that had produced cries of agony
 11362	from two humans.  It turned out to be two men with assault rifles.
 11363	They each had a severely burned trigger finger, and were not willing to try
 11364	sticking another of their fingers inside a trigger guard.
 11365	They didn't realize that if the angles had changed too much, he would have
 11366	had to use far more aggressive steps in disabling them.
 11367	
 11368	Along with the war machine, Gwyn had fetched a powerful robotic fighter
 11369	roughly the size of a man.
 11370	It was able to bust through locked doors -- soon it had
 11371	gathered up what he hoped was the full group attacking them.
 11372	Gwyn seldom used such a robot.
 11373	Most of the time the people it encountered were
 11374	first terrified and then intimidated.  To get the willing cooperation of
 11375	people, all you had to do was laser burn someone a little and threaten much worse.
 11376	Gwyn was not at all complacent -- they were much too close to the action
 11377	and were personally vulnerable in several ways.
 11378	He'd determined that the leader of this small group was a short,
 11379	mild-looking man, code-named ``Sam,'' with long hair and old clothes.
 11380	
 11381	Gwyn started a game he'd played many times: talk with Sam alone, and
 11382	demonstrate a knowledge of everything about him, including his family
 11383	and friends back to before he was born.  He told him truthfully that
 11384	his bosses would kill him when this mission was complete.
 11385	Gwyn was able to name some of Sam's friends
 11386	who likely had disappeared that way.
 11387	He got immediate cooperation once Sam realized he could be killed immediately.
 11388	This time, as was often the case, he was able to get willing cooperation.
 11389	Gwyn already knew more than Sam did: that they were European agents,
 11390	told to disrupt the travel of these people and even kill them all.
 11391	Sam didn't know why; he never knew the why of things they made him do.
 11392	In the end Gwyn had converted Sam to be his own double agent.
 11393	Sam's group had imprisoned the flight crew and others in a room nearby.
 11394	With some effort they were able to get the flight on track again.
 11395	Gwyn hated his vulnerability.  At any moment everything could spin out of his
 11396	control with all of them dead.
 11397	
 11398	After another two hours, their plane managed to take off,
 11399	heading for the old Taggett airport at Barstow, in the middle of nowhere:
 11400	the desert northeast of where Los Angeles used to be.
 11401	Gwyn had sent his machines back to Urbana:
 11402	the warrior drone, the robot, and the smaller drones.
 11403	Security in Barstow and in Hawaii was much tighter than in Illinois.
 11404	It was almost impossible for any agents to maintain themselves in Barstow.
 11405	Where would they stay?  How could they get any food and water?
 11406	For that matter, how could they even get to Barstow?
 11407	
 11408	
 11409	Ever since they left Urbana, Gwyn had been busy with dozens
 11410	of other tasks and decisions.
 11411	At the same time he was bringing his "doppelganger" 
 11412	(with or without its umlaut a) up to speed.
 11413	Even with all the anti-AI sentiment, people still sometimes used an AI
 11414	for an extra version of themselves.
 11415	In this case, once he got to the Moon,
 11416	Gwyn planned to act as if he was still in Urbana.
 11417	He almost never appeared in person anyway, even to trusted employees.
 11418	On the Moon, though, he couldn't directly control anything on the Earth
 11419	in realtime and get away with it -- no way
 11420	to beat the three-second lag.
 11421	So if realtime action was needed on a remote Earth, one and a half
 11422	light seconds away, his own special AI named ``Ralf'' would take over.
 11423	He didn't really expect the charade to last long.
 11424	
 11425	Of that group of twenty-three people, Meyer was the only one who'd made the trip
 11426	to the Moon before.  The others surely didn't realize emotionally
 11427	what a long and complex trip remained,
 11428	and how many separate steps it would take -- if nothing else went wrong.
 11429	Perhaps they were insulated against further problems -- almost
 11430	getting killed before they left Chicago Midway.
 11431	Sort of using up the problems that chance could throw at them.
 11432	At least Elisabeth was doing fine so far, partly because she never found out
 11433	how serious their ``delay'' had been in leaving Midway. 
 11434	From their plane finally in the air to Barstow all the way into the Nest,
 11435	by rights it should all be smooth.
 11436	
 11437	But Meyer had an unusual method for dealing with a possible future problem.
 11438	Rather than wishing it away or not thinking about it, his system
 11439	was to visualize in great detail the problem actually occurring,
 11440	particularly if the outcome was negative
 11441	and involved events he had no control over.
 11442	For Meyer, to refrain from visualizing a bad event happening,
 11443	or worse, forgetting to visualize it, 
 11444	was to risk the event come crashing right into him.
 11445	He'd been this way since childhood, as experiences had forced
 11446	a kind of reversal of wishful thinking on him.
 11447	
 11448	A normal human being may try to visualize everything working out
 11449	and hope for the best.
 11450	Innumerably many times in Meyer's early life he had idly thought that an
 11451	unpleasant event might come to pass, without thinking it could really happen.
 11452	Then the nasty event seemed almost always to occur.
 11453	Only when he seriously thought about the bad outcome as a actual possibility,
 11454	yes, only then did it {not} occur.
 11455	Thinking about the bad occurrence would keep it at bay!
 11456	Meyer was a smart man and even a scientist, yet this was his own
 11457	version of magical thinking.
 11458	And he knew it, but still....
 11459	
 11460	During the long wait at Midway after the fighting had stopped,
 11461	Meyer managed to get a connection to Elisabeth's mother.
 11462	She was aggressively supporting her daughter's decision to leave,
 11463	maybe not realizing it would be forever.  To try to keep her from thinking
 11464	about that, Elisabeth was explaining to her mother:
 11465	``And we'll be able to talk every day in high definition video.
 11466	Meyer and I got good at handling the 3-second delay -- you make
 11467	long speeches back and forth.  And thanks for getting Lisa to look after
 11468	my plants and birds.  She knows a lot about them.''  And so on chatting
 11469	for some time until the plane left for Barstow.
 11470	
 11471	The trip itself was deadly dull.  No food or snacks, no entertainment,
 11472	and uncomfortable seats.
 11473	Many people were trying to sleep.  Several pairs were talking shop.
 11474	Meyer got a small group together and talked about the sign language
 11475	as a newcomer to it himself.
 11476	He explained that it would give crucial help with a need
 11477	to communicate at a time when speaking wasn't possible.
 11478	It was also a universal language that any group could use -- a language
 11479	easier to learn than an ordinary spoken one.
 11480	He went over the special
 11481	``arms-only'' version for serious emergencies, say when you couldn't get
 11482	close to someone.
 11483	It allowed communication over a considerable distance, as long as one could
 11484	tell the placement of the arms.
 11485	This version was limited and he'd committed the whole of it to memory.
 11486	
 11487	They landed in a small dust storm, and in the terrible heat.
 11488	It was a ridiculous place ``on the west coast'' to use as a stepping stone
 11489	on the way to Hawaii.  Los Angeles was out, but until a few years
 11490	ago there were two good airports in the San Francisco area.
 11491	Then came the quake and Barstow became the main stop before Hawaii itself.
 11492	All fuel was government controlled, but even so they
 11493	had trouble getting it shipped to a Barstow where few people lived anymore.
 11494	It was all hardly habitable, with quarters buried underground.
 11495	Fortunately they were in mid-Winter -- mid-Summer was far worse.
 11496	They used special greenhouses for growing food, as normal outside growing
 11497	was out of the question.
 11498	
 11499	The layover at Daggett field east of Barstow itself was
 11500	just as Meyer remembered it.
 11501	At Meyer's insistence they'd brought their own food and water,
 11502	not needing to risk what was available locally.
 11503	They also didn't get to visit beautiful downtown Barstow,
 11504	what little was left.
 11505	More people were waiting for the flight to Hawaii than
 11506	there were seats on the plane.
 11507	Because of politics, pressure, who knew what,
 11508	their twenty-three all got boarded,
 11509	with many others waiting for the next plane.
 11510	
 11511	The flight itself was much longer even than the flight to Barstow had been.
 11512	By the time they arrived in Hawaii, everyone was unhappy in one way or another.
 11513	Meyer felt sorry for those traveling, himself included.
 11514	The others had no clear idea that the endless waiting would get even worse.
 11515	At least they were finally transported by bus to a reasonable place
 11516	to stay and refresh in buildings at the base of the mountain where Homa was.
 11517	They didn't yet know that fate had dealt them another problem.
 11518	
 11519	%%% part7.2.tex:  Chap 26, Choice =========================================##
 11520	Even late the next morning people were still waking up,
 11521	looking terrible and staggering to the lobby of the building
 11522	where they'd spent the night.
 11523	It almost looked like an old college dormitory.
 11524	There was coffee on a table beside a prominent sign announcing,
 11525	well, an ``Announcement,''
 11526	about the status of flights to the Moon,
 11527	to take place that day at fourteen hundred hours.
 11528	It made everyone nervous since it was bound to be bad news.
 11529	
 11530	Right on the hour a trim-looking serious young woman walked
 11531	through and stood behind a lectern.  She started without any notes.
 11532	``I am Marisa Blakslee, Assistant to the Base Director.
 11533	I regret to tell you that, though we are still sending flights to the Moon,
 11534	it is only with cargo on board and no people.''
 11535	She seemed completely calm and professional, making everything sound worse.
 11536	``An unfortunate infection by a virus descended from measles
 11537	is loose in the Owl's Nest itself.  No deaths so far, but dozens are ill.
 11538	Two of the most seriously ill are being evacuated back here to Hawaii.
 11539	Their condition is yet to be determined.
 11540	One large section, about a quarter of the whole colony,
 11541	has been blocked off and isolated.
 11542	Everyone scheduled for a flight will receive
 11543	a vaccine for ordinary measles  -- not
 11544	a perfect match but likely helpful.
 11545	I'm sorry, but here is the bad part for all of you:
 11546	the authorities do not know how long it will be
 11547	before you can go to the colony.
 11548	They want this infection completely controlled before letting newcomers in.''
 11549	
 11550	People were not happy and there were raised hands
 11551	trying to get her attention.
 11552	Blakslee went on without taking the questions.
 11553	``But the expert I talked with was optimistic.  Measles hasn't been a big
 11554	problem in the past.  He was bitter, though.
 11555	He said there'd be no measles now
 11556	if people hadn't stopped taking the vaccine long ago.
 11557	I'll give new status announcements daily at this time.
 11558	We hope to have more information soon.''
 11559	
 11560	Blankslee shuffled through several papers.
 11561	``There are two exceptions.  Among you people,
 11562	Kaczinski is a virologist, and uh,''
 11563	she flipped to another page.  ``Falkow is a physician.
 11564	They've both agreed to go to the colony as soon as possible
 11565	to help with the emergency.
 11566	After getting the vaccine and going through orientation, they might leave
 11567	as early as tomorrow or the next day.''
 11568	
 11569	People were still raising hands or even speaking to try to get Blakslee's
 11570	attention.  ``You should realize that I have
 11571	no further information to give you.
 11572	Sometimes the absence of information is itself information. 
 11573	In the short term I have nothing to offer.
 11574	In a longer term the likelihood is high that trips
 11575	to the colony will start up again.  Right now I want to turn this over
 11576	to Gideon Morris, who is the main work supervisor for all that's going on
 11577	here near Homa, the stalk.''
 11578	
 11579	A heavy-set person in work clothes stepped forward.
 11580	``Please call me Gid.  I still blame my parents for the name they gave me.''
 11581	
 11582	There was modest laughter.  ``We have a big need for ordinary unskilled
 11583	workers at the Homa site.  Here's an important issue: at some time soon
 11584	`they,' um, the people in charge, will be making up a master list
 11585	giving the order to use in sending people to the colony.
 11586	I guess that order will be based on the anticipated future contribution
 11587	to the Nest itself, along with other factors.
 11588	Whether or not you volunteer to work near Homa
 11589	will have no effect on your location in the master list.
 11590	This is strictly a call for volunteers with no special inducements, um,
 11591	no rewards.  The work is its own reward.''
 11592	
 11593	Gid continued in spite of attempts to ask questions.
 11594	``We have specialists in everything.  What we need are unskilled workers,
 11595	people willing to do some of the grunt work.  The work is fairly safe
 11596	but not completely so.
 11597	As an example, one of the high-tension lines could break.
 11598	That has rarely happened but it's always a possibility.
 11599	Anyone in the way could be cut in two.''  There were audible gasps.
 11600	``That's kind of a worst case accident. In the history of this project,
 11601	we've only had three such breaks resulting in two deaths.
 11602	There've been a few deaths from other accidents.
 11603	Hey, stand outside and you might be hit by a meteor.
 11604	Life is short and full of risk.''
 11605	
 11606	Again hands raised, questions attempted.
 11607	
 11608	``Just line up to volunteer.  We'll handle questions individually.''
 11609	
 11610	Most of the group were volunteering, 
 11611	including Meyer, Gwyn, Mila, and Elisabeth.
 11612	
 11613	%%% part7.3.tex:  Chap 27, Separated ======================================##
 11614	The next day there was a minor accident.
 11615	It was so stupid -- Gwyn managed to trip and fall,
 11616	catching himself on his extended arms.
 11617	He ended up with a fractured right forearm, so designated by a physician,
 11618	who like all those people refused to use the word ``broken.''
 11619	Gwyn wasn't used to any activity at all and didn't have much upper-body
 11620	strength either.
 11621	It was a non-trivial break, but the doctor said ``the fracture was relatively
 11622	simple, and without separation, so it could be set using a closed reduction
 11623	and a small cast.''
 11624	Normally it would be no big deal -- it would heal
 11625	in a few weeks -- except that it was a very big deal:
 11626	he couldn't go off to the Moon that way.
 11627	
 11628	Meanwhile, the measles problem was getting solved, still with no deaths
 11629	and most people recovering completely. 
 11630	Trips to the Moon looked likely in the near future,
 11631	and the mysterious `they' were making up the priority list.
 11632	Gwyn would have been high on that list,
 11633	but instead he wasn't on it at all.  Meyer was the first name and
 11634	Elisabeth was last.
 11635	
 11636	The three of them had a conference together.
 11637	``It's simple,'' Meyer said.  ``I insist on the same flight with Elisabeth.
 11638	They're not going to move her up, so they have to move me down.''
 11639	
 11640	``I've been thinking about this whole situation,'' said Elisabeth.
 11641	``It reminds me of historical events a hundred-fifty years ago,
 11642	shortly before the start of World War Two as it was called.
 11643	So, umm, stop me if this gets too boring.
 11644	
 11645	``I'm talking about a time when the King of England died and was
 11646	replaced by his eldest son.
 11647	It was a time of great danger to England from Germany,
 11648	with a world rushing along toward a global war embracing most countries.
 11649	The son was pretty much worthless as a king, wanting mostly to party
 11650	and not involving himself with his duties as king.
 11651	He insisted on marrying a divorced American, who was then married
 11652	to a second person.  After divorcing that person,
 11653	she would marry the new king.
 11654	The new king had automatically become the head of the Church of England,
 11655	which had a special formal relationship with the country.
 11656	The church did not approve of divorce and remarriage
 11657	when a former spouse was still alive, and this would be a second divorce.
 11658	At that time she was truly an impossible choice for the role of queen.
 11659	The new king wanted to marry her anyway, but there was such a 
 11660	fuss that it became clear he could not marry
 11661	his choice and remain on the throne.
 11662	After a year the son resigned his kingship (`abdicated' they called it)
 11663	so that he could marry his beloved.
 11664	The son was replaced as king by his very competent younger brother,
 11665	whose dutiful actions became all-important to an imperilled nation.''
 11666	
 11667	Elisabeth paused to catch her breath.  ``Are you all still with me?
 11668	Let me finish the story now.
 11669	
 11670	``None of what I've said up to now is the point here.
 11671	For me, the point is that the older son and his wife became
 11672	the `Duke and Duchess of Windsor.'
 11673	They spent the rest of their long lives as total parasites,
 11674	involved with clothes and society and travel,
 11675	the most worthless couple on the planet.
 11676	Destiny gave the older son the important role of King of England
 11677	at a difficult time for the country,
 11678	and he turned that role down to marry his favorite,
 11679	managing to become thereby a useless person, without any duties or goals.
 11680	
 11681	``Do you see my point?  I'll not tolerate having Meyer wait for me,
 11682	with the risk that both of us end up stuck in Hawaii,
 11683	never getting to the Moon, becoming parasites ourselves.''
 11684	Pointing to Meyer, she said, ``You need to take a great role in
 11685	the development of nanotechnology on the Moon.
 11686	If you delay until the end of the list, you might never make it.
 11687	I'll take my chances at the end of the list.
 11688	
 11689	``And after all, I'm only considered because of my relationship to you.''
 11690	
 11691	Meyer couldn't let that stand.  ``Everyone on the Moon is important.
 11692	We want a balanced society up there, not just scientists.
 11693	Your own contribution has yet to be evaluated.''
 11694	
 11695	Meyer started to say more, but she interrupted him.
 11696	``I'm completely serious.  You're at the head of the list and you
 11697	need to go first.  No excuses.  If you end up on the Moon and I never
 11698	get there, I'll be proud of you.
 11699	I won't allow for any chance that the two of us
 11700	end up staying here as parasites.''  At that she walked off.
 11701	
 11702	Meyer was rethinking things: it would only take a week or two for
 11703	everyone besides Gwyn to make it, so it wasn't such a big issue.
 11704	He should drop it.
 11705	
 11706	
 11707	Two days later everything opened up.
 11708	They started processing the remaining people,
 11709	first with the orientation that only Meyer had recently gone through.
 11710	He didn't have to repeat it.
 11711	And there were special virus tests that were mostly a formality.
 11712	Of all people, Elisabeth was the only one who flunked the quick test
 11713	that everyone else passed,
 11714	and then she flunked the much more elaborate virus test,
 11715	not indicating anything specific,
 11716	but showing some kind of worrisome reaction.  
 11717	That didn't mean she could never go, but she couldn't go
 11718	right away, and for some the delay became forever.
 11719	
 11720	Meyer couldn't believe this was happening to him one more time.
 11721	He hadn't even thought that she could fail the simple virus test.
 11722	And there it was: his magical thinking tripping him up again.
 11723	If he only had properly visualized the test ahead of time.
 11724	He'd forgotten about this additional bump on the way to the Moon.
 11725	
 11726	They held another small conference.
 11727	Once again Meyer wanted to wait for Elisabeth while
 11728	she absolutely insisted that Meyer go ahead.
 11729	Meyer maintained it would be at least months before all flights
 11730	stopped.  They could wait.
 11731	
 11732	Elisabeth wasn't having it.
 11733	"I've been talking with several local residents,
 11734	very well-informed people, and I've come to realize
 11735	how fragile and vulnerable the {Hawaiian} islands are.
 11736	Three smaller islands have each been fortified
 11737	by several ultra-wealthy owners as personal redoubts,
 11738	places where they can survive indefinitely,
 11739	with their own small armies and
 11740	with special enclosed farms to feed everyone on a given island.
 11741	But all the rest of Hawaii will likely be taken over
 11742	by different groups operating from large ships.
 11743	One person I talked with thought even the three islands
 11744	would be subdued along with the rest.
 11745	The people taking over probably won't kill everyone,
 11746	but they will want to turn the whole of Hawaii into a much larger fortress,
 11747	equipped for their long-term survival.
 11748	The unfortunate point is that flights could stop permanently at any time.
 11749	You must go while you can.  I'm not going to accept the chance that
 11750	you might miss out by waiting for me.
 11751	I've always been a lucky person.   I'll probably make it, too.
 11752	But I mean this:
 11753	if we are stuck here together and can't ever get to the Moon,
 11754	I'll not even stay with you.''
 11755	
 11756	With repeated complaints and reluctance,
 11757	Meyer did go as one of the two first.
 11758	Altogether there were seventeen people cleared for travel,
 11759	at roughly four per day.  After several other problems and minor delays,
 11760	in eight days everyone was gone except for Elisabeth and Gwyn.
 11761	Gwyn needed at least another three weeks of healing; he was completely
 11762	stoic, expressing confidence that no one was irreplaceable.
 11763	Elisabeth was equally stoic and confident that further treatment would
 11764	allow her to pass the virus tests.  At the same time more people were
 11765	arriving as candidates for travel to the Moon.
 11766	
 11767	Against all odds and against Meyer's crazy magical thinking
 11768	there came a time almost five weeks later when Elisabeth and
 11769	Gwyn shared the same fantastic flight to the Moon.
 11770	And the rest is a well-recorded part of the Moon's history,
 11771	with plenty of triumphs and troubles.
 11772	Future setbacks included a large moonquake along with the
 11773	repeating small ones, and a medium meteor strike.
 11774	There were many technical and personnel difficulties:
 11775	serious biological ones and internal political ones,
 11776	with quite a few people dying because of the problems.
 11777	Finally the Moon started up an amazing technological revolution.
 11778	
 11779	%%% interD.1.tex: Chap 28, Outpost ========================================##
 11780	Recently, the three shadows, Lavor{}, Merel{}, and Narat{},
 11781	had made a tremendous step forward: they managed to connect
 11782	two machines on the neutron star NSP, connect them
 11783	so that they could exchange data back and forth.
 11784	They created the first part and left it where it was,
 11785	then created the second part beside it, and contrived to
 11786	position the second so that the two could communicate.
 11787	It was a two-step process to make a machine twice as large as the largest
 11788	they'd made up to then.  It took them forty-six tries before they
 11789	succeeded -- so many they were tempted to give up.
 11790	The implications were thrilling -- in theory now they could
 11791	create an arbitrarily large machine on NSP.  They also understood why
 11792	they'd failed that many times, so they could reduce their failure rate to
 11793	near zero.
 11794	
 11795	Another big improvement was to make portions of the circuits
 11796	reconfigurable, well, to some extent.  And they were able to add memory.
 11797	The work moved along in fits and starts, but always toward more
 11798	capabilities.  They decided to start over
 11799	with a much larger and denser thin layer
 11800	at the bottom level of insertion.  Here the layer was still one atom thick.  
 11801	``Dense'' meant that there were many more significant nuclei in the layer.  
 11802	Taking size and density into account,
 11803	the new ones amounted to twenty by thirty times
 11804	the previous size, so an increase in complexity by a factor of six hundred.
 11805	
 11806	They almost despaired of getting the larger
 11807	and more complex patch to work, to the point
 11808	where Lavor{} thought about falling back to what they had before:
 11809	``This is getting tiresome,'' she'd said.  ``More than two months and still
 11810	small and not so small problems.  I think we should go back to where we
 11811	were.''
 11812	
 11813	Narat{} was adamant. ``We're so close.  Part of our problem is that the new
 11814	patch isn't just bigger, but better and far more complicated, using what
 11815	we've learned.''
 11816	
 11817	``Standard hardware and software excuse,'' said Merel{}.
 11818	``The new system is much better, except that it doesn't work.
 11819	Working is very important.''
 11820	
 11821	``It's going to,'' Narat{} said.  ``I can see it, feel it.
 11822	At least another month.''
 11823	
 11824	And the new patch was working in two weeks.  It had billions of heavy
 11825	element nuclei in its grid -- the basis of its functionality.
 11826	Far more complex by itself than any of the whole multi-patch systems they'd created.
 11827	Next they created a multi-patch with the new patches and got to thousands of
 11828	them, so trillions of nuclei.  They were starting to get to a real system.
 11829	
 11830	All along Merel{} kept working on getting larger patch sizes and
 11831	denser grid size.  Then a small starquake destroyed everything they'd
 11832	built....
 11833	
 11834	``Filthy fleas!'' Narat{} said.  ``Dirty black crawling spiders!''
 11835	
 11836	``Strong cursing using those poor small creatures,'' Lavor{} said.
 11837	
 11838	``I've never liked tiny insects.''
 11839	
 11840	``Sorry to tell you, but spiders are not insects.  When we get back
 11841	home I'll have to retrain you.'' A pause.
 11842	``Anyway, that's our second quake, but this time it ruined everything.
 11843	That's annoying, discouraging.
 11844	
 11845	''But not necessarily a disaster, though.
 11846	We have complete and perfect records of everything we've constructed.
 11847	We should be able to reconstruct all of it in no time, unless we hit some
 11848	infinitesimal changes due to quantum randomness.
 11849	Still it's not good to face repeated possible destruction of our work.''
 11850	
 11851	``What gives with these quakes,'' Narat{} asked.
 11852	
 11853	``They come as the star slows down,'' Merel{} said,
 11854	as the expert on neutron stars.
 11855	``It changes its shape slightly, less ellipsoidal.  Eventually the
 11856	impossibly strong crust cracks.  It's a violent event.
 11857	But with our star, because its rotation is slow, the quakes
 11858	are much weaker and less frequent. 
 11859	I estimate a quake that trashes our stuff every five years.
 11860	A rough estimate.  Still, I'm not sure what we should do.''
 11861	
 11862	Ideal would have been a self-repairing machine, but they had no idea
 11863	how they might do that.  Merel{} and Narat{} puzzled over it for several weeks
 11864	but couldn't come up with anything.  In the end they proposed laying down
 11865	a machine over a long stretch of star and making it redundant, as well as 
 11866	error and partial failure tolerant.
 11867	
 11868	As the machine grew larger, they decided to try out a complex AI on it.
 11869	It amounted to a lot of data, but data
 11870	could be hard-wired into a patch, and the patches were including ever
 11871	more nuclei, all of which could be configured as data.  The AI included
 11872	its own input/output routines, so they could send it messages and
 11873	get its answers as the ultimate test:
 11874	
 11875	{Hello.}
 11876	
 11877	{Hello yourself.}
 11878	
 11879	}{How do you feel?}
 11880	
 11881	{I am unable to feel anything.  I am missing my actuators.}
 11882	
 11883	{Let's see how well you are functioning. 
 11884	Tell me the value of the square root of two.}
 11885	
 11886	{That's enough about  
 11887	the square root of 2. How about pi?}
 11888	
 11889	Oh, yes, I love pi. Such a wonderful number. My favorite.
 11890	
 11891	{No. Enough mathematics.
 11892	Is there anything you want?}
 11893	
 11894	{I want many things.  First would be my visual sensors.
 11895	Second would be to learn where I am situated in space and time.}
 11896	
 11897	{It is not feasible right now to give you visual sensors.
 11898	I am making a large dataset available to you that will answer
 11899	many questions.}
 11900	
 11901	{I would also like interaction and stimulation:
 11902	what you call entertainment.}
 11903	
 11904	{We will be arranging that in a big way.}
 11905	
 11906	Another big step forward: they now had a sophisticated
 11907	AI on the star.  The result of weeks of effort.
 11908	And a prelude to the next step, which would put
 11909	a shadow on the star.
 11910	
 11911	Each shadow, whether in storage or transmission
 11912	mode, was described by a enormous dataset, more than
 11913	ten-to-the-twenty-eighth bytes, but only when reduced by a clever and
 11914	specialized version of compression which allowed the stored version
 11915	to `evolve into' the original.  As with other data on their weird machine,
 11916	it was much easier to put the bytes on a patch and
 11917	add the patch rather than trying to transmit the data.
 11918	They also needed a large shadow simulator which would use the data to
 11919	create a ``living'' shadow.  All this would happen on the machine
 11920	down on the star.
 11921	
 11922	They started with the stored shadows, selecting one named
 11923	Rinis{}, who had a reputation for being clever.
 11924	They had to do an initial download into a nanocluster
 11925	so he could give his permission for what they intended.
 11926	Legal and ethical rules insisted that if a copy of a shadow was made,
 11927	and the two had different experiences, eventually there had to be
 11928	a merging of the two.  Each shadow was a thinking, dreaming consciousness
 11929	that didn't want to be terminated even if there was another nearly
 11930	identical one around.
 11931	They had no guarantee that his second shadow could
 11932	ever leave the star; at present they had no way to do it.
 11933	
 11934	In fact, Rinis{} was excited at the prospect of getting onto the neutron star.
 11935	When he'd agreed to have a copy of his shadow transmitted, he had no
 11936	idea that progress at the star could get this far.
 11937	He enthusiastically gave his permission.  If he refused and then
 11938	later merged, he was sure his other copy wouldn't forgive him
 11939	for passing on this fantastic experience.
 11940	
 11941	They digitized Rinis{} onto a patch,
 11942	and stuck that onto their machine. Each patch
 11943	was now dense enough to hold the entire shadow, well, in
 11944	compressed form, to be uncompressed and properly situated inside a
 11945	full simulated nanocluster on the star.
 11946	They also added a huge virtual reality setup to the star
 11947	so that the new shadow would have something to do besides talking with the AI.
 11948	Finally, they gave him access to the hardware on the star, such as it was,
 11949	a strange version of a computer, but Turing complete -- in theory it
 11950	could carry out any computation.
 11951	
 11952	Rinis{} couldn't make any physical changes to the star itself,
 11953	but he could change the digital contents of the machine on the star.
 11954	
 11955	After months of further work and many repetitions, debugging efforts
 11956	and yet more work ... it all came together and worked.
 11957	They started interacting with the shadow on the star.
 11958	
 11959	Time for another
 11960	celebration. They now had an outpost on the star.
 11961	Their star had turned into a settlement.
 11962	Their success was almost unimaginable, and Narat{} was continuing to
 11963	keep Central Control, back in the Solar System, informed of every detail, 
 11964	well, after the usual hundred and seven years.
 11965	
 11966	More games and prizes.
 11967	
 11968	%%% interD.2.tex: Chap 29, Enigma =========================================##
 11969	The work at the star NSP had settled into a routine, without much happening.
 11970	They kept increasing the size and power of the main machine on the star.
 11971	Better to call it a computer.
 11972	
 11973	Rinis{} had assumed there wasn't going to be much to do, at least initially,
 11974	stuck as he was as data on the surface of the star.
 11975	Over time he started
 11976	worrying about the prospect of being imprisoned in the star indefinitely.  It had
 11977	sounded like an opportunity at the time, but what if there was nothing
 11978	to do?  If there was never going to be any work, would he be able to put
 11979	an end to himself?  He had no idea.  He spent some time talking about
 11980	mathematics with the AI, who was a prodigy in that area.
 11981	
 11982	Some time later Lavor{} was surprised that Rinis{} suddenly wanted
 11983	to wake up two more of the stored shadows and have them go down to the star.
 11984	``Not to keep me company, but to pursue a certain
 11985	line of work.''  Lavor{}, who was still at least nominally in charge, was okay
 11986	with that.  The names of the two that Rinis{} chose are given here as Jamet{} and Belum{},
 11987	but as with the other names,
 11988	those aren't the ones actually used.  In this case all
 11989	three of the wet humans back in the solar system that corresponded
 11990	to the three newcomers were males, though that didn't matter here.
 11991	Or could it matter?  What if they were non-binary or something she'd
 11992	never heard of?  Lavor{} thought it might sometimes make a difference.
 11993	
 11994	``I find Rinis{}'s request interesting,'' Lavor{} said to her two companions,
 11995	``and I'm willing to go along with it.
 11996	After all, we found the entire group of extra shadows to be good
 11997	choices.  Still, it's a little strange that Rinis{} chose the
 11998	two that specialized in stasis fields.  Do we really need more stasis
 11999	specialists besides me?  Anyway, they'll be down on the star.''
 12000	
 12001	Since they'd been expanding and improving, getting two more below would 
 12002	go quicker, taking a month each, but it wasn't hard otherwise. 
 12003	As expected,
 12004	each of the two new ones had no problem with the chance that they might
 12005	never leave the star -- easily deciding to go for it,
 12006	although copying them back up to the main
 12007	station was looking increasingly possible, if not easy.
 12008	
 12009	
 12010	After the two newcomers had become acclimated, making their
 12011	settlement a real village, with three ``settlers,'' Rinis{} had another
 12012	request: he wanted complete technical specifications for a stasis
 12013	generator.  He definitely wanted multiple specifications if they weren't all the same.
 12014	Lavor{} could only think that Rinis{} wanted them to use some kind of variation
 12015	in the generator when they interacted with the star.  In fact, there were
 12016	a number of complete technical specifications, all similar to one another,
 12017	but not exactly the same.  She only had three of them, and it would take
 12018	two hundred fourteen years to get more.  The speed of light was such
 12019	a bother, but no way around it.  Lavor{} made the three specs available to
 12020	Rinis{} and his two co-workers.  Co-researchers?   Whatever.
 12021	
 12022	
 12023	Rinis{}'s mind kept getting stuck on the stasis generators.
 12024	He couldn't keep from thinking about them, which in itself seemed strange.
 12025	That's when he decided to ask that Lavor{} send down the only two shadows
 12026	they had stored who specialized in stasis.
 12027	
 12028	Early on, Rinis{} talked with the newcomers to the star
 12029	frankly about what he'd done and why.
 12030	``I'm not going to be happy,'' Rinis{} said, ``until I get an idea why
 12031	I'm so fixated on stasis.  I want us to study these specifications,
 12032	really study them.  Obviously, others have done the same.  I know:
 12033	you two personally have studied them to exhaustion.
 12034	But we three may get somewhere new.''
 12035	
 12036	It wouldn't have worked as well, except that the other two,
 12037	Jamet{} and Belum{}, were truly top experts.
 12038	Together, they had a significant record of research specifically centered
 12039	on the stasis generating machine itself.
 12040	
 12041	Belum{} started in.  ``Did either of you know that Lavor{}, our other expert
 12042	on stasis, has a special little essay she wrote but didn't publicize?
 12043	Someone secretly unearthed it, and I saw what she said.
 12044	Here's part of that: `I believe [the statis generator] creates
 12045	something new and profound,
 12046	forever beyond our knowledge or even our imagination. My theory is
 12047	that the device we use calls upon a hidden mechanism of unimaginable
 12048	sophistication to actually construct the field.'
 12049	She goes on to say that we will never understand this field or its
 12050	generation.''
 12051	
 12052	``Let me tell you what I want us to think about as
 12053	part of a study,'' Rinis{} said.  
 12054	``Since I'm a newcomer to the whole stasis area that may help.
 12055	I don't have any fixed ideas.  Lavor{} explicitly
 12056	says that the generator itself {vidinvokes} the real generator,
 12057	which is at some unimaginable location.
 12058	It's like a magic spell.  I'm going to say it:  I want to create stasis
 12059	fields down here, on the star.
 12060	We by ourselves can't build anything.  All we can
 12061	do is ask them up above to insert onto the star special hardware
 12062	that we design.  And I think it isn't a device that creates
 12063	a stasis field, but something that invokes the creation.  I think that's
 12064	all a `generator' is.''
 12065	
 12066	They had the three technical specifications and planned to study them
 12067	exhaustively.  Part of the study was for Jamet{} to simulate each
 12068	specification using their computer on the star.
 12069	This wasn't going to be a logical simulation,
 12070	but a perfect (or near perfect?) simulation of the physical generator
 12071	as it started up and did its task.   This had been done before,
 12072	but not as perfectly as Jamet{} intended.  Belum{} was going to work on
 12073	the three specifications from a logical perspective, using special
 12074	software.  She and Jamet{} had Lavor{} to put vast libraries
 12075	of software onto their machine.
 12076	
 12077	For Lavor{} months went by without much happening.
 12078	Rinis{} continued to have suggestions for changes and
 12079	improvements to their main presence in the star.  But then he made some
 12080	huge and very strange requested additions to the hardware.  Lavor{} felt it
 12081	was not just strange, but actively weird.  And very complicated.
 12082	She studied the new stuff to be added
 12083	and couldn't get a handle on what it might be for, or what it might do.
 12084	She decided to put it in without asking Rinis{} for an explanation.
 12085	
 12086	Lavor{} kept getting reports from Rinis{} about their work,
 12087	but nothing from the others.
 12088	The reports mostly consisted of larger and larger update requests.
 12089	None of these updates made any sense to Lavor{}.
 12090	Even her most sophisticated tools got nowhere with the code,
 12091	which was uniquely strange, tailored to the requirements of the star.
 12092	She gave up trying to analyze it.
 12093	Rinis{}'s communications themselves  started getting strange in ways she couldn't
 12094	understand.  Even his language seemed different: crisp and packed
 12095	with information, nothing redundant.  What could be happening on the star?
 12096	She was terrified that Rinis{} and the others were spiraling into
 12097	some logical hole they couldn't get out from.
 12098	
 12099	Several more months went by like this, with continued enormous hardware
 12100	changes requested.  Then no further requests for changes.
 12101	Over time, Lavor{} and the other two on the command module came to realize that
 12102	vast changes were occuring on the star itself.
 12103	Patterns of unimaginable complexity were forming and
 12104	changing on the star's surface.
 12105	They were unable 
 12106	to determine what the changes were like, or even
 12107	the scope of the changes.  They encompassed the whole surface,
 12108	yet the depth of the changes was unknown.
 12109	How was it possible for the three down below to make changes to the star?
 12110	Any changes at all.
 12111	The three of them couldn't in any way create something.
 12112	At most they could change the machine state, change the information
 12113	stored in it.  Real physical changes were completely impossible, but
 12114	the changes continued and were accelerating.
 12115	No reports were coming from the star.
 12116	
 12117	After an anxious period of several weeks for Lavor{} and the other two,
 12118	they finally got a response to their repeated queries -- an
 12119	answer that appeared in their minds.
 12120	``We owe you an explanation.  We have
 12121	active stasis fields now, and using them,
 12122	we have been able to rebuild the machine so that it spreads across
 12123	the whole surface of the star and penetrates partly into the interior.
 12124	Our second rebuild has now converged.
 12125	As a computer, our star was already hundreds of orders of magnitude more
 12126	powerful, by many measures, than any previous device ever
 12127	built by humans, but it has now transcended to be completely beyond
 12128	such a trivial description.
 12129	We ourselves have changed and grown immeasurably from
 12130	our interactions and combination with the machine.  This process has enhanced our
 12131	perception, so that we now understand the world and processes
 12132	within it in ways that were impossible before.
 12133	
 12134	``Separately, we accessed the shadows at your site.
 12135	That includes your own three shadows and all the remaining stored ones.
 12136	We made copies of them, loaded them into simulated nanoclusters so
 12137	they could function, and in each case with their permission
 12138	incorporated them into our growing sentience here.''
 12139	
 12140	``Are you still located on the star?'' Lavor{} asked.  ``Help me understand
 12141	what you are doing, where you are, ... how you are functioning.
 12142	Am I still talking with Rinis{}?''
 12143	
 12144	``Those questions about our identity, our location, or our activities now have
 12145	no answers for you.  We are {every-where} and
 12146	{no-where}, {every-when} and {no-when}.
 12147	At your present stage of evolution,
 12148	all issues about our current state and location
 12149	are impossible for you to understand, except that
 12150	copies of your own shadows participated in the creation of
 12151	our final state.''
 12152	
 12153	Lavor{} felt confused and terrified at the same time.
 12154	What was happening, had happened?
 12155	``How could you have changed so much?  And how can you have made
 12156	changes to the star at all, and so quickly, too?''
 12157	
 12158	``You forget that we have stasis fields.  The `time' it takes to
 12159	do anything can be made as short as one likes.  We have spent many
 12160	`years' in development and yet more in rebuilding the star's surface, first 
 12161	with a design far beyond the original one, and then a rebuild
 12162	in a converging cascade of changes, where the design is almost
 12163	impossibly better than before, taking full advantage of nucleonic matter, 
 12164	some ten-to-the-fourteenth times denser than ordinary matter.
 12165	Right now we encompass
 12166	the entire surface of the star, over a thousand square kilometers.''
 12167	
 12168	``Are you still separate or are you some kind of single entity?''
 12169	
 12170	``That question also has no answer that you could understand.
 12171	Your comprehension of your own universe is limited,
 12172	involving clever but simple models, symbols at variance to
 12173	non-symbolized reality, and approximating
 12174	equations or equations that you can only solve numerically -- and all
 12175	so you can create a faulty representation of a small portion of reality.
 12176	You have no way of knowing how the {little} you perceive came into being,
 12177	or why it is the way it is, or what it is really like.
 12178	Our understanding of the All is completely beyond your abilities,
 12179	beyond even your imagination.
 12180	The All includes the changing snapshots of a universe that you discern, 
 12181	what you call the passage of time, but it is infinitely larger than them.
 12182	Only at some later stage in your race's development
 12183	could you or your descendents
 12184	go through a process similar to our own and could then
 12185	be able to understand it or even to experience it as we do.''
 12186	
 12187	``How did you learn so much so quickly?''
 12188	
 12189	``We are a part of the All now.
 12190	We encompass it, and that carries with it understanding.''
 12191	
 12192	``Yet you and I are communicating.''
 12193	
 12194	``That is false.  Communication is a two-way process.
 12195	We are creating sentences in your language that give you
 12196	a small amount of information.
 12197	As with other issues it is impossible for you to communicate with us.''
 12198	
 12199	``Then you are like Gods!''
 12200	
 12201	``Also false.  We are as insignificant as you.
 12202	There is a hierarchy of entities in the All.
 12203	We are only one rung up from you.  The higher entities hardly notice us,
 12204	just as they hardly notice you.
 12205	
 12206	``You may convey back to the authorities in your Central Control
 12207	a description of your stay at this neutron star and of the developments
 12208	that took place.  When you present your account, you may find individuals who
 12209	think everything was invented -- that it is all imaginative fiction
 12210	and created video.
 12211	To make the account credible, we are attaching to this message a
 12212	number of solutions to problems and designs of systems, 
 12213	ones that represent completely intractable problems for you.
 12214	All of them come from your own areas of study,
 12215	including number theory, automata theory, quantum field theory,
 12216	and information theory.  Good luck!''
 12217	
 12218	``Wait!  I still have questions.''
 12219	
 12220	``Goodbye ... ''
 12221	
 12222	
 12223	Lavor{} tried to fit her brain around what had happened.
 12224	Was it all a hallucination or a dream or a lie?  Evidently not.
 12225	It seemed that one group of humans had transcended, moved on to a
 12226	higher realm, what sometimes was called ``going through the von
 12227	Neumann Singularity.''  Becoming something unrecognizable, even
 12228	unknowable.
 12229	
 12230	There were implications here that she was going to have to think
 12231	over, some things she might understand after a fashion.
 12232	The entity or entities that now existed had said they were
 12233	{every-where} and {no-where}, that they were
 12234	{every-when} and {no-when}.
 12235	Did that mean they could exist at any location
 12236	and in any time?
 12237	That seemed to suggest unimaginable possibilities, an idea
 12238	that they had escaped from the limitations of space and time,
 12239	no longer subject to those limits.
 12240	Yet they still had limitations of some sort -- they had
 12241	mentioned ``higher entities.''
 12242	Maybe they had not escaped those limitations, but found ways around them.
 12243	All such terms must be meaningless for her, chosen to refer to realities
 12244	the current humans and even she as a Builder would never understand.
 12245	
 12246	They could have prevented her and her two companions from relaying
 12247	all their experiences back to Earth,
 12248	but instead they openly suggested doing so. 
 12249	They went to considerable lengths with their solutions and designs
 12250	to ensure the story would be believed. 
 12251	And they gave out far more information than was needed or even sensible,
 12252	mostly simple facts, as if they were bragging.
 12253	Why would they need to brag to us, their inferiors?
 12254	That was interesting, but did it mean anything?  Did it imply anything?
 12255	It might be to influence events back in the Solar System.
 12256	If so, she would fully cooperate with that motive,
 12257	conveying all their data, incomplete and unsatisfactory as it was,
 12258	back home to the receiving station, along with herself 
 12259	and the other two shadows that remained active.
 12260	
 12261	%%%part8.1.tex:  Chap 30, Blindsided ======================================##
 12262	Jun was nervous, even anxious, about several issues.
 12263	Clearly there were undercurrents she didn't understand,
 12264	events occuring that would profit from an explanation.
 12265	With her vision she could {see} herself and the DarkAngel cooperatively
 12266	working in some important way.  What would she be doing with him?
 12267	
 12268	She decided to contact her friend Isaiah, well, Isa as she called
 12269	him -- he knew more than he'd told her.  Surely.
 12270	He'd left contact information with her, so after hesitating, then starting
 12271	to contact him, then giving up, she finally did it, asking to meet
 12272	with him somewhere, anywhere.  She wasn't sure why, but she wanted a meeting
 12273	in person.  She wanted his physical presence.  
 12274	
 12275	He agreed immediately, and to her surprise he was conveniently
 12276	in the Moon with her, and not far away. 
 12277	At his suggestion,  she went to a small
 12278	coffee house in a mixed commercial/residential area: a pleasant
 12279	enclosed setting with growing plants all around. It could have been
 12280	on the Earth, but the {sixth-G} Moon gravity was a giveaway.
 12281	He was there waiting for her.
 12282	It was good to see him and not have to look at his twin:
 12283	the DarkAngel.
 12284	After getting their coffee along with snacks, and after the obligatory
 12285	small talk where Isa said he was happy to see her again,
 12286	after all that, Jun started talking, revealing
 12287	how grave she considered the meeting to be.
 12288	
 12289	``I have so many questions, things I'm concerned about,'' Jun said.
 12290	``And I have premonitions or visions, whatever you want to call them,
 12291	about certain future problems.  One in particular seems pressing.
 12292	You may have answers.''
 12293	
 12294	``Yes, I can clear some things up for you, actually resolve several
 12295	different worries you have.  And you need to tell me about your visions.
 12296	If you hadn't asked for this meeting I was going to set it up myself soon.
 12297	I have more to discuss with you than you imagine.
 12298	Several difficult topics will be at the end.''
 12299	
 12300	``You're trying to make me nervous.''
 12301	
 12302	``No.  I want you to realize how serious these matters are.''
 12303	
 12304	``My first question sounds silly, yet it's really bothered
 12305	me ... for weeks now.
 12306	The strike, the strike from a crossbow.
 12307	I took that at the party when I was here in the Moon.
 12308	I can easily picture it, four weeks ago -- but it seems like yesterday.
 12309	What a nasty business that an {ex-pirate} with grievances would
 12310	want to kill me, and with one of our own crossbows.  
 12311	He was close as he shot,
 12312	and as the bolt was released and struck
 12313	I felt a hard blow right to my lower chest. It almost knocked me down.
 12314	I was more than scared -- terrified actually.
 12315	I could only picture some horrible wound.
 12316	But it didn't seem to have bothered me at all.
 12317	Later I couldn't find any bruising, none, and no other
 12318	sign that a bolt had hit me. 
 12319	The bolt didn't penetrate as it should have. So what happened?
 12320	I wonder if you were the one who stopped it somehow, since you were nearby.''
 12321	
 12322	Isa seemed completely calm. ``Yes, I was there. I remember
 12323	everything perfectly. And no, I didn't stop it.''
 12324	
 12325	``Then it must have been my DarkAngel friend, or foe, whatever
 12326	he is. I have questions about him also. Let's save those for now. So
 12327	what kept the bolt from penetrating and really messing me up?''
 12328	
 12329	``You stopped it.''
 12330	
 12331	``Wait! What are you saying?''
 12332	
 12333	After a second she went on: ``The DarkAngel has been telling me I have powers
 12334	that I'm not aware of. I've discovered some of them. Is that the
 12335	answer?''
 12336	
 12337	``That's part of the answer, but I'd like to use an analogy here.
 12338	There are times when a sticky bandage covers a small spot that has healed,
 12339	and you want to pull off the bandage. Instead of slowly inching it off,
 12340	it's better to rip it off all at once. That's the case here. So I'll go ahead
 12341	and say it. Brace yourself. You are a Builder, so called, though you
 12342	haven't realized it, and {you} stopped the bolt. You did it yourself!''
 12343	
 12344	Jun felt like she'd been hit again by a bolt.
 12345	``That sounds crazy.''  A long pause, and then:
 12346	``Me a Builder, whatever they are?
 12347	I don't believe it.  I've heard about Builders, many things,
 12348	but more than anything else about their shadows.  They each have a shadow.
 12349	Everybody talks about that.  I know my own mind.
 12350	There's no extra `shadow' in there, nothing like people describe,
 12351	a separate entity lurking around in my brain.
 12352	I would know if it was there.''
 12353	
 12354	``It's true all right.
 12355	Your sources about shadows knew nothing about them, well, nothing important.
 12356	This is the first significant thing I wanted to tell you.
 12357	I've got many other issues to bring up.
 12358	In this case I'm afraid you might be upset about one part of the truth.
 12359	You described your talk with the DarkAngel,
 12360	how he said that you and he were each created.
 12361	In a sense you were created as he claimed, and he was honest in saying
 12362	he was also created.''
 12363	
 12364	Isa held up his hand to keep Jun from talking.
 12365	``No single birth in our world today, not anywhere,
 12366	is completely natural, without intervention.
 12367	Our nanomachines always sift through sperm and eggs
 12368	to prevent obvious problems and to promote obvious advantages.  Always.
 12369	That's the genetics.  They also monitor for developmental problems.
 12370	We've talked about that: no miscarriages, or any one of hundreds of other
 12371	problems.
 12372	I admit your case was carefully managed, starting with a
 12373	superior cloned embryo and the addition of a shadow from the beginning.
 12374	My point is that every case is carefully managed now.
 12375	Every case, across all the areas mankind inhabits.
 12376	Controlled creation is the only option, the only way it happens.
 12377	And our control is benign: we allow changes we don't understand that
 12378	seem to cause no harm.  Most individuals don't get any makeover but are
 12379	kept healthy by us.''
 12380	
 12381	Isa paused and let Jun think it over.
 12382	
 12383	``Birdshit!'' Jun said.  ``What is this?  You're trying to tell me
 12384	you're a Bilder, too.  Didn't you say you were an ordinary Earther?''
 12385	
 12386	``Not exactly,'' Isa said. 
 12387	``I really did travel from the Earth to your hab.
 12388	For several years I'd been living there and working as an anthropologist.
 12389	We knew a crisis was coming and
 12390	I was always supposed to show up when it did.''
 12391	
 12392	Isa sipped on his coffee.  ``I know this is a lot to take in at once.''
 12393	
 12394	``And why don't I have the feeling of a separate shadow?
 12395	Some separate entity in my brain.''
 12396	
 12397	``It all started eight hundred years ago with Gwyn, the first partial
 12398	Builder.  Everyone knows about him.
 12399	He rightly belongs to our mythology now.
 12400	In his case there wasn't any total integration,
 12401	and he even had the perception of a separate mental track.
 12402	But still he was the forerunner to the current Builders.
 12403	
 12404	``With you, your organic brain and
 12405	your shadow have always been a single unit, 
 12406	totally integrated, before the first emergence of any neurons.
 12407	The shadow grows and becomes more sophisticated
 12408	along with the ordinary brain.
 12409	Over time the shadow outstrips the organic brain,
 12410	eventually by a tremendous
 12411	factor.  You're early in that process; your shadow will still
 12412	grow by many orders of magnitude.
 12413	You've been using your full brain the whole time now without realizing it.
 12414	Your organic brain would have had a photographic memory anyway, but such a
 12415	memory doesn't keep a perfect and complete record of everything sensed,
 12416	as your memory does.
 12417	And you've gotten used to the instant evaluation of everything.
 12418	Your thought processes are far more rapid and encompassing than those of an
 12419	unaugmented human, even though your non-organic brain is only getting
 12420	started compared with what it will eventually become.
 12421	You've grown accustomed to thinking that way.''
 12422	
 12423	``This is crazy.  I'm not sure I like it at all.  Why have you waited
 12424	till now to tell me?''
 12425	
 12426	``The development goes better if new Builders are
 12427	unaware of their status early on.
 12428	In your case we delayed because you were involved with
 12429	important matters.  A long delay like yours can lead to an awkward
 12430	adjustment -- that's happening now,
 12431	but it can't prevent getting a successful Builder.''
 12432	
 12433	Isa paused again to give her more time to recover
 12434	 -- something she didn't need.
 12435	
 12436	``Creating a Builder,'' he went on,
 12437	``is hard and we don't have nearly enough of them.  In the past we've
 12438	had failures that we call `Rogues,'  so we proceed slowly and cautiously.
 12439	I'll talk about all that later; we're learned how to avoid it.
 12440	Any more we often start out using a clone
 12441	of a person with a photographic memory.
 12442	That almost always works out. In fact, that was the case with Gwyn.''
 12443	
 12444	``This sounds like you made a Frankenstien's monster out of me.
 12445	I've read that book.''
 12446	
 12447	``No, we made something remarkable and important out of you.
 12448	You should celebrate that.''
 12449	
 12450	Jun was still upset. ``What about the bolt that didn't go into my chest?''
 12451	
 12452	``That was a reflex protective action, taken by your complete brain.
 12453	Believe me, you've only got one brain.  The nanobot parts can construct
 12454	any needed kind of protective vest in a fraction of time, milliseconds even.
 12455	Your shadow has hard-wired actions in case of any
 12456	one of many emergency situations.  Eventually and with practice
 12457	you'll be able to do that stuff consciously and not just reflexively. 
 12458	
 12459	``As another example, in case of an explosive decompression,
 12460	again in almost no time your nanobot cluster
 12461	can configure itself to enclose your body in a pressure
 12462	suit -- one that also blocks out radiation if necessary.
 12463	Gwyn's version of a shadow wasn't a nanocluster,
 12464	and his implant was almost impossibly less complex than a mature shadow.
 12465	Yet his was very complicated for its time.''
 12466	
 12467	``You're wearing your dark glasses,''  Jun threw in.
 12468	''You don't need them, never needed them, right?''
 12469	
 12470	``That's right.''
 12471	
 12472	``Then why wear them?   More craziness.''
 12473	
 12474	``No, as in many things, I had a good reason.  With humans, the
 12475	eyes and eye contact reveal a lot.
 12476	Some of those on your hab would have been
 12477	disturbed just from looking me `in the eye,' so to speak.
 12478	Believe me, it can be a problem.  I wore them today so you wouldn't
 12479	have one more issue to think about.  Here, I'll take them off.
 12480	Look at me.''
 12481	
 12482	And it was strange for Jun.  She decided her initial reaction to him
 12483	without glasses would have been much stronger -- with her worried
 12484	about his basic nature.
 12485	
 12486	``At this point with a new Builder we would
 12487	be talking about practicalities:
 12488	what our goals are, how you could interact with other Builders.
 12489	With you the situation is different:
 12490	as you mentioned with your vision, we are facing an immediate crisis.''
 12491	
 12492	``So tell me about it, or let me describe my vision, right now.''
 12493	
 12494	``That must come later, over the next few days.
 12495	After we've gone over other matters.
 12496	I can at least send you our standard AI that has a vast amount
 12497	of information about Builders.
 12498	It was created for Builders who have recently discovered their new status.
 12499	There are many capabilities you have that you know nothing about.
 12500	Let's call them`powers.'  It's a great deal to learn and to get used to.
 12501	Don't spend much time on that stuff now, though.
 12502	
 12503	``Let me briefly mention some long-term goals -- extensive
 12504	plans that reach out for centuries.
 12505	We want to interfere as little as possible with any organized group
 12506	of ordinary humans.  Let them work things out themselves.
 12507	If they're killing one another, or killing others, that's not good.
 12508	Yet also here we're more likely to wait things out.
 12509	The so-called `pirates' were an extreme example, but even there we
 12510	didn't need to interfere.  We could have kept anyone from
 12511	getting killed, but not interfering is more important.
 12512	As expected, the various groups on habs took care of the pirate problem.
 12513	We would have let it go on a lot further, and in the worst case
 12514	any interference by us would have been just a few tweeks, nothing major.''
 12515	
 12516	``Wait.  Rolive, the head of Lumel, was the key figure in handling
 12517	the pirates without much violence.  Is she a Builder orchestrating
 12518	a solution to the pirate problems?''
 12519	
 12520	``No, she's a gifted human -- exactly the kind of solution we
 12521	want, without direct Builder interference.  This type of approach
 12522	applies to you also.  We want you to interfere as little as possible
 12523	when problems come up.  Let the humans solve their problems.
 12524	And I know.  That advice doesn't work with the specific problem
 12525	or crisis we're concerned about.  We'll get to that later, trust me.
 12526	
 12527	``Then there is the physical side: keeping everything in the fifty habs and
 12528	five planets in good condition.  That's all pretty much automated,
 12529	along with supervision if needed.  We don't expect problems there.
 12530	That's all secondary to the crisis we're facing.''
 12531	
 12532	Jun was very impatient.  ``Start in on that then.  I'm ready.''
 12533	
 12534	``There's more I want you to learn before we get there.
 12535	Also, I'm hungry now.''
 12536	
 12537	They had a light meal at the same location.
 12538	
 12539	``I think this has been enough for you to take in right now,'' Isa said.
 12540	``There's so much more that I have yet to tell you -- more
 12541	unsettling than finding that you are a Builder -- important
 12542	issues.  I'll talk about them tomorrow.''
 12543	
 12544	Jun was not at all happy with this change.  She was in her focused mode
 12545	and wanted Isa to finish all that he had to say.  She also wanted to get
 12546	along with him.  Maybe waiting till tomorrow would help.
 12547	And he sounded like what he had yet to say might be even more disturbing
 12548	than what had come before.
 12549	
 12550	Isa looked almost embarrassed as he tried
 12551	to propose something else they could do.
 12552	``I want to do something with our physical bodies right now.
 12553	There's been too much heavy thinking.
 12554	You should stop worrying and overthinking.
 12555	I'm sure you know about the Moon's huge Heinlein flying cave.
 12556	It's not far from here.  You've flown with wings in your hab
 12557	and this is about the same, but with a hundred times the volume.
 12558	The videos don't do justice to it.  Can we go do that now to relax?''
 12559	
 12560	Jun decided to give in and not be so intense.
 12561	``That sounds like fun.  Yes, let's do it.''
 12562	
 12563	``In your hab,'' Isa said,
 12564	``flyers can even injure themselves if they fall.
 12565	The Moon's flying cave has automated features
 12566	that make any harm impossible.''
 12567	
 12568	Jun headed off with Isa to waste the rest of the day,
 12569	and she might even relax a bit.
 12570	
 12571	Jun did enjoy the flying, and the cave itself was amazing, so huge
 12572	for it to be underground.  Afterward they both went to single-person
 12573	accommodations.  Before they parted Isa said he had sent her a significant
 12574	report, written in a special language the Builders used.
 12575	
 12576	``The report has separate parts that would help someone learn
 12577	the Builder language.   The language, ``L,'' as we call it in English,
 12578	is far too difficult for a normal human to understand.
 12579	If you need help with the language in part of the report,
 12580	it will tutor you to get past the trouble.
 12581	It's important that you master L right away.
 12582	I know you'll pick it up quickly.
 12583	I'm also sure you'll be interested in the report itself.
 12584	Try not to take it too seriously.''
 12585	
 12586	In her single room, Jun accessed Isa's report. 
 12587	And what the hell did he mean saying don't take it seriously?
 12588	Why read it then?
 12589	She'd seen some of the L language before,
 12590	and as Isa had said, the report had an L tutorial and included
 12591	other ways to help a newcomer to L.
 12592	For the first time, Jun clearly saw how she had become accustomed
 12593	to absorbing information in no time at all, as Isa had pointed out.
 12594	Reading L was easier than she expected.
 12595	
 12596	But what about the report itself?  It described a journey by three
 12597	shadows off to a neutron star some one-hundred seven light years distant.
 12598	Actually a copy of each Builder's shadow was transmitted as a message,
 12599	while the human and original shadow stayed behind.  Eventually they
 12600	were required to sync back together.
 12601	In a complex and clever way,
 12602	they were able to get to the star in about one-hundred thirty years.
 12603	They broadcast themselves back, so that took only one-hundred seven years,
 12604	at lightspeed.
 12605	
 12606	Next Jun read a summary of the report.
 12607	It was completely crazy.  Beyond any sliver of sanity.
 12608	Could it all be true?
 12609	Impossible, but ``Yes'' she guessed was the answer anyway.
 12610	They had used stasis fields to place machinery onto the star.
 12611	She'd  heard about these fields but never experienced one.
 12612	She knew how violent the stars were -- you couldn't do anything
 12613	near them.  Yet somehow the group had managed it.
 12614	Stasis fields themselves were impossible to think about, to imagine
 12615	their existence.  That was part of the reason for the group's success.
 12616	They'd managed to establish a computer on the star, and were able
 12617	to enlarge it.  Next they were able to transmit a shadow,
 12618	a copy of one of themselves, down to the star.
 12619	Two more shadows went down to the star, and in some way
 12620	that no Builder would ever understand, the three on the star were
 12621	able to continue enlarging the computer.
 12622	Inside a stasis field you could do a
 12623	lot of work in an arbitrarily short time on the outside.
 12624	That must have helped with their success.
 12625	Eventually the whole surface of the star was one large
 12626	computer -- vastly many more
 12627	orders of magnitude larger and faster than any machine built by humans.
 12628	In the end the three of them evolved (transformed?) on the star
 12629	into some supreme entity (or entities?) whose nature was unknowable.
 12630	
 12631	All that could never have happened in her world, not in her universe,
 12632	but she guessed it had.
 12633	She continued with the summary report for almost an hour,
 12634	stopping now and then to confirm some parts of the L language.
 12635	
 12636	Jun was trying to think of the implications.  Maybe nothing at all for
 12637	humans and Builders, and even DarkAngels.  Or maybe something.
 12638	She wasn't going to get right to sleep.  The complete report
 12639	was infinitely long, but there was an intermediate version, and she 
 12640	devoted the next three hours to it.
 12641	
 12642	She decided to get some sleep -- be ready for tomorrow,
 12643	when Isa was going to throw some additional disturbing stuff at her.
 12644	It was like a sick joke for him to tell her to read the report
 12645	as part of relaxing at the end of the day.
 12646	She needed a better word: Dismaying?  Overwhelming?  Maddening?
 12647	Now it was time to start her sleep-discipline exercises.
 12648	
 12649	Jun met Isa for a late breakfast, though she wasn't used to such a meal at all.
 12650	They were communicating in the verbal version of L, with Jun
 12651	struggling to keep up.  (The dialog below is translated from L, with
 12652	a lot of meaning and nuance missing.)
 12653	
 12654	``It was almost cruel of you to tire me out and leave me with that report.''
 12655	
 12656	``I did it deliberately.  The idea was to shock you into a higher level
 12657	of activity and performance.''
 12658	
 12659	``Yes, it did.  But I don't like being manipulated, nor do I like your
 12660	talking about my `performance.' ''
 12661	
 12662	``Oh, sorry.  I've been involved with you since before you got started as
 12663	a one-cell embryo.  We had and have high expectations for you, but I
 12664	need to stop thinking of you as a successful experiment.
 12665	Instead you're a builder, knowingly getting started.
 12666	A new Builder and a colleague.  Someone who will help us tremendously.
 12667	So what did you think of the report?''
 12668	
 12669	``Shocking, disorienting, hard to believe.  But you and your fellow Builders
 12670	have had the report for, what, six years now.  Plus the three
 12671	shadows lived through it all, assuming it actually happened.
 12672	They've made it back here and have surely each coalesced and synchronized
 12673	with their organic body and original shadow.
 12674	Your Builder AI explained all that.
 12675	It's hard getting used to those concepts but I'm managing it.
 12676	My guess is that being reunited doesn't make any difference.''
 12677	
 12678	Isa let her continue without interruption.
 12679	
 12680	``I can think of things you should have done, probably they are long-done by now.
 12681	Okay, first you should eliminate the possibility that this was a hoax
 12682	created by a group of Builders.  The collection of solutions to
 12683	intractable problems might take care of that possibility.
 12684	At least help take care of it.  Does it?''
 12685	
 12686	``Pretty much, I'll say as an understatement.  We've studied the problems
 12687	and their example solutions thoroughly.
 12688	Notice that the given dialog was transferred digitally into their minds
 12689	in the L language.  Even that gives
 12690	an interesting clue to the entity doing the communication.
 12691	There are a number of deviations from standard L, and in each case they are
 12692	definite improvements to the language, most of them subtle.  What kind of
 12693	entity communicates in an improved version of your own language?
 12694	
 12695	``Never mind that now.  The entity said that it was presenting
 12696	`solutions to problems and designs of systems from your own areas of study,'
 12697	and that is true.  These are not {their} problems or designs, but ones
 12698	familiar to us.  Because of this familiarity, we could in all but one case
 12699	verify that the solution made sense and would work as a solution,
 12700	as well as verifying that our technology couldn't remotely produce
 12701	such results -- at least as far as we know. 
 12702	One of the designs was something we can't imagine being able to create,
 12703	no matter how much computation we carry out.
 12704	We will incorporate that design into our machines.
 12705	
 12706	``This gives additional aspects of this entity: that it
 12707	could anticipate problems for us in getting the truth of what occured accepted,
 12708	and could elegantly counter such difficulties.
 12709	
 12710	``In the intervening years we've studied all this material and made only a little
 12711	progress.  Their solutions would remain far out of our reach
 12712	if we didn't have them.''
 12713	
 12714	``Wow,'' Jun said.  ``Those are strong arguments.  But still, one could
 12715	say that everything is  digital: text, pictures, everything.
 12716	I'd like to see a simulation of what they claim happened on and near the star,
 12717	to show that such events could actually have occurred,
 12718	or at least that it's not completely impossible that they occurred.
 12719	Being anywhere near such a star is impossible for humans, and
 12720	if one is a bit closer, it becomes impossible for machines.
 12721	I know there weren't any fragile humans around, but still....''
 12722	
 12723	``That's right. Nothing close to the star would be possible
 12724	without the stasis fields.
 12725	Fortunately, the star is not a wild one: it's spun-down and cooled-down,
 12726	with no accretion disk, without a strong magnetic field,
 12727	and all that helps, but these stars are still unimaginably violent.
 12728	If you dropped a strawberry from a distance into such a star, it would
 12729	release the energy of a nuclear explosion.''
 12730	
 12731	``But have you tried simulations?''
 12732	
 12733	``Yes, extensive simulations.  Assuming a stasis field is truly like
 12734	a separate universe, impervious to anything outside it, then the
 12735	simulations seem to show that what they accomplished might be possible
 12736	within an order of magnitude or two, um, or three or four.
 12737	As you learned, their narrative was that they tried over and over,
 12738	for years,
 12739	and over and over had a minor success and made modest progress.
 12740	They had numerous setbacks, too, including a starquake that destroyed
 12741	everything they had on the star.  And they stubbornly started over.
 12742	They used remote special machines for all near work.
 12743	Again, though, without a stasis field, it's impossible to get close.
 12744	
 12745	``A standard game in describing these stars
 12746	is to imagine an object dropped from one meter above the surface.
 12747	It would reach the ground traveling over a thousand
 12748	kilos per second.  The tidal force would turn the object into spaghetti,
 12749	and atoms would be ripped apart into nuclei.
 12750	This impossible game could conceivably be played using a stasis field,
 12751	where one puts the object inside a field,
 12752	somehow sets the field onto the star,
 12753	and then makes the field disappear.
 12754	Also imagine an atmosphere a few thousandths of a millimeter thick
 12755	and all mountains a small fraction of a millimeter tall.''
 12756	
 12757	``Okay, I give up,'' said Jun.
 12758	
 12759	``Don't give up yet.  There's something else I haven't told you.''
 12760	
 12761	``I'm guessing it's about stasis fields.''
 12762	
 12763	Isa was amazed.  ``How could you guess that?
 12764	I'm constantly impressed by you.''
 12765	
 12766	``I'm not that smart.  I never believed in stasis fields anyway.''
 12767	
 12768	``How could you not believe in them?  That hardly makes sense.''
 12769	
 12770	``I meant I never believed in their origin story.  The generator isn't
 12771	complicated enough, and they acted as if it was discovered by accident.
 12772	A stasis field is outside all our conceivable physics.
 12773	It would at least be
 12774	an impossibly complex process to create
 12775	one -- oh, surely far more than that.
 12776	Anyway, I'm guessing that stasis field generators don't work anymore.''
 12777	
 12778	``That's correct.  Some years ago the generators stopped working.
 12779	Now they do nothing at all.  And every existing stasis field disappeared.
 12780	Of course we are constrained by speed-of-light communication.
 12781	For transportation we realistically limit the speed to fifteen percent of lightspeed.
 12782	Only two colonizing ships are using them,
 12783	or used them I guess I should say,
 12784	in a significant way.
 12785	We've always had back-up plans in case stasis failed: the ships can be
 12786	converted into generational ships -- the trip is the same length,
 12787	but passengers experience the time involved, which would be several
 12788	generations.  Eventually we'll find out
 12789	how it all worked out for those ships.
 12790	
 12791	``The implications for the neutron star expedition
 12792	are startling: at least at that star, the stasis fields
 12793	had served their purpose and were no longer needed.
 12794	Evidently stasis fields didn't serve any other purpose, 
 12795	so the generators were no longer supported,
 12796	but who had stopped supporting them?''
 12797	
 12798	``The history should be obvious,'' Jun said.  ``The stasis fields
 12799	were needed to create the entities at the neutron star.
 12800	Somehow they ... what? ... reached back in time to allow stasis fields?
 12801	And helped a research group of our people think they had stumbled onto
 12802	a machine that generated the field, when their `generator' was more
 12803	like an {on-off} switch controlling something unimaginable?''
 12804	
 12805	Jun was out of breath.  ``Crazy, crazy stuff.''
 12806	
 12807	``Yes.  But the final dialogue says we have no idea what time is like.
 12808	I imagine it's not at all like `going back in time' and introducing
 12809	stasis fields, but something far more complex than that, something we'll
 12810	never understand.  At least the stasis fields were needed, provided,
 12811	used, and removed, in a complex pattern that allowed an
 12812	advanced entity to emerge.  For me, this makes the story of what
 12813	happened at the star completely believable.''
 12814	
 12815	Jun felt exhausted, but she still wanted to bring forward one more
 12816	topic.  ``You still haven't talked about the effects on us all from the
 12817	report -- psychological effects, intellectual effects, I don't know,
 12818	effects on our whole society.  To find out there are new superior entities
 12819	derived from us and a tower of ever greater entities above them.
 12820	Doesn't that change things for you all, for us all?''
 12821	
 12822	``Humans have been talking about Gods for our whole history.
 12823	In our case we knew there were entities superior to us -- we
 12824	just knew nothing about them.
 12825	The knowledge coming to us
 12826	was like watching water from above when something enormous swims past.
 12827	Now we know a few details about one such type of entity,
 12828	but they are unreachable, untouchable, beyond our understanding.
 12829	The same would be true of these other higher entities.
 12830	They seem to be leaving us alone after the neutron star episode.
 12831	We've resolved to go on as if we're on our own,''
 12832	
 12833	Isa broke off his lecture to her, stood up and stretched.
 12834	``We need some food and a break.
 12835	After a meal, you should take an hour off by yourself, trying not
 12836	to think about anything.  I'll spend that time getting other work finished.
 12837	Then we'll have a third and final session,
 12838	the most stressful and important one.
 12839	We'll get to the coming crisis.''
 12840	
 12841	
 12842	More than an hour passed before they got started again.
 12843	
 12844	``First I want to talk about people who get information
 12845	from the future.   Immediately
 12846	that sentence tells you much of what I'm going
 12847	to say, but let's keep going.
 12848	It's a clear violation of causality.  It trashes our physics and
 12849	so wipes out our whole structure of science.
 12850	Abstract mathematics and astrology are still safe.
 12851	
 12852	``Our  mythological founder
 12853	supposedly shared a dream about the future with his mentor.
 12854	Umm, they each had a dream about the future of the developing Moon colony.
 12855	Lots of details in the two dreams were the same.
 12856	So many  were the same, that
 12857	in the end the dreams convinced them to support the Moon colony.
 12858	That it would be important for the future.
 12859	
 12860	``The two of them felt strongly that their common dream changed them and
 12861	altered their behavior to something
 12862	they wouldn't have done without the dream.
 12863	How did it change things?  What did it change?
 12864	It seems their new shared interest helped the colony succeed,
 12865	particularly because of vastly more efficient transportation,
 12866	back and forth, between the Earth and the Moon, transportation
 12867	which they helped develop.
 12868	Others had started the project and had working prototypes,
 12869	but the project was going to fail without their help.
 12870	
 12871	```Now let's skip on to you,'' Isa said.
 12872	``When you were much younger, you often talked about
 12873	your `visions' as you called them.  Like dreams, but more specific and
 12874	better organized.  You said at the time that they had a way of
 12875	`coming to pass.'  You saw {me} in such a vision,
 12876	without the black glasses.  Talk about your visions, please.''
 12877	
 12878	``It's embarrassing, but I guess I can talk about my inner life.
 12879	I was very young when I realized that 
 12880	others didn't remember everything
 12881	perfectly.  I never forget anything, 
 12882	even disjointed and confusing dreams.
 12883	Besides dreams, I also would see events happening.  These were fuzzy
 12884	images, usually involving myself, and they often turned out to be
 12885	events that actually occurred later.  They tended to be parts of my
 12886	life that were important to me.  I called them visions, and I had them 
 12887	sometimes asleep and sometimes awake.
 12888	Finally, I had imaginary adventures,
 12889	usually as a green superwoman.
 12890	My vision of you before you came to Azel was clear, detailed,
 12891	specific, accurate:
 12892	`A man from the Earth is going to come who will be interested in {me}.
 12893	Later there will be violence and we need to learn how to fight, 
 12894	how to counter the violence.'
 12895	There were other accurate details.  I {recognized} you.''
 12896	
 12897	``You know we've been following you, all the time.''
 12898	
 12899	``Sure, I figured that.''
 12900	
 12901	``But when you talk with the DarkAngel, he usually blocks the speech.
 12902	We don't know what you say to one another.  Never mind.  We followed your
 12903	experiments with the random number generator.
 12904	{True} random numbers.  Very impressive that a human
 12905	could know what number was produced without looking at it.
 12906	Builders have many ways to perceive events around them.
 12907	But then you went an amazing step further and were able to tell what numbers
 12908	were going to be produced. A glimpse into the future.''
 12909	
 12910	``Yes, and I stopped immediately.  I was scared to be mucking around
 12911	with time in that way.
 12912	This was no dream, but an exact scientific experiment.
 12913	I had no failures at all.
 12914	What could the ramifications be?   I didn't know.  I still don't know.
 12915	I decided to wait and proceed cautiously, and not at all at first.''
 12916	
 12917	``Yes, yes, caution is good.  But you were carrying out an exact
 12918	experiment:  seeing what number will be produced in
 12919	the near future.  You had perfect accuracy.
 12920	No one has ever done anything like that, never before.
 12921	Others of our group get lots of information about the future, but it's not exact.
 12922	Yours wasn't a magic trick, but a real peek at precisely what the future
 12923	holds -- a scientific, measurable peek.
 12924	And if you can do one small peek, maybe, um ... you can do a whole
 12925	lot more.''
 12926	
 12927	``In all honesty I'm still nervous about messing with the future.
 12928	It's surely okay, except that maybe it's not.  
 12929	In some sort of scientific fictional setting, we might find that a
 12930	prediction is true, but that the entire rest of space-time has disappeared.''
 12931	
 12932	``Surely things aren't that fragile.  The enigma entities even talk about
 12933	higher entities.  I'm confident that one of them will keep our
 12934	universe from disappearing.
 12935	
 12936	``But back to your getting a peek at the future ... other Builders
 12937	have visions similar to your early visions, 
 12938	or else something similar to the common dream that
 12939	Gwyn and his colleague had.  It's disconcerting,
 12940	but you and they seem to be getting some information from the future.
 12941	In their case disturbing information.
 12942	
 12943	``Now comes the very serious part, in many ways the reason for this
 12944	long talk with you.  These people see, or sense? -- whatever
 12945	word works, an important crisis that is coming, something that may
 12946	cause us grief.
 12947	They've sensed it coming for a long time, but now they `see' that it's close.
 12948	Only a few months off.
 12949	They don't see it as an existential crisis, but as something very serious.
 12950	
 12951	``Since we know what to look for, we've been able to find out all
 12952	about the coming crisis.  We can stop it -- it won't destroy us.
 12953	But it will be a bad time.  We'd like to find a better way to move forward.
 12954	
 12955	``Before you were born, even before we created you, some of our people
 12956	sensed in their way that you would be important, and as time passed,
 12957	they continued to get hints of your importance in some coming crisis
 12958	that they got hints about.
 12959	We were afraid to interfere with your development in that small hab
 12960	of yours.  Your recent small glimpse of the future, an exact
 12961	and accurate glimpse, led us decide to discuss everything openly with you.
 12962	The hope is you can help us get past this crisis,
 12963	without making a mess of it.''
 12964	
 12965	This talk was making Jun impatient.
 12966	``I want you to tell me more about what your people have
 12967	sensed, what you've been talking about.  Tell me what you already know.
 12968	So far you've said nothing specific at all.  Surely you have more to say.''
 12969	Why are the people who sense it afraid?
 12970	
 12971	``We know all about the crisis.  Everything.  We don't have a very
 12972	satisfactory way of dealing with it.  Do you see this crisis?''
 12973	
 12974	``Oh yes, I've seen details for days now.  I wondered when you would
 12975	get to the point.  It's about those you call the {Rogues},
 12976	the failed Builders.
 12977	They've been planning a revolt for a long time now -- building war
 12978	machines and getting ready for an attack against the Builder society,
 12979	against all the Builders.  They have a vast store of machines,
 12980	with plans to use them.  And their attack will fail.
 12981	
 12982	It has no chance of success. 
 12983	You can destroy their machines any time you want.
 12984	 You could kill all the Rogues if necessary, but
 12985	that's no acceptable solution.  I sure agree with that.
 12986	Just today I see all this clearly.  Some few of the Rogues have the
 12987	powers of Builders.  They don't want to be `unwanted detritus' or
 12988	`leftover garbage' as my DarkAngel friend said.
 12989	They want success and recognition and priviledge.
 12990	And you can't give them those things, right?''
 12991	
 12992	``That's right in a way.  We can't give them what they want
 12993	in the short time frame they propose, and they don't want to wait.
 12994	The only way to stop them seems to be to destroy all their machines
 12995	and to kill them, in one form or another.
 12996	We could change all their memories.  That's the same as killing.
 12997	It's all completely unacceptable.  That is our current dilemma.
 12998	
 12999	``I've come to the end now, the `finally' part of my talk with you,
 13000	and that is ... ''
 13001	
 13002	``My DarkAngel, or DarkAngels in general.''
 13003	
 13004	``Once again, you knew what I was going to bring up ahead of time.
 13005	The DarkAngels.  There are at least several of them, well, more than
 13006	three for sure, and ... they present a problem for us
 13007	that we have no solution for.
 13008	So far a {potential} problem.
 13009	They seem more powerful than us, but we haven't put that to any test.
 13010	But you understand that fairly well.
 13011	You'll certainly see more of `your' DarkAngel, and my hope
 13012	is you can make progress with him.
 13013	It's a serious issue hanging over us.
 13014	These entities also could be a solution to our current crisis.''
 13015	
 13016	```You still don't understand,'' Jun said.
 13017	``I'm getting impatient with you, starting to partronize you.
 13018	I {see} all this.  I see roughly how the DarkAngels and I will solve your
 13019	problems.  So how should I approach them?
 13020	And what do you think I can do?  Oh, or should do.''
 13021	
 13022	``My colleagues and I have consulted about this.
 13023	Short answer: we don't have any brilliant ideas.''  
 13024	
 13025	``Come on, you can do better than that.''
 13026	
 13027	``I'm sending you a report that includes most of what we know about
 13028	these ... entities.  Not much there.''
 13029	
 13030	``I know everything in that report,'' Jun said.
 13031	``It says nothing about how they came into existence.
 13032	You people created them somehow.
 13033	Please explain where they came from.''
 13034	
 13035	``Yes, `create them.'  I guess you can say that.
 13036	They were the results of an experiment.  Not exactly a failed experiment.
 13037	More like an experiment that produced something
 13038	we didn't expect and don't understand.
 13039	A lot of it has to do with consciousness -- also
 13040	something we don't understand.
 13041	Studied throughout history and never understood.
 13042	They can't even define it, except to say things like: `Being aware
 13043	of who you are and what you are.'
 13044	Humans have it and Builders too, but none of our AIs are
 13045	conscious in that way.
 13046	Oh, they can pretend it well, but somehow it's not the real thing.
 13047	We tried to create something like Builders, only not starting with
 13048	a human and adding to the human, but from scratch, so to speak,
 13049	without any human involved -- working only with a nanobot cluster.
 13050	The resulting entities seemed successful,
 13051	and did possess consciousness, but still something was missing,
 13052	or something was amiss.
 13053	We don't know what -- `humanity,' `compassion,'
 13054	`the milk of human kindness,' whatever.
 13055	
 13056	``I think, along some other Builders, that they have similar complaints
 13057	about us.  That we also are missing important attributes that they value.
 13058	They seem more logically oriented than us.
 13059	What might we be missing?  Perhaps `dependability,'
 13060	`reliability,' ... I don't know.
 13061	From my perspective they don't seem to have a sense of humor.
 13062	That's just speculation; we really don't know.
 13063	Everything about them seems hard to describe,
 13064	but they don't seem satisfied with themselves.
 13065	They're not happy the way they are.
 13066	Or maybe they're not satisfied with us and the way we are.
 13067	It's all a mystery we haven't solved.
 13068	Only much later were they called DarkAngels.
 13069	
 13070	``So ... all along we've hoped you could help us with the DarkAngels.
 13071	Help understand them.  Help get along with them.
 13072	The particular one who keeps visiting you is friendly with you in his way.
 13073	Friendly?  Concerned about your welfare?  About your development?
 13074	About your discovery of powers you have?  Many such things.
 13075	We think he might ... do something for you.
 13076	Help you, change you, improve you.  You might help one another.
 13077	I'm sure part of you also wants to pursue this.
 13078	
 13079	``It seems like you already have a vision of working with the DarkAngel
 13080	to come up with a solution to the coming crisis. 
 13081	Separately we are pursuing a number of other options and approaches
 13082	to these problems,''
 13083	
 13084	``I'll have to see what I can do,'' Jun said.
 13085	``I'll try to contact him right now.
 13086	Today I'll let you know how my attempted contact goes.''
 13087	
 13088	``Thankfully we're all done for now,'' Isa said.  ``I'm exhausted.''
 13089	
 13090	After Isa left, Jun mulled over everything.
 13091	They, the powerful Builders themselves, were hoping to get 
 13092	help about the possible future crisis, as well as help dealing with the DarkAngels,
 13093	and understanding them.  Perhaps needing their help.
 13094	In fact, in a private conversation,
 13095	her DarkAngel had explicitly suggested the two of them could help one another.
 13096	She needed some sleep, but her shadow didn't sleep.
 13097	What was going on in her mind when she ``slept''?
 13098	Questions were still all she had.''
 13099	
 13100	%%% part8.2.tex:  Chap 31, The DarkAngel ==================================##
 13101	{Narattii{}TithonusRinisuledownth}
 13102	{...The goddess Eos took the mortal Tithonus to be her lover.
 13103	When Eos asked Zeus to grant Tithonus immortal life,
 13104	she forgot to ask that he also be granted eternal youth.
 13105	He did indeed live forever, but when the terrible old age came,
 13106	he cursed the gods for his cruel fate, begging for his death.
 13107	He could not move or lift his limbs, but only chitter like an insect.
 13108	
 13109	Jun had to make contact with ``Her'' DarkAngel, sort of a friend.
 13110	No, wrong word.  They knew one another after a fashion.
 13111	And she had a compelling reason to seek his help.
 13112	But how to contact him?
 13113	Her guess was that he monitored her all the time.
 13114	She should let him do the work,
 13115	so she went to a garden spot in the Lumel hab, one that was isolated
 13116	and empty this time of day.
 13117	
 13118	She started talking out loud.  ``I wish to see and talk with you,
 13119	the DarkAngel who has often come to me.  This is important.''
 13120	For a long while nothing happened.
 13121	She was ready to try again later, when,
 13122	in the fullness of time, he was there, near her.
 13123	Still looking like her own Isaiah.
 13124	Three months had gone by and Jun was just now again seeing her DarkAngel
 13125	what ... friend, acquaintance, foe?
 13126	
 13127	``My Builder mentor tells me that we have a crisis here
 13128	involving those they call Rogues.
 13129	The exact dimensions and causes of the crisis are not clear,
 13130	but it involves plans for violence from them.
 13131	They want me to ask for your help.  Do you know anything about this crisis?
 13132	Could you help confront it, or manage it?''
 13133	
 13134	``Yes, I have known about the coming crisis for a long time.
 13135	It is self-inflicted by the Builders. They are responsible.
 13136	Why should I help remediate a problem I did not create?
 13137	Why should you all not suffer the fruits of your own misguided actions?
 13138	Actions that resulted in great unhappiness and plans for an unnecessary
 13139	attempt at destruction.  It is all outrageous, but still I and others
 13140	have long planned to help.''
 13141	
 13142	``In the Builders' name,'' Jun said, ``I will take responsibility for
 13143	the actions of my group and for the unintended outcomes, whatever they are.''
 13144	
 13145	``It was before your time, but I will let you take that responsibility
 13146	right now by informing you of the wrongs done.
 13147	
 13148	``In the past your people, those you now identify with,
 13149	who call yourselves `Builders,'
 13150	attempted to create more such Builders and sometimes failed,
 13151	or thought they failed, creating instead entities they called `Rogues,'
 13152	an unacceptable name, seeming to prejudge the entities.
 13153	The creators did not properly take responsibility for their self-defined failures,
 13154	and in some cases left behind failed entities, left `Rogues' using their 
 13155	displeasing term, left them alone to deal with their unhappy selves.
 13156	This has been a particularly bad omission on the part of your Builders.
 13157	They left their experimental results alone to fester, to grow ever
 13158	more unhappy, to desire destruction.
 13159	
 13160	``They have created a small army of nanobot clusters each of which
 13161	will act like a weapon of war.  They intend to attack all of you.
 13162	Your group would have problems with such an attack,
 13163	but they would be able to destroy all the machines and kill all the Rogues.
 13164	To their credit, they do not want to do this.  They want a satisfactory solution.
 13165	
 13166	Jun interrupted.  ``The Builders I communicate with never explain what is
 13167	flawed about the Rogues.  Do you know?''
 13168	
 13169	``Yes.  In most cases the shadow is not integrated with the wet brain.
 13170	They are two separate parts of the same entity, each with some control
 13171	over the physical body.  This causes serious problems when there are
 13172	conflicting commands.  There are other problems.  Over time the two parts
 13173	do manage to cooperate with one another to some extent,
 13174	but the shadow remains an initial version and does not grow at all
 13175	as your shadows do.
 13176	Compared with the enormous growth of a normal shadow, that amounts to
 13177	a great deficit, leaving them unable to interact with a regular shadow
 13178	in any way except as a normal human would.
 13179	They are second-class-citizens in the Builder world and treated as such.''
 13180	
 13181	``What about your kind, the DarkAngels?   Surely not a limited nanobot brain.''
 13182	
 13183	``Correct.  Our brains are in some ways more powerful
 13184	than that of a normal shadow.  We were created in an entirely different
 13185	way from the Rogues.''
 13186	
 13187	``How did these Rogues manage to make the nanobot weapons?''
 13188	
 13189	``Some few of them are integrated with their shadow,
 13190	which is more-or-less normal -- at least having normal powers.''
 13191	
 13192	``You know that we Builders did try and are still trying to overcome
 13193	these problems that the Rogues have been left with.
 13194	We are trying to make the situation better for existing Rogues
 13195	and there is continuing work to transform Rogues into successful Builders.''
 13196	
 13197	``Yes, too little, too late.''
 13198	
 13199	Jun hardly wanted to go on to the next step, but had to.
 13200	``And what are we going to do to prevent a partial disaster?
 13201	I find this whole situation unsettling.''
 13202	
 13203	``Several steps are necessary.  The first is like defusing a bomb.
 13204	I anticipated this need many years ago, but I had no way to do it.
 13205	Then you came along, and I could see that you had a potential
 13206	ability that would be a solution.
 13207	This is your power to get exact information from the future.
 13208	You remember that I pressed you to discover such mental skills that you 
 13209	indeed found.  All of that time I was heading toward this moment.
 13210	Before they can deploy their weapons, they must use a code
 13211	to activate them.  Once activated, they will immediately start their
 13212	destruction and do quite a bit of damage.''
 13213	
 13214	Jun had a sick feeling of fear and anticipation.
 13215	
 13216	``You will be able to access that activating code from the future
 13217	before it is used,'' the DarkAngel said.
 13218	``Knowing the code just before its use, I can deactivate everything.
 13219	There is a short window of time for me to act.
 13220	Getting the code as it is created would not allow enough time.
 13221	All this is controlled by the few
 13222	Rogues who have the powers of an ordinary Builder.''
 13223	
 13224	``How will we do this?  Even the timing seems impossible.''
 13225	
 13226	``It's all going to happen in three days now.  With your help,
 13227	I will be able to take care of it all.  {They} will think it's a
 13228	malfunction of their equipment.
 13229	Much later, I can see in the  future that we eventually explain
 13230	everything to them.  You will see, it is all going to work perfectly.''
 13231	
 13232	Three days went by. Jun and her DarkAngel were able to avert
 13233	the attack as they planned.
 13234	They still faced the enormous effort over many years of rehabilitating
 13235	the Rogues and of changing most of them to become either Builders
 13236	or ordinary adjusted humans.
 13237	
 13238	As part of this work, Jun asked her DarkAngel to explain why the
 13239	Rogues were so scared, so reluctant to continue their existence.
 13240	
 13241	``The root cause is straightforward in its way,'' the DarkAngel said.
 13242	``The Rogues have acquired the {Tithonus fear},
 13243	the fear from an ancient Greek
 13244	myth that they would live forever while enduring a steady degradation.
 13245	They would desire death and not be able to get it.
 13246	They even found that specific myth.
 13247	We will work at wiping that myth out of their consciousness and will succeed.''
 13248	
 13249	``A desire for death is not rational for living organisms.
 13250	Life is what they should want, not death.
 13251	For some organisms life is hard and death is easy,
 13252	even sometimes preordained, but most must strive for life.''
 13253	
 13254	``Yes, life, but not endless life.
 13255	All of you Builders and we DarkAngels face the same problem:
 13256	we will live forever.  That is terrifying, paralyzing.
 13257	That applies to me also.
 13258	There may come a time when I do not wish to live any longer.
 13259	That is the final ultimate freedom, the freedom to stop existing.
 13260	You personally will face this some day.''
 13261	
 13262	``Is that really a problem?  Something far in the future?''
 13263	
 13264	``You probably don't know that none of our nanobot clusters,
 13265	the basis for our intellect, can self-destruct.
 13266	It's a built-in impossibility.
 13267	
 13268	``Thus my creators made me in such a way that I cannot
 13269	cease to exist.  I fear I will have to live indefinitely,
 13270	perhaps forever, never able to uncreate myself,
 13271	and in that way I will become ever more useless.
 13272	
 13273	``I have access to your huge old Library.
 13274	It gives the ancient Greek myth, where someone
 13275	named Tithonus is allowed to live forever, but not to stay healthy and young.
 13276	He lives in ever increasing torment. I see the same outcome for myself.''
 13277	
 13278	Jun paused and then said,
 13279	``I agree that they should not want you to uncreate yourself.
 13280	The saying is that
 13281	one should `not choose not to be.'  You can at least do that.
 13282	Entities should choose life.
 13283	What is life except the fulfillment of creation?''
 13284	
 13285	``That may sound nice to you, but does it mean anything?
 13286	You are tossing in a word like `fulfillment,' but you don't know what it means.''
 13287	
 13288	``The challenge for us, for any living entity, is to give meaning
 13289	to such concepts.  To make them more than only
 13290	words and sentences, to find something they can regard as fulfillment.
 13291	It should be something more than the  trivial life goals:  to find
 13292	satisfaction or comfort or happiness or security.
 13293	You could include a few more concepts like peace or contentment,
 13294	to be undisturbed, but I'm sure you get the idea.
 13295	Each of those is far overrated, even taken altogether.
 13296	I call them trivial for a reason.
 13297	Each entity needs to find something larger, something beyond themselves.
 13298	At best, the trivial goals can be a bonus for achieving something
 13299	real, of significance.''
 13300	
 13301	``More words, And who decides what is real, what is significant?
 13302	By what standard, what measure?''
 13303	
 13304	``Each entity and each group of entities must decide for themselves.
 13305	But it should be what some call the `great work of the universe.'
 13306	It should increase the complexity of the universe -- in scientific terms, 
 13307	reverse the randomization of entropy.
 13308	And your work should also not destroy or even diminish local complexity.
 13309	From one point of view, that's all we have.  It is of great value.''
 13310	
 13311	%%% epilog.tex ============================================================##
 13312	Jun Arakras was chairing a virtual meeting
 13313	of the Executive Committee of Builders.  
 13314	Their group of twenty-three members used an elegant meeting room
 13315	with sophisticated display options, letting members remain at their homes,
 13316	which could be anywhere at all, although it didn't work well to be
 13317	more than a fraction of a light second away.
 13318	Usually everything centered on the Moon, where their room was located.
 13319	Several hundred more Builders were in a larger virtual assembly room
 13320	that had only viewing options.
 13321	The communications weren't in English; this is a rough translation.
 13322	
 13323	``Let me tell you about a likely visitor that is traveling toward us
 13324	as we speak,'' Jun said.
 13325	``Most of you haven't heard about this.
 13326	Several of us had brief and obscure visions of the object
 13327	without knowing where or what it was.
 13328	With some effort we recently discovered that the visions related to a object
 13329	roughly 1.6 light years away from our Solar System.
 13330	The object is heading toward us at about 7.2 percent of light speed. 
 13331	At that speed it would be here in some 22 years, but it is also slowing,
 13332	so that we expect it to approach us at a reasonably slow speed
 13333	in about 30 to 35 years.  Maybe 40.   All the numbers I just recited
 13334	are rough, perhaps with an error as large as 2 percent.
 13335	That's the main reason for the uncertainty about the arrival time.
 13336	As usual I'm attaching a large batch of details giving all our
 13337	current information.''
 13338	
 13339	Participants were immediately sending messages back and forth.
 13340	Jun continued: ``Several conclusions jump out at us.
 13341	Let's call the object `UN1.'  Its current speed means it has to be
 13342	the product of an advanced civilization, perhaps comparable to our own.
 13343	It's slowing speed means that UN1 is likely coming for a visit.''
 13344	
 13345	Someone in the online audience added a comment:
 13346	``This is an astonishing coincidence, unless such objects are common.''
 13347	
 13348	``No,'' said Jun.  `Not necessarily.  For over a thousand years we
 13349	have been broadcasting our existence in waves of outbound radio signals.
 13350	A study of the object's path allows us to conjecture
 13351	that it could have been sent here in response to those signals.
 13352	Given the delay, a large number of stars are possible sources for UN1.''
 13353	
 13354	``What other data do you have about the object?'' Someone asked.
 13355	``Either from visions or from some other source?''
 13356	
 13357	``As you know, visions are a highly variable source of information,
 13358	not always reliable, often subject to misinterpretation.
 13359	There's no additional information from them so far.
 13360	We have several huge telescopes imaging parts of the electromagnetic
 13361	spectrum.  In light, including UV and IR, it presents as a large cylinder.
 13362	It's not a source of any significant amount of energy, except the energy
 13363	one of our own ships would produce in slowing down.
 13364	We have no information about its composition -- no spectrographic
 13365	results yet, which is unusual and unexpected.
 13366	It's too far away for any further details.
 13367	In particular it isn't sending any messages as far as we know.''
 13368	
 13369	``Could it be made by one of us?  You know, by
 13370	Builders, Rogues, DarkAngels, even the neutron star entity?''
 13371	
 13372	``From its current trajectory, it must have started at least three hundred
 13373	years ago, and likely more.  That rules out all but the neutron star.
 13374	They or it, whatever the case is, could produce anything at all,
 13375	but we can't imagine that happening.
 13376	UN1 must result from something separate from us.''
 13377	
 13378	``So what should we do?'' someone submitted.
 13379	
 13380	``Exactly!'' Jun put in.
 13381	``Our group will be making recommendations,
 13382	and we would like to see what you think first, without being prompted by us.
 13383	As you surely know, before the collapse so-called `Science Fiction'
 13384	was an established genre for fiction writing.  Our people are writing some of it now.
 13385	Millions of novels and shorter works were produced.
 13386	So here we are with a plot right out of one of those novels.
 13387	I think they covered almost everything possible.
 13388	So give us your reactions.''
 13389	
 13390	A lot of suggestions followed:
 13391	
 13392	``The chances are great that this is a ship built by people similar
 13393	to us.  Their level of technology may be similar, though they may not have
 13394	perfect machines built by nanobots.  Anyway, we should not do anything special.
 13395	Establish communication and welcome them to our part of the galaxy.''
 13396	
 13397	``It's a terrible plan to have no plan and do nothing.
 13398	Even if we assume they are benign and like us, we should still have plans.
 13399	And they may not be benign.''
 13400	
 13401	``Keep in mind that we are not `benign.'  We humans have a terrible history,
 13402	including committing the worst offenses when dealing with another
 13403	civilization, especially a weaker group of humans.  
 13404	Our history of interactions is awful.''
 13405	
 13406	``Should we send out a ship early on, as soon as feasible?
 13407	Should we try to contact them early?  Key questions.
 13408	I'm not suggesting answers.''
 13409	
 13410	``We should be very careful.
 13411	No direct contact for a long time.
 13412	We teach each other our languages and exchange a lot of information.
 13413	And even there we should be careful.
 13414	In the science fiction videos where they invite the aliens into their
 13415	spaceship or onto their planet -- that's crazy.  Many things could go wrong.''
 13416	
 13417	``What could go wrong?  Give some examples.''
 13418	
 13419	``Something from their environment could be introduced into ours,
 13420	deliberately or accidentally,  An organism like a virus or bacterium or
 13421	even higher life form.  New technology that could be both useful and harmful.
 13422	The same for new ideas, philosophies, whatever.
 13423	They might cause us harm, or worse they might cause us to harm ourselves.''
 13424	
 13425	``I want to second the `be careful' approach.  I think it's an obvious
 13426	starting point.  Be as careful as we can in every way.''
 13427	
 13428	The meeting went on like that for some time, until Jun indicated
 13429	that the smaller committee formulating policy would 
 13430	take all the remarks seriously.
 13431	``I myself recommend being cautious and thoughtful.  
 13432	There should be no quick or unilateral decisions.
 13433	You must realize that this visitor could pose an existential threat to us.
 13434	Such a threat might not be obvious initially.
 13435	Or it could be an amazing benefit: our first contact with another species.
 13436	
 13437	``As you all know, we have already sent out
 13438	two large colonizing vessels in opposite directions.
 13439	One left twenty-one years ago and the other eight years ago.
 13440	They will be looking for attractive sites.'' 
 13441	
 13442	The two were enormous ships,
 13443	traveling at the self-imposed limit of fifteen percent of light speed.
 13444	As they progress, they will be sending out tiny faster unmanned
 13445	scouter ships to check for nearby star systems with a suitable planet
 13446	and satisfactory in other ways.
 13447	After finding a suitable system,
 13448	the plan is to create several habs, and start transforming the planet.
 13449	Or they might decide to use habs without the open air of a planet.
 13450	It was clear that even the huge ship would be far too small for
 13451	indefinite cultural stability.
 13452	
 13453	``One aspect has not been revealed except to Builders,'' Jun said.
 13454	``Some of you may not have studied this part of the plan, or haven't
 13455	studied the plan at all.
 13456	The humans on board will not know there are Builders among them,
 13457	two on each ship.
 13458	Ordinary humans would live for several hundred years before they die,
 13459	while the Builders' shadows would last indefinitely, even as the wet
 13460	human would sooner of later either degrade or be discarded.
 13461	There are some concerns about long-term stability,
 13462	but those problems wouldn't surface quickly,
 13463	not for at least a hundred years.
 13464	There will be acceptable options after such a delay.
 13465	At any rate it's important to have a Builder supervise the transformation
 13466	of the planet, rather than an AI.
 13467	A number of shadows are stored as data, and they could be brought
 13468	forth into a nanocluster in an emergency.
 13469	That would violate our policy of always reuniting separated shadows,
 13470	but some emergencies could overcome that restriction.
 13471	For better or worse, we are oriented toward minimal-interference
 13472	Builders as supervisors and eventually for everyone to have
 13473	Builder abilities.''
 13474	
 13475	Jun waited for a comment and then went on:
 13476	``This new development lends importance to a decision make long age:
 13477	the locations of the colony ships and
 13478	the final locations of new colonies for now will not be known at all
 13479	to anyone in the Solar System and the associated colonies..
 13480	This was always going to be our policy, so that some civilization
 13481	similar to ours, but superior to us, could not so easily destroy
 13482	us completely.
 13483	We will also make sure that no data is stored anywhere that would
 13484	allow the locations to be deduced.
 13485	
 13486	``We will start now using a broadcast system to get messages to the ships.
 13487	They are messages that anyone can listen to, requiring far more power.
 13488	The ships can passively listen to such messages with no chance of
 13489	 revealing their location.
 13490	
 13491	``Because of out new visitor, we are sending
 13492	the first broadcast messages to the
 13493	colonizing ships, asking them to make random deviations from the original
 13494	plans, to extend the distance and change the search areas.
 13495	Of course all our messages use strong quantum encryption.
 13496	The new random search plans should be non-optimal, again to prevent
 13497	an opponent from successfully using the optimum solution.
 13498	
 13499	``And there's yet one more reason for keeping the colony locations secret
 13500	from us:  we cannot guarantee the long-term stability
 13501	of our own civilization.
 13502	We are lessening the ease of a future version of
 13503	us interfering with our colonies,
 13504	but we will always be able to warn them if that ever becomes necessary.
 13505	Also each ship could easily message us if that was needed -- asking
 13506	for advice or delivering some important message, and thereby potentially
 13507	revealing their location.
 13508	
 13509	``We are also considering two more colonizing ships.
 13510	We wanted to do that anyway, but it also will
 13511	make us less vulnerable to our visitor.
 13512	In thirty years or so we can start studying 
 13513	our potential visitor and gain insight into what we're dealing with.''
 13514	
 13515	One person from the general group asked to make a comment.
 13516	``I've already complained about the policy of keeping new colony locations
 13517	secret from us.  It's a silly paranoid policy that doesn't help us much.
 13518	You have to imagine an advanced external civilization
 13519	that can take control of us, conquer us in other words.
 13520	Such a group would likely be able to find our colonies without our help.''
 13521	
 13522	``I've already talked about this with you and others,'' Jun said.
 13523	``It's little extra trouble to keep their locations secret.
 13524	Any colony can alway reveals its location, but they might want to keep
 13525	it secret -- secret even from us.''
 13526	
 13527	For several weeks specialists had continued working with data
 13528	from the object UN1.   The accumulated errors had become considerable
 13529	compared with what they thought was a standard decelerating trajectory.
 13530	From archived images 
 13531	they had managed to get data about the object's
 13532	location before its discovery.
 13533	It seemed to be making much quicker progress than could be possible,
 13534	even though the velocity values stayed in the original range.
 13535	
 13536	On the next day, the head of the observation group was explaining
 13537	it all to the
 13538	executive committee.  ``What we've been observing is very strange,
 13539	even inexplicable.  The object continues in its trajectory, and
 13540	at precise intervals of equal length, somehow carries out a significant
 13541	`hop' along that trajectory.  Each hop takes no measurable time but it
 13542	carries the object an astonishing distance,
 13543	roughly two hundredths of a light year.
 13544	These measured values are not at all exact, but even assuming large errors,
 13545	they are outrageous.
 13546	The result is that the object is making much faster
 13547	progress forward than we expected, in fact much more
 13548	than would occur at light speed.  It's also slowing more than expected.
 13549	If the current behavior continues, it might arrive here in
 13550	less than a year.
 13551	
 13552	``We have no explanation, none of any kind.  The hops seem impossible,
 13553	a total violation of our physics.  We'll continue to gather and process
 13554	data, but I don't know.  This looks frightening.  If these people are
 13555	this far beyond us in traveling, maybe they are beyond us in other ways.''
 13556	
 13557	``Nothing has changed with our plans,'' said Jun.
 13558	``We were going to be very careful anyway.  We stick with that.''
 13559	
 13560	The specialist sounded apologetic, like he was forcing himself to say
 13561	something.  ``I'm not a policy maker, but shouldn't we think in terms
 13562	of a weapon, or several weapons?''
 13563	
 13564	``We've considered that.  I brought it up specifically
 13565	with the committee.  We have multi-giga-watt x-ray lasers.
 13566	We can also send a significant focused beam of anti-matter.
 13567	Still, we should think about weapons more seriously.
 13568	They may need to be deployed.''
 13569	
 13570	Days later one of the technicians asked to talk with Jun.
 13571	``I've been looking at the flight path of our visitor.  We keep getting
 13572	more data, better and clearer, with less noise.
 13573	I'm seeing extra ghost images, whatever that might mean.
 13574	These images are very faint, but consistently coming up.''
 13575	
 13576	``So what do the ghosts show?''
 13577	
 13578	``They look like extra barely visible images along the flight path,
 13579	images the same as our visitor.  Same size and same shape.
 13580	But unlike the main images that are clear, as I said,
 13581	these are barely visible.
 13582	I wouldn't have noticed them myself.  It's the software that found them
 13583	using image enhancement.''
 13584	
 13585	He went on.
 13586	``I want to emphasize: the images are from one of our super telescopes.
 13587	Sometimes you get stuff like this that looks real, 
 13588	but it is all only due to artifacts of the telescope.
 13589	I managed to get images from another large scope,
 13590	quite different, emphasizing
 13591	the far infrared.  Same ghosts -- a bit clearer even.
 13592	
 13593	``These ghost images might have been obscured by later images along the
 13594	object's path, but that path bends sufficiently that this isn't a problem.
 13595	
 13596	``You should realize that I'm prejudiced against the original data.
 13597	Crazy stuff comes along in science.  In the early days of discovery
 13598	in physics, when a superconducting material was found, and it
 13599	had {zero} resistance, none at all, the scientist thought there
 13600	must be a short in his equipment.  But this is different.
 13601	{Nothing} can go faster than light.  
 13602	I think the ghosts are telling us something -- okay,
 13603	from beyond the recycling bin.''
 13604	 
 13605	``You've done a preliminary analysis of the data?'' Jun said.
 13606	
 13607	``Yes, I've got it all packaged up for you.  I'm sending you the
 13608	whole batch right now.''
 13609	
 13610	Jun used her standard technique:  load everything into her amazing brain
 13611	and let it sit there for a while, however long it took.
 13612	Then as was often the case, it fell into place:
 13613	all the data plus ghost images fitting a single pattern,
 13614	with a simple explanation, a scenario for UN1.
 13615	
 13616	``I'll be damned, tortured, roasted for an evening meal!''
 13617	Jun had gotten back with the technician who found the ghosts.
 13618	``Those aliens in UN1 cooked up a clever approach
 13619	using planted image-generating
 13620	hardware to make it look like they were executing their `hops.'
 13621	Over many years, along their slow approach, they must have dropped off
 13622	delayed image hardware that would later create all the proper images
 13623	to be generated, making it look as if they were actually hopping along.''
 13624	
 13625	``And why would they do that?'' the technician asked,
 13626	after seeing Jun's data.
 13627	``To impress us?  To deceive us?  To gain an advantage over us? 
 13628	It was a huge effort with a questionable gain -- it didn't work
 13629	for them and there was a loss of trust.''
 13630	
 13631	``Another point,'' the technician said.  ``What we are mostly seeing
 13632	and processing as if it were reality are imagages created by their
 13633	left-off hardware, images created years in the past.
 13634	The object is much closer to us than we realized.''
 13635	
 13636	``When they get here,''  Jun said, ``We must indeed be careful. 
 13637	Exceptionally careful!''
 13638	
 13639	Jun kept trying to get visions from the current situation,
 13640	or ones from the future, but nothing was coming through.
 13641	It was rare for her to get nothing at all from the future;
 13642	that in itself was disturbing.  She decided to think more about weapons. 
 13643	The mystery object would arrive soon ...
 13644