W-a-i-t u-n-t-i-l y-o-u t-r-y t-o s-i-g-n h-e-r u-pf-o-r V-a-n-h-o-s-e-ru
All of these first conversations between ghoul and host were awkward collaborations—a little gossip and news but mostly compact exchanges of compatible protocols. It was a number-one priority of both ghoul and man to replace Petunia’s unpleasant device. Then they went on to trials of various dodges that promised to allow them to share fam space without Eron overwriting territory occupied by Scogil. Eron had the normal fast-access to the fam space he was beginning to colonize, but no ability to read Scogil’s space except via the language bridge they were establishing which was many orders of magnitude slower than normal fam-wetware exchange. Their situation reminded them of the pair whose legless member rode in a backpack on the shoulders of the armless member.
Once when Eron was taking some exercise out on the roof, Hiranimus broke in excitedly, I'm sure I see something to your left!
A ghoul is blind. He can receive sensory input from his new host but can’t make sense out of it because he is using the coding of the old host. He is essentially in the position of a man who has been blind all his life suddenly regaining his vision; he can now see but he can’t relate to what he is seeing. Scogil knew the difference between a square and a triangle, but he didn’t see the difference. “To my left is Imperialis,” said Eron, translating into the coding they had agreed upon. “The sun is low in the sky and lathering the clouds with a golden topping.” Language was again the bridge—Eron could give words to what his ghoul saw. It was slow, but there was no doubt that Scogil could be taught to see again through Eron’s eyes.
Sometimes silence between them was appropriate. Osa’s most pressing goal was to understand his dissertation. After all, he was scheduled to give an explanatoiy talk to the Ore-lians, whoever they were. Rediscovering his life’s work— with the help of his fam’s utilities—was like stumbling across another man’s astonishing outlook and becoming an instant disciple. His old style now seemed quaintly conservative but meticulously detailed. He remembered Konn’s rejection of his methods and conclusions as “sloppy” and was thankful that he had spent years reorganizing his approach to make it crystal clear so that Jars Hanis wouldn’t have the same negative reaction. That care now made it possible for him to understand himself. It was like coming across a pile of old poems and being pleasantly surprised that the handwriting was readable.
He wanted to keep Scogil abreast of his rediscovery but communication between them was still both time-consuming and frustrating—they hadn’t yet been able to achieve anything faster than talking—so they arranged a compromise; they pursued their independent thoughts but came together every watch to share conclusions. Eron found the comments of this seasoned mathist immensely stimulating. Scogil gloated a little bit at having put Eron on the right track as a young student and reminisced with a fascinated Eron about a youth his ex-student had difficulty recalling.
At her father’s suggestion Petunia returned from an excursion to one of their caches with an astrologer’s jade ovoid. “Daddy’s compliments.” She handed it to Eron. He recog-
nized the Coron’s Egg and, because motor memory was mostly a function of wetware, remembered the activation sequence. But it was Petunia who took his hand and proudly showed him how to access the new Predictor Level. “Every time I wanted to play with my Daddy, he was working on that,” she said somewhat petulantly.
It was an unauthorized library of psychohistorical functions ... hidden in an astrologer’s piece of flim-flam. In that moment of profound epiphany Eron Osa realized that he had been right—the Fellowship’s methodical secrecy had created a counterculture of rebel psychohistorians working in self-enforced darkness. This would be only one manifestation. Theory said there would be several hundred out there around the stars, covering all ranges of aptitude.
“Are you a psychohistorian?” he asked his ghoul.
We call ourselves Smythosiansy after Tamic Smythos who was one of the fifty martyrs.
“How many of these devices exist?”
There are millions out there in the Galaxy, but the latest version which goes to the seventh level has only been in production for a few months. I don't know how many. I'm not in charge of distribution.
“Your Smythosians have been pushing for a crisis?”
Yes. Our extrapolation gives us seventy to eighty years to prepare.
“You’re extrapolation is wrong. The psychohistorical crisis is happening right now. Splendid Wisdom has passed through a critical topozone boundary and the effect will shudder to the ends of the Galaxy within months. I think I studied under the Galaxy’s finest topozone analyst, but he was working with classical theory and missed this crisis by a league. It’s now,” Eron repeated.
How do you know?
That sounded like Murek Kapor’s old challenge to his know-it-all student. Eron laughed. “I was there. I saw this big huge rock standing on a tiny cup and I wondered why it didn’t fall over—so I touched it with my thumb. It fell over. Much to my chagrin. Actually, there are already two major groups here on Splendid Wisdom alone, both of whom know psychohistory very well and both of whom have been putting their weight behind different visions of mankind’s future, subtly opposing each other—so they will both fail. Rector Jars Hanis leads the largest faction, followed by the self-styled Admiral Hahukum Konn. I have talked with Konn once since Hanis so ruthlessly disposed of me, and it is my assessment that in the wake of my trial he no longer feels safe. Most of the lesser Pscholars aren’t even aware that the two major factions are, in effect, counter-predicting each other. In about a month they’ll be wishing that they lived in a simpler classical universe. They won’t be able to say that the Founder didn’t warn them. The classical universe, in essence, assumes the existence of only one psychohistorian. Yours is a third group. I predict hundreds of others.”
That is impossible. So much counter-prediction would have destroyed the Fellowship long ago.
Eron smiled. “How willing were you to stand behind a future for the Ulmat Constellation that went against the Master Plan?”
We weren’t ready to be discovered.
“You’re not ready now. You just suggested that you need seventy or eighty more years. The ability to predict is only half of the equation. The power to see your prediction to fruition is the other half. If my predictor is bigger than your predictor, I win.”
And you? Do you see a future?
“A topozone is a very dark place mathematically. A marble on a smooth hill can predict its future—as long as it isn’t sitting exactly at the top of the hill. I’m as blind as you, my friend. The old uncrippled me might have seen something.”
Eron had not mentioned his coming rendezvous with the irregulars of the Regulation at an Orelian masked ball, but, since the ghoul in his fam would be coming along for the ride, it felt it only fair to tell Scogil. An upset Scogil promptly warned him against attending any such clandestine caucus. Kikaju Jama or his Regulation be damned! Involvement had already cost him his organic life and put his daughter in grave danger for no real chance of gain. In the fury following his warning Scogil laid out a detailed plan for escaping the planet with Petunia. There was a Fortress he had in mind which would be safe for Eron and where his talents would be useful. Murek Kapor again. His plan had all the sound of an order.