In a voice pitched only for Bildoon's ears, McKie asked, "Are you ready to step down as Chief of Bureau?"
"Of course not!"
"We've known each other a long time," McKie whispered. "I think we understand and respect each other. You wouldn't be in the king seat if I'd challenged you. You know that. Now - one friend to another: Are you functioning as well as you should in this crisis?"
Angry contortions fled across Bildoon's face, were replaced by a thoughtful frown.
McKie waited. When it came, the ego-shift would send Bildoon into shambling collapse. A new personality would step forth from Bildoon's creche, a sentient knowing everything Bildoon knew, but profoundly different in emotional outlook. Had this present shock precipitated the crisis? McKie hoped not. He was genuinely fond of Bildoon; but personal considerations had to be put aside here.
"What are you trying to do?" Bildoon muttered.
"I'm not trying to expose you to ridicule or speed up any . . . natural process," McKie said. "But our present situation is too urgent. I'll challenge you for the Bureau directorship and throw everything into an uproar, if you don't answer truthfully."
"Am I functioning well?" Bildoon mused. He shook his head. "You know the answer to that as well as I do. But you've a few lapses to explain, as well, McKie."
"Haven't we all?" McKie asked.
"That's it!" Tuluk said, stepping close to them. He glanced from Bildoon to McKie. "Forgive me, but we Wreaves have extremely acute hearing. I listened. But I must comment: The shock waves, or whatever we wish to call them, which accompanied the departure of the Calebans and left behind such death and insanity that we must buffer ourselves with angeret and other . . ."
"So our thought processes are mucked up," Bildoon said.
"More than that," Tuluk said. "These vast occurrences have left . . . reverberations. The news media will not laugh at McKie. All sentients grasp at answers to the strange unrest we sense. 'Periodic sentient madness,' it's called, and explanations are being sought every . . ."
"We're wasting time," McKie said.
"What would you have us do?" Bildoon asked.
"Several things," McKie said. "First, I want Steadyon quarantined, no access to the Beautybarbers of any kind, no movement on or off the planet."
"That's madness! What reason could we give?"
"When does BuSab have to give reasons?" McKie asked. "We have a duty to slow the processes of government."
"You know what a delicate line we walk, McKie!"
"The second thing," McKie said, unperturbed, "will be to invoke our emergency clause with the Taprisiots, get notification of every call made by every suspected friend or associate of Abnethe's."
"They'll say we're trying to take over," Bildoon breathed. "If this gets out, there'll be rebellion, physical violence. You know how jealously most sentients guard their privacy. Besides, the emergency clause wasn't designed for this; it's an identification and delay procedure within normal . . ."
"If we don't do this, we'll die, and the Taprisiots with us," McKie said. "That should be made clear to them. We need their willing cooperation."
"I don't know if I can convince them," Bildoon protested.
"You'll have to try."
"But what good will these actions do us?"
"Taprisiots and Beautybarbers both operate in some way similar to the Calebans, but without as much . . . power," McKie said. "I'm convinced of that. They're all tapping the same power source."
"Then what happens when we shut down the Beautybarbers?"
"Abnethe won't go very long without them."
"She probably has her own platoons of Beautybarbers!"
"But Steadyon is their touchstone. Quarantine it, and I think Beautybarber activity will stop everywhere."
Bildoon looked at Tuluk.
"Taprisiots understand more than they've indicated about connectives," Tuluk said. "I think they will listen to you if you point out that our last remaining Caleban is about to enter ultimate discontinuity. I think they'll realize the significance of this."
"Explain the significance to me, if you don't mind. If Taprisiots can use these . . . these . . . they must know how to avoid the disaster!"
"Has anybody asked them?" McKie asked.
"Beautybarbers . . . Taprisiots . . ." Bildoon muttered. Then, "What else do you have in mind?"
"I'm going back to the Beachball," McKie said.
"We can't protect you as well there."
"I know."
"That room's too small. If the Caleban would come to . . ."
"She won't move. I've asked."
Bildoon sighed, a deeply human emotional gesture. The PanSpechi had absorbed more than shape when they had decided to copy the human pattern. The differences, though, were profound, and McKie reminded himself of this. Humans could only see dimly into PanSpechi thoughts. With creche-reversion imminent for this proud sentient, what was he truly thinking? A creche mate would come forth presently, a new personality with all the Bildoon creche's millennial accumulation of data, all the . . .
McKie pursed his lips, inhaled, blew out.
How did PanSpechi transfer that data from one unit to another? They were always linked, they said, ego holder and creche mates, dormant and active, slavering flesheater and thinking aesthete. Linked? How?
"Do you understand connectives?" McKie asked, staring into Bildoon's faceted eyes.
Bildoon shrugged. "I see the way your thoughts wander," he said.
"Well?"
"Perhaps we PanSpechi share this power," Bildoon said, "but if so, the sharing is entirely unconscious. I will say no more. You come close to invasion of creche privacy."
McKie nodded. Creche privacy was the ultimate defensive citadel of PanSpechi existence. They would kill to defend it. No logic or reason could prevent the automatic reaction once it was ignited. Bildoon had displayed great friendship in issuing his warning.
"We're desperate," McKie said.
"I agree," Bildoon said, overtones of profound dignity in his voice. "You may proceed as you've indicated."
"Thanks," McKie said.
"It's on your head, McKie," Bildoon added.
"Provided I can keep my head," McKie said. He opened the outer door onto a clamor of newspeople. They were being held back by a harried line of enforcers, and it occurred to McKie, grasping this scene in its first impact, that all those involved in this turmoil were vulnerable from this direction.
***
Delusions demand reflex reactions (as though they had autonomic roots) where doubts and questioning not only aren't required, but are actively resisted.
Crowds were already forming on the morning-lighted palisades above the Beachball when McKie arrived:
News travels fast, he thought.
Extra squads of enforcers, called in anticipation of this mob scene, held back sentients trying to get to the cliff's edge, barred access to the lava shelf. Aircraft of many kinds were being blocked by a screen of BuSab fliers.
McKie, standing near the Beachball, looked up at the hectic activity. The morning wind carried a fine mist of sea spray against his cheek. He had taken a jumpdoor to Furuneo's headquarters, left instructions there, and used a Bureau flier for the short trip to the lava shelf.
The Beachball's port remained open, he noted. Mixed squads of enforcers milled about in a confused pattern around the Ball, alert to every quarter of their surroundings. Picked enforcers watched through the port where other enforcers shared this uneasy guardianship.
It was quite early in Cordiality's day here, but real-time relationships confused such arbitrary time systems, McKie thought. It was night at Central's headquarters, evening at the Taprisiot council building where Bildoon must still be arguing . . . and only Immutable Space knew what time it was wherever Abnethe had her base of operations.