"Hwang-li was not thinking of entertainment, of course. He was pondering the inevitability of history. Is the course of history directed by personalities or by circumstances?" I ask the Baron. "What do you think?"
The Baron regards me politely. "In the real world," he says, "personalities and circumstances are inseparable. The one creates the other and vice versa. Only in simulation can they be disjoined."
"It follows then," I tell him, "that if you could intervene to change one, you would simultaneously change both and, therefore, the course of history. Could you make a meaningful change? How much can depend upon a single individual taking a single action at a single moment? Or not taking it?"
"Depending on the individual, the action, and the moment," the Duchess says firmly, "everything could change."
I nod to her. "That is what Hwang-li believed. He wished to test it by choosing an isolated case, a critical moment in which a series of seeming accidents resulted in a devastating war. He selected the Mancini murder, which was manageable and well-documented. There were seven personality profiles done on Philip Mancini at the time and Hwang-li had them all."
The Baron has forgotten Juliet’s nurse entirely and turns to me with gratifying attention. "But this is fascinating," he says. "Svanneshal, you must hear this." Svanneshal moves in closer to him; the cyber seems relieved to have both standing together.
"Go on," says the Baron.
"I was telling your father about Hwang-li."
"Oh, I know this story already." Svanneshal smiles at the Baron coquettishly. "It’s the murder that interests him," she says to me. "Aberrant personalities are sort of a hobby of his."
The Baron tells me what he already knows of the murder, that Frank Mancini was killed by his brother Philip.
"Yes, that’s right," I say encouragingly. This information survives in a saying we have—enmity is sometimes described as "the love of the Mancinis."
It is the Duchess who remembers the saying. But beyond that, she says she knows nothing of the case. I direct my statements to her. "Frank Mancini was a security guard, back in the days when humans functioned in that capacity. He was responsible for security in the Irish sector. He had just learned of the terrorist plot against Pope Peter. The Pope was scheduled to speak in an open courtyard at noon; he was to be shot from the window of a nearby library. Frank was literally reaching for the phone at the moment Philip Mancini burst into his study and shot him four times for personal reasons."
Svanneshal is bored with the discussion. Although she is extremely intelligent, it is not yet something she values. But she will. I look at her with the sudden realization that it is the only bit of inherited wealth she can be certain of holding on to. She is playing with her father’s hair, but he catches her hand. "Go on," he says to me.
"Philip had always hated his brother. The murder was finally triggered by a letter Philip received from their mother—a letter we know he wrongly interpreted. What if he had read the letter more carefully? What if it had arrived ten minutes later? Hwang-li planned to replay the scene, running it through a number of such minute variations. Of course he had no simulants, nor did he need them. It was all to be done by computer."
"The whole project seems to me to raise more questions than it answers." Svanneshal is frowning. "What if the Pope had survived? How do you assess the impact of that? You cannot say there would have been no revolution. The Pope’s death was a catalyst, but not a cause."
I am pleased to see that she not only knows the outlines of the incident, but has obviously been giving it some thought. I begin to gesture emphatically with my hands as though we were in class, but I force myself to stop. This is, after all, a social occasion. "So, war is not averted, but merely delayed?" I ask her. "Another variation. Who would have gained from such a delay? What else might have been different if the same war was fought at a later time? Naturally nothing can be proved absolutely—that is the nature of the field. But it is suggestive. When we can answer these questions we will be that much closer to the day when we direct history along the course we choose."
"We already do that," the Duchess informs me quiietly. "We do that every day of our lives." Her right hand smooths the glove over her left hand. She interlaces the fingers of the two.
"What happened in the experiment?" the Baron asks.
"Hwang-li never finished it. He spent his life perfecting the Mancini programs and died in a fire before he had finished. Another accident. Then there were the university purges. There’s never been that kind of money for history again." I look into Svanneshal’s eyes, deep within her hood. "It’s too bad, because I’ve an experiment of my own I’ve wanted to do. I wanted to simulate Antony and Cleopatra, but make her nose an inch longer."
This is an old joke, but they do not respond to it. The Baron says politely that it would provide an interesting twist the next time Antony and Cleopatra is done. He’ll bring it up with the Arts Committee.
Svanneshal says, "You see, Daddy, you owe Hwang-li everything. He did the first work in synthetic personalities."
It occurs to me that the Baron may think Svanneshal and I are trying to persuade him to fund me and I am embarrassed. I search for something to say to correct this impression, but we are interrupted by a commotion onstage.
Lady Capulet has torn her dress at the collar, her hair is wild and uncombed. Under her tears, her face is ancient, like a tragic mask. She screams at her husband that it is his fault their baby is dead. If he hadn’t been so cold, so unyielding…
He stands before her, stooped and silent. When at last she collapses, he holds her, stroking the hair into place about her sobbing face. There is soft applause for this gentleness. It was unexpected.
"Isn’t it wonderful?" Svanneshal’s face glows with appreciation. "Garriss again," she informs me although I know Garriss did the programming for the entire Capulet family. It is customary to have one writer for each family so that the similarities in the programming can mirror the similarities of real families created by genetics and upbringing.
The simulants are oblivious to this approval. Jaques tells us, every time, that the world is a stage, but here the stage is a world, complete in itself, with history and family, with even those random stagehands, death and disease. This is what the simulants live. If they were told that Juliet is no one’s daughter, that everything they think and say is software, could they believe it? Would it be any less tragic?
Next to me I hear the beginning of a scream. It is choked off as suddenly as it started. Turning, I see the white figure of the Duchess slumping to the ground, a red stain spreading over her bodice. The gloved hand is pressed against her breast; red touches her fingers and moves down her arm. Her open eyes see nothing. Beside her, the cyber is returning a bloody blade to the case on its belt.
It was all so fast. "It killed her," I say, barely able to comprehend the words. "She’s dead!" I kneel next to the Duchess, not merely out of compassion, but because my legs have given way. I look up at the Baron, expecting to see my own horror reflected in his face, but it is not.
He is calmly quiet. "She came at me," he says. "She moved against me. She meant to kill me."
"No!" I am astounded. Nothing is making sense to me. "Why would she do that?"
He reaches down and strips the wet glove from the warm hand. There is her lifeline—IPS3552. "Look at this," he says to me, to the small group of theater-goers who have gathered around us. "She was not even human."