Killing Time

'But—' I tried to grasp it. 'But I mean — I thought you were against all that.'

'Oh, make no mistake, we are.' Tressalian struggled to turn his chair and then rolled to the forwardmost area of the dome, real disgust and even anger coming into his voice. 'Human society is diseased, Doctor — this fatuous, trivial, information-plagued society. And our work?' He stared at the eerie, half-lit sky outside, growing calmer. 'With luck, our work will be the antibiotic that spurs society to fight the infection.' A nagging doubt seemed to tighten his features. 'Assuming, of course, that we don't kill the patient…'

I was about to ask for clarification of this apparently unbalanced statement when the ship's alert system suddenly sounded again. Slay-ton informed us that we were descending to 'cruising altitude,' an innocuous expression that I soon learned had to do not with any kind of pleasure traveling but with flying some hundred feet above the landscape as we had done when I'd first boarded the ship in Florida. Everyone stood, the general level of excitement growing, and gathered around Tressalian; and while I tried to follow as best I could, my movements were slowed by the mental need to wrestle with everything I'd just heard. Could they be serious, these people? Could they really mean that they believed it was possible to manipulate the dissemination of important information to the public as a way of alerting that same public to just how easy — and therefore dangerous — such manipulation had, in our time, become? It was absurd, impossible—

And then, with a shudder that had nothing to do with Larissa's close presence, I remembered the scenes of President Forrester's assassination on the disc that Max and I had been given. For a year the world had accepted as true a version of those momentous events that was not even remotely factual. And now the strongest power in the world was about to engage in a military strike that was based on that same misapprehension — a misapprehension manufactured by Tressalian and his team, who were currently on their way to the scene of that strike to — what? Observe? Participate, with their amazing ship? Or manipulate the proceedings with still more manufactured information? Almost afraid to know the answers, I silently turned to watch the darkness ahead of us with the others.

Even through my renewed bewilderment, I realized that the ship had once more shifted altitude dramatically without so much as a bump or a perceptible change in cabin pressure. We were flying low over the ocean again, although I was shocked to learn that this ocean was the Arabian Sea, which meant that our high-altitude speed had been considerably in excess of anything achieved by the most advanced supersonic airplanes currently in use. As I watched the moonlit waters speed by under us, Larissa turned to murmur into my ear:

'Not that I don't agree with everything the others have been saying, Doctor — I assure you I do — but try to put it aside for a moment and experience this ride. Can any philosophical discussion really make your blood race like this ship? I doubt it. So when you think about joining us, think about this, too—' I turned to face her. 'You and I could travel to literally every corner of the world, just the way we are now — with no restrictions and no laws but our own. Are you game?'

I looked back outside. 'Jesus — I'd like to say that I am,' I told her uncertainly. 'But it's all so—' I tried to get a grip. 'Impulsiveness has never been the most comfortable mode of behavior for me.'

She let me have the coy smile. 'I know.'

'That doesn't bother you?'

She made a judicious little humming sound. 'Not entirely. It's part of the reason we wanted you, after all.' She put a hand lightly to my cheek. 'Part of the reason…'

Without turning toward us Tressalian called out, 'Oh, Sister — if I may interrupt, perhaps you'd care to explain what avenue of approach you've chosen. Toward our geographical objective, that is.'

Larissa gave me one more searching look before answering him. 'Very droll, Brother. We'll make landfall south of Karachi, then follow the Indus Valley north. We're safe from any radar, of course, and because the river's been a nuclear dead zone since the start of the Kashmir war, we shouldn't be risking any visual contact. We'll move west along the thirty-fifth parallel into the Hindu Kush, then north to the valley of the Amu Darya. The camp is strung out along the Afghan side of the border with Tajikistan. We'll arrive just past dawn, right on schedule. The apparatus will already have engaged.'

'Good.' Tressalian turned away from the transparent hull just as a black strip of coastline became faintly visible in the dark distance and fixed his gaze on me. 'Then there's time, yet, for the doctor to ask the rest of his questions.'

'Questions,' I said, trying to focus. 'Yes, I've got questions. But there's one thing I've got to know right now.' I moved over to stare down at him intently. 'How many other lies like the Forrester assassination story am I believing without even knowing it?'

'You mean,' Tressalian answered, 'how much of the information that makes up your reality is utterly unreliable?' I nodded and he opened his eyes wide, raising his brows as if to prepare me for what was coming: 'Certainly more than you'd suspect, Doctor. And, quite probably, more than you'll believe…'

CHAPTER 16

How can I describe the hours that followed? How do I explain my transformation from skeptical (if fascinated) observer of Malcolm Tressalian's outlandish, even mad, schemes to full-fledged participant in them? There were so many factors involved, not least the lingering trauma of having seen my oldest friend murdered before my eyes, along with the lack of any meaningful sleep in the days since that event. Yet mere emotional and physical exhaustion would be inadequate hooks upon which to hang my swift spiritual metamorphosis. No, the cascade of intellectual, visual, and physical stimuli that continued to rain down on me in those predawn and morning hours would, I think, have converted the strongest and most doubting of souls, and I say that not simply to excuse my reaction; rather, it is a testament to all that I heard, saw, and felt as we passed over the Pakistani coast and penetrated to the interior of the subcontinent. As Larissa had said, the valley of the once-proud Indus River, mother of one of the mightiest and most mysterious of ancient civilizations, had been turned into a nuclear wasteland during the still-raging war between India and Pakistan over Kashmir. But my beautiful companion's further statement that the valley was uninhabited was not, strictly speaking, correct. As we sped along above the surface of the water, past riverbanks strewn with rotting bodies and bleached skeletons, we occasionally saw groups of what were perhaps the most desperate people on earth: farmers and villagers whose bodies and ways of life — whose very chances for life — had been terribly damaged as a result of the vicious nationalism and religious zealotry of both their enemies and their countrymen. They were moving down the hillsides in limping, shuffling lines, those weakened wraiths, moving down by the light of the moon to fill buckets with the river's poisoned waters, which they would later boil in a futile attempt at purification so that they might try to go on for a few more days or weeks in the only way that, given the decimated condition of their nation and the unwillingness of the rest of its citizens to accept such nuclear lepers, was possible for them.

The sight hit all of us hard, suspending even my urgent curiosity about my companions; but it seemed to take the greatest toll on Malcolm. It was well-known that the development of India's rabidly bellicose new breed of nationalism in the years since the turn of the century had coincided with the rise to economic and social primacy of information technologies and networks in that country; and Larissa would later tell me that Malcolm had always held their father and his ilk personally responsible for the fact that the systems they had designed could be and were used to disseminate lies and hatred among such peoples in as unregulated a manner as characterized the purveyance of consumer goods. The extent of Malcolm's anger, despair, and what I took at the time to be guilt over this matter was certainly evident as I watched him that night; indeed, it soon propelled him into something of a relapse. He once again began to hiss and clutch at his head — more covertly now, given the size of his audience — and these telltale signs quickly brought Larissa to his aid. She took his right hand in her two, whispered a few calming words in his ear, and then, reaching into the pocket of his jacket, withdrew a small transdermal injector and held it for an instant to a vein in his left hand. In moments he seemed to be dozing, though fitfully, at which point Larissa spread a small comforter over his legs.

Only when they were sure that Malcolm was asleep did the rest of the ship's company feel comfortable attending to other duties. Colonel Slayton descended to the control level of the nose to man the ship's helm, while Fouche and Tarbell went off to make sure that the vessel's engines had come through the various 'system transfers'