Natch trotted alongside the big man as they crossed a covered walkway over the courtyard and into the Surina Enterprise Facility. A hoverbird bearing the Council insignia zoomed across the skyline directly in front of them. "Where are we going?" said Natch. "That message I got this morning ... Are you taking me to Margaret?"
"No. Margaret's locked herself in the residence, preparing for the speech. You'll see her afterwards-if there's anything left to see."
"So what's this `performance' you need me to do? Or was that it down there in the courtyard?"
The Islander shook his head. He had led them to the end of a wide corridor and an imposing set of double doors. "The performance is in here," he said grimly. "Just be yourself. Stick by me and make sure everyone sees it. Speak if you have to, but don't say anything memorable." The doors slid open of their own accord, but not before the man thrust one hand forward and slammed it against the metal with a bang. "And one more thing you'll need to know: my name is Quell."
Beyond the doors was a large bowl-shaped meeting room. A lavish bouquet stood in the center of the room, underneath a revolving banner that flashed HAPPY 400TH BIRTHDAY, SHELDON SURINA over and over in ten-second intervals. About four or five dozen guests congregated in small clusters around the room, all of whom had turned their attention to the sudden and noisy arrival of Natch and Quell.
It's the whole biollogics industry, Natch thought with a quickly stifled gasp.
If it wasn't quite the entire industry, the guest list for this little reception certainly encompassed its top tier. Natch saw hated rivals and fierce competitors in every corner. Jara's old boss Lucas Sentinel was camped near the bouquet with a group of well-known channelers and capitalmen. A pasty man with a mop of black hair, Sentinel did not tower over his companions so much as sway awkwardly in their midst like a tree. The drudges Sen Sivv Sor and John Ridglee were holding court on opposite sides of the room. Libertarian rabblerouser Khann Frejohr sipped chaff alongside the shrewish programmer Bolliwar Tuban. Natch felt a hand clap him on his shoulder, and turned around to face Billy Sterno. "Nice entrance, pal!" chirped the fiefcorper before scuttling off, his Chinese eyes glinting with mischief.
I need a licensee who can generate enough ripples on the Data Sea to make the Council stay its hand until I unveil the technology, Margaret had said.
I guess that's what we're doing, thought Natch. Generating ripples.
Natch and Quell began a slow stroll around the periphery of the room. The fiefcorp master put on a haughty look and did his best to forestall any conversation. For the most part, it worked. The members of the bio/logics elite seemed content to stay in their balkanized clusters and throw scandalized looks at the fiefcorp master and the Islander from afar. After ten minutes of this, however, Natch started to get restless. Everyone in the room had noticed them already, and the crowd would soon be gathering in the auditorium to await Margaret's speech.
"Okay, have we made enough of a show?" he muttered in a low voice, unsure whether an Islander could respond to a ConfidentialWhisper.
"Not yet," replied Quell calmly. "I want to catch one of the stragglers."
Natch frowned. "Stragglers?" Then he heard a violent cough behind him, and turned to see the bulldog face of Frederic Patel.
Natch did not bother with formal greetings, because he knew he would receive none from Frederic. The short, barrel-chested programmer had not inherited the slick mannerisms and sharp fashion sense that made his older brother Petrucio so popular among the drudges. If they had not inherited the same olive complexion and lithe moustache, one would be hard-pressed to identify the two Patels as brothers. But even during the worst days of their vitriolic competition, Natch had to admit that Frederic was one of the few engineers in the business whose skills stood up to Horvil's.
"Well, if it isn't the thief," snarled Patel.
The fiefcorp master laughed scornfully. "Watch who you're calling a thief. Looks like you've stolen your number one slot back, for a little while at least."
"Primo's." Frederic gave a dismissive flip of the hand, leaving Natch to wonder what else he had stolen from the Patels recently. "A little while. What's that mean?"
"That means, sometimes history repeats itself."
Frederic made a whistling sound with his nose that, after a moment, Natch realized was laughter. He swept his gaze to the Islander, who stared back with an impenetrable glare. Natch suddenly remembered Quell's instructions to say as little as possible, but the big man no longer seemed to care. "You heard your boss's speech yet?" Patel said, addressing Quell.
"No," replied the Islander.
"We're not gonna be bored to death, are we?"
"The world might be a better place if you were," Quell said, deadpan.
Again the whistling sound. "So that's the game you two are playing, eh?" Patel rasped. "Well, fine with me. But now it's our move."
The level of conversation in the room had dipped noticeably since Frederic's approach. Lucas Sentinel had wandered close and kept taking discreet peeks at the confrontation like a nervous hyena. John Ridglee was not even trying to disguise his blatant attempts to read lips.
Natch was trying to decipher Frederic's comments and formulate a response when a loud neutral tone sounded throughout the room. The marquee displaying birthday wishes to the dead Sheldon Surina was now announcing the imminent arrival of his descendant Margaret onstage. Within seconds, industry mavens were cutting their multi connections to the party and preparing to reconnect inside the nearby auditorium.
Frederic Patel vanished without so much as a glance back in their direction. Natch breathed a sigh of relief, following Quell out the same doors they had entered through. The show was about to begin.
22
"I'm telling you, this can't go on forever. One of these days, the Data Sea is just going to collapse."
"They've been saying that for a century."
"But come on, look at how much more bandwidth we're using these days. Multi, the Jamm, the Sigh. Even quantum computing has its limits."
"One point three billion multi projections at Marcus Surina's funeral, and not a single glitch. That's all I have to say."
"Yeah, but-"
Jara stood and listened to the jabber of the couple beside her as she waited for Margaret Surina to take the stage. Personally, she sided with the doomsayer who feared the imminent collapse of the computational system. She looked around at the thirty-five thousand visible spectators filling the arena and tried to imagine the seraphic order of number needed to describe the bandwidth requirements for so many people.
But the vertigo did not end there. The Surina auditorium statistics told her there were actually 413 million multi projections here waiting for Margaret to reveal the mystery behind the Phoenix Project. 413 million people whose brains were trying to maintain the illusion that they were real bodies inhabiting real Cartesian space, when that was clearly impossible.
The analyst summoned a calculator and wide-eyed her way through the math. 413 million people wedged into a space designed to fit thirty-five thousand real bodies. Which meant that right now almost twelve thousand people from every corner of the solar system believed they were standing in the exact same spot as Jara....
Then she noticed that the attendance had skyrocketed another 150 million spectators. Jara shook her head violently. Human minds could not comprehend such vastness. Better to swallow the sweet lotus of multi and be done with it.
Especially when she had so many more urgent questions to contend with. Like where was the rest of the fiefcorp? What was this "Phoenix Project" that had so entranced the public's imagination and completely absorbed the world's richest woman for years? How did Natch fit into this whole puzzle? And how would this new technology affect her job?