“Speed of information would increase. So would proliferation of bad information and rumor. Speed of daily events would increase.
Secrets would travel down paths that would proliferate by the hour and change in retelling. The giving of decorous invitations and messages would meet the same challenges the custom encountered in the introduction of telephones. Communication would become more abrupt. And less formal. I cannot immediately foresee all the changes such a system would bring, but I advise against it, aiji-ma.
Given the upheavals already troubling atevi life, I very much advise against opening that particular door for the young gentleman, no matter his frustrations with the pace of things. The ship operates entirely on linked computers. If one wants something, one does not go to a master of craft; one requests a computer to act, and the computer figuratively opens a book in some library and makes that information available instantly. It can contact another computer and has a message waiting for some associate the moment he sits down to use the machine, much like the message bowl in the foyer.
But it leaves no papers behind. And it is subject to misuse. A skilled operator can reach out and affect a system half the ship away, or gain a key to one he is not supposed to enter. Security becomes a major concern.”
“My son,” Tabini said, and sighed, chin on fist. “My son, one fears, wants to recreate the ship.”
“He will adjust his thinking, aiji-ma. He understands the ship very well, but he is only beginning to meet the world. The aishidi’tat must not see the heir as providing a more rapid pace of change than his father has done.”
Tabini gazed at him a long moment in silence, with that remarkable pale stare. “Perhaps we erred not to keep him here with us. But one does not know how he would have survived, where we have been.”
One could only guess what territory that covered: the aiji’s survival had been a hard struggle, one that had left its mark on Tabini—he was harder, leaner, his eyes darting to small sounds.
And he had grown more reticent, if that was possible.
“What he has learned on the ship, aiji-ma, will benefit atevi all his life—if these things are wisely delivered.”
“Are they true things, paidhi-aiji? Are they truly profitable? Or are they like this computer system, fraught with immeasurable problems? And can the paidhi explain to the child why this should not be undertaken?”
It hit him with peculiar force, that question. No, it was not possible to explain such things to a boy who saw only the ship, and who had not truly met the world such things would disturb. The father might have met the problems inherent in hasty change; the son had yet to know there were problems.
“I shall at least try to explain to him, if the aiji wishes.”
“Perhaps he will listen to you.”
That was equally troubling, such a request from Cajeiri’s fatherc who was accustomed to obedience from strangers. Not to have obedience from his own son— “He will more aptly listen to Banichi, aiji-ma. And Banichi can say things very simply: I think he will say that if the young gentleman does such things it will create a great deal of bother the young gentleman will have to deal with.”
Tabini had not smiled often since his return. This smile began subtly, and became an outright laugh as he sat upright. “The paidhi has a certain insight into my son’s thinking.”
Tabini remained amused, and the slight smile lightened everything. It was a vast relief to find communication opening up, both of them finally seeming on the same wave length about risk and change, and with something like the old easiness coming back to their conversation. Things southward, Bren thought, must be going well—the mop-up of the rebellion was proceeding. And things with the boy must not be all that bad: certain families might be disturbed to know their offspring was somewhat self-centered and not quite thinking of their interests so much as his own ambitions.
But a future aiji was somewhat self-centered.
“Well, well,” Tabini said then, leaning back and seeming to have recovered his sense of humor. “So the dish at Mogari-nai is up. And Jase-aiji speaks to my son in front of your staffc I have had the transcript.” A small wave of his hand dismissed any report on the details. “And Toby-nadi is found. This personal news surely pleases you.”
“Immeasurably so, aiji-ma.” He was so relieved he only then recalled that the whole conversation, ergo the transcript, had been in ship-speak.
“Amazing feat,” Tabini said, “to locate a specific boat, in so much water.”
“Your staff may have told you, aiji-ma—” Straight to the one piece of news he must not seem to conceal—nor had he any such intent. “The ship established much more precise surveillance over the world during the disturbance. It has—I surmise—established numbers for the entire planet, in a gridwork of precise coordinates.
It dropped ground stations—these, I have discovered, are the mysterious landings in the reports: I believe they must be communications relays, but I am far from certain, or whether they are even connected to this mapping system. I am seeking clarification on that point—I am not familiar with the details of the technology, and it was not sent through my office.” And dared he tell the rest, the precise location of persons available with the equipment his staff carried?
A world where hiding became impossible, where, first of all persons, Assassins were in possession of such devices, starting with his own staff? It was another earthquake of information as profound as a computer web, and Jase had blithely handed the technology to his security staff without consulting him.
But then, the station had deployed its mysterious ground-based devices without consulting Murini, eitherc and God knew what they did.
“Aiji-ma, my own staff carries certain items related to that technology, which they were given on the station, and I have only just been apprised of the fact. We rushed from the ship to the shuttle, with very limited time to settle certain matters. I did not approve. I have the greatest misgivings about that technology existing down here.”
“Down here.”
“On the planet, aiji-ma.” So profoundly his view of the universe had been set in the heavens, not on the planet where he was born.
He had to re-center himself in the planet-based universe. He had to make certain other mental adjustments, urgently. “I think it may possibly constitute a very dangerous development—useful to the Pilots’ Guild, but as worrisome in the hands of the Assassins as the computer link in the hands of the public. It will possibly give precise locations of anyone who has such a device on his person. It can inform anyone who carries it precisely where he is, on a map.
Useful—but fraught with possibilities.”
“Interesting,” said the most dangerous schemer the aishidi’tat had ever produced. “Indeed, interesting, paidhi. Is there any means of detecting this technology in operation?”
“Anything that transmits, I would suspect, can be detected by the right instrument, but this location device primarily receives, one assumes, and it is something outside my expertise. I ask the aiji not to reveal its existence to the Guild at large. I am sure of my own staff, that they will not reveal it, and I may have to order it suppressed, even destroyed—but numerous installations fallen from the heavens and sitting in vegetable fields across the aishidi’tat are clearly within general notice.”
Tabini smiled, this time with darker humor. “Tell me, paidhi-aiji, is my son expert in this technology, too?”
“This, one doubts the young gentleman has theorized, since he has never been that far lost—aboard the ship. But we did track him—in his wanderings aboard. He may know this.”
“A wonder,” Tabini said, and the smile generously persisted. “Ask your sources these details, paidhi-aiji, and report to me. Should we worry about the ship-aijiin’s motives in bestowing this technology on the world?”