SU-SHAN: You are the Solon of the Confederation. You have achieved rarified rationality.
SOLON: I would be false to the Dictates to dispute your statement. Yes, you speak the truth.
TAN: I am humbled by it.
SOLON: Social mechanisms force us to utter such statements. Perhaps what you say is true. However, rationality does not accept humility, because it hints at false modesty. My reason compels me to say, ‘Expunge this humility, Chief Strategist.’ Today, you must excel in rationality. I need your logic. I need your intellect. And in saying ‘I’, I quite naturally mean all the Confederation. I am the supreme mind. In me, I codify all that is best about the Dictates. If I am false, the system we have erected with such care is false. Because the system is true, it means that I must be true and my thoughts filled with penetrating insight.
SU-SHAN: Have you arrived at a conclusion concerning our objective?
SOLON: Your rigor is lacking, Chief Controller. I will not accept that today. A conference of this magnitude means that I have not reached a conclusion. Today, I will add your rational expertise to my incisive thinking to arrive at the needed conclusion. This united effort will achieve greater accuracy than my thoughts alone could do. Even though I am the supreme logician of the Confederation, I will gain by your references and insights unique to your perspectives. Therefore, let us lay out the subject and arrive at the truth through our united reason.
SU-SHAN: Shall I state the problem?
SOLON: As the wisest among us, I will state it, and I will state it aptly and precisely. Do I have your full attention?
SU-SHAN: Yes.
TAN: The Dictates guide me.
SOLON: Our society has achieved near-perfection in regards to human potential. In this, naturally, I refer to reason. The wisest among us rule. The most spirited fight and the sensation-gluttons perform the laborious and onerous tasks. Since their minds are already dulled through the indulgence of their basic drives, it harms them little committing these repetitive jobs. Those who love battle, risk their lives fighting. We, who reason, think for the rest, as would benevolent parents. Now, however, a virus attacks paradise, an infestation of hostile organisms that cannot comprehend the damage they do.
SU-SHAN: Pray forgive my interruption. Do you accept the evidence to mean that cyborgs exist in dangerous numbers within our system?
SOLON: Chief Controller, Chief Controller, this hasty rush to assumption is entirely unwarranted. We are the strategic triumvirate. We must deliberate and cogitate with precision. Let barbarians rave and foolishly stumble into decisions. That is not how the Dictates teach us to proceed.
SU-SHAN: You are the Solon.
SOLON: A rational truth spoken with meaning that implies I can guide the three of us into strategic brilliance. I concur, and I know now that my choice in confiding in you two was correct.
TAN: Are we under any time constraints?
SOLON: That is subtle, Chief Strategist. If I have a flaw, it is in waxing prolix. Yes, in war, in battle, time constrains the individual soldier and often the executive agent. I will now turn my intellect onto the first critical subject. Athena Station has launched supply vessels. Incoming data suggests these vessels had jumped to velocities that exceed human endurance levels.
TAN: Our file on the shock troopers indicates that humans can endure tremendous Gs in special suits. The Guardian Fleet does not possess such suits, however.
SOLON: Has the Guardian Fleet possibly built such suits in secret?
SU-SHAN: I am unaware of it.
TAN: No.
SOLON: Can you be absolutely certain, Chief Strategist, that a hidden department in the Guardian Fleet didn’t authorize such tests?
TAN: I am certain enough to risk my reputation on it.
SOLON: We are not here for histrionics, Chief Strategist.
TAN: The Dictates prohibit that. And such was not my intent. I feel I must add that in no way does my statement imply histrionics.
SOLON: Hm…. I detect imprecision in your statement. We must study each possibility in turn to arrive at certain knowledge. I will also point out that your reputation does not correlate with possible, secret suit-testing.
TAN: You are the Solon. Yet rationality… compels me to a different methodology.
SOLON: (in a cool tone) Do you wish to instruct me?
SU-SHAN: (hurriedly) Your intellect shines too brightly for either of us to hint at ‘instruction’.
TAN: The Chief Controller verbalizes my own belief, sir. Perhaps this is a foolish thought. I will state it in the hope of instruction from the Solon. You, as the guidance of an entire world, of an entire planetary system, have a myriad of responsibilities. Each decision requires time and an iota of nervous energy and firing neurons. As a Strategist and intimately involved in the war—
SOLON: We have not declared a state of war. Therefore, your final statement is false. I must insist that you apply a more rigorous use of the language. Truth is the watchword, our armor against barbarism and its accompanying ignorance.
TAN: Naturally, I agree, sir. But isn’t it true that the Secessionists have foisted violent action upon us?
SOLON: ‘Secessionist’ implies a higher level of sanction to their actions than is warranted. They are terrorists, and as such must be expunged with ruthless vigor as an exterminator sprays for fleas.
TAN: Yes, I see your point. Ah. I wonder if you could clarify a point for me. In an emergency, can an enemy of my enemy act as my temporary ally?
SOLON: Show me this enemy.
TAN: I believe that the growing velocity of the supply vessels lends credence to the cyborg hypotheses.
SOLON: Hm. I have examined this so-called ‘cyborg file’. The Mars barbarians or the terrorist Force-Leader staged it. The file shows a single cyborg committing acted sabotage. I find it completely unwarranted to base a strategy on a doctored file and am surprised you suggest it.
TAN: I agree on the doctoring of the file. Still, data from the Rousseau, the missile attack on the Descartes and the advancing vessels all logically infer a stealth enemy of unique capabilities.
SOLON: Or greater cleverness from the terrorists than we expected. Remember, they have benefited under our philosophical and educational systems. Their ploys could be deeply laid indeed.
TAN: The law of simplicity implies a cyborg stealth-attack as the more probable explanation for these various occurrences.
SU-SHAN: You overstep yourself, Chief Strategist. The Solon can reason all this—
SOLON: There is no need to defend me, Chief Controller. I called for the three-way to add your minds to mine. I concur with the Chief Strategist’s analysis.
SU-SHAN: (whispered) You believe that cyborgs are attacking Callisto?
SOLON: Reason would suggest this, yes.
SU-SHAN: I don’t understand. You just said—
TAN: The Solon is right!
SU-SHAN: But his preamble implied differently. All those words—
TAN: Don’t matter in face of the cyborgs. We must act now to save our system.
SU-SHAN: If the supply vessels are cyborg-controlled—Sir, we must summon the warships from Ganymede to help defend Callisto.
SOLON: It is too late for warships to affect the Battle for Callisto.
A seven-second period of silence ensues.
TAN: (quietly) May I query you, sir?
SOLON: I will indulge your curiosity by answering your question before you ask it. The Dictates have failed us versus the cyborgs. It is a galling truth to ingest. For hours, I have struggled internally with this truth. Now we must decide on the future. I have hesitated, and I hesitate still to arrive at the bitter conclusion.