The Gabble

‘Curiosity. In my position wouldn’t you want to know?’

‘Yes. . What do you intend to do to Garp? Your seizure of him was illegal you know.’

‘I will do nothing to him, and my seizure was not illegal.’

‘He committed a crime here. He killed that acrobat. Surely he’s the province of the Banjer police.’

The allosaur jerked its head up from the remains of its meal and abruptly paced toward Salind. He had to suppress the urge to turn and run. Now, the voice issued from its bloody mouth.

‘The acrobat was called Houdini Friend. My friend.’

‘Okay,’ said Salind, swallowing drily. ‘But that still doesn’t change-’

Geronamid interrupted. ‘The reif committed no crime as it is just an artefact which, since the recent seizure of Garp’s remaining estate, has become the property of the Banjer government. The reif is under a destruction order and will duly be handed over for incineration.’

‘I note you refer only to “the reif” and not to Garp. What about him? You accused him of murder yourself.’

‘The murderer is whoever loaded the subversion program into him. He had no knowledge of what he was doing,’ Geronamid replied.

‘Surely that is evidence you could pass on to the police?’

‘Why?’

‘So the real murderer can be caught,’ Salind suggested.

‘You have been here for two weeks, and have learned nothing in that time?’

‘I have not unlearned the necessity of due process, of. .’ Salind trailed off as the allosaur turned away, apparently losing interest in him. It looked at Garp.

‘Ah, praist,’ said the AI.

‘Why am I here?’ Salind asked, feeling at once foolish and angry.

‘Worlds must join the Polity of their own free will. There must be no hint of coercion.

Eighty per cent of the population must vote for entry. That’s eighty per cent of the entire population.’

‘Yes, I am aware of the charter.’ Salind struggled to keep his face straight.

‘Voting on most worlds is through net encryption — absolute anonymity, your vote registered by the click of a button.’

‘Polling stations,’ said Salind, getting some hint of where Geronamid was leading.

‘Yes: polling stations. The government of Banjer managed to foist polling stations on us.

Their argument being that five per cent of the population is without net access. We estimate that probably forty per cent of the population will be too frightened to vote.’

‘So there’ll be a void result. Why then are you here?’

‘In some cases Polity intervention is allowed: humanitarian disaster, cases when widespread corruption in the governing authorities can be proven, and when widespread coercion is being used.’

Salind felt his scalp crawling. ‘Are you saying that the Polity intends to intervene here?’

‘That can be hugely damaging unless sufficiently justified. Such tactics can lead to rebellion against the “AI Autocrat of Earth” and not necessarily on the world on which we have intervened.’

Salind stared at the allosaur for a long moment as he chewed over that euphemistic word

‘intervention’, then shook his head in annoyance — he’d been trying to read the creature’s expression.

‘What do you intend, then?’

‘My overall intentions I will make available to the free press when I am ready.’

‘Then why the hell am I here?’

‘You are here because you were first onto the story of Garp and because he wants you to know the rest of it.’ The allosaur swung towards the reif. ‘You see, there is no evidence that Soper was responsible for loading the subversion program into his aug, but there is plenty of proof available of her other crimes. Should you choose not to broadcast this conversation and so alert her, you can go with him to obtain this proof. Conveniently, Soper will be visiting one of her praist factories in a few days’ time — one of eight hundred such places run by the Tronad.’

There it was: justification. Geronamid had not admitted the Polity intended intervention here, but the hint stood as wide as a barn door.

The allosaur swung back to Salind. ‘It is well to remember that if not Soper, then certainly someone in the Tronad ordered the assassination attempt on me. Not because they thought it might succeed, but because the attempt in itself would bring home to the ruling council here on Banjer just how vulnerable they are and so stiffen their resolve to keep the Polity out.’

The Tronad was the main power here, not the Council?

Salind said, ‘But you are sending Garp for destruction.’

Geronamid paced away and swung round with his snout poised over the reif. ‘Garp is not there,’ he said, then swung his snout towards the blank Golem. ‘Garp is there.’

Salind turned to study the Golem. While behind him it had plugged a thick optic cable into a socket in the side of its chest. Now its stance was different. It held out its skeletal grey hands to stare at them, then it gazed across at Geronamid.