Killing Time

CHAPTER 15

Once we'd leveled off in the thin, cold stratospheric air, Tressalian led a slow procession up to the observation dome atop the nose of the ship. As we stopped by the guidance center on the middle level to pick up his wheelchair, I saw and heard the consoles of monitors blinking and humming under Colonel Slayton's direction, and noted that my earlier amazement at the fantastic advances embodied in the ship was beginning to fade. I found myself marveling at how quickly the human mind can accept and become adjusted to technological leaps — although of course, Tarbell's vodka and Larissa's continued and ever-more-pointed physical overtures were going a long way, on this particular night, toward assisting my own acclimation. But ultimately it was a testament to the seductive power of technology, a power that my host — who refused to explain any further about the Afghanistan business until we got there — expounded on as he sat in his wheelchair in the observation dome:

"While the average citizen, Doctor, was engaged in this mass love affair with information technology — and while the companies that produced that technology happily painted themselves as the democratizing agents of a new order — real economic and informational power, far from being decentralized, became concentrated in an ever-decreasing number of megacorporations, companies that determined not only what information was purveyed but which technologies were developed to receive and monitor it. And while in your own country there was at least a struggle early on for control over this mightiest and most pervasive public influence in history, the crash of '07 put an end to the fight. In a collapsing world, Washington had no one to turn to for help except my father and his ilk. And they offered it, to be sure — but only for a price."

"To put it simply," Colonel Slayton said as he rejoined us from the control level, "they purchased the government."

Tressalian smiled at him, then turned back to me. "The colonel has a gift for brevity that is sometimes mistaken for detachment. But remember that no one experienced the practical effects of what we're talking about more than the soldiers of the Taiwan campaign, who— as you yourself have pointed out, Doctor — unknowingly sacrificed themselves for a bigger share of the Chinese market. Yes, the information technocrats, my father among them, purchased the government, and after that all legislative initiatives and material resources were diverted from regulatory programs, from environmental and medical research, from education and foreign aid, even from weapons development — diverted from everything, that is, save the opening of new markets and the expansion of old ones."

"All right," I agreed, Larissa's ever-closer presence making me feel steadily more at ease. "I'll admit I agree with you, but so what? You've said yourself that this sort of thing has happened before in human history."

"Non, Gideon," Julien Fouché said as he wrapped one meaty hand around a small espresso cup. "That is most distinctly not what Malcolm has said. The beginning of the story may have precedents, but this last chapter? There has never been anything like it. The floodgates were thrown open, and human society, already saturated with information, began to drown in it. Tell me — you are familiar, I suppose, with the concept of the 'threshold moment'? When a process increases so drastically in rate and severity—"

"That a quantitative change actually becomes a qualitative one," I finished for him. "Yes, Professor, I know."

"Well, then," Fouché went on, "let us put it to you that world civilization has itself reached just such a moment."

I sat back for a moment. Extreme as his words might have sounded, they could not be dismissed, given their source. "You're saying," I eventually answered, "that the growth of these latest technologies has been so quantitatively different from other informational developments — from, say, the invention of the printing press — that the effect has been a qualitative shift in the nature of society itself?"

"Précisément," Fouché answered with a nod. "But don't look so amazed, Doctor. The people behind these technologies have themselves been claiming for years that they were bringing about enormous changes. It is simply that we who are assembled here view those changes as" — he took a sip of espresso as he struggled to find a word— "ominous. "

Then it was Leon Tarbell's turn: "The 'information age' has not created any free exchange of knowledge, Gideon. All we have is a free exchange of whatever the sexless custodians of information technology consider acceptable."

"And the very nature of that technology means that there is no real knowledge anymore," Eli Kuperman piled on, "because what those custodians do allow to slip through their delivery systems is utterly unregulated and unverifiable. Mistaken facts — or, worse yet, deceptions on a simple or a grand scale, supported by doctored evidence and digitally manipulated images — become commonly accepted wisdom before there's even been a chance to determine the validity of their bases."

"And remember," Jonah Kuperman added, "that we've now raised not one but several generations of children who have been exposed only to that kind of questionable data—"

"Whoa, whoa, slow down!" I finally called out, holding up my hands. During the brief respite that followed, I let out a deep, troubled breath. "This is starting to sound like some kind of runaway conspiracy theory — technoparanoia of the worst kind. What in the world makes you think that people can pull off deceptions on a level that will change the fundamental underpinnings of entire societies, for God's sake?"

Everyone around me suddenly grew strangely silent; then, one by one, they turned to Tressalian, who was staring at his fingertips as he slowly bounced them together. After a few seconds he looked up at me, the smile on his face more charming and yet more devious than it had been at any point in the evening. "We know, Doctor," he said quietly, "because we've done it."

"You?"

Tressalian nodded. "Quite a few times, actually. And the best, I dare say, is yet to come — if you'll help us."

"But—" I tried to grasp it. "But I mean — I thought you were against all that."

"Oh, make no mistake, we are." Tressalian struggled to turn his chair and then rolled to the forwardmost area of the dome, real disgust and even anger coming into his voice. "Human society is diseased, Doctor — this fatuous, trivial, information-plagued society. And our work?" He stared at the eerie, half-lit sky outside, growing calmer. "With luck, our work will be the antibiotic that spurs society to fight the infection." A nagging doubt seemed to tighten his features. "Assuming, of course, that we don't kill the patient…"

I was about to ask for clarification of this apparently unbalanced statement when the ship's alert system suddenly sounded again. Slay-ton informed us that we were descending to "cruising altitude," an innocuous expression that I soon learned had to do not with any kind of pleasure traveling but with flying some hundred feet above the landscape as we had done when I'd first boarded the ship in Florida. Everyone stood, the general level of excitement growing, and gathered around Tressalian; and while I tried to follow as best I could, my movements were slowed by the mental need to wrestle with everything I'd just heard. Could they be serious, these people? Could they really mean that they believed it was possible to manipulate the dissemination of important information to the public as a way of alerting that same public to just how easy — and therefore dangerous — such manipulation had, in our time, become? It was absurd, impossible—

And then, with a shudder that had nothing to do with Larissa's close presence, I remembered the scenes of President Forrester's assassination on the disc that Max and I had been given. For a year the world had accepted as true a version of those momentous events that was not even remotely factual. And now the strongest power in the world was about to engage in a military strike that was based on that same misapprehension — a misapprehension manufactured by Tressalian and his team, who were currently on their way to the scene of that strike to — what? Observe? Participate, with their amazing ship? Or manipulate the proceedings with still more manufactured information? Almost afraid to know the answers, I silently turned to watch the darkness ahead of us with the others.

Even through my renewed bewilderment, I realized that the ship had once more shifted altitude dramatically without so much as a bump or a perceptible change in cabin pressure. We were flying low over the ocean again, although I was shocked to learn that this ocean was the Arabian Sea, which meant that our high-altitude speed had been considerably in excess of anything achieved by the most advanced supersonic airplanes currently in use. As I watched the moonlit waters speed by under us, Larissa turned to murmur into my ear:

"Not that I don't agree with everything the others have been saying, Doctor — I assure you I do — but try to put it aside for a moment and experience this ride. Can any philosophical discussion really make your blood race like this ship? I doubt it. So when you think about joining us, think about this, too—" I turned to face her. "You and I could travel to literally every corner of the world, just the way we are now — with no restrictions and no laws but our own. Are you game?"

I looked back outside. "Jesus — I'd like to say that I am," I told her uncertainly. "But it's all so—" I tried to get a grip. "Impulsiveness has never been the most comfortable mode of behavior for me."

She let me have the coy smile. "I know."

"That doesn't bother you?"

She made a judicious little humming sound. "Not entirely. It's part of the reason we wanted you, after all." She put a hand lightly to my cheek. "Part of the reason…"

Without turning toward us Tressalian called out, "Oh, Sister — if I may interrupt, perhaps you'd care to explain what avenue of approach you've chosen. Toward our geographical objective, that is."

Larissa gave me one more searching look before answering him. "Very droll, Brother. We'll make landfall south of Karachi, then follow the Indus Valley north. We're safe from any radar, of course, and because the river's been a nuclear dead zone since the start of the Kashmir war, we shouldn't be risking any visual contact. We'll move west along the thirty-fifth parallel into the Hindu Kush, then north to the valley of the Amu Darya. The camp is strung out along the Afghan side of the border with Tajikistan. We'll arrive just past dawn, right on schedule. The apparatus will already have engaged."

"Good." Tressalian turned away from the transparent hull just as a black strip of coastline became faintly visible in the dark distance and fixed his gaze on me. "Then there's time, yet, for the doctor to ask the rest of his questions."

"Questions," I said, trying to focus. "Yes, I've got questions. But there's one thing I've got to know right now." I moved over to stare down at him intently. "How many other lies like the Forrester assassination story am I believing without even knowing it?"

"You mean," Tressalian answered, "how much of the information that makes up your reality is utterly unreliable?" I nodded and he opened his eyes wide, raising his brows as if to prepare me for what was coming: "Certainly more than you'd suspect, Doctor. And, quite probably, more than you'll believe…"