Toby shook his head. “People in the lockstep can’t possibly believe that. I only disappeared forty years ago. I know thousands of years have gone by outside—”
“Toby, most of the citizens of the lockstep are from outside. The number of people here from your time is so incredibly small that they don’t even register. Three-sixty is a lockstep of immigrants, and almost all of them come from worlds where your cult’s been cultivated for thousands of years.”
“Cultivated…”
He had fully intended to read up on this, but there was so much else to cover, he hadn’t gotten to it yet. Toby did know hints of the story, so he wasn’t entirely surprised when Halen said, “Evayne visits worlds on the down cycle of their civilizations. Postapocalyptic places, failing terraforming efforts, places ravaged by posthumans or tailored plagues or whatever. She lands in a big splash of glory and music and hands out gifts, things like self-reproducing fab printers and med bots. Then she tells the grateful people that she’s the messenger of the boy god Tobias McGonigal. She sticks around long enough to get the right stories stuck in their heads and get them used to the icons—you know, the statues—then she leaves. But she comes back, every few centuries, to reinforce the cult and draft the most fanatical members into her little army.
“Don’t you see? Everything she has is built on you. You’re the god of her religion. If you return, she’s immediately retired, and she knows it. Every single member of her army will go down on their knees to you the instant they find out who you are. All you have to do is announce yourself. What other strategy do you need?”
Toby gazed out over the ranked masses of the game’s latest army, and he felt sick. He and Peter had both tried such gambits in Consensus, and not just once or twice but numerous times. He knew such scenarios could end in absolute triumph, even in societies where Peter’s kidnapping would be impossible. But to get to that, you had to make other things impossible, too—like independent thought, free speech, and self-determination.
You could play through it, and it looked great—but reviewing Consensus now with new eyes, he could see the flaws. It wasn’t just the sheer amorality of it—the bloodbaths and pogroms that necessarily went along with successful religious conquest. Those alone should have ruled out the strategy. Yet on top of that was the simple fact that there was no way to simulate all the many ways that the strategy could go wrong. Just because something worked in Consensus—or in Halen’s imagination—didn’t mean it would work in the real world.
“Evayne can’t afford to have you announce yourself. Or, if you do,” Halen went on eagerly, “she’ll have to make sure that you’re not returning as a messiah.”
Toby appraised Halen. Corva’s brother obviously thought he understood Evayne. What to him was reality, though, sounded like just another Consensus scenario to Toby, and he more than suspected it would be the same for Evayne. But if it wasn’t a game for her anymore; if she had convinced herself that there was only one way things could play out …
Then Toby might have the beginnings of a real strategy.
“Go on.” He crossed his arms, stepping back from Halen’s intensity.
“There’re two ways for a world to end, Toby: in glory or in fire. If Evayne can’t profit from you bringing glory to the people, she’ll make sure they think you’re bringing fire.”
The words hung there, and the moment stretched out. Toby took off his glasses, and the ranked armies vanished; his generals became butlers; his weapons, grippies. There was only him now, standing on a hillside with Halen Keishion.
“So you see,” Halen murmured, almost apologetically, “you can study the past all you like, but it doesn’t matter. You really only have one choice.
“You have to become the god that the people think you are.”
IT CAME AS SOMETHING of a relief when, the next day, Corva told Toby that the courts had agreed to hear Shylif’s case against Sebastine Coley. “I’m going to be a character witness,” she said. “We … haven’t talked about you to the court. I hope that’s all right. But I’d like you to come.”
Law had been one of those ideas Peter detested. “There’s no such thing as two identical acts,” he’d told Toby. “All actions have different outcomes. I steal a diamond necklace from a rich guy who’s forgotten he owns it, nobody cares. You steal a loaf of bread from a factory that makes millions of them every day, and you get sent to prison. It makes no sense. Every act should be judged entirely on its own.”
In the world before artificial intelligence, this had been impossible, so there was law. Justice, however, was one of the few places in Peter’s utopia where he allowed AI, so Shylif and Sebastine Coley found themselves standing in a marble courthouse but not in front of a traditional judge or jury. Toby and Jaysir sat in the visitors’ gallery and watched as the two were made to stand in front of a man who looked for all the world like a real judge. “He’s not,” Jaysir muttered. “He’s a cyranoid. He just recites whatever the AI whispers into his ear. He’s not allowed to speak on his own.”
Court officials read Shylif’s complaint, and character witnesses came forward to speak for him and for Coley. Corva had her turn, and described Shylif’s deep well of sorrow, how he preferred working with bots in the warehouses and factories of the lockstep to spending time with humans. Coley’s family described a loving father and grandfather. It turned out he’d become the patriarch to quite a large clan.
When all of this was done, the judge asked Coley whether Shylif’s accusations were true.
Coley nodded, and the faces of his family members crumpled in shock and disbelief. Toby had never seen anything like this in real life before, and witnessing it was utterly unlike watching a court drama. This was not an entertainment; it was just sad.
“I’m sorry,” Coley said. He hung his head.
Shylif’s lips curled in a sneer. “Is that all you have to say for yourself?”
Now, unexpectedly, Coley raised his head looked Shylif in the eye. “No. No, it’s not.
“I did some terrible things when I was a young man. That’s over sixty years ago now, for me. I know it’s less for you. Either way, it’s time that’s gone, and so much has happened since. I was saved by a woman who became my wife, and she made me into the man I am now. But I know I can never escape who I was or what I did.”
He looked up at the judge, and now Toby understood why the AI that presided over the courtroom was given a human face. Coley knew he was addressing a presence that dwelt behind the man in front of him, but at times like this one needed to put a human face on the moment. “Sir,” he said, “I’ll face justice for this, and for the other things I did. It’s time, I guess. But you have to know”—and now he turned back to Shylif—“what that means.”
Jaysir and Toby exchanged a glance, and both leaned forward to hear better.
“What do you mean?” said Shylif suspiciously.
“I’m not doing this to salve my own conscience,” said Coley. “I’m too old and too much time has passed for remedies like that. And don’t think that any outcome will make you feel better, because we both know it won’t.
“I’ll accept the judgment of the court. It won’t do any good. It won’t bring Ouline back, it won’t right the wrongs, it won’t heal the wounds.
“It’s … just one of those things that have to be done.”
Silence descended on the court. Shylif stood like a statue, while Coley’s family squirmed in their seats. Suddenly, the judge picked up his gavel and its descent made a clap of sound that echoed through the space.