“Later up the what? Hey, I thought you were the Eschaton! What is this?”
“Can a T-helper lymphocyte in a capillary in your little finger claim to be you? Of course I am part of the Eschaton, but I cannot claim to be the Eschaton. The Eschaton acquires most of its power by being able to harness causality violation — time travel — for computational purposes. Working causality-violation devices in the hands of others — whether designed as weapons, or as time machines, or as computers — would threaten the stability of its time line. That is why agencies such as I exist — to monitor requests from the oracle to take action that will defend the Eschaton’s causal integrity. In the case of Moscow, the most reasonable explanation is that the Muscovite government was experimenting with weapons of temporal disruption and blew their own star up by accident. But there was absolutely no rational explanation for why they might want to develop such weapons, left to their own devices. Which is why evidence of ReMastered infiltration would be most interesting. Especially in conjunction with the silence of the oracle.”
Wednesday was silent for a minute. Then: “Are you telling me that some asshole in the military destroyed my world by accident? Or because the ReMastered asked them to?”
“Not exactly.” A few seconds’ silence. Wednesday’s emotions churned, aghast and outraged. “When acquiring a new planet, the ReMastered do not walk in and take everything over at gunpoint. They infiltrate by inducing a crisis and being invited in to calm things down. Their main tool is their expertise in uploading and neural interfaces. While blackmail is often used for indirect leverage, they frequently work by abducting key midlevel officials — pithing them, copying their existing neural architecture, then installing an implant. Sometimes they leave the personality in place, just add an override switch — or they wipe everything and turn the body into a remote-control meat puppet. By using a causal channel to control the body, they can ensure that nobody will be able to tell that it’s being run by a ReMastered agent unless it is subjected to a brain scan or forced to make an FTL transit. The ReMastered are patient; frequently they will arrive in a system, take fifty to a hundred low-to-mid-ranking officials, then wait twenty or thirty years until one or more of their moppets is promoted into a position of influence. It is a very slow and labor-intensive process, but far cheaper and safer than attempting an overt war of interstellar conquest.”
“You mean they do this regularly?”
“Not often. They have fewer than twenty worlds, so far. My models do not predict that they will become a major threat for at least two centuries.”
“Oh.” Wednesday fell silent. “But none of the diplomats are puppets,” she pointed out. “They’d have made FTL transfers to get to their embassies. So there’s no evidence, is there?”
“There is evidence,” Herman pointed out. “The ReMastered focus on you, and the items you found aboard Old Newfie before its evacuation, suggest that it was used as a point of entry for some years, and that the insurgency group operating in Moscow were careless. The ReMastered focus on assassinating Muscovite diplomats is itself suggestive, although I am not yet certain of their motives. The faction responsible appears to want to force the Muscovite diplomatic corps to send the irrevocable go code to the R-bombers, thus precipitating a political crisis on New Dresden with implications elsewhere. But it is difficult to be sure.”
“But you — you” — Wednesday struggled for words — “You’re part of the Eschaton. Can’t you stop them? Don’t you want to stop them?”
“Why do you think I am talking to you?” Her own voice, calm and sympathetic. “I cannot undo the destruction of Moscow because the accident did not trigger the Eschaton’s temporal immune response. Higher agencies are investigating the possibility of a threat to the Eschaton itself. I am trying to prevent the ReMastered from achieving their goal of taking New Dresden, or whatever else they want to achieve. I’m also trying to stop them from acquiring the final technical reports from the weapons project on Moscow. And I’m trying to ensure that the diplomatic corps from Earth is alerted to the threat. This is a low-level response by the standards of the Eschaton. The ReMastered belief system requires the destruction of the Eschaton. They are nowhere near acquiring that capability, and have not yet triggered the Eschaton’s primary defense reflexes, but if they do … you would not wish to live within a thousand light years.”
“Oh.” It came out sounding weak, and Wednesday hated herself for it. “And what about me? What am I going to do afterward? My family…” A huge sense of loss stopped her in her tracks. She glanced at the sleeping figure in the bed and the sense of loss subsided, but only a fraction.
“You are old enough to make up your own mind about your future. And I cannot accept responsibility for events that I was not forewarned about or involved in. But I will ensure that you do not lack money in the short term, while you sort your life out, if you survive the next few days.”
“If?” Wednesday paced over toward the picture wall. “What do you mean, if?”
“The ReMastered group from MOSS is aboard this ship for a reason. Sometime after the next jump I expect them to do something drastic. It might be as crude as an attempt to snatch and puppetize you, but there are too many witnesses aboard this ship to whom you might have spoken. A more sensible approach would be to ensure that this ship never reaches its destination. You should prepare yourself. Learn the crew access spaces and the details I downloaded into your ring. One other thing: three diplomats from Earth’s United Nations Organization have joined the ship. You can trust them implicitly. In particular, you can talk to Martin Springfield, who has worked for me in the past. He may be able to help protect you. And one other point. If you get the chance to reacquire the documentary evidence of ReMastered weapons tests in Moscow system, turn it over to the diplomats. That is the one thing you can do that will cause the most damage to the ReMastered.”
“I’ll bear it in mind.” Her voice wavered. “But you said they’re going to break the door down and kidnap me — what am I supposed to do about that?”
“Simple: don’t be in your cabin when they come for you.” Herman paused. “Too much time. I have downloaded some further design patterns into your rings. Keep your jacket by you at all times.”
“My jacket?”
“Yes. You never know when you’ll need it.” Herman’s tone was light. “Good luck, and goodbye. Oh, and if by some chance the Romanov ends up at New Prague, talk to Rachel before you decide to take a day trip to the surface. Otherwise, it might come as a shock…”
Click. The call ended. Wednesday cursed quietly for a moment, then noticed a change in the room. She glanced up.
“What was that about?” asked Frank, his expression grave. “Was someone picking an argument?”
She stared at him, her heart suddenly pounding and her mouth dry. “My invisible friend—” she began. “When do we jump?”
“Not for at least a day. Why don’t you come here and tell me about it?” He moved to one side of the bed, making a space for her.
“But I—” She stopped, the sense of dread receding somewhat. “A day?” Long habit and ingrained distrust told her that mentioning Herman to anyone would only get her into trouble. Logic, and something else, told her that concealing him from Frank would be a mistake. “I’m not supposed to talk about it,” she said. “And you’ll think I’m crazy!”
“No.” He looked at her thoughtfully. “I don’t think you’re crazy.” His expression was open and surprisingly vulnerable — which only made him harder for her to read. “Why don’t you start at the beginning?”