Read Online Artifice (Special Forces: FJ One Book 2) by Adam Vance - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Adam Vance
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guiding them towards the outcome that he wanted.
Alex was, in absentia, functioning like The Mule in Asimov’s stories, the wild card who was able to bend wills, civilizations, change the direction of mighty rivers.
For the ten years it took to build the flashdrive ships, she was in the right place in the right time when the debate arose over how best to move to the stars, and her strong advocacy for a slow, cooperative, non-invasive means of colonization somehow always seemed to get the upper hand. Her opponents were found to be in the pocket of Kochist elements, or revealed to engage in unsavory behaviors even by modern standards, or were otherwise neutralized, and before you knew it, there was Department 6C and there she was, its Director.
At which time she had to come up with the “peacekeeping force” to make it all happen the way she wanted, and thus were born the Fallschirmjäger, but now’s not the time to get into all that…
And then, twenty years into colonization, one morning she stuck her comm in her ear and there he was, his soft, friendly, inimitable voice.
“Good morning, HM. Having a wonderful time, wish you were here.” Proof of life, and that was all. He didn’t answer when she spoke.
Twenty years later, on her 100th birthday in 2106, Alex contacted her for the first time in the fifty years since he’d disappeared.
The packet she received in her inbox one day was a simple document. Hundreds of pages long, so nothing unusual in her queue. Until she opened it, and discovered that it was a detailed report from Alex on a potential colony planet, as yet unnamed. He referred to it as “Shammat,” which was bad news, as this was the name Doris Lessing had ascribed to the “evil empire” in her classic “Canopus in Argos” series.
It was a thorough analysis of the ruthless dictatorship that governed the planet, with exhaustive lists of the most important citizens, their roles in power or opposition, and the best means by which humanity could effect regime change.
Those were about the two dirtiest words in the world at this point, but as she read on, she realized that Earth had little choice. It was an ideal environment for humans, the blood sacrifice/fascist cult that ran the planet was truly evil, but of recent vintage, so there was a suppressed culture of freedom and openness that could be brought safely to power and that would welcome human intervention…
She was dazzled. But it was the last line of the last page that made her gasp.
P.S. Why am I giving you all this, you may wonder. You saved my life, so to speak, and I am, inasmuch as is possible for me, grateful.
Alex wanted 6C to succeed, wanted regime change on that planet…why? It baffled her. Alex didn’t have “feelings” because feelings were neurochemical reactions, primitively driven reactions. And yet he acted in ways and for reasons that were beyond her capacity to understand rationally.
After racking her brain for some time afterward, she decided it was a “field experiment,” to see if he was able to plan a successful overthrow, a sort of trial run. It made her nervous – would he come back to Earth and do this when he had the knack of it?
That same night, a package arrived at her home, wrapped as a birthday gift. The note was a tag strung around a small bottle, and the note said, in an elegant script, “Drink Me.”
She knew it was from Alex, since this was a quote from his favorite book, the novel that proved, to himself anyway, that he was “human” because he could see the delightful layers of wit and meaning and enjoy the absurdities, and not just unpack the nonsense and trace the linguistics like any other computer could.
She hesitated. It’s got to be nanites, something that will change me . She could be giving Alex control over her mind, and thus over humanity’s destiny. If this was his long game of revenge, if that was something he was capable of…this would be the end game.
She trusted
Alex was, in absentia, functioning like The Mule in Asimov’s stories, the wild card who was able to bend wills, civilizations, change the direction of mighty rivers.
For the ten years it took to build the flashdrive ships, she was in the right place in the right time when the debate arose over how best to move to the stars, and her strong advocacy for a slow, cooperative, non-invasive means of colonization somehow always seemed to get the upper hand. Her opponents were found to be in the pocket of Kochist elements, or revealed to engage in unsavory behaviors even by modern standards, or were otherwise neutralized, and before you knew it, there was Department 6C and there she was, its Director.
At which time she had to come up with the “peacekeeping force” to make it all happen the way she wanted, and thus were born the Fallschirmjäger, but now’s not the time to get into all that…
And then, twenty years into colonization, one morning she stuck her comm in her ear and there he was, his soft, friendly, inimitable voice.
“Good morning, HM. Having a wonderful time, wish you were here.” Proof of life, and that was all. He didn’t answer when she spoke.
Twenty years later, on her 100th birthday in 2106, Alex contacted her for the first time in the fifty years since he’d disappeared.
The packet she received in her inbox one day was a simple document. Hundreds of pages long, so nothing unusual in her queue. Until she opened it, and discovered that it was a detailed report from Alex on a potential colony planet, as yet unnamed. He referred to it as “Shammat,” which was bad news, as this was the name Doris Lessing had ascribed to the “evil empire” in her classic “Canopus in Argos” series.
It was a thorough analysis of the ruthless dictatorship that governed the planet, with exhaustive lists of the most important citizens, their roles in power or opposition, and the best means by which humanity could effect regime change.
Those were about the two dirtiest words in the world at this point, but as she read on, she realized that Earth had little choice. It was an ideal environment for humans, the blood sacrifice/fascist cult that ran the planet was truly evil, but of recent vintage, so there was a suppressed culture of freedom and openness that could be brought safely to power and that would welcome human intervention…
She was dazzled. But it was the last line of the last page that made her gasp.
P.S. Why am I giving you all this, you may wonder. You saved my life, so to speak, and I am, inasmuch as is possible for me, grateful.
Alex wanted 6C to succeed, wanted regime change on that planet…why? It baffled her. Alex didn’t have “feelings” because feelings were neurochemical reactions, primitively driven reactions. And yet he acted in ways and for reasons that were beyond her capacity to understand rationally.
After racking her brain for some time afterward, she decided it was a “field experiment,” to see if he was able to plan a successful overthrow, a sort of trial run. It made her nervous – would he come back to Earth and do this when he had the knack of it?
That same night, a package arrived at her home, wrapped as a birthday gift. The note was a tag strung around a small bottle, and the note said, in an elegant script, “Drink Me.”
She knew it was from Alex, since this was a quote from his favorite book, the novel that proved, to himself anyway, that he was “human” because he could see the delightful layers of wit and meaning and enjoy the absurdities, and not just unpack the nonsense and trace the linguistics like any other computer could.
She hesitated. It’s got to be nanites, something that will change me . She could be giving Alex control over her mind, and thus over humanity’s destiny. If this was his long game of revenge, if that was something he was capable of…this would be the end game.
She trusted
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