“Different system, different design philosophy,” he said, with infuriating complacency. “Our testing kits are themselves part of the real world. It’s like the difference between a working scale model and a simulation. There is simply no comparison. And the computing resources are vast, vaster even than anything the spacers have yet built.”
Myra felt her gaze sinking into the bottomless pool of his self-confidence. It was truly terrifying; it was, she realised, what she most feared for herself—to be so sure. To be absolutely certain that she was right would, as far as she was concerned, be the end of her. Doubt was her only hope, her comfort and companion since childhood, her scepticism her sole security.
Shin Se-Ha returned and sat down, affecting not to notice their frozen moment of mutual incomprehension. He looked at Myra, gravely, and shook his head.
“No deal, I’m afraid.”
Myra could scarcely believe it.
“Why ever not? The alternative is to fight your way through Kazakhstan! All you have to do instead is not fight us! What more can you ask of us?”
Se-Ha shook his head sadly. “It is not that, Myra,” he said. “It is not aggression, or animosity. It is simply the imperative of our mode of production. It will be global or it will be nothing, as your Trotsky always said. We have to keep running, or fall over, until we meet ourselves, on the other side of the world.”
He saw this wasn’t getting anywhere with her. “More concretely,” he continued, “we can’t have… unassimilated areas within the Union. It would be too much of an opportunity for our enemies. And we can’t stop for long, because that would force us to engage in internal class struggle, particularly with the small-property owners, which we do not want.” He smiled. To put it mildly! We have so far been able to avoid the whole dictatorship of the proletariat scenario by simply carrying the remaining small and large businesses along with us. The machine-based common-property economy expands, and they expand in its interstices. They can live like nits in our hair, as long as we are running. If we stopped, the itch would be intolerable. We would have to… scratch.”
“Oh, come on,” said Myra. “You can run a mixed economy indefinitely. We’ve been doing it in Kapitsa for years.”
“A mixture of state capitalism and private, yes,” said Nok-Yung, “as you’ve just reminded me. A mixture of a real non-commodity economy and a market is much more unstable. Conflicts arise very rapidly—if they’re both confined to the same economic space.”
An unstable system, that had to expand at just the right speed to stop itself falling over; not too slow, or too fast… there were plenty of natural and artificial and social analogies to that. Myra almost giggled at the thought of what would happen to them if Kazakhstan just surrendered, if the Sheenisov suddenly found themselves pushing at an open door and fell flat on their collective faces.
But that wasn’t an option. She looked around, checking that her guards were still bored and watchful, then back at the two new recruits to the Sheenisov. The absurdity of the situation struck her—she was doing diplomacy by just talking to two guys on the street. For all she knew they could be as deluded as UFO contactees, and not really ambassadors from an alien intelligence at all. Again she felt the urge to giggle—it was just another silly idea; she was feeling light-headed, flighty, as though her problem had been solved. She couldn’t see any solution. She was in deeper trouble than ever, but still she felt relieved.
“There is a certain urgency to it,” Se-Ha was saying, a litde apologetically. “Green factions are experimenting with plague vectors. The spacer groups, the Outwarders, have a radically post-human vision. Between them, they threaten humanity with extinction. Our advance is in essence defensive…”
She looked sharply at him. “Tell me, Se-Ha,” she said, “just who it was you consulted, back there.”
He looked uncomfortable. “It was… a distributed decision. A consensus.”
“Bullshit!” she snapped. “Don’t give me that. I didn’t see a vote being taken in the streets around here. Did you? So there must be a leadership somewhere, a council. I want to talk to it.”
“You are talking to it,” he said, “when you talk to us. To the extent that it exists. The policy parameters have indeed been set democratically, but the implementation, the… administrative decisions, are made…” He chewed his lower lip. “It’s hard to say,” he finished lamely.
“Let me guess,” said Myra, standing up. “Expert system. AI.”
Se-Ha looked up at her, eyes dark and blank under his thin black brows. “That is possible, yes.”
Myra straightened and sighed. She was convinced, paranoically perhaps, that the mad preacher Jordan had been right: the General, the Plan, was at the bottom of all this, that it had implemented itself on the Sheenisov’s machine ecology and was in the process of taking over the world. With the best intentions, no doubt.
“God, yes, you’re right,” she said. “It’s you or the Outwarders. Both sides are like the fucking Borg. “You will be assimilated’—isn’t that what you’re telling me?”
Nok-Yung shrugged. “It’s not something sinister. We all live in the world machine. Why not live in a world machine that is on our side?”
Myra had to smile. “You want me to imagine the future,” she said, “as socialism with a human face—for ever?”
“Yes!” they both said, pleased that she’d got the point at last.
It really would be hard to end this conversation politely, but she would try.
“I’ll take your message back to President Suleimanyov,” she said. “No doubt you will await our response.”
Se-Ha and Nok-Yung stood up and shook her hand gravely.
“Goodbye,” she said.
“Goodbye,” they both said.
Se-Ha smiled mischievously. “I hope I see you again.”
They’d rented the plane, an executive jet that had seen better days, in Almaty. Just as well; Myra could not have borne to displace any passengers on the commercial flights out of Semipalatinsk, standing room only and a strict baggage allowance.
As soon as they were beyond Sheenisov airspace—and Sheenisov jamming—Parvus made a priority over-ride and poked his virtual head over the back of the seat in front of her.
“Sorry about this, Myra,” the AI murmured. “Urgent messages.”
“Patch ’em through,” she said.
The message queue consisted of calls from Suleimanyov, Valentina Kozlova and someone with an anonymous code identifier. She worked through them one by one.
As soon as she blinked on the President’s identifier, he was through, live from his office. Various aides and ministers hovered in the periphery of the shot.
“Hello,” he said. “Results?”
Myra grimaced. “They’re adamant that they won’t accept it I was as surprised as you are. In fact, I was shocked. I have a suspicion that the secret of their military and economic co-ordination is a military AI, and that it is… calling the shots.”
Chingiz took this with unexpected aplomb.
“It was worth trying,” he said. He waved his hand, downwards. “However, the Sheenisov are no longer our most immediate problem.”
“What’s happened?”
He smiled wryly. “As we expected. It’s all gone public now—everyone knows about the nukes. Our generous offers to the United States, and to other countries, have been referred up to the UN—and referred back to the Security Council, for immediate action. We are to turn over our nuclear weapons to forces under UN authority within twenty-four hours—twenty-three and a half, now—or face aerial and space attack. Specifically, on Kapitsa, which they have rightly identified as the focus of the problem. After Kapitsa, Almaty.”