The Caryatids

"I do not claim that we will defeat them immediately. At this moment, we could merely use our thousands of light aircraft to mine their roads, blow up the single points of failure in the electrical and water systems, and terrorize their population with mass slaughter of random civilians. They do already pay us tribute-to be frank, yes, they pay-but now you must imagine us attacking them from every point of the compass, around the clock, while the sky is black with volcanic ash. Of course we will win that battle. Because the world of tomorrow is hideous and we will own it. We will own the smoking ruins of the world. No one else. Us, and those we force to become like us. That is our great purpose."

John Montalban spoke up. "He just said 'world of tomorrow'! I don't know much Chinese, but I heard that. I'm very glad to see you and Major General Cao Xilong debating matters so cordially. That sounded like a fruitful exchange of views."

"Yes."

"I'm not surprised you would empathize so strongly with these strange and unfortunate people, Sonja. After all, their life experience-their sheltered upbringing, that traumatic exposure to the outer world-you can understand all that. You're a healer. I've seen you grasp the distress inside people, and change them for the better."

His fatuous words brought her nothing but pure dread. For all his tireless global meddling, he was from California, a place where people believed that the future was golden. While she was from the Balkans...a broken place, the cockpit of empires where the lost chickens pecked each other's eyes out...

The world to come was so much worse, so much more direly threatened than she had ever let herself believe...

But at least her mother was dead. No matter the city-killing look in the eyes of that nomad general-at least she had that transcendent joy to fully treasure. It was all she could do not to laugh in his masked, carnivorous face.

She suddenly broke from the general and strode into the middle of the tent, her ribs heaving.

Montalban followed her, touched her shoulder. "These people here...they're not beyond hope! They're just another runaway experiment." John rubbed his temples, suddenly weary. "I have so many colleagues working on 'Relinquishment' issues-colleagues in both the Dispensation and the Acquis...'Relinquishment,' that's what we call it when we cram those techno-genies back into their bottles...'Relinquishment' is difficult-to-impossible, and this next stunt I hope to pull-it's beyond me. It does not walk the Earth, it is literally out of this world."

Lionel spoke up. "I could make a good case that you're the best Relinquishment activist of all time, John. You have no peer in that work."

"Oh, come now."

"It's the truth! How many is this? Seven big projects defeated? Eight? You're doing the seventh and the eighth Relinquishment at the very same time!"

"Oh, it can't possibly be eight. I'm only thirty years old."

Lionel was cheering his older brother through his moment of doubt. "There were the hypervelocity engines. That was the first project you killed off."

"That wasn't 'Relinquishment.' Those were commercial competitors to our family's launch sites."

"There were those German tissue-culture labs."

"I was only tangentially involved in that scandal. Besides, there's tissue-culture practice all over the Acquis nowadays, so I sure wouldn't call that a victory."

"You knocked a huge hole in the genetics industry with that intellectual-property battle over DNA as an interactive network instead of patentable codons."

"That was all science paperwork! That was just about hiring smart lawyers and printing some letterhead. I didn't lift a finger."

"They lost billions, though. In terms of damage to hostile technologies-that was your best spanner thrown in the works, ever."

John Montalban was rallying. "Well, maybe. Maybe you're right about that one."

"Last summer you chased those neural fanatics out of the Balkans practically single-handed."

"They'll be back. Those boneware people are like mice. You chase 'em out of one spot, they pop up in a hundred other places...How many wild stunts does this make out of me? You're tiring me."

"There's our hosts here. They'll sure need some taming."

"'Constructive engagement.' Simple diplomacy. They just need to be brought around to the world system, taught what side their bread is buttered on. Anyone could do that."

"But you spotted their hidden tomb, John. Tons and tons of burned machinery. The backup records of the Chinese state. That's gonna be the biggest archaeological discovery since the First Emperor of China burned all the books."