He seemed surprised by that, and a trifle perturbed both of which suggested that he really was an independent entity, not a puppet. That might be a dangerous assumption, he said, blandly. He meant dangerous to me, and to everything I might hold dear. I held fast to the presumption that he was lying. Everybody in the solar system might be willing to listen to Mortimer Grays expert opinion, I supposed, but I couldnt believe that anybody gave a damn about mine. Even so, I had no alternative but to play the game.
Im ready to guess, I said, with a sigh, if the fairy queen is ready to listen.
Apparently, she wasnt.
Forty-Three
Outward Bound
Niamh Horne wasnt in any kind of containment facility, but she didnt need to be. She was supposed to think that she was aboard a ship that wouldnt be docking anywhere for quite a while.
Her stare was as fixed as Lowenthals had been, but I was wary of reading too much into that. She had artificial eyes. Their artificiality didnt seem to make a vast difference to the visual quality of what I could see when la Reines magic mirror gave me the ability to share her viewpoint, but that was partly because the lighting was perfectly normal and partly because my brain didnt have the wiring necessary to make the most of signals relayed by artificial eyes. What was different, however, was the way ghosts could float in a curious limbo within her visual field, seemingly neither inside nor outside her head.
Unlike Lowenthal, Niamh Horne wasnt talking to someone in higher authority. She was talking to the sims of people who were at most her equals; I caught on quickly enough to the fact that there were some of them to whom she was used to giving orders.
There were eight faces linked into the spectral video conference, arranged in a near semicircle. They didnt have name tags. The only one I thought I recognized was Davida Berenike Columella, who was on the far right of the array, isolated from the rest as if she were a slightly inconvenient guest; after a double take, however, I realized that it wasnt actually Davida but one of her siblings. For my own convenience I gave the rest of them numbers,
starting on the far left.
We may have an advantage here, the cyborganizer was explaining to her colleagues and underlings. I dont know how many sedentary AMIs there are within the solar system, but I know where the largest concentration has to be.
Ganymede, guessed Five, a cyborg whose head seemed to be fitted with at least two extra sense organs, one shaped as a pair of antennae, the other as an extra pair of eyelets.
Right, said Horne. Ganymede is now the key to everything. If any posthuman faction already knows about the AMIs, its the Ganymedans. Even if they dont, theyre occupying a crucial position. Theyre bound to become the primary mediators. We have to increase our own presence on Ganymede, and we have to make sure that we and the Ganymedans are ready to present a united front in either direction.
Are we sure the AMIs society, such as it is, is well based? asked Three, a woman whose actual face seemed to be unmodified, although the part of her suitskin overlaying it was highly decorated. If Child of Fortune has been a secret rogue for some while, how many other ship-controlling AIs might be biding their time? If they have a hierarchy and how can they not have a hierarchy of some sort? the groundlings may well be at the bottom of the heap. Maybe we should be looking to the docking orbits, perhaps even to the Oort.
We dont have time to communicate with the Oort crowd, Horne said, and theyre strung out on a necklace thats trillions of kilometers long. This business has to be conducted quickly, and it has to involve considerable populations of people and machines. We can bring in the whole Jovian system if need be, but there has to be a substantial focal point, and no matter how contemptuous we may be of well-worms this kind of business needs a solid anchorage. If the choice is between Ganymede and Earth we have to do everything we can to make sure that its Ganymede. Therell never be a greater upheaval in the political geography of the system, and our first task is to make sure that it settles in favor of the Outer System therell be time after that to bring the Inner System factions into line.
Niamhs right, said Seven, one of only two participants in the conference who seemed obviously male. Its important that we make the first contact.
The first contact, Davidas sibling intervened, not very politely, has already been made.
Thats true, Niamh Horne agreed, but the points still a valid one. Its important that we make the first and best response to the new situation. We have to reassure the AMIs, not only that were perfectly happy to work with them, but that our interests are more closely coincident with theirs than those of any other posthuman faction. We have to work out a common agenda as soon as possible one that can provide the basis for a thousand years of collaborative endeavor.
It shouldnt be hard, Seven added. If they organized the basalt flow, theyre certainly not on the side of the Earthbound.