Orson Card - Speaker for the Dead

"When the Speaker for the Dead arrived," said Bishop Peregrino.

Bosquinha was amused that the Bishop obviously regarded the Speaker's arrival as such a landmark date that he instantly made such a connection. "Three days ago," said Bosquinha, "a nondestructive scan was initiated by ansible. It followed an interesting pattern. " She turned to the terminal and changed the display. Now it showed accesses primarily in high-level areas, and limited to only one region of the display. "It accessed everything to do with the xenologers and xenobiologists of Milagre. It ignored all security routines as if they didn't exist. Everything they discovered, and everything to do with their personal lives. And yes, Bishop Peregrino, I believed at the time and I believe today that this had to do with the Speaker."

"Surely he has no authority with Starways Congress," said the Bishop.

Dom Cristão nodded wisely. "San Angelo once wrote-- in his private journals, which no one but the Children of the Mind ever read--"

The Bishop turned on him with glee. "So the Children of the Mind do have secret writings of San Angelo!"

"Not secret," said Dona Cristã . "Merely boring. Anyone can read the journals, but we're the only ones who bother."

"What he wrote," said Dom Cristão, "was that Speaker Andrew is older than we know. Older than Starways Congress, and in his own way perhaps more powerful."

Bishop Peregrino snorted. "He's a boy. Can't be forty years old yet."

"Your stupid rivalries are wasting time," said Bosquinha sharply. "I called this meeting because of an emergency. As a courtesy to you , because I have already acted for the benefit of the government of Lusitania."

The others fell silent.

Bosquinha returned the terminal to the original display. "This morning my program alerted me for a second time. Another systematic ansible access, only this time it was not the selective nondestructive access of three days ago. This time it is reading everything at data-transfer speed, which implies that all our files are being copied into offworld computers. Then the directories are rewritten so that a single ansible-initiated command will completely destroy every single file in our computer memories."

Bosquinha could see that Bishop Peregrino was surprised-- and the Children of the Mind were not.

"Why?" said Bishop Peregrino. "To destroy all our files-- this is what you do to a nation or a world that is-- in rebellion, that you wish to destroy, that you--"

"I see," said Bosquinha to the Children of the Mind, "that you also were chauvinistic and suspicious."

"Much more narrowly than you, I'm afraid," said Dom Cristão. "But we also detected the intrusions. We of course copied all our records-- at great expense-- to the monasteries of the Children of the Mind on other worlds, and they will try to restore our files after they are stripped. However, if we are being treated as a rebellious colony, I doubt that such a restoration will be permitted. So we are also making paper copies of the most vital information. There is no hope of printing everything, but we think we may be able to print out enough to get by. So that our work isn't utterly destroyed."

"You knew this?" said the Bishop. "And you didn't tell me ?"

"Forgive me, Bishop Peregrino, but it did not occur to us that you would not have detected this yourselves."

"And you also don't believe we do any work that is important enough to be worth printing out to save!"

"Enough!" said Mayor Bosquinha. "Printouts can't save more than a tiny percentage-- there aren't enough printers in Lusitania to make a dent in the problem. We couldn't even maintain basic services. I don't think we have more than an hour left before the copying is complete and they are able to wipe out our memory. But even if we began this morning, when the intrusion started, we could not have printed out more than a hundredth of one percent of the files that we access every day. Our fragility, our vulnerability is complete."

"So we're helpless," said the Bishop.

"No. But I wanted to make clear to you the extremity of our situation, so that you would accept the only alternative. It will be very distasteful to you."

"I have no doubt of that," said Bishop Peregrino.

"An hour ago, as I was wrestling with this problem, trying to see if there was any class of files that might be immune to this treatment, I discovered that in fact there was one person whose files were being completely overlooked. At first I thought it was because he was a framling, but the reason is much more subtle than that. The Speaker for the Dead has no files in Lusitanian memory."

"None? Impossible," said Dona Cristã .

"All his files are maintained by ansible. Offworld. All his records, all his finances, everything. Every message sent to him. Do you understand?"

"And yet he still has access to them--" said Dom Cristão.

"He is invisible to Starways Congress. If they place an embargo on all data transfers to and from Lusitania, his files will still be accessible because the computers do not see his file accesses as data transfers. They are original storage-- yet they are not in Lusitanian memory.

"Are you suggesting," said Bishop Peregrino, "that we transfer our most confidential and important files as messages to that-- that unspeakable infidel?"

"I am telling you that I have already done exactly that. The transfer of the most vital and sensitive government files is almost complete. It was a high priority transfer, at local speeds, so it runs much faster than the Congressional copying. I am offering you a chance to make a similar transfer, using my highest priority so that it takes precedence over all other local computer usage. If you don't want to do it, fine-- I'll use my priority to transfer the second tier of government files."

"But he could look in our files," said the Bishop.

"Yes, he could."

Dom Cristao shook his head. "He won't if we ask him not to."

"You are naive as a child," said Bishop Peregrino. "There would be nothing to compel him even to give the data back to us."

Bosquinha nodded. "That's true. He'll have everything that's vital to us, and he can keep it or return it as he wishes. But I believe, as Dom Cristão does, that he's a good man who'll help us in our time of need."

Dona Cristã stood. "Excuse me," she said. "I'd like to begin crucial transfers immediately."

Bosquinha turned to the Bishop's terminal and logged into her own high priority mode. "Just enter the classes of files that you want to send into Speaker Andrew's message queue. I assume you already have them prioritized, since you were printing them out."

"How long do we have?" asked Dom Cristão. Dona Cristã was already typing furiously.

"The time is here, at the top." Bosquinha put her hand into the holographic display and touched the countdown numbers with her finger.

"Don't bother transferring anything that we've already printed," said Dom Cristão. "We can always type that back in. There's precious little of it, anyway."

Bosquinha turned to the Bishop. "I knew this would be difficult."

The Bishop gave one derisive laugh. "Difficult."

"I hope you'll consider carefully before rejecting this--"

"Rejecting it!" said the Bishop. "Do you think I'm a fool? I may detest the pseudo-religion of these blasphemous Speakers for the Dead, but if this is the only way God has opened for us to preserve the vital records of the Church, then I'd be a poor servant of the Lord if I let pride stop me from using it. Our files aren't prioritized yet, and it will take a few minutes, but I trust that the Children of the Mind will leave us enough time for our data transfers."

"How much time will you need, do you think?" asked Dom Cristão.