EMISSARY “We’ve reconsidered the matter, Lacey. Given that poor Hacker is still missing at sea, we should not impose on your time of worry. It won’t be necessary for you to fly to our upcoming meeting of the clade, so far away from the search for your son. We’ll manage, even though we’ll miss your wisdom in Zurich.”
I’ll bet, Lacey thought, pondering the stately blonde who was portrayed seated in front of her, full-sized, through a top quality threevee holistube. Unlike their earlier exchange, back at the Chilean observatory, images now went both ways, between plush, high-security communications lounges in two far-apart branches of the Salamander Club-one of them perched high upon the Alps and the other here in Charleston, where magnolia scents wafted indoors on waves of sultry, junglelike heat, despite a double-seal entrance. Both rooms were decorated so similarly that the seam, separating real from depiction, was easy to ignore. It felt as if the women were chatting across a gap of two meters, not thousands of kilometers.
Security from eavesdropping came the same way as before-using twinned parrot brains as uncrackable encoding devices. Only now, the birds at each end were neuroplugged directly to elaborate transmission systems, allowing more sophisticated use of cephalo-paired encryption. This high-fidelity image helped Lacey read cues in the other woman’s expression. She didn’t need any sophisticated facial analysis program.
Sympathy is only an excuse, Helena. Deliberation is over. The peers have already reached a decision about the Prophet’s proposal, haven’t they? And you know it’s one I’d fuss about.
Testing that hypothesis, she ventured: “Maybe I should come anyway. I’ve hired skilled people to handle the rescue effort. If I hang around, I’ll just get in the way. Or else wilt in this damned humidity. A distraction might help pull my mind away from fretting-”
Transit delay was negligible as Helena duPont-Vonessen interrupted.
“Our thought exactly, dear. A diversion from worry may be just the thing. Hence, we do have a task for you. One that should engage your intellect far better than visiting a bunch of stodgy trillionaire gnomes.” Helena smiled at her own disarming jest. “Also, it will keep you much closer to the scene, in case the searchers find… in case they have need of you.”
Lacey felt her mind veer away from the icy place where she kept anguish over her missing son. That helped propel her the other way, into cool, analytical examination of Helena’s true meaning.
She doesn’t even suggest that I send a surrogate or representative to the meeting in Switzerland. She wants to deflect me to another topic altogether.
“Oh? And what task would you have in mind?” Lacey asked.
“To represent the First Estate-or, at least, our part of it-at the Artifact Conference in Washington. To be our eyes and ears, at this historic and disruptive event.
“After all, Lacey, isn’t this right up your alley? An abrupt culmination of everything you’ve dreamed about-contact with extraterrestrial life? Who, among all the members of our class, is better qualified to grasp the issues and implications?”
Lacey almost responded with irritation. Helena was offering her boffin work… almost like some big-domed hireling from the Fifth Estate.
Of course, it was also enticing.
Helena knows me. I’d love a chance to see this famous emissary probe from outer space.
But that wasn’t the point. Her aristocratic peers already had plenty of boffins hard at work on this very topic- either at the Artifact Conference in Washington or closely watching the data feeds-producing digested summaries and advice papers about the implications of an alien Message in a Bottle. Implications to the planet. To a teetering social compact. And to those sitting at the top of an unstable social pyramid.
They have decided already, Lacey realized, interpreting plenty from the other woman’s terse wording and guarded visage. This news of contact with an interstellar civilization must have tipped them over, uniting the leading families in consensus. They are just as upset and panic-ridden as those dopey demonstrators in a hundred cities, calling for the Livingstone Object to be destroyed.
Only, trillionaires didn’t join demonstrations. Lacey’s fellow patricians had other ways of taking action.
They’ve decided to join Tenskwatawa, the Prophet, she realized. And his Renunciation Movement.
Of course, she knew what that meant. Another surge in anti-intellectualism, fostered by populist politicians and mass media-at least, the portions that were controlled by two thousand powerful families. An ancient trick in the human playbook; get the masses lathered up in fear of “outsiders”-and what better outsiders than outright aliens? Whip up enough dread and the mob will gladly follow some elite, pledging fealty to men and women on horseback. Or yacht-back. Vesting them with power.
Lacey didn’t object to that part. Even before she met Jason, her parents and tutors had explained the obvious- that people aren’t naturally democratic. Feudalism was the prevalent human condition erupting in all eras and cultures, since history began to be recorded on clay tablets. Even in modern films and popular culture, the theme resonated. Millions who were descended from enlightenment revolutionaries, now devoured tales about kings, wizards, and secret hierarchies. Superheroes and demigods. Celebrities, august families, and inherited privilege.
This campaign in the media went way back. Subsidized court sages, from Confucius to Plato to Machiavelli, from Leni Riefenstahl to Hannah Niti, all warned against mob rule, preaching for noble authoritarianism. In his one and only book-circulated only within the clade-Jason compiled convincing arguments for newblesse oblige…
… though Lacey still wondered, now and then. Would either of them have found the case so compelling, if they weren’t already members of the topmost caste? The platonic crust?
Oh, no question, the species and planet would be better off guided by a single aristocracy, than by a fractious horde of ten billion short-tempered, easily-frightened “citizens” armed with nuclear and biological weapons. Government-by-the-people wasn’t her reason for being in love with the Enlightenment. Democracy was an unfortunate and potentially toxic side effect of the thing she really valued.
The peers think they’ll use Tenskwatawa as a tool to regain control. But this new wave of populist conservatism… this Renunciation Movement… is no brainless reflex, like in the century’s early years. No spasm of rural religiosity, easily steered by plutocrat puppeteers. Not this time. Nor will the Prophet’s followers be satisfied with just lip service to their cause. Not anymore.
Though it had only been a few seconds, Helena grew visibly uncomfortable with Lacey’s thoughtful pause.
“So, will you do this for us? We’ll supply whatever staff and ai resources you’ll need, of course.”
“Of course. And that would include-?”
“Well. All the linguistic feeds and any experts you desire.”
“And simulation tools? For projection-analysis of social repercussions, all that?”
“Absolutely, the very best available.”
Really? It was all Lacey could do, not to arch an eyebrow skeptically. The latest versions that you and the inner circle use?
Anyone outside of the clade-which meant 99.9996 percent of humanity (almost exactly)-would have called Lacey part of any “inner circle.” It went beyond mere wealth and its ability to buy influence. Family also mattered. Especially as the generation of self-made moguls in China, Russia, and the Americas departed, leaving their fortunes to privilege-born heirs, letting the old logic of bloodlines reassert itself. And yet, Lacey knew-despite her marriage to Jason, and the way her own parents helped stave off the Bigger Deal-even those ties never guaranteed real power. Or being truly in the know.
You still wondered, always-who are the real Illuminati? Those who know the really big secrets? The fellows who have the dirt and can blackmail even the most idealistic politicians. Those discreetly pulling strings and playing the world’s people-yes, including me-like pieces on a chessboard?
Does even Helena wonder about that?
