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stop them from opening the Hellgates."
"Yeah. Well, don't think we haven't thought of that. Luckily it's not that
simple. You need a lot of amplifiers to link up the whole of World in even the
most basic communications net. They need twenty just to establish and maintain
the network they currently have for this cluster, so you can see what it would
take to connect all seven Gates."
"The operative thing is that it can be done," the wizard noted. "What can be
done eventually will be. What is primitive now will become sophisticated fast.
It's been that way since we opened the magic box of ancient writings and began
to compile and study them."
"Well, it's possible to run thousands of messages even voice messages over the
strings at the same time. I'll tell you that much. But in all those years
they've never built a bigger and better amplifier, and the signals you send
tend to fade out as they go. They have to be received by another amplifier and
returned to full strength and then transmitted again down the line. Of course,
it's done at the speed of light, but so long as they can't get more power they
can't use fewer amplifiers than they do now. My best guess is they don't know
how those amplifiers work any more than you or I do. They don't understand
half of what they're using now. They just find the instructions, build 'em,
and use 'em. The machines they use aren't any different than the ones
Coydt used almost thirty years ago. If they don't understand how they work,
they can't build 'em better."
Mervyn sighed. "I wish I could be optimistic even about that. If what you say
is true, and remains true, it becomes something of an advantage for us. It
reduces the problem to purely military terms disrupt only one transmitter and
you destroy their whole plan, and the locations of those transmitters would
have to be known and tested. Considering what Coydt alone was able to
accomplish, and given the principles of it, they may find a way."
"Well, I don't want to panic you, but there's always been communication
through Flux, you know."
"What?"
Matson shrugged. "It's like a web, sort of. Every single temple is in contact
with every other temple through that top center spire of theirs, sending out a
continuous signal. The four Anchors in a cluster intersect through the Gates,
and there's an identical signal running from Gate to Gate through the whole
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thing. We've always known there's something funny about those temples. You
know that."
"Soul Riders," Mervyn mumbled.
"Huh? What?"
"Soul Riders. That's where they get their orders from. That temple network or
grid. You know, a very long time ago, when you infiltrated Coydt's takeover of
Anchor Logh, Suzl met up with the
Guardian. The way she told it was too confusing to make any sense, but you
remember, don't you?"
He nodded. "Sure. It actually turned Temple Square into Flux for a very short
time to get us out of there. But that was the Guardian of the Gate."
"I wonder. Do we really know just what the Guardian is? Or even if it's
anything like what it calls itself? Suzl said that the power coming into the
temples went not only to the power transformers but down, down into the ground
below the temple. We tried and tried to repeat that sense she had, but to no
avail, and, of course, she was no longer available for it. But what if she was
right? What if the temple is only a building over what's really there? I've
occasionally intercepted signals coming from some source to the Soul Rider
within Spirit. I got an undefined sense of it, once or twice, as the sort of
speech machines might use to talk to one another. I don't know why it was far
too fast and too complex for any human mind to more than sense. Still,
I've always wondered. Under each temple, say, a machine. A great amplifier, as
it were, setting up the rules for World, keeping Anchors stable. A great
machine beyond our imagining that not only governs, it thinks
."
Matson chuckled. "A thinking machine? Thinking like a man?"
"No, not like a man, I'd wager, but thinking all the same. You've seen
Spirit?"
"Yeah."
"You wouldn't notice as much of a change in her as I would. I'd almost swear,
though, that she and the Soul Rider had somehow come together as one
individual. You know it all fits. If I were a big machine that thought, but
was stuck far underground in one location, I'd have a way to find out what's
going on beyond my own immediate area. The Soul Rider would be its eyes and
ears."
The stringer thought it over. "Well, maybe, but if so why would Spirit still
have that damned spell? Seems to me that any machine that smart could break
it. Even Suzl managed to do it, if I
recall."
Mervyn sighed. "That's true, but how would we know how a machine thought, or
what its motives and purposes might be? Still, it's a fascinating idea."
"And another thing why would it use so few eyes and ears? I mean, the Soul
Riders can only see and hear so much. Most of what's going on would pass 'em
by."
"One piece of the puzzle at a time," Mervyn told him. "Every answer gives a
hundred questions, but that's still a step forward. If I only had Toby
Haller's journal, that might supply the missing pieces."
"Sondra told me about that. We always put that down to a fairy tale."
"So did I but I know where a copy is now. It's exactly where I thought it was
all along, but I
could never be sure. I think I'd die happy if I could but read it."
"Huh. So why haven't you gotten it by now?"
"Because it's in Adam Tilghman's personal library in his house just off Temple
Square in New
Eden. That's pretty damned hard to break into, for one thing. Oh, I have
agents in New Eden
lots of Fluxgirls there since the start whom I was able to cover with dual
personalities but they're all under a lot of restrictions and spells. None of
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'em could read and tell which one it was, and it's not in printed form but
contained in a module with a lot of other junk, probably not labeled as such
but prominent enough to be missed. The fact that it's known and yet
unattainable has come close to driving me mad for years now!"
Matson put out the stub of his cigar and scratched his chin a moment. "You
think it's that important?"
"I don't know, but I know it must have something. Tilghman captured the High
Priestess of
Mareh, you know. He knew he couldn't break her spells, but he brought her,
stripped naked, back to New Eden just two weeks ago and displayed her in
Temple Square. When they were through torturing and debasing her and realized
they could never get her to recant, he had her brought to the house in chains
and forced to read the journal. My associates and I use the Holy Mother
Church, but we are not compelled to actually believe in it like she was. She
was faced with truths she couldn't deny yet the spells would not allow her to
accept. It drove her completely stark raving mad. She's a lunatic with no
reason at all now, held like an animal in a cage on public display in their
zoo."
"So the legend of the thing is borne out. You sure you want to read this
thing?"
"As I said, I don't have the problem she was confronted with. But even if it
had the same result, I would gladly do it. It won't, though. Coydt read it,
and he was just as insane before as after. [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]