"So try again. Don't be my uncle with the cloth."
Sten wanted to say that killing them would satisfy nothing. At least not in himself. But he didn't know how to explain it to his rude, rough friend.
"You want more than death? Is that it?" his rude, rough friend asked.
Sten thought about it. The deeper his thoughts swam, the angrier he became.
"They are assassins," he hissed. "Worse than that. When they killed the Emperor, they might as well have killed us all. Soon we'll all be living like animals. Sitting in front of caves. Knocking rocks together to get a bit of fire."
"Good. You are mad," Otho boomed. "Now think about how to get even."
"Getting even isn't what I want," Sten said.
"By my mother's beard. We're back to that again. What do you want? Say it. Then we'll board my ships and see all their souls burning in hell."
"I want... justice," Sten finally said. "Dammit. I want every being in the Empire to know the council's crime. Their hands are bloody. Justice, dammit. Justice!"
"I don't believe in justice, myself," Otho said gently. "No true Bhor does. It is a fairy story created by other, weaker species who look for higher truths because their own lot is so miserable.
"But I am a tolerant being. If justice is your meat, load up my plate, my friend. We both shall eat.
"Now. Decide. What form do you wish this justice to take? And by my father's frozen buttocks, if you retreat to that pool of emotional muck again, I shall personally remove your limbs. One by one."
Sten didn't need that kind of coaxing. It suddenly came to him exactly what kind of justice would do.
"Load the ships, my friend," Sten said.
Otho bellowed with delight. "By my mother's great, gnarly beard, there's a Blessing upon us. We'll drink all their souls to hell!"
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
The computer was a bureaucrat's dream. As a pure storage center, it had few equals on the civilian market. But the key to its beauty was its method of retrieval.
The R&D team leader had come to Kyes with the design proposal ten years before. Kyes had spent four months with the group, firing every thinkable objection and whole flurries of "supposes" to test the theoretical limits. He had not found one hole that could not be plugged with a few symbols added to the design equation.
He had ordered the project launched. It was so costly that in another era Kyes would have automatically sought financial partners to spread the risk. Certainly he had briefly toyed with the idea. But the computer—if it could be brought on-line—would reap such enormous profits that he had dismissed the thought.
More important than the profits was the potential influence.
The computer was a one-of-a-kind device, with patents so basic that no other corporate being could even contemplate a copy without risking loss of fortune, family, reputation, and well-being to Kyes's battalions of attorneys. From the moment it was first proposed, he knew it would replace every system used by every government in the Empire. And the terms of its sale would be set by him and him alone.
Once installed, his influence would grow as quickly as the newly created wealth. After all, only one firm—his—would be permitted to perform maintenance and periodic upgrading. In short, mess with Kyes and your bureaucracy would collapse. The state itself would quickly follow.
Almost every action of any social being created a record. The first problem was what to do with that record so that others could view it. If there was only one, no problem. It could be put under a rock, the spot marked, and someone with directions could retrieve it at his leisure. But records bred more quickly than cockroaches. Hunter-gatherers rapidly ran out of space on cave walls; scribes filled libraries with parchment; clerks jammed filing cabinets until the drawers warped; and even at the height of the Empire, it was possible for data to swamp the biggest computers.
But that was no longer so severe a problem. More banks or linkups could always be added. Modern systems had gone so far beyond light optics that speed was also no encumbrance.
There was one threshold, however, that no one had ever broken through: How to find one small byte of information hidden in such a great mass. The great library of legend at Alexandria reputedly employed several hundred clerks to search the shelves for the scrolls their scholarly clients requested. Days and weeks might pass before a certain scroll was located. That did not please the scholars, who were usually visiting on a beggar's budget. Their many bitter complaints survived the fire that destroyed the library. And that was in the long time past, when there was not much to know.
In Sten's time, the problem had grown to proportions that would stagger a theoretical mathematician contemplating the navel of the Universe.
Consider this small example: A much-maligned commissary sergeant has been ordered to improve the fare at the enlisted being's club. Morale is sadly sagging to the point that the commander herself is under the scrutiny of her superiors. Suggestions are made—many, many suggestions—that will be carried out. One of the suggestions concerns narcobeer. But not any old narcobeer. The commander recalls one brand—whose name she disremembers—that she shared with the troops on some long-forgotten battleground a century or more ago.
That is the only hint. Nothing more.
The commissary sergeant swings into action. Fires up his trusty computer. And the computer is asked to find that clottin' beer. The list he receives will almost certainly include the brand favored by his commander. But it just as certainly will be buried in a million or more possibilities, with no means of narrowing the search—short of ordering every one and spending several lifetimes letting the commander taste-test each one. Although enjoyable, this solution has obvious flaws.
With Kyes's computer it would be no trouble at all. Because it had been designed to understand that living minds had definite limits. The computer worked in twisted paths and big and little leaps of logic. Any simple explanation of this computer would be in serious error.
However, it was basically taught to think of itself as a chess master, engaged in a game with a talented inferior. The chess master knows she can conceive of many moves, with any number of combinations, well ahead of her opponent. But, in a single game, the amateur is quite likely to win. His limited ability may become a plus under such circumstances. The chess master might as well roll dice, trying to figure out which stupid ploy the dimwit has in mind.
Kyes's brainchild would summon the commander—or at least call up the commander's records. A series of questions would be asked: a short biography, a few details of that long-ago drinking session, for example, and certainly a medical examination to determine the reaction of the being's tastebuds. Voila! The narcobeer would be located and morale boosted. The sergeant and commander would return to good graces. Happy ending through better electronic living.
When Kyes introduced Sr. Lagguth, the chief of the AM2 commission, to his baby, the being instantly fell in love. With such a machine, he could track the path of an errant electron on a flight through a star storm.
The next bit of information, however, made him fall just as quickly out of love.
"Forget the AM2," Kyes said. "It's not important."
Lagguth stuttered that that was the task set for him by the privy council-that the whole future of the Empire rested on locating the Eternal Emperor's golden AM2 fleece. Even when the raid on the Honjo was completed, the resulting AM2 bonus would only stave off the inevitable for another seven months at most-not counting the terrible cost in fuel the Empire was expending to finish the theft.