“Yes, you did—quickly enough to make a father proud. Not that you could avoid your destiny forever, of course. No one can. You ought to be able to adapt more readily than most. You are my son, after all.”
Damon didn’t entirely like the tone of these remarks. Even now, he didn’t want to be taken for granted. “Was Silas’s supposedly fake confession true?” he asked, abruptly. “Did you design the viruses which caused the Crash?”
“I designed one of them. To this day, I don’t know who designed them all, and it’s certainly possible that some of them really did arise naturally. We didn’t kill anybody, Damon—we just took away the supposed right which people claimed to multiply themselves to the point at which the side-effects of their living destroyed the ecosphere. That statement Silas quoted is perfectly accurate: we had to play God, because the position was vacant.”
“And you’re still doing it—but you have to move in mysterious ways, because you’re not unopposed.”
“Again, if you want to put it that way—yes. Somebody has to make plans, Damon. Somebody has to ask the big questions. If everybody were prepared to join in, we’d be only too happy to let them—but there are too many people in the world who only value the moment and aren’t prepared to think about the more distant consequences of their actions. You understand that very well, I think.”
Damon felt a surge of resentment, but he didn’t try to contradict the phantom. “You designed para-DNA too, didn’t you?” he asked, instead.
“I didn’t do it on my own—but it is a laboratory product. We think that the Earth needs an alien invader, Damon: an all-purpose alien invader which can turn its hand to all kinds of purposes.”
“Why? What’s the point?”
“Because we can’t afford to export our spirit of adventure to virtual reality, and there’s a very real danger that we might do just that—as evidenced by the fact that you and I have to meet like this in order to avoid the millions of microscopic eyes with which the real world is dusted. People shouldn’t be living in the ruins of the old world contentedly huddling together in the better parts of the old cities and binding themselves ever more tightly to our particular stations in the Web like flies mummified in spidersilk. Nor is it rebellion enough against that kind of a world for the disaffected young to use derelict neighbourhoods as adventure playgrounds where they can carve one another up in meaningless ritual duels. We have to maintain some kind of movement, because without movement there’ll be no momentum. People have to build and keep on building, to grow and keep on growing. We have to make progress, Damon—and if people need a spur to urge them on, I’m more than willing to provide it.”
“And para-DNA is your spur. Another plague, like the ones the God of the Old Testament rained down on stubborn Egypt in order to secure the release of His people from captivity.” Damon’s voice dripped sarcasm.
“It’s not nearly as devastating as the slaughter of the first-born,” his father’s simulacrum pointed out. “Like the viruses which caused the plague, para-DNA is no killer—but it’ll be a terrible nuisance. It’ll attack the structure of the cities and the structure of the Web; it’ll make it impossible for the human race to dig itself a hole and live in manufactured dreams. It won’t attack people, and it certainly won’t murder people wholesale, but it’ll always be there: a sinister, creeping presence that will keep on cropping up where it’s least expected and where it’s least welcome, to remind people that there’s nothing—nothing, Damon—that can be taken for granted. Long life, the New Reproductive System, the Earth, the Solar System ... all these things have to be managed, guarded and guided. We ought to be looking towards the real alien worlds instead of—or at least as well as—synthesizing comfortable simulacra; my people are just trying to make sure that happens. As I said, it’s a long-term plan; nothing melodramatic will happen for a few years, but we couldn’t afford to have the plan aborted before we even got it off the ground. We have to keep up appearances for a long time yet. I’m sure you understand that. Why else would you turn down Mr. Yamanaka’s tempting offer to turn traitor?”
“Why did the corps try to sabotage the plan?” Damon wanted to know. “It sounds to me as if you’ll be stimulating a lot of economic activity.”
“The corporations don’t like us. They really would prefer it if the meek inherited the Earth. The corporations are only interested in what people want, and the more stable and predictable those wants are the better the corporation men like it. We’re interested in what people need, and that makes us difficult to figure. They don’t think of us as competition because we’re not aiming for profit and our risk calculations aren’t made by accountants, but we’re an irritating thorn in their side. They’re not about to launch an all-out crusade against us because it wouldn’t make economic sense, but they’re always prepared to make a small investment in a good spoiling tactic. They probably figure that they’ve won a tiny victory by forcing a few more of our personnel into effective invisibility, but that goes to show what small-minded cowards they are. In the end, they can’t win—because they’re not really playing to win—they’re only playing for money.”
“Playing God must be addictive,” Damon observed, neutrally, “but it’s only one more game, isn’t it? All this talk of yours is just rhetoric—mere appearance.”
“When human beings have properly adapted to what we now are,” Conrad Helier’s image replied, twisting its synthetic lips into a conscientiously ironic smile, “we’ll all be playing God, because it’ll be the only game in town. It’s not a position that can be left unfilled—not any more. We have the power and we have the time, so we have to take the responsibility.”
“And where do I fit into your grand plan? Or did you only use my name in your patched-up package of disinformation to get back at me for deserting the fold?”
“You decided to be a player, Damon. We had to put you in a position where you couldn’t do us any harm, for safety’s sake. Anything you say about us from now on is bound to seem suspect—and I can assure you that there’ll be no record of this conversation to prove that it ever took place. But if you want a place in the scheme, you only have to step aboard. Go out to L-5, Damon—join Eveline and work with her. It’s the place to be, nowadays and for the next forty or fifty years. After that ... anything’s possible, Damon. Anything’s possible, for you and for anyone, if you can only cultivate the skill and find the drive.”
“And that’s what you expect of me, isn’t it? That’s what you’ve always expected.”
“It’s a natural next step. You’ve got the senseless violence out of your system, and you’ve already shed your links to that particular phase of your past, one by one. There are only two possible futures before you now: either you become a corporation man, building gaudy fantasies like this to amuse the meek; or you become a real outlaw, and a real inheritor of Earth.”
Damon looked his enigmatic visitor squarely in his deceptive eyes, and said: “You’re not my father at all, are you? This is just one more phase of the game, one more layer of illusion.” He was aware of the desperate edge in his voice, and of the fact that he was being perverse for the sake of it. As Mr. Yamanaka had said, there was a truth lurking at the bottom of the swamp of deceits, and in his own mind Damon was morally certain that he had reached that truth. However false this appearance might be, and however absurd its context, he was completely convinced that the voice with which this man was speaking was his father’s voice, and that it was speaking as plainly and as honestly as it could.