Brother Roger said, “Money operates on the wire net, and no one uses the wire, because that is where the Exarchel was, Doctor. Communication of any form between ships is unhumanish, except heliograph signals, which cannot carry Iron Ghosts, or their data. All transmission bands are forbidden.”
Sir Guiden said on their private channel, “I recommend you not solve this glitch, as you call it, Liege. You are describing the solution to the problem of madness in Ghosts. If you release it to the world, Del Azarchel, or someone with his ambitions, will eventually create a second Exarchel, or a third, or a million.”
Silently, Montrose had his implants send back, “I can narrow the solution to these specifics, without giving away the general principle, Sir Guy. Rania’s Cure is actually seven semi-independent ecomimetic functions. Can he deduce the missing general rule just from one application of one seventh of the set? I doubt he has the brains.”
Sir Guiden sent back, “Why take the risk? Are these drifting people worth saving? They neither sow nor spin. Let the Giants multiply and inherit the Earth.”
Brother Roger said blandly to Menelaus, “Even the signals you are sending back and forth with your man, the Hospitalier, would invite gigantic retaliation if detected. I am sorry: were those signals meant to be secret? Well, such is the reason we are going in person to the observatory, rather than having a voice-through-the-air conference.”
The violet-eyed woman murmured softly, as if in a dream. “Telephones. They were called telephones. You could send pictures of yourself dancing raw to your darling list.”
Menelaus uttered a bitter laugh. “So radio has gone the way of the dodo. I made the Giants and they killed all the boys named Jack. I destroyed the world. I told Thucydides that this would come to a bad end! Told him!”
“Oh, do not cast down your features, Dr. Montrose! Society survives in a decentralized form,” said the Jesuit. “The Giants spare any automatic factories, provided the electronic brains housed there are Mälzels or ratiotechnology, thinking machines, not xypotechnology, self-aware machines. A single Giant can carry the download of an entire library needle in his head. I myself, with merely very minor neural augmentations, have both photographic memory, linguistic and mathematical savant abilities, spatial proprioception that establishes perfect direction sense, and the ability to speak the high-speed data-compression language.”
“And what happened to Exarchel?”
Brother Roger said, “No copy of him remains anywhere on Earth. With the total shutdown of the infosphere, his power is broken forever!”
“Forever?”
“For a hundred years!” The Jesuit smiled.
“That is not as long a time as you might think….”
The Jesuit pointed at one of the large and slanting windows. “There is the observatory.” Hanging in the air was a tall cylinder, slightly narrower at the top than at the base, and a ring of vast gas balloons surrounding its waist like a festive skirt. “We should have new plates developed at sunset.”
“That’s a pretty big telescope.” The cylinder was twenty meters in diameter, which made the instrument inside at least twice as big as the telescopes Menelaus recalled from his day. “And you must not get much distortion, if you can take her up to the stratosphere.”
“We also use the space mirrors as baselines, Doctor,” said Brother Roger. “Most of the Giants will cooperate with scientific ventures. Obviously they need technology to advance.”
“Obviously,” said Montrose. “Because they want to breed true, right? The offspring of Giants are humans?”
“Humans with various bone diseases, yes, Doctor,” said Brother Roger. “A group of scientific clans called the Simon Families was established by Og of Northumberland to solve that and other long-range multigenerational problems. The experiments are passed down from mother to daughter.”
“Do the Cetaceans have the same problem?”
Brother Roger spread his hands. “The Moreau, as we call those who dwell beneath the sea, are not well known or well studied. All our shipping is by air these days, for the Moreau cannot survive an encounter with an aeroscaphe. The Exarchel is no longer in a position to supply them with jaw-launched missiles, and they cannot manufacture their own. More of us float above the sea than above land, since krill and plankton are easier for the hunger silk to absorb and convert than most land-based proteins.”
“Are you going to drive them into extinction?”
“Ah? Is that your wish, Doctor? That seems as harsh as your condemnation of the cities.”
“I was asleep! Did these Giants say I gave the order?”
Brother Roger looked troubled. “Say? You gave the order. The whole world saw you. It was your voice and image over the wire. What does this mean? Is someone acting for you, impersonating you?”