Нил Стивенсон: Diamond Age

He still owned the family farm in northwestern Iowa, along with a few hundred thousand acres of adjoining land, which he was turning back into a tall-grass prairie, complete with herds of bison and real Indians who had discovered that riding around on horses hunting wild game was a better deal than pissing yourself in gutters in Minneapolis or Seattle. But for the most part he stayed on New Chusan, which was for all practical purposes his ducal estate.

"Public relations?" said Finkle-McGraw.

"Sir?" Modern etiquette was streamlined; no "Your Grace" or other honorifics were necessary in such an informal setting.

"Your department, sir."

Hackworth had given him his social card, which was appropriate under these circumstances but revealed nothing else.

"Engineering. Bespoke."

"Oh, really. I'd thought anyone who could recognise Wordsworth must be one of those artsy sorts in P.R."

"Not in this case, sir. I'm an engineer. Just promoted to Bespoke recently. Did some work on this project, as it happens."

"What sort of work?"

"Oh, P.I. stuff mostly," Hackworth said. Supposedly Finkle-McGraw still kept up with things and would recognize the abbreviation for pseudo-intelligence, and perhaps even appreciate that Hackworth had made this assumption.

Finkle-McGraw brightened a bit. "You know, when I was a lad they called it A.I. Artificial intelligence."

Hackworth allowed himself a tight, narrow, and brief smile. "Well, there's something to be said for cheekiness, I suppose."

"In what way was pseudo-intelligence used here?"

"Strictly on MPS's side of the project, sir." Imperial Tectonics had done the island, buildings, and vegetation. Machine-Phase Systems-Hackworth's employer-did anything that moved. "Stereotyped behaviors were fine for the birds, dinosaurs, and so on, but for the centaurs and fauns we wanted more interactivity, something that would provide an illusion of sentience."

"Yes, well done, well done, Mr. Hackworth."

"Thank you, sir."

"Now, I know perfectly well that only the very finest engineers make it to Bespoke. Suppose you tell me how an aficionado of Romantic poets made it into such a position."

Hackworth was taken aback by this and tried to respond without seeming to put on airs. "Surely a man in your position does not see any contradiction-"

"But a man in my position was not responsible for promoting you to Bespoke. A man in an entirely different position was. And I am very much afraid that such men do tend to see a contradiction."

"Yes, I see. Well, sir, I studied English literature in college."

"Ah! So you are not one of those who followed the straight and narrow path to engineering."

"I suppose not, sir."

"And your colleagues at Bespoke?"

"Well, if I understand your question, sir, I would say that, as compared with other departments, a relatively large proportion of Bespoke engineers have had— well, for lack of a better way of describing it, interesting lives."

"And what makes one man's life more interesting than another's?"

"In general, I should say that we find unpredictable or novel things more interesting."

"That is nearly a tautology." But while Lord Finkle-McGraw was not the sort to express feelings promiscuously, he gave the appearance of being nearly satisfied with the way the conversation was going. He turned back toward the view again and watched the children for a minute or so, twisting the point of his walking-stick into the ground as if he were still skeptical of the island's integrity. Then he swept the stick around in an arc that encompassed half the island. "How many of those children do you suppose are destined to lead interesting lives?"

"Well, at least two, sir-Princess Charlotte, and your granddaughter."

"You're quick, Hackworth, and I suspect capable of being devious if not for your staunch moral character," Finkle-McGraw said, not without a certain archness. "Tell me, were your parents subjects, or did you take the Oath?"

"As soon as I turned twenty-one, sir. Her Majesty— at that time, actually, she was still Her Royal Highness— was touring North America, prior to her enrollment at Stanford, and I took the Oath at Trinity Church in Boston."

"Why? You're a clever fellow, not blind to culture like so many engineers. You could have joined the First Distributed Republic or any of a hundred synthetic phyles on the West Coast. You would have had decent prospects and been free from all this" — Finkle-McGraw jabbed his cane at the two big airships — "behavioural discipline that we impose upon ourselves. Why did you impose it on yourself, Mr. Hackworth?"

"Without straying into matters that are strictly personal in nature," Hackworth said carefully, "I knew two kinds of discipline as a child: none at all, and too much. The former leads to degenerate behaviour. When I speak of degeneracy, I am not being priggish, sir— I am alluding to things well known to me, as they made my own childhood less than idyllic."

Finkle-McGraw, perhaps realizing that he had stepped out of bounds, nodded vigorously. "This is a familiar argument, of course."

"Of course, sir. I would not presume to imply that I was the only young person ill-used by what became of my native culture."

"And I do not see such an implication. But many who feel as you do found their way into phyles wherein a much harsher regime prevails and which view us as degenerates."

"My life was not without periods of excessive, unreasoning discipline, usually imposed capriciously by those responsible for laxity in the first place. That combined with my historical studies led me, as many others, to the conclusion that there was little in the previous century worthy of emulation, and that we must look to the nineteenth century instead for stable social models."

"Well done, Hackworth! But you must know that the model to which you allude did not long survive the first Victoria."

"We have outgrown much of the ignorance and resolved many of the internal contradictions that characterised that era."

"Have we, then? How reassuring. And have we resolved them in a way that will ensure that all of those children down there live interesting lives?"

"I must confess that I am too slow to follow you."

"You yourself said that the engineers in the Bespoke department— the very best— had led interesting lives, rather than coming from the straight and narrow. Which implies a correlation, does it not?"

"Clearly."

"This implies, does it not, that in order to raise a generation of children who can reach their full potential, we must find a way to make their lives interesting. And the question I have for you, Mr. Hackworth, is this: Do you think that our schools accomplish that? Or are they like the schools that Wordsworth complained of?"

"My daughter is too young to attend school— but I should fear that the latter situation prevails."

"I assure you that it does, Mr. Hackworth. My three children were raised in those schools, and I know them well. I am determined that Elizabeth shall be raised differently."

Hackworth felt his face flushing. "Sir, may I remind you that we have just met-I do not feel worthy of the confidences you are reposing in me."

"I'm telling you these things not as a friend, Mr. Hackworth, but as a professional."

"Then I must remind you that I am an engineer, not a child psychologist."

"This I have not forgotten, Mr. Hackworth. You are indeed an engineer, and a very fine one, in a company that I still think of as mine— though as an Equity Lord, I no longer have a formal connection. And now that you have brought your part of this project to a successful conclusion, I intend to put you in charge of a new project for which I have reason to believe you are perfectly suited."