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didn't know if it was panic, or the exhilaration of free fall. "Tripled in two
days. And you still think it's a virus?"
"No." Even without this inexplicable burst of contagion, I knew my
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targeted neuroactive mutant bioweapon theory wouldn't stand up to any scrutiny
at all. "But we can still both be wrong, can't we?"
"Maybe."
I hesitated. "If it's this fast now, then after the Aleph moment... ?"
"I don't know. It could sweep the planet in a week. Or an hour. The faster the
better-less suffering for the people who see it coming, but don't yet
understand." Akili closed vis eyes, began to put vis face in vis hands,
stopped, clenched vis fists. "When it comes, it better be good. The truth you
can't escape had better be sweet."
I moved closer and put my arm around ver, and swayed our bodies gently
together from side to side.
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Sarah arrived, barely a minute later than promised. She sat on my suitcase,
and we talked for her camera eyes. Sometimes we had to shout to make ourselves
heard-but software would bring the noise of the celebrations down to an
atmospheric murmur.
Sarah and I had never been more than casual acquaintances-I'd only spoken to
her in person a dozen times before-but for me, she came from the world beyond
Stateless, the time before the conference;
she was living proof of that era of sanity. And it only took one third party,
there in the flesh, to anchor me to normality-to render me certain, again,
that Akili was wrong. Distress was a mundane horror, no different from
cholera. The universe was oblivious to human explanation. The laws of physics
always had been and always would be solid-all the way down to the bedrock of
the
TOE-whether or not they were understood.
And-though we weren't going out in real-time-she'd brought her audience with
her. Under the potential scrutiny of ten million people, what else could I do
but think what they expected me to think, give in to their consensus, conform?
Akili, too, seemed to relax-but whether Sarah's presence anchored ver in the
same way, or merely served as a welcome distraction, I couldn't tell.
Sarah guided us deftly through our roles in Violet Mosala: Victim of
Anthrocosmology. The deposition I'd made for Joe Kepa had stuck to the legally
pertinent facts; this interview pretended to probe the moral and philosophical
depths of the ACs' conspiracy. But Akili and I both talked of the fishing
boat, and the moderates' insane beliefs, as if we had no
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doubt that their whole world view-as much as their violent methods- deserved
only contempt; as if nothing remotely similar could have crossed our own minds
in a thousand years.
And it all became news. It all became history. Sarah was doing her job
flawlessly-but for the record, the three of us willingly steam-rollered flat
every unspoken fear, every qualm, every trace of doubt that the world could
ever be different from the nets' pale imitation of it.
We were almost finished-I was on the verge of recounting the events in the
ambulance-when my notepad chimed. It was a coded trill for a call to be taken
only in private. If I answered, the communications software would shift to
deepest encryption, automatically-but if the notepad sensed other people
within earshot, it would refuse to maintain the connection.
I excused myself, and left the tent. The sky showed a faint wash of gray over
the stars. Music and laughter still flooded out of the square behind the
markets, and people were still roaming the camp, but I found a secluded spot
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nearby.
De Groot said, "Andrew? Are you all right? Can you talk?" She looked haggard
and tense.
"I'm fine. A little bruised by the quake, that's all." I hesitated; I couldn't
bring myself to ask the question.
"Violet died. About twenty minutes ago." De Groot's voice faltered, but she
steeled herself and pushed on wearily. "No one knows exactly why, yet. Some
kind of trap sprung by one of the anti-
viral magic bullets-maybe an enzyme in concentrations too weak to detect,
which converted it into a toxin." She shook her head, disbelieving. "They
turned her body into a minefield. What did she ever do to deserve that7 She
tried to find a few simple truths, a few simple patterns to the world."
I said, "They've been caught. They'll stand trial. And Violet will be
remembered ... for centuries." It was all hollow comfort, but I didn't know
what else to say.
And I'd thought I'd been prepared for this news, ever since I'd heard she was
in coma-but it still came like a sudden blow to the head ... as if the
anarchists' astonishing reversal of fortune, and
Sarah's miraculous reappearance, had somehow rewritten the odds. I covered my
eyes with my forearm for a moment, and saw her sitting in her hotel room
beneath the skylight, raked by the sun, reaching out and taking my hand. Even
if I'm wrong . . . there has to be something down there. Or nobody could even
touch.
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De Groot said, "How soon can you get off the island?" She sounded more than a
little concerned-
which was touching, but strange. We'd hardly been that close.
I laughed dismissively. "Why7 The anarchists have won, the worst is over. I'm
sure of that." De
Groot did not look sure at all. "Have you heard something? From . . . your
political contacts?"
There was a sudden chill in my bowels, like the disbelief I'd felt before each
new spasm from the cholera: It can't be happening again.
"This isn't about the war. But-you're stuck, aren't you?"
"For now. Are you going to tell me what this-?"
"We had a message. Just after Violet died. A threat from the Anthro'
cosmologists." Her face contorted with anger. "Not the ones on the boat,
obviously. So it must have come from the ones who killed Buzzo."
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"Saying what?"
"Shut down all of Violet's calculations. Present them with a verified audit
trail for her supercomputer account, proving that all the records of her TOE
work have been erased without being copied or read."
I made a sound of derision. "Yeah? Where do they think that will get them? All
her methods and ideas have been published already. Someone else will duplicate
everything ... in a year at the most."
De Groot seemed indifferent to the ACs' motives; she just wanted an end to the
violence. "I've shown the message to the police, here-but they say there's
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