Joe Haldeman - Forever Peace

What it proved, of course, was that God did exist, and was calling us home.

The Ender who had decrypted and destroyed Amelia's files was none other than Macro, her titular boss, and he was glad beyond words to see that his part in the plan was crystallizing.

Macro's involvement did help the other Plan – Marty's rather than God's-in that he deflected attention from the disappearance of Amelia and Julian. He had set up Ingram to get rid of Amelia, and assumed he had taken care of the black boyfriend at the same time, good riddance to both of them. He had forged letters of resignation from both, in case anyone came looking. He'd assigned their teaching duties to people who were too grateful to be curious, and there was already so much rumor brewing about them that he didn't bother to manufacture a cover story. Young black man and older white woman. They probably pulled up stakes and went to Mexico.

FORTUNATELY I STILL HAD the rough draft of the paper on my own notebook. Amelia and I could clean it up and send a delayed broadcast after we left Guadalajara. Ellie Morgan, who had been a journalist before committing murder, volunteered to write a simplified version for general release, and one with everything but equations for a popular science magazine. That would be a pretty short article.

The staff removed all the plates, empty or piled with bones, and brought back plates of cookies and fruit. I couldn't look at another calorie, but Reza attacked both.

"Since Reza has his mouth full," Asher said, "let me be devil's advocate for a change.

"Suppose all it took to become humanized was a simple pill. The government demonstrates how it's going to make life better for everyone-or even that life will end if everyone doesn't take it-and they supply the pills to everybody. Pass a law saying it's life imprisonment if you don't take the pill. How many would manage not to take it anyhow?"

"Millions," Marty said. "Nobody trusts the government."

"And instead of a pill, you're talking about a complex surgical procedure that only works ninety-some percent of the time and when it doesn't work, it usually kills or stupefies the victim. You'll have people running for the hills."

"We've been through this," Marty said.

"I know. I got the argument when we were jacked. You don't provide it for free-you charge for it and make it a symbol of status and individual empowerment. How many Enders do you think you're going to get that way? And what about the people who already have status and power? They're going to say, 'Oh, good, now everybody else can be like me'?"

"The fact is," Mendez said, "it does give you power. When I'm linked with the Twenty, I understand five languages; I have twelve degrees; I've lived over a thousand years."

"The status part will be propaganda at first," Marty said. "But when people look around and see that virtually everything of interest is being done by the humanized, we won't have to sell the idea."

"I'm worried about the Hammer of God," Amelia said. "We're not likely to convert many of them, and some of them like to serve God by murdering the godless."

I agreed. "Even if we convert a few like Ingram, the nature of the cell system would keep it from spreading."

"They're notoriously antijack anyhow," Asher said. "Enders in general, I mean. And arguments about status and power aren't going to move them."

"Spiritual arguments might," Ellie Morgan said. She looked kind of saintly herself, all in white with long flowing white hair. "Those of us who are believers find our belief strengthened, and broadened."

I wondered about that. I'd felt her belief, jacked, and was attracted by the comfort and peace she derived from it. But she'd instantly accepted my atheism as "another path," which didn't sound much like any Ender I'd met. The hour I'd spent linked with Ingram and two others, Ingram had used the power of the jack to visualize imaginative hells for me three of us, all involving anal rape and slow mutilation.

It would be interesting to jack with him after he'd been humanized, and play those hells back for his entertainment. I suppose he'd forgive himself.

"That's an angle we ought to map out," Marty said. "Using religion-not your kind, Ellie, but organized religion. We'll automatically have people like the Cyber-Baptists and Omnia on our side. But if we could be endorsed by some mainstream religion, we could have a big bloc that not only preached our gospel, but demonstrated its effectiveness." He picked up a cookie and inspected it. "I've been concentrating so much on the military aspects that I've neglected other concentrations of power. Religion, education."

Belda tapped her cane on the floor. "I don't think deans and professors are going to see the appeal of gaining knowledge without working through their institutions. Mr. Mendez, you plug into your friends and speak five languages. I only speak four, none of them that well, and it took a large piece of my youth, sitting and memorizing, to learn three of those four. Pedagogues are jealous of the time and energy they invest in gaining knowledge. You offer it to people like a sugar pill."

"But no, it's not like that at all," Mendez said earnestly. "I only understand things in Japanese or Catalan when one of the others is thinking with that language. I don't keep it."

"It's like when Julian joined us," Ellie said. "The Twenty never had a physical scientist before. When he was linked with us, we understood his love for physics, and any of us could use his knowledge directly-but only if we knew enough, anyhow, to ask the right questions. We couldn't suddenly do calculus. No more than we understand Japanese grammar when we're linked with Wu."

Megan nodded. "It's sharing information, not transferring it. I'm a doctor, which may not be a huge intellectual accomplishment, but it does take years of study and practice. When we're all jacked together and someone complains of a physical problem, all the others can follow my logic in diagnosis and prescribing, while it's happening, but they couldn't have come up with it on their own, even though we've been jacked together off and on for twenty years."

"The experience might even motivate someone to study medicine, or physics," Marty said, "and it certainly would help a student, to have instant intimate contact with a doctor or a physicist. But you still have to unplug and hit the books, if you want to actually have the knowledge."

"Or never unplug at all," Belda said. "Just unplug to eat or sleep or go to the toilet. That's really attractive. Billions of zombies who are temporarily expert in medicine and physics and Japanese. For all of their so-called waking hours."

"It'll have to be regulated," I said, "the way it is now. People will spend a couple of weeks jacked, to humanize them. But after that..."

The front door opened so hard it banged against the wall, and three large policemen strode in with submachine guns. An unarmed policeman, smaller, followed them.

" – I have a warrant for Dr. Marty Larrin," he said in Spanish.

" – What is the warrant for?" I asked. " – What is the charge?"

" – I am not paid to answer to negros. Which of you is Dr. Larrin?"

"I am," I said in English. "You can answer to me."

He gave me a look I hadn't seen in years, not even in Texas. " – Be silent, negro. One of you white men is Dr. Larrin."

"What is the warrant about?" Marty asked, in English.

"Are you Professor Larrin?"

"I am and I have certain rights. Of which you are aware."

"You do not have the right to kidnap people."

"Is this person I supposedly kidnapped a Mexican citizen?"

"You know he is not. He's a representative of the government of the United States."

Marty laughed. "Then I suggest you send around some other representative of the government of the United States." He turned his back on the guns. "Where were we?"