it. In the history of the world according to Slaney, the methods used to vent off the steam gathering among the diverse people threatening the traditional systems- national pride, imperialism-that's what brought on World War I. And what came out of World War I is what has led to the world today.'
'I don't think we came out so badly,' Leif said.
'But we have lost some things from that earlier world,' David argued. 'Today, things like individualism, privacy-they're in short supply. Personal honor isn't as widespread or as trustworthy. Causes were considered to be bigger than people then-that later bred political expediency. Mass politics, mass economics-wouldn't you like to be thought of as something more than a faceless consumer? Even information has become a commodity.'
'You might have a point. But Slaney's alternative would be to turn the clock back about a hundred and twenty years. Can you imagine what that would mean?'
David gave a curt nod. 'Not all that much honor to be found in a cotton field,' he said. 'But it would have been nice for all of us to pick up some of those old ideals along the way.'
'In theory,' Leif said.
'In theory,' David agreed with a sigh. 'But out in the practical world, the classical conservatives made some pretty bad choices. For instance, in Germany, they backed Adolf Hitler, figuring they could use him to stop the slide.'
'And we all know how that turned out,' Leif said. 'So I was right. Slaney is a fascist.'
'He's a romantic,' David corrected, 'holding to a set of beliefs that just don't fit in the world we live in.'
'Maybe that's why he came up with Latvinia,' Leif suggested. 'He created an environment friendly to his point of view'-he gestured from himself to David- 'and unfriendly to others.'
'Makes sense,' David admitted. Then he frowned. 'But I think we're missing something, somewhere.'
'That helps narrow things down,' Leif said sarcastically.
'If I knew what it was that we're missing, we wouldn't have to look for it,' David responded. 'I propose a division of labor. You're already deep into Slaney's background-with one surprising exception.'
Leif blinked. 'What?'
'His fencing,' David replied. 'Slaney's teaching at the salle probably takes more effort than his day job. Why don't you look into that? I'll take his other big- time investment-Latvinia. We still don't know why he made up his own country. Maybe we can learn a few things from how he went about building it.'
David synched out from Leif's stave house and transited to his own virtual workspace. This month, he was trying out a new simulation-the bridge of one of the new deep-space probes.
He opened his eyes to find himself in the captain's acceleration couch, facing the main control arrays.
Leif's dubious words still rang in his ears. 'You act as though you can retrace Slaney's course through the Net. Unless you've been holding out on old Uncle Leif, I don't know of any software that can crack Net anonymity-or track what sites someone visited months ago.'
Leif was completely right, of course. But there were other ways to peel that particular onion.
David began issuing orders to his system. When you want to build your own large-scale sim, he thought, all roads lead to the Creators' Quorum.
After all, he had some experience at shaping veeyar to his own designs. David's recreations of early spacecraft had a certain reputation among a select group of hobbyists.
And the chat room where he picked up his best simulation hints was the Creators' Quorum. Some of the biggest names in the business synched in to shoot the virtual breeze. Even Chris Rodrigues-the infamous Rod of Sarxos-turned up occasionally, it was rumored.
But nobody was sure. Lots of the visitors to the Creators' Quorum did so behind proxies. Would Alan Slaney have done that? Maybe, if he thought he had something to hide.
But as David's search agents began working their way back through discussions stretching over the past few months, he was looking for certain connections among the questions.
His profile called for intelligence, perseverance, and an interest in getting beyond the store-bought software most people used to craft the virtual realities of their choice.
'Oh, yeah,' David breathed as parts of the holotext transcripts began switching over to highlighted mode. These were possible hits. His search agents also color- coded the selected portions depending on how many of the profile parameters matched.
David scowled. Even when he scanned the sections highlighted in red-the most likely possibilities-there were a lot more than he expected.
Sighing, he began to read. And read. But as he plowed through the vast amount of material, certain patterns began to emerge. The questions were numerous, posed under a variety of Net handles. But David saw a quiet agenda that tied them all together.
One set of questions, spread over a couple of months, really jumped out at him. Supposedly coming from several different participants, they essentially asked for the best methods to erase inactive computer archives to create sufficient cyberspace for a large-scale sim.
And what was Alan Slaney's daytime line of work? He maintained a building full of corporate computer systems-including tetrabytes of inactive computer archives!
Wellf I've probably learned where the Latvinia sim is located-if I wanted to plow through a building's worth of memory, David thought.
He was about to dive back into that mass of holotext when he suddenly had another thought.
Beyond the other stuff we've discovered, what I've just learned is that no matter how much of a nice guy he seems to be, Alan Slaney is no angel.
Chapter 16
Megan found herself back in the burning parlor car. She called to P. J. to come and join her, but this time things didn't turn out so well. As P. J. darted forward, he was surrounded in sudden sheets of flame.
'P. J.!' Megan screamed in horror.
He came staggering out of the flames, his clothes already ablaze. Megan could smell the terrible stench of burning skin.
Megan tried to beat out P. J.'s flaming clothes, but she was hampered by the way he clung to her. Then dancing flames appeared on her own heavy wool skirt. She wanted to drop and roll, just as she'd been taught in school, she wanted to get out of there, but she couldn't. P. J.'s grip had turned into an unbreakable stranglehold. The flames were a roaring inferno now, roasting her alive, and she couldn't get free-
Megan awoke to find herself struggling against her own pillow. She lay very still for a moment, letting her racing heart calm down a little.
A nightmare, she thought. My stupid brain processing what happened in the sim and editing it into a more scary version!
She took a deep breath, exhaling it as a long sigh. Yesterday's adventures in Latvinia had really put her through the wringer. Although she hadn't suffered in real life any of the bruises and scrapes she'd picked up in veeyar, Megan had been dog-tired when she synched out. She hadn't had anything to eat. Her energy had lasted just long enough for her to get out of her clothes and get into her bed.
One quick look at her alarm clock, and Megan groaned. She was up ridiculously early even for her early-rising household. Stretching, she padded down the hall to the bathroom to take care of some business followed by a shower to get rid of the film of cold sweat left over from her nightmare.
She was still yawning and feeling unpleasantly out of it when she emerged from the bathroom wrapped in a terrycloth robe. Maybe some food…
Standing in the kitchen doorway, she scanned the room in dismay. Obviously her brothers had ravaged through here last night, searching for snacks. The package of English muffins she'd hidden in the cupboard behind a row of soup cans lay empty on the kitchen counter. To add insult to injury, the boys had left the cans out for her to tidy up. Even though she loved her brothers dearly, they made her understand why the phrase 'Oh, brother' had come to be used as a universal and everyday curse.
Megan went to the stove and began heating a kettle of water. Well, at least Michael, Sean, Paul, and Rory
