Read Online The Devil Delivered and Other Tales by Steven Erikson - Free Book Online
Authors: Steven Erikson
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digressing, Corbie. To focus all that, one of the big ideas that took hold unplugged the environmental movement. First, you had the alliance fucked up. People with power quickly quit complaining or making dire predictions. Second, and this was the idea itself, concocted by the academics in dry tones: Life is characterized by periods of mass extinction. We may have accelerated this one, but that’s all just relative. What you’re seeing is an inevitable expression of Nature. The Great Mother wipes clean the slate, once again. Relax everyone. Can’t fight the inevitable and, really, should you? Natural order is natural order, after all. Go with the flow, sure it’s sad, but it’s better feeling sad than feeling guilt-ridden.
CORBIE TWA: Naturally, we bought it, with a worldwide sigh of relief. Absolved at last, pass the salt.
BOGQUEEN: Ozone depletion, oh well, it was bound to happen eventually. We’ve adapted, with our rad shielding and unguents and elixirs. No different from all those volcanic eruptions on the Rim. Too bad about those rad leaks in Asia, and as for those peripheral human populations, we can help them.
CORBIE TWA: Help indeed. That’s what the boy’s gnawing at, isn’t it.
STONECASTER: But he’s one of those students you were talking about. Why isn’t he converted?
PACEMAKER: He was probably too sharp for his own good. And given his talent on the Net, he might well have accessed the so-called unrestricted files, which contain, among other things, a whole list of forbidden subjects, repressed data analyses, heretical theses, not to mention anthropological monographs, from which one can cull the most surprising information. Historical revisionism is the official line, as you said. The forces of evolution can well serve deterministic notions, if misapplied. Even more disturbing, it can be philosophically extended to justify any means, given the inevitable end.
BOGQUEEN: It’s the extinction stuff that’s now in trouble. William’s out there recording field observations that run contrary to the mass extinction idea. The beasts are changing, because they’re pressured populations. Out there we’re getting leapfrog speciation, at a phenomenal rate of mutation.
PACEMAKER: There are profound implications to that notion.
BOGQUEEN: You’d better effing well believe it. And there is a political side to that last entry. Never mind the telepathic snake, that conversation between Dr. Jenine MacAlister and Max Ohman provided a pretty succinct statement of the issues.
FREE WHIZZY: Who’s Max Ohman?
BOGQUEEN: The Lady’s right-hand boy. Ladon’s Chief Engineer.
FREE WHIZZY: Well, I can see how the theoretical stuff might trigger some kind of philosophical ruckus, but I still can’t grasp the risk to the politicos.
BOGQUEEN: It’s too soon to tell, really. I’d rather not speculate. Besides, I’ve got faith in the boy.
STONECASTER: You must be crazy. The kid’s cooked. If he’s not pulled out, he’ll be dead inside a week.
BOGQUEEN: I know. He’s running out of time.
CORBIE TWA: Maybe that’s his real message.
…
Net
… Behold, I am the back door, and my name is Malachai.…
JOHN JOHN: Who?
…
JOHN JOHN:
NOAC CENTRAL: This path is unauthorized. Contact NOAC through the means described in the NOAC Directory. This path is unauthorized.
JOHN JOHN: *******
NOAC CENTRAL: DISJUNCTIVE ACCESS , File opening now …
Directory: NOAC CENTRAL\MINISTRY OF SOCIAL EQUALIZATION\USASK COMPLEX PATH:DATA ACQUISITION\ANALYSIS, DEPT APPLIED ANTHRO\MACALISTER,J …
Contents:
PERSONNEL
POPULATIONS
PROJECTS
PROJECTIONS
XTND BIO ANALYSES
JOHN JOHN: ***********
USASK: Contents:
NOAC
* BRAZIL
* PACIFIC S. & C. AMERICA
* ATLANTIC/CARIB S. & C. AMERICA
* HOPI CONFED (PRE–MASS SUICIDE)
* LAKOTA NATION
* WEST CST NATION
* CENTRAL INUIT CONFED
* UNSETTLED NOAC POPULATIONS
SINJO
* CENTRAL ASIA
* N.E. COAST
EUROCOM
* GYPSIES
* LAPLANDER CONFED
OTHERS
* AFRICAN TRIBAL
* PACIFIC
CORBIE TWA: Naturally, we bought it, with a worldwide sigh of relief. Absolved at last, pass the salt.
BOGQUEEN: Ozone depletion, oh well, it was bound to happen eventually. We’ve adapted, with our rad shielding and unguents and elixirs. No different from all those volcanic eruptions on the Rim. Too bad about those rad leaks in Asia, and as for those peripheral human populations, we can help them.
CORBIE TWA: Help indeed. That’s what the boy’s gnawing at, isn’t it.
STONECASTER: But he’s one of those students you were talking about. Why isn’t he converted?
PACEMAKER: He was probably too sharp for his own good. And given his talent on the Net, he might well have accessed the so-called unrestricted files, which contain, among other things, a whole list of forbidden subjects, repressed data analyses, heretical theses, not to mention anthropological monographs, from which one can cull the most surprising information. Historical revisionism is the official line, as you said. The forces of evolution can well serve deterministic notions, if misapplied. Even more disturbing, it can be philosophically extended to justify any means, given the inevitable end.
BOGQUEEN: It’s the extinction stuff that’s now in trouble. William’s out there recording field observations that run contrary to the mass extinction idea. The beasts are changing, because they’re pressured populations. Out there we’re getting leapfrog speciation, at a phenomenal rate of mutation.
PACEMAKER: There are profound implications to that notion.
BOGQUEEN: You’d better effing well believe it. And there is a political side to that last entry. Never mind the telepathic snake, that conversation between Dr. Jenine MacAlister and Max Ohman provided a pretty succinct statement of the issues.
FREE WHIZZY: Who’s Max Ohman?
BOGQUEEN: The Lady’s right-hand boy. Ladon’s Chief Engineer.
FREE WHIZZY: Well, I can see how the theoretical stuff might trigger some kind of philosophical ruckus, but I still can’t grasp the risk to the politicos.
BOGQUEEN: It’s too soon to tell, really. I’d rather not speculate. Besides, I’ve got faith in the boy.
STONECASTER: You must be crazy. The kid’s cooked. If he’s not pulled out, he’ll be dead inside a week.
BOGQUEEN: I know. He’s running out of time.
CORBIE TWA: Maybe that’s his real message.
…
Net
… Behold, I am the back door, and my name is Malachai.…
JOHN JOHN: Who?
…
JOHN JOHN:
NOAC CENTRAL: This path is unauthorized. Contact NOAC through the means described in the NOAC Directory. This path is unauthorized.
JOHN JOHN: *******
NOAC CENTRAL: DISJUNCTIVE ACCESS , File opening now …
Directory: NOAC CENTRAL\MINISTRY OF SOCIAL EQUALIZATION\USASK COMPLEX PATH:DATA ACQUISITION\ANALYSIS, DEPT APPLIED ANTHRO\MACALISTER,J …
Contents:
PERSONNEL
POPULATIONS
PROJECTS
PROJECTIONS
XTND BIO ANALYSES
JOHN JOHN: ***********
USASK: Contents:
NOAC
* BRAZIL
* PACIFIC S. & C. AMERICA
* ATLANTIC/CARIB S. & C. AMERICA
* HOPI CONFED (PRE–MASS SUICIDE)
* LAKOTA NATION
* WEST CST NATION
* CENTRAL INUIT CONFED
* UNSETTLED NOAC POPULATIONS
SINJO
* CENTRAL ASIA
* N.E. COAST
EUROCOM
* GYPSIES
* LAPLANDER CONFED
OTHERS
* AFRICAN TRIBAL
* PACIFIC
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