Cauldron of Ghosts: Chapter Twenty Three

JULY 1922 Post Diaspora

    “Talk about a stroke of genius,” Ruth said, shaking her head with admiration as she studied the data on her tablet. “Which one of you wants to take the credit? Or are you willing to split it, in the spirit of” — she waved her hand airily — “whatever. Take your pick. Collectivism, cooperation, humility, whatever rings your bell.”

    Victor looked disgusted. “Let Anton have it — or better yet, Yana.”

    Who, for her part, was looking at her own body in the same wall mirror Victor was using — and didn’t look any happier than he did.

    “I look like a cow. What possible use are udders this size? I’ve got enough production capacity for quadruplets — but there are still only two nipples. So what’s the point?”

    She glared at Victor. “Do men really like this nonsense?”

    Victor didn’t look at her. He was still examining his own body and looking no happier than she did. “Ask someone else,” he said. “I was socially deprived as a youth. My opinion on these matters is not to be trusted.”

    Thandi Palane had left off examining her new body ten minutes earlier and was now relaxing in an armchair. Her cheerful equanimity concerning her new physique was due to the simple fact that it wasn’t much different from her old one. Given that Thandi’s ability to commit mayhem was a large part of the reason she’d been included in the mission, it would have been counter-productive to change her body so much that all of her muscle memory would have gotten skewed. So, the gene-engineers had settled for adding a little weight and height.

    The main change had been to her face. They’d eliminated the distinctive Ndebele facial features. They’d left her very pale skin tone as it was, but she now looked like someone from a heavy gravity planet whose ancestry had been mostly northern European instead of African. She was also a lot less good-looking.

    Yana, on the other hand, now had a physique that looked like a teenage boy’s notion of the perfect female figure. A particularly callow boy, at that.

    The engineers had given her a face to go with it, too. The former attractive blonde was now a gorgeous brunette whose ancestry seemed to be East Asian rather than Slavic. About the only thing they hadn’t changed very much was her height. Nanobots could do a lot, but the only way to drastically shorten someone was to remove bone or cartilage, both of which carried health risks if taken too far. So, they’d shortened her, but only by two centimeters. That would be enough to throw off any automatic body gauge software that Mesa‘s security forces might be using.

    The precaution was probably unnecessary, but changing a person’s height by a few centimeters was not significantly risky — so why not do it? Anton, Victor and Thandi had all had their heights changed as well, but in their cases they’d been made a little taller.

    “Take credit for what, Ruth?” asked Andrew Artlett. He was sitting next to Steph Turner on a sofa against the wall opposite the big mirror. His physical appearance had been modified only slightly, because there was no need to do more than that. The one time Mesan inspectors had come aboard the Hali Sowle, Andrew had stayed in his cabin. The Mesans might still have his genetic record — or rather, that of the Parmley clan members to whom he was closely related — but they hadn’t made any physical images of him. The only reason nanobots had been used on him at all — his nose and brow ridge had been thickened, his cheekbones made more prominent and his eye and hair color changed — was to protect against the remote chance that the Mesans had somehow gotten their hands on old holopics of him. That chance was so remote it was well-nigh astronomical, but since a minor body adaptation was easy they’d decided to do it.

    More precisely, Anton and Victor had decided to have it done — over Andrew’s protests. He’d accused them of being motivated by nothing more than a determination to spread the misery around.

    There was… possibly a bit of truth to the charge. Nanobot body engineering was a thoroughly unpleasant experience.

    “Take a look at this,” Ruth said. She keyed in some commands and her virtual screen was enlarged tenfold and projected far enough away so Andrew and Steph could see it easily.

    “You see this and this? And this?” She manipulated the cursor to highlight three figures on the screen. The figures were labeled Perspective Density, Adjustment Velocity and Reversal Prospect.

    Andrew’s frown was enhanced by his modified brow ridge. Steph’s frown looked about the same as it always did, because her features had been modified to make her face a bit more slender. As with Andrew, her body modification had been minimal and mostly confined to her face. The likelihood that Mesa had good holopics of someone who’d owned a small restaurant in the seccie quarters was small. They might have a few images, but they wouldn’t be precise enough for body identification software.

    The real danger for her was that the Mesans certainly had her DNA on record, for the good and simple reason that Mesa obtained DNA samples at birth from every resident of the planet. And even if Victor and Anton’s hypothesis that Jack McBryde had badly damaged Mesa’s security files was correct, it was unlikely that McBryde had gone so far as to destroy all DNA records. He would have targeted the records of Mesa‘s enemies — which, ironically, would not have included Steph Turner at the time.

    So, she’d gotten a genetic sheathe, as had Andrew. Steph’s was more subtle than that given to everyone else, though. There was no need to disguise her origins as a Mesa seccie. To the contrary, that would be an integral part of her cover. They’d only needed to put a few changes in the sheathe that would obscure her individual identity.

    “Ruth, I haven’t got the faintest idea what any of those numbers mean,” said Steph.

    “Same here,” said Andrew. “And I’ll add to that — hey, I’m a dummy, okay? — that I don’t even understand what the terms mean. I know what each one of those words means, taken by itself. But what the hell is the ‘density’ of a perspective?”

    Berry piped up. “I’m a dummy too.” She was perched on the edge of her seat and leaning over in order to get a better view of the screen. “How about an explanation?”

    Ruth looked at each of them in turn, her expression a mix of puzzlement, mild consternation, and uncertainty. Those sentiments could be translated — quite easily, by her best friend Berry — into the following phrases:

    How can anyone be this ignorant of basic sociometric attitude assessments?

    Am I supposed to explain what this all means?

    I’m really not the best person to do that since my explanation is likely to be harder to understand by people who don’t know anything to begin with.

    Anton came to her rescue. “Translated a bit roughly, the terms mean the following. ‘Perspective density’ refers to the sureness of the opinion. They call it density because — “

    88220;– they’re a pack of cone-headed sociometricians and they’d rather die than use clear terminology,” said Victor.

    “Well, yes, that too. But as I was saying before I was interrupted by Secret Agent Sourpuss, they use the term ‘density’ because the firmness with which someone holds an opinion is usually the product of multiple cross-associations. To give an example, a person believes a planet is a sphere because they know many things which all reinforce that opinion. Whereas if their opinion on a given subject is established by only one or two inputs, that opinion’s density will be thin.”

    “Except the term they actually use for a thinly-sustained opinion is ‘disagglutinated,’” said Victor. “It’s got six syllables instead of one. This is why Anton and I are spies instead of sociometrician cone-heads.”

    Anton shook his head sadly. “He’s always had a bitter streak. Mind you, he’s also right. They are a lot of cone-heads.”

    “What does the number mean, then?” asked Andrew. “Perspective density: 0.67.“

    Ruth decided she could answer that one easily enough. “It’s a scale of 0 to 1, in which ’0′ means the perspective is so disagglutinated — and for the record, I think the term is quite appropriate — that it might as well not exist, and ’1′ is a perspective so heavily and completely buttressed by a multitude of other opinions that it is accepted as pure and simple fact.”

    “Give me examples,” said Steph.

    Ruth was back at sea again. Examples? How do you give examples of basic –

    “‘A moon is made out of green cheese,’” said Anton. “That’d get a PD rating of 0.01 — or maybe 0.02 or 0.03. Nothing is ever ranked an absolute 0 — or an absolute 1. On the opposite end, let’s take the statement ‘a moon orbits a planet’. That’d get a PD rating of .9 something.”

    He looked at the screen. “What that number tells us is that the perspective of the Star Empire’s population as a whole — Ruth didn’t point to that figure but it’s on the upper left of the screen — you see it? 0.99? that means the analysis applies to the entire population within one-hundredth of a point of certainty — “

    “To anybody except statisticians playing cover-your-ass that means absolute certainty,” said Victor.

    Anton continued. “– is two-thirds of the way toward being rock solid that the events and statements of fact shown in the recent The Star Empire Today are correct.”

    “That doesn’t make any sense at all!” protested Andrew. “Not the two-thirds part, that’s probably okay. But what’s this nonsense about 0.99 certainty of the opinion of the entire population.” Her threw up his hands. “You said the number of people who’ve seen the show so far isn’t more than half a billion, right? That’s short — way, way short — of even the Manticore System’s total population. That’s what? three billion?”

    “Just about,” Anton replied. “A bit over, as I recall.”

    “That’s not even twenty percent, then.”

    Ruth was about to explode. How can anybody be so grossly ignorant of the simplest and most –

    But this time, Berry came to her rescue. “That’s a sample of half a billion, Andrew. That’s gigantic. Most opinion samples are quite satisfied their results are accurate if they sample just one or two percent.”

    “Less than that,” said Victor. “The number doesn’t mean that 99% of the Star Empire’s opinion was taken. It just means that there’s at least a 99% chance — it’s actually a 100% chance, for all practical purposes — that the opinion sample represents that of the entire population.”

    He scratched his jaw. “That number’s not the surprise. It’s the density number. I’d expected something in the 0.3 range. 0.4 if we were lucky.”

    “The AV number’s even more surprising,” said Cathy Montaigne. She was perched on the armrest of the couch occupied by Anton.

    “AV means ‘adjustment velocity’, right?” said Steph. “The number means squat to me anyway, but why is it surprising?”

    “It refers to the speed with which people’s perspective is changing,” Cathy explained, “and it’s always closely associated with perspective density. The basic rule-of-thumb — although there are exceptions — is that the more densely someone holds an opinion, the more slowly it’s likely to change. And vice versa, of course.”

    Andrew grunted. “Okay, I get it. To use an example, my opinion that Victor and Anton railroaded me into getting a horde of sub-atomic golems set loose inside my body to torture and torment me for no better motive than spite is so densely held that it will only change — if it does at all — at the speed with which a proton decays. What would that number be, by the way?”

    Cathy laughed. “That number would approach infinity — or eternity, I should say. Sociometricians would give it a ‘less than 0.01%.’ That’s as low as they ever go on account of” — she pointed at Victor — “what he says. Cover their ass.”

    “Why do they express it as a ‘less than’ instead of just giving it a straight number?” asked Berry.

    “Because they’re a bunch of cone-heads,” said Victor. He nodded toward the screen. “What that number up there means — the AV figure of >36% — is that opinions are shifting toward greater density at a rate that is thirty-six percent above the norm for perspective shifts at that density.”

    “Huh?” said Andrew.

    Ruth tried to come back in at that point. “What they’re trying to measure is how fast a perspective is shifting compared to how fast you’d normally expect that solidly-held an opinion to shift. If the shift is in the direction of favoring the new opinion, it’ll be expressed in the positive using the symbol for ‘more than.’ If it’s shifting against, it’ll be expressed as a negative.”

    “Huh?” Andrew repeated.

    “The gist of what it means in the here and now,” said Victor, “is that the impact of Yael Underwood’s broadcast about — about — “

    “About you, dear,” said Thandi smiling broadly. “Just suck it up.”

    “About me,” Victor said sourly, “is that the public opinion of the Star Empire is shifting in favor of our perspective on the real nature of interstellar politics a lot faster than such solidly held opinions — remember, that number was 0.67 — usually shift. When they shift at all, which usually they don’t — or shift in a negative direction.”

    There was a moment’s silence. Then Steph said, “Wow. I’m right, aren’t I? It’s a ‘wow’?”

    Finally, Ruth felt back on sure ground. “It’s a great big huge ‘wow.’ The only explanation I can think of is that the emotional impact of seeing a young StateSec officer risk his own life in order to save the life of an RMN officer’s daughter just blew away a lot of established pre-conceptions. And then their continuing close friendship — which it obviously is even if both of them will probably try to make light of it — added layers of density to the new perspective.”

    “I think she’s right,” said Cathy. “The personal history between Anton and Victor makes their intelligence concerning Mesa plausible to people. Which it wouldn’t be at all if someone said: ‘Hey, guess what? A couple of spies — one from Manticore, one from Haven — decided to work together and look what they discovered. Imagine that!’”

    “So what does that last number mean?” asked Berry. “The one labeled ‘reversal prospect’?”

    “That’s sociometrician gobbledygook for ‘how likely is it that this perspective development will be reversed?’,” said Victor. “And it’s a bunch of twaddle, since all it does is say the other way around what the PD and AV numbers already established.”

    Anton smiled. “Leaving aside Victor’s commentary, it is true that the RP number closely correlates to the other numbers.”

    “Closely correlates,” sniffed Victor. “As in the chance for losing a game is ninety percent ‘closely correlates’ with the chance of winning being ten percent.”

    While they’d been bantering, Cathy had been monitoring her watch. “It’s about time. Ruth, change to the live feed, will you?”

    “Sure.” The Manticoran princess tapped her tablet a few times and the image on the big virtual screen shifted to an outside view of Mount Royal Palace. A shuttle was coming in for a landing.

    A minute or so went by, while the shuttle settled in and an armed security detachment took positions near the hatch through which the passengers would be disembarking.

    The hatch opened and the first passenger came down the ramp. The reporter, who’d been prattling vacuities while she waited for something to happen, immediately said: “As expected, that’s President Eloise Pritchart, arriving for her scheduled meeting with the empress and the prime minister. Following her is Haven’s Secretary of War Thomas Theisman. And now, if our private sources are accurate, we should be seeing…”

    A short, very wide-shouldered man started down the ramp. “Yes, that’s him. The now-famous Captain Zilwicki, formerly an intelligence officer in the Royal Manticoran Navy and now operating on his own. Or, often, in tandem with his unlikely partner…”

    Another man came down the ramp. He was dressed all in black, in garments which were very closely patterned on the former uniform of Haven’s now-defunct State Security.

    “And that’s Victor Cachat, who has become just as famous as Zilwicki.” The reporter chuckled. “The more sensational news outlets have started referring to him as ‘Black Victor,’ we’re told.”

    “Yes!” exclaimed Anton, pumping his fist. “Join the Notoriety Club, buddy.”

    Victor was back to looking disgruntled; sour; even sullen.

    “When are we leaving?” he demanded. “At least on Mesa I’ll be able to get some privacy.”

    Ruth pursed her lips. “That may be the single most deranged statement I’ve ever heard in my life.” Then, with a grin: “But what else could you expect from…” Her voice lowered an octave and took on a pronounced tremor. “…Black Victor?”