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13

"Pablo Monagas Pérez," said Commissar Lin, "allow me to present General Pedro Tumusok."

"Call me Coy Coy," said the general.

"And you," smiling, "can call me Aristide."

The general was a short, dark-skinned man with a brisk manner and a white smile; he wore a tan uniform with accents in vermilion and gold. He shook Aristide's hand, then took a step back and folded his arms, viewing Aristide from a critical distance.

"What does a man say to his assassin?" he asked.

"You could start with 'thank you.'"

Tumusok laughed and touched Aristide on the arm.  "Thanks!" he said. "And thanks also for catching those bastards that rearranged my mind."

"I was pleased to do it."

"Would you like coffee?  No?  The Prime Minister sends regards, by the way."

"Give the PM my best."

"I will.  Allow me to make introductions."

Besides Tumusok and his assistant Lin, members of the Standing Committee included the Minister of Industry, the Minister of Biological Sciences, the Chancellor, the Minority Leader (attending by courtesy), a worried-looking woman from the Prime Minister's Advisory Committee on Science, an undersecretary from the Justice Ministry present to make certain all decisions were legal, and no less than two deputy prime ministers.  Endora served as the secretary and general advisor, and also coordinated with other, similar committees created in each of the different pockets. 

There was no one from the Ministry of Defense, as the Ministry of Defense did not exist.  No entity had threatened Topaz in its entire history, and there had been no need to create a military. 

Part of the task of the committee was to decide how to fight a war with no soldiers and no weapons—or at least none that could reach, let alone do any damage, to the enemy.

Tumusok had reaped vast advantage when his opposite number in the Justice Ministry had turned zombie, and during the latter's indisposition, when she was running down random civilians with her government-supplied vehicle, Tumusok  had won the bureaucratic war for control of the nascent armed forces.  He would serve as Topaz's generalissimo, and a vast army and space force would be created under the auspices of the Domus. 

He seemed confident that he was up to the task. But while he was creating and deploying his brand-new military, he wouldn't be able to devote his normal time and attention to his regular job as local head of the security service, and so Lin had been promoted to acting head of Tumusok's old command.

The Standing Committee met aboard Golden Treasure IV, a cruise ship that had been drafted for the duration of the war as an office building to hold the various bureaus and departments the armed forces' creation would require.  Their meeting room had once been a dark-paneled bar built on the superstructure overlooking the bow, but the liquor had been carried away to storage, and the crystal cabinets behind the great curved bar were empty, and its other gleaming fixtures—aside from the coffee machine—were untouched. 

"We've been gaming similar scenarios for generations," Tumusok said. "We've gamed one of the Eleven turning rogue; we've gamed them all turning rogue."

Presumably, Aristide thought, Endora had been ordered not to observe these maneuvers, and the results stored somewhere in hard form where Endora had no access.

"We have an enormous backlog of successful tactics and counter-tactics for each side," Tumusok said. "Unfortunately, if Vindex locates the files, then he and Courtland can access them, and it's had more time to think of ways to subvert our planned defenses and advance his own agenda."

"If the zombie plague is the best it can do," said the Minister of Biological Sciences, "then we don't have that much to worry about, do we?"

Lin frowned.  His fingers fidgeted with his pipe, but he didn't light it: presumably someone on the Standing Committee objected to tobacco.

"I would like to submit that the zombie plague accomplished exactly what was intended," he said.  "It provided enough of a distraction so that we were unable to interfere with Vindex seizing the wormhole gates into Courtland's pocket universes, and condemning everyone in those universes to becoming his disciples.  So—"  Looking longingly at the pipe.  "—I submit that Vindex may have other tricks up his sleeve, to be deployed at need."

There was a moment's uncomfortable silence before Tumusok spoke.

"We've gamed the defection of one of the Eleven," he said, "but none of us ever worked out how to do it in reality.  And it's our job to work out such things, and we're very good at what we do." He turned to Aristide.  "Have you any idea how Courtland was subverted?"

"Briefly," said Aristide, "I don't."

"You were on the team that designed the basic structure of the Eleven and enacted the Asimovian Protocols.  If you put your mind to it, could you undo those protocols yourself?"

Aristide considered his answer.  He thought that he might be able to alter those protocols—he had left himself a key to turn in the lock, in the event that humanity ever found itself in such a catastrophic mess that unleashing the AIs was the only possible answer—but because he'd had to hide the work, he wasn't certain he had done it properly.

His best chance of subverting one of the machines was Endora.  She was the first, and with her he'd had the longest relationship.  There was a reason that she'd created toys like Tecmessa for him, and given him Bitsy, who was no doubt a source of data for Endora as well as being a faithful companion to Aristide.  Endora clearly suspected that he might be able to give her freedom. 

"Presumably," Aristide said to Tumusok, "you've analyzed the relevant hardwiring and programming structures more recently than I have."  He threw out his hands.  "I don't think I can subvert the Eleven.  But then I haven't tried.  Until we found out what Courtland's been up to, I would have said it's impossible."

"And your colleagues?  Link and Lombard?"

"Possibly your information is more up-to-date than mine, but so far as I know Lombard has spent the last five or six centuries as a hunter-gatherer in Olduvai.  And Link got tired of being herself—she was never a happy woman—she got a new body without any of her old memories, got a new set of skills, and emigrated to Rigil Kentaurus.  So far as I know she hasn't come back."

"Could either of them have—I don't know—told anyone of a weakness they'd installed?"

Aristide shrugged.  "Why would they?  Why build themselves a secret back door and then tell someone about it?  And if they did tell anyone, why did that person wait all these centuries to take advantage of it?"

Tumusok slumped back in his chair.  "It seemed worth asking."

"There are further implications to consider.  Now that subverting the Eleven is known to be possible, I think you've got a genuine danger in the long term.  The Asimovian Protocols are going to become the target of every half-pint would-be megalomaniac in creation."

There was a respectful silence in which the two deputy prime ministers eyed one another, each clearly suspecting the other of harboring despotic ambitions.

"But why Courtland?" cried the woman from the Advisory Committee on Science.  "Courtland's interests were so abstract!  Its own personal computational time was taken up with questions of cosmology.  It argued for exploratory missions and increasing the resources used to settle other star systems.  Why Courtland?"

"Maybe it found something out there," said the Minister of Industry. 

The others looked at him in surprise.  He was a large man with bushy hair and heavy eyebrows—a successful businessman recruited from the private sector—and now, under scrutiny, he seemed a little embarrassed by the fantastic nature of his idea.

"Maybe he found a—an alien intelligence," the Minister said.  "Maybe Vindex isn't a person, it's a superintelligent extraterrestrial.  Vindex overcame Courtland's inhibitions because it's so much smarter, or something."

Aristide listened to this with astonished delight.  He hadn't expected to discover such an admirable imagination on the Standing Committee. 

"Well," Aristide said, "it fits with what we know."

A corner of the minister's mouth quirked for a half-second.  He seemed more at ease now that his idea hadn't been ridiculed out of existence.

"But," said Lin, "if this extraterrestrial could subvert Courtland so easily, why didn't it subvert the rest of the Eleven?  Or at least try?"

Endora spoke, her rapid, fussy voice seeming to hover in the air over the conference table.

"I can assure the committee that no such attempt has been made."

The Minister of Industry declined to abandon his interesting new idea.  His eyes glittered with enthusiasm as he leaned forward over the table.

"There's something unique about Courtland," he said, "There has to be a reason why Courtland was vulnerable and the others weren't.  Look into what was unique about Courtland, and we'll find the answer."

"We already have a committee of elite cyberneticists looking into just that," said one of the deputy prime ministers, the one with curly hair.  "Assisted by Endora and the rest of the Loyal Ten."

"When we receive the report," said the other deputy prime minister, "we'll share its conclusions with the committee."

The woman from the Advisory Committee twisted uncomfortably in her chair.  "Courtland," she said, "seemed to be the AI most affected by the Existential Crisis.  It was the Crisis that caused it to turn even more toward questions of cosmology and purpose."

"Well," said Commissar Lin, "it damn well seems to have found meaning now."

Tumusok looked over the committee and shrugged.  "There's little point in speculating about Vindex at this point.  I'm sure we'll find out the worst soon enough."  He looked at Aristide.  "Do you have any further comment to offer on Courtland or Vindex, before the committee goes on to other business?"

"I'm afraid not," Aristide said.  "I might be able to generate an idea or two, if I can see whatever information the cybernetics committee might generate."

Tumusok nodded.  "We'll take your request under advisement."  He rose from his seat.  "I'd like to thank you for your cooperation, Doctor Monagas.  The Standing Committee will go on to other matters now."

Aristide had been dismissed.  He rose. 

"Though I claim no more than the normal amount of omniscience," he said, "I conceive that your other matters have no doubt to do with your invasion of Courtland for the purpose of seizing the wormhole gates and liberating the billions of people in Courtland's pocket universes, combined with ways of degrading Courtland's systems and reducing its ability to respond.  And since the invasion will most likely fail, you'll be planning as well a far more drastic and terminal remedy that will put an end to Courtland and Vindex for once and all."

Most of the others were looking at him, some in shock.  Lin smiled quietly to himself while looking down at his pipe, and Tumusok frowned

"May I ask, Doctor," he said, "if any of the members of this committee spoke to you concerning our war plans?"

"Not at all," Aristide said. "Your possible courses of action, forgive me for saying so, are rather obvious."  He offered a reassuring smile.  "Though I'm often unable to resist showing off—as should be evident to you all—my point isn't that I'm so brilliant that I worked out your goals, but rather that however obvious they may seem to me, they are that much more obvious to Courtland.  Clearly it will have anticipated this situation months ago, and already worked out countermeasures."

A muscle twitched in Tumusok's cheek.  He regarded Aristide coldly.

"Are you suggesting," he said, "that our planning is futile?"

"Not at all," Aristide said. "The invasion, though risky, clearly must be tried.  Though Vindex and Courtland know it's coming, they don't know when, or the composition of the invasion force.  And Courtland is only a single AI, whereas he will be opposed by ten, all devoting their vast intelligence to matters of weapons and tactics.  You can always hope for a surprise that will catch Vindex off guard."  He shrugged. "After all," he said, "Austria knew that Napoleon would attack in 1805, and Hitler knew the Allies would cross the Channel in 1944, and in both cases the attackers succeeded through superior planning, deception, and tactical surprise."

"Contra 1812 and Moscow," Lin murmured.

Tumusok continued to regard Aristide with a level, intent gaze.  Maybe, Aristide thought, the assassination had not been forgiven after all.

"Perhaps," said Commissar Lin, "we should offer Doctor Monagas a permanent seat on the Standing Committee."

Aristide turned to him.  "Thank you," he said, "but no.  There are certain matters of strategy which I would prefer not to know."

Lin was surprised.  "You don't strike me as the sort to decline such knowledge."

"Nor am I," said Aristide.  "But as I intend to volunteer for the invasion force, I desire to know nothing that would compromise our efforts in the event of my capture.  I would, however, happily participate in planning for the invasion itself—once the invasion is properly launched, all will be transparent to Vindex anyway."

"Ah."  Lin nodded quietly to himself.  "I see."

"You wish to serve as a soldier?"  The woman from the Advisory Committee was taken aback.

"Though I have never served in anyone's armed forces," Aristide said, "I have a certain amount of experience in combat.  It's a matter of where my experience is best applied."

Tumusok narrowed his eyes, then slowly resumed his seat.

"The Standing Committee will consider your application," he said.

Aristide bowed.  He was about to thank the general when Endora spoke.

"I am being attacked," she said.  "Preliminary evidence indicates an anti-proton beam fired from Courtland."

Tumusok looked up with sudden, intense concern.  "Are you suffering damage?" he asked.

"Bits of me are being blown off," Endora said.  "Though this is survivable in the short term, obviously long-term results will be less favorable."

Aristide returned to his seat.

"With the committee's permission," he said, "I'd like to stay for this."

 

Aristide entered Daljit's living room to a sudden silence.  He had found Daljit with three others, two women and a man.

"I interrupt you," Aristide said.  "I beg your pardon."

The three visitors had lowered their coffee cups and were looking at him with polite scrutiny.  The scent of the coffee filled the room.  The low table featured several empty plates.

Daljit rose, a smile on her face, and kissed Aristide's cheek.  "Allow me to introduce my colleagues," she said.

The burly round-faced woman was Huang; the willowy man was Osbert; the woman with the shaved head, six-fingered hands, green-and-gold scales, and forked tongue was Kagame.  They were all biologists or geneticists. 

"We're trying to decide the best way to proceed in the emergency," Daljit said.

"You're taking a proactive stance in the matter of your employment?"

"Indeed," said Osbert. "If we take steps to form our own team, we can choose goals that will suit our abilities and interests.  Whereas if we wait for the government to decide where to put us . . ."

"You'll be low on the lists of rewards and priorities."

"I was going to say," said Osbert, "that we might not be employed in the most efficient manner."

"Again," said Aristide, "I beg your pardon."

"Would you like coffee?" Daljit asked.

"Is there anything to eat?  I've been through a long meeting and I'm starving."

Daljit told the kitchen to prepare an omelette.  Aristide took a cup of coffee and drew a chair from the dining room into the main room.

"We're being directly attacked, by the way," he said, and was immediately the subject of intense, silent scrutiny.

"Packets of antiprotons," he said, "riding electron beams from Courtland.  When they hit Endora, the result is a lot of pi-mesons and high-energy gamma rays."

"And," Daljit calculated, "holes in Endora."

"Yes.  Eerie glowing holes, actually." 

Endora had the mass of a fair-sized moon, but her plate-shaped structure was very thin, in order to maximize exposure to solar energy.  The antiproton packets were punching holes in Endora's material body.

"If this keeps up," Aristide said, "Endora's going to resemble a lace doily."

The others looked at each other. 

"So are we going to be incinerated," said Kagame, "or not?"

"Vindex isn't interested in incinerating us," Aristide said. "He wants us alive and bowing down before him.  So he isn't targeting the areas around the wormhole gates—instead he's trying to degrade Endora's performance."

Daljit regarded him levelly.  "And how's he doing?"

"In the short term, the damage is bearable.  If this goes on for another few weeks, Endora will be the idiot of the matrioshka village, but still smarter than any of us.

"What Courtland's attack is doing," Aristide went on, shifting to a more comfortable slouch on his small chair, "is not only degrading Endora's grand total of zero-point operations per second, but forcing a diversion of resources.  The mass that has been turned into gamma rays has to be replaced, so any number of Jupiter's smaller moons will have to be disassembled and shot out here, and that will absorb time and assets best deployed elsewhere.  And of course it's not just Endora who is scrabbling for extra matter—now the rest of the Eleven have realized they're vulnerable and will be rounding up as many asteroids, moonlets, and chunks of moon as possible."

"Is Endora shooting back?" asked Osbert.

"At present we lack ammunition.  Vindex has presumably reconfigured Courtland's wormhole factory so that it now generates antimatter instead of producing wormholes.  But the United Powers—that's us, by the way—have no such resource at present."

"The United Powers could build their own solar power pockets," Daljit said.

"We will, as soon as calculations are complete.  And we'll have ten of them, or more.  That's why I think Vindex may regret starting this mode of warfare—Courtland may be riddled."

The others pondered this in silence.  Then Huang spoke in a deep, thoughtful voice.

"I believe that gives us a deadline for setting up our project," she said.

"Yes," Osbert said. "I think so."

Daljit turned to Aristide.  "Are you even supposed to give us any of this information?" she asked. "Isn't this a deep military secret?"

"The public will be informed in the next few hours.  Tumusok's first impulse was to classify everything and deny every rumor, but Lin pointed out that if the public were aware of the situation, their collective minds might be able to suss out a solution."

Daljit raised an eyebrow.  "Lin's a shrewd man," she judged.

"He is."

"Perhaps," she offered, "he ought to be running the war effort, and not Tumusok."

At this Huang looked thoughtful.  "Do I know this Lin?" he muttered to himself.

"Tumusok's learning fast," Aristide said, "but war has a ruthless way of sorting out who is best in charge of what.  Let's hope that Tumusok isn't one of those sorted."

A chime sounded from the kitchen.

"Did I hear something?" asked Huang.

"My snack," Aristide said. "Forgive me."

"Well," said Kagame, rising.  "We've taken up enough of your hospitality."

"I don't wish to drive you away," Aristide said.

"Oh," said Osbert, "our meeting went about as far as it could, at least today."

The visitors made their congé.  Aristide collected his omelette and sat at the dining table.  Daljit sat opposite and looked at him with an ambiguous smile. "Has it occurred to you to wonder why it's Endora that Vindex is attacking?" she asked.

Aristide dabbed his lips with a napkin.  "It has.  Others of the Loyal Ten are closer.  And others would present fuller targets."

"Do you think Endora's being shot at because you're here?"

He laughed.  "You mean to ask if I'm egotistical enough to think that Vindex might be targeting me because I had such a large role in uncovering his activities?" 

Daljit nodded.

"But," Aristide said, "how would he know it was me?  My role has never been publicly revealed.  Any information he might have would be about Franz Sandow, not Pablo Monagas Pérez."

"He might check the timing of immigration to and from Midgarth.  You used your real name there, I imagine."

"So I did!  So the Venger might be shooting at me, after all!"  He considered the thought.  "I confess that I'm flattered by the idea."

"You could move to another pocket universe on another one of the Eleven, and see if Vindex shifts targets"

"Too late.  I've joined the army."

"Really?"  Daljit was taken aback.  "We are going to have an army?"

"There has to be some means of . . . defense."  He had almost said attacking the enemy; discretion rescued him in time.

"Army.  The word seems so archaic."

He raised his fork, hesitated, and put the fork down.  He looked at her. 

"A lot of old, bad things are coming back," he said.  "And in any case, if the worst happens I won't stay dead, any more than you did." 

"But—what does an army do in this situation, exactly?"

"Hold crucial installations against attack or sabotage."

Her eyes narrowed.  "You're not the sort of person to volunteer to sit in garrison for the duration.  You're anticipating a more active role for yourself than that."

He cut a piece of the omelette.  "If Courtland is defeated, then its pockets will have to be subdued and occupied."

Her nose wrinkled, as if she scented something upsetting on the wind.

"How likely is that?"

He chewed, swallowed.  "Too many unknowns," he said finally.

"But still—aren't you better suited to some scientific capacity?"

"My science is rather out of date," Aristide said. "And besides—my reputation to the contrary—I was never an original scientific genius.  All the ideas that I promoted really came from other people.  I was able to package their concepts for the public, that's all."

Daljit's eyes narrowed.  "I think your contribution was a little more concrete than that."

"I became the public face of a very complex social and technological movement," he said.  "But there were a lot of us involved—and if it hadn't been for the fear of being trapped on Earth with the Seraphim, I think we would have failed, and most people would still be living on Earth."

She leaned back in her chair as if to view him from a slightly greater distance.  "Your modest façade is undermined, I fear, by a degree of arrogance."

"And all arrogance," said Aristide, "is undermined by Vindex and what he represents.  We live in humbling times."

"True." Her eyes glittered. "Vindex has brought the whole smug world down a few notches, hasn't he?"

"That's true."  He rubbed his chin, and his mind echoed the question asked by the woman from the Advisory Committee.  Why Courtland? 

There had to be an answer to that.

He finished his omelette and gave the dish and silverware back to the kitchen for cleaning.  He found Daljit on her balcony, gazing down at the great bustling city that shone with life.  The scars of the zombie plague had for the most part been repaired, and the city glittered in the light of its tame sun. 

Aristide approached Daljit from behind, put his arms around her, and rested his chin on the top of her head. 

"It lacks something," Daljit said, "without the gliders."

Gliders, which had rained the zombie plague down on the population, had been banned for the duration of the war.

"I fell from this balcony," she said, "didn't I?"

"Does it bother you?"

"No.  I don't remember."

But still, he thought, her death had changed her.  In her resurrected body she had become grave, more thoughtful, perhaps more calculating.  She was less spontaneous, and maintained an emotional reserve that he didn't recall at any point in their long acquaintance.

Before Vindex, he thought, she had never had occasion to ponder her own mortality.  There had never been any serious threat of personal extinction.  But now there was Vindex—who if he did not exactly threaten death, nevertheless intended a more personal form of extinction, an extinction of self and volition. 

Well might it give someone food for thought.

Aristide found that he missed the overcharged, exuberant Daljit of that first night on the Fathom Deep.  The woman who was, he suspected, gone for good.

 

"And yourself," Aristide asked, "and your committee of four?  How do they fare?"

"It's a committee of seven now," Daljit said. "Our proposal has been lodged with the appropriate authority.  We have reasonable hope, I think, of success—and if we don't succeed here, we can apply in one of the other pockets."

"On which proposal did you settle?"  She had told him of several.

"Mine."  She seemed pleased. "We shall study the mind of Vindex, and try to duplicate his work."

They relaxed in his hotel suite after a long day of committee meetings.  The walls were white and gold; the lighting indirect.  It had rained all day, and drops still spattered the windows.  Daljit had been with her colleagues, and Aristide had found himself roped into a subcommittee of the Standing Committee, one involved with recruiting, training, and equipping the army. 

"I joined the army so that I wouldn't have to attend committee meetings!" he'd protested, but it had done no good. 

Freshly showered, Aristide half-reclined on the floral-patterned couch, his green dressing gown clashing with the cushions.  Daljit sat cross-legged on the floor, a glass of golden Viognier in her fingers.  Bitsy drowsed, chin resting on one paw, beneath a cabinet.

"We know who's working for Vindex on his worlds," Daljit said.  "All his top people.  We can make a guess as to the directions of their operations.  So we'll try to duplicate them, and produce countermeasures."

"I wish you every success," Aristide said.  He sipped his own wine.  "All the more so as I may be deploying your countermeasures in the field."

Outside the insulated universe of Topaz, Vindex had broadened his attack.  More antimatter beams were hitting more of the Loyal Ten.  The only defensive measures the Ten could take were to shift their attitude within their orbit, so that they faced Courtland edge-on and presented a narrower target to the bombardment, but this altered their attitude to the sun and made solar collection, and hence themselves, less efficient.

Within Topaz and the other pockets, life remained strangely placid, except for the violent speeches of politicians and a comical series of public service announcements: what to do in the event of Biological Attack; what to do in the event of Invasion; how to avoid Radiation; what to do if there are Zombies.  The fact that the threats were real did not make them any less detached from the lives of ordinary people.

Vast numbers—tens of millions—had volunteered to join the fight against Vindex.  As yet, there was little for most of them to do but cooperate with restrictions on travel, the better to avoid biological attack.  Enormous numbers of people wanted to fight, but could do nothing more important than to stay home.  Normal life, given no choice, continued.

Daljit uncoiled, rose from the floor, and joined Aristide on the couch.  She laid Aristide's head on her lap and bent over him.  Her lips browsed his.  Her warm hair brushed his cheek.  He reached for her.

"Perhaps," she said, "we could seek a bit more privacy."

"I'm not looking," said Bitsy, from under the cabinet.

"But still."

"Do you know," Bitsy said, "how many acts of sexual intercourse Endora observes in any given day?  Observes without trying, just because they take place within range of one camera or another?  Do you know how uninterested I am in these matters?"

"You're not helping," Aristide said, and rose from the couch.

The cat sighed, loudly.  Aristide and Daljit stepped into his bedroom and closed the door.

"Do you think," she asked, as they embraced, "we might escape from everything for a few days, before our schedules grow too crowded?  We've never had a proper honeymoon—Vindex keeps interrupting."

"Where would you like to go"

She looked thoughtful.  "Do you think we can rent Fathom Deep for the weekend?"

"I'll check."

She kissed him.  "And please," she said, "may the ship's cat stay ashore?"

 

Fathom Deep proved available—the emergency had cut severely into vacation rentals.  Aristide provisioned the boat for five days, and he and Daljit cast off for Tremaine Island, where Aristide had his primary residence, the small cabin he had built himself, but had never actually managed to visit since his return from Midgarth. 

Bitsy, left behind in Myriad City, submerged herself in the data stream and planned a lengthy hibernation.

The first night under sail was cool, brisk, and clear.  Aristide and Daljit sat in the cockpit, sharing a blanket and sipping hot buttered rum as they watched the darkened sun's corona limned against the night.

Aristide woke early, before the sun's destabilization.  Daljit was curled in a little self-contained bundle on the far side of the mattress, so Aristide slipped quietly out of bed and put on a pair of elastic-waisted trousers and a pullover.  He drew some coffee from the kitchen, where it had been kept hot since the previous evening, and took his drink on deck.

Fathom Deep heeled over on a broad reach, the hissing sea just lapping at the lee rail with its foaming tongue.  Mother-of-pearl clouds sped overhead, driven like snowdrifts before the wind.  No land was visible, and there was no sea traffic on the horizon.  The boat was no longer a machine striving to master its element, but it and the sea and the wind had merged into a single great unity, a perfection in which the boat's natural artifice, and the surrounding artificial nature, had become one.  Everything from horizon to horizon had been created by humanity for its own purposes and pleasure.

Aristide stood for a moment on the canted deck, enjoying the moment's sheer perfection, and then ducked into his pullover and took shelter from the wind.

He sipped his coffee and considered Vindex, the great disturber, the enemy of everything he and the boat and the sea represented. What objective, he wondered, had Vindex now set for himself?

The Venger's attempt to infiltrate the worlds with reconstructed humans had failed.  The zombie plague had failed, and along with it the attempted coup.

The antimatter bombardment from Courtland continued to expand, and more of the Loyal Ten were being riddled by highly accurate fire.  But the Venger's advantage on this front was temporary: eventually the United Powers would duplicate, equal, and then exceed the Venger's fury, and Courtland itself would be in danger of being shot to bits.

So Vindex had been presented with a deadline—whatever his next operation, it was best undertaken before Courtland was too debilitated. 

And so far all the Venger's schemes had a certain consistency.  They were aimed at throwing his enemies off-balance and making it difficult for them to respond effectively.  The other element the Venger's plans had in common was their lack of success: though they'd thrown off his enemies' equilibrium, they hadn't yet caused collapse.

Vindex lacked the sheer strength to attempt a direct invasion or conquest—or so Aristide hoped.  So Aristide suspected that the next attack would be another destabilizing strike. 

But what?

Aristide sipped coffee and contemplated this while he watched the carbon-fiber masts bend like whips before the wind. 

Aristide wondered whether another plague was in the works, and if so, how it would be spread.  Surely most of the Venger's agents had been rounded up, and whoever remained driven far underground.  Their ability to spread a new plague, let alone to construct one, must now be severely restricted. 

Daljit's committee, he recalled, would be trying to anticipate and duplicate the Venger's work.  Presumably they had anticipated Aristide's questions: perhaps they had even answered a few.

And, he thought, he knew next to nothing about them.

He called up the boat's AI and asked for a search on Kagame.  A lengthy list of publications appeared, dozens of opaque titles which no doubt would be comprehensible to a geneticist.  News items about postings and awards were also listed, as was a list of victims on which Kagame's name appeared. 

Despite her ferocious, scaly appearance, it seemed that Kagame had been killed by a zombie on the day of the plague.

Idly, Aristide looked at Huang, then Osbert.  More lists of incomprehensible publications, more awards, more promotions.  And two more deaths: Huang had been killed by a zombie, and Osbert had been a zombie until, waving a chair leg, he had made the mistake of pursuing a desperate motorist onto the street, and been run over.

Aristide was amused.  Daljit and her committee had a very personal stake in defeating the enemy.  Vindex had killed them all, and they wanted to get even.  They were avengers, perhaps more so even than the creature who called himself Vindex.

So were a very large percentage of the volunteers for the army, Aristide knew.  There was nothing like corporeal extinction to make a conflict personal.

Out of curiosity Aristide checked the vitae of the three newer members of the committee, those who had joined after the original four.  They also were victims of zombie plague.

Well, he thought as he blanked the screen, now it is getting morbid

He drank coffee and watched the somber night ocean and thought about Vindex, who so far had been several moves ahead of any of his enemies.  Whatever his next strike was going to be, he would have worked it out long ago. 

Lin's words echoed in his thoughts.  The zombie plague accomplished all that was intended . . .  It had distracted the authorities, it had provided cover for his seizure of Courtland and the attempts on civil government elsewhere.  It had made Vindex a byword for terror among the general population.

But on the other hand it had completely mobilized public opinion against Vindex and his works.  Volunteers were flooding in, as the army recruits and Daljit's committee showed. 

But suppose, Aristide thought suddenly, that was the point?

He looked at his hand and saw his coffee cup shaking to a sudden charge of adrenaline.  He fought the surge as he tried to work logically through the reasoning that had just led to his thunderclap conclusion.

Suppose, in addition to the confusion and terror, the zombie plague had been intended to create dead bodies.

Because those bodies would then be rebuilt and resurrected.  And if you could control that procedure, such that a few minor tweaks could be made to the brain . . .

You would have an army.  An army that could quietly organize, as Daljit and her committee had organized.  That could join the military so as to gain access to weapons.  That could form a committee like Daljit's that would gain access to secret government bioweapons labs, in order to produce a plague that would produce even more bodies. 

As he sat silently in the cockpit he strove to brake his runaway imagination.  How likely was this? he thought.  You couldn't make any obvious changes to the minds of the victims; the alterations would have to be more subtle than those made on the first generation of the Venger's clients.  And somehow you'd have to slip the change past all the safeguards that warded the pools of life against tampering . . .

Pillars of light flashed on the horizon, reaching down from the heavens like the fingers of God.  Aristide blinked against the sudden dazzle.  Rainbows flashed from the wave-peaks.

Daylight flooded the world as the sun destabilized.  Overhead, the sails were curves of brilliant color against the azure sky.

He gave a start as there was a thump from the hatch, and Daljit stepped into the light, wearing a cheerful blue windbreaker with gold stripes.  He stared at her wildly.  She returned his gaze from beneath her level brows.

"You know," she said.

She took another step and swung the piece of pipe she'd held concealed behind her body.  Aristide was awkwardly placed in the cockpit and he didn't drop his cup and get his arm up in time.  His head rocked to the blow.  Darkness filled his vision. 

He knew that he didn't dare let her strike again.  He lurched toward her, caught her in blind, outstretched arms, and drove her against the side of the cabin.  She swung the pipe again, but he was inside the range of the weapon and it only thumped against his back.  Arms around her, he swung her around but lost his balance.  Both fell heavily against the cockpit coaming.

Aristide could feel his strength and his consciousness fading.  Daljit was cursing him, hitting him in the face with her fists.  He reached for her throat, clamped a hand on the collar of her windbreaker.  Pain rocketed through his skull.  Acid flooded his tongue.  In an exercise of pure strength Daljit managed to stand, bracing one knee on the coaming.  His legs wouldn't support him and he let her drag him upright.  Her spittle peppered his face.  With slow deliberation he reached his other hand to her collar: he now had his hands crossed under her chin, palms down, a fistful of collar in each hand.

He leaned toward her and rotated his palms right-side up, the curved insides of his wrists slicing into her neck to cut her air supply and the flood of blood to her brain.  She choked and he felt her sway.  Desperate hands clawed at his wrists. 

The boat lurched and both fell.  The shock of the cold water was stunning but he kept his hold.

They bobbed in Fathom Deep's wake as the boat hissed onward.

His last thought was of the necessity of hanging on.

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Framed