Sufficiently Advanced Technology (Inverse Shadows) (24 page)

Joshua studied them with more attention than he’d used the last time he’d seen them, only a day ago. They were well-dressed, in the proper style, but something about them wasn’t quite right. It took him a moment to realise that the wife and daughter – and Elyria herself – were being treated as equals, rather than subordinate Minors. They weren’t making an effort to pretend so, he saw; they didn’t even
think
about it. And Elyria, who looked the youngest, was actually the one in charge! But if she was over a hundred years old, the others might actually be much younger than her.

“Greetings,” Master Faye said. “I am Faye, Pillar of the Bailiwick of Warlock’s Bane.”

It was the older man – Adam – who responded. “We greet you in the name of the Confederation,” he said, finally. Why was he, rather than Elyria, taking the lead? Could it be that they thought that Master Faye had done something to Elyria while she’d been his prisoner? “My name is Adam.”

He took a moment to introduce the rest of his team and then leant forward. “We wish to apologise for approaching you covertly,” he added. His voice was so flat that it was hard to read emotion, but Joshua had the very definite feeling that Adam was unused to apologising for anything. “We believed that maintaining a distance from you and us was better for your society.”

“And that you couldn’t be caught,” Master Faye said. His tone was equally flat. “What do you want from us?”

There was a long pause, long enough for Joshua to be certain that they too had their own means of mental communication. “You have the ability to use magic,” Adam said, finally. It tallied with what Elyria had said, although she’d called it something more complicated. “We wish to learn how you do it.”

“We also wish to study your society,” the younger girl – Adana – said. “Your society is unique; it is the only one we know where magic is prevalent, in a universe full of wonders. We want to know how your society works...”

Master Faye smiled for the first time. “You could have just asked.”

“We believed that direct contact between you and us would be bad for you,” Elyria said, from where she was sitting at the head of the table. “We...”

“Adam said the same thing,” Master Faye said. “Why do you believe that contact would be bad for us?”

There was a long pause. “In many ways,” Adana said, finally, “our society is vastly superior to yours. Our society does not, for example, have the obsession with gold that pervades your society. We do not use money...”

Joshua blinked in honest bewilderment. “How do you pay people to work then?”

Master Faye shot him a sharp look and then looked back at Adana. “I’d like to know too,” he admitted. “How
do
you get people to work properly without rewarding them?”

Adana hesitated. “Our society is very different from yours,” she admitted. “It would be difficult to explain...”

“Ah,” Master Faye said. He held up a hand. “For future reference, you don’t need to be so arrogant when talking to us. We can understand more than you think.”

Adana lowered her eyes for a moment, her face flushing slightly. “The Confederation has eliminated mundane drudgery through the use of machines,” she said. “There is no need for any of us to be a washerwoman, for example, or even a bookseller. All of our basic needs are met through technology. It is quite possible for someone to live their entire lives without doing a day of work.

“Those who want to work can enter any number of interesting jobs,” she continued. “People like myself start studying other societies, seeking the reward that comes from being respected in one’s field. Others go into exploration, or pure research, or whatever they find interesting. There is no need to do
anything
unless you find it interesting and worthwhile.”

Joshua rubbed his forehead, trying to understand. He knew how the city worked; Master Faye had lectured him often enough, as well as putting him through practical exercises meant to teach him the ropes. The very lowest level of society – the men who cleaned the streets – had a vital role to play in maintaining the city. Without them, the streets would be filthy; without the farmers, there would be no food; without the doctors, there would be no medicine...

What sort of society might form if they were freed from such drudgery?

“It would have unfortunate social implications if this were to become public knowledge,” Master Faye said. Joshua saw Elyria throw him an unreadable glance. “Very well; you wish to study magic. Such knowledge is never cheap. What are you prepared to offer us in exchange.”

There was a second pause. “Gold,” Adam said, finally. “We can provide you with as much gold as you like...”

“And make it very difficult for me to use it,” Master Faye said, wryly. Joshua had had problems understanding why too much gold was as bad as having too little gold, but Master Faye believed it to be true. “What else can you offer? Your...
technology
?”

He paused. “I know that some of your technology works on our world,” he added. “The Lady Elyria was very informative.”

Joshua winced as several cold stares were directed at Elyria, who ignored them. “Some of our technology does,” she agreed. “Other pieces of our technology are unreliable here. We may end up accidentally cheating you.”

She smiled. “We can offer you medical assistance,” she added. “A basic rejuvenation treatment would extend your lifespan for another hundred years.”

“If the magic didn’t kill me first,” Master Faye muttered. He was skilled at controlling his expression, but Joshua could tell that he was tempted. Even the most powerful magicians rarely lived past eighty. “How do you know that your treatments would work here?”

The young man, who’d been introduced as Dacron, smiled. “They are biological technology and should work perfectly,” he explained. “Your population does not appear to suffer from the presence of magic in the air.”

“Some magicians can be driven mad by their powers,” Master Faye said. He studied Adam for a long moment before switching his gaze to Adana. “Wouldn’t extending our lifespans cause problems for our society?”

“It is a possibility,” Adana admitted, uncomfortably.

“But one you are prepared to accept,” Master Faye added, briskly. “What do these treatments consist of?”

It was Elyria who answered the question. “We’d need a blood sample from you to prepare the treatment,” she said. Master Faye’s shoulders stiffened. Anyone else would have been blasted for daring to ask for some of his blood. “Once it is prepared, it will be injected into your body. Barring unforeseen accidents, your lifespan should be extended by at least a hundred years. Some people have been known to live for much longer on one treatment.”

Master Faye relaxed, slowly. “Asking for a person’s blood is insulting here,” he said, dryly. “Do you know that you can use it to work magic against someone?”

“Interesting,” Dacron said. “Does that mean that the blood works to identify someone through their DNA, or is there a direct quantum foam link from the blood to the bleeder? Or are they actually the same thing?”

Joshua had no idea what he was talking about. Master Faye ignored the question.

“Here is the deal,” he said, calmly. “I will allow you to operate freely in my city, and I will make my apprentice available to you to answer your questions. In exchange, I want one hundred...
rejuvenation
treatments prepared for people I select. That is the core deal. If you have other things you might want to offer in place of the rejuvenation treatments, I will listen and decide if I want to introduce them to my society. I would also...
prefer
it if you do not talk about your own society with anyone apart from myself and my apprentice.

“Should you wish to make more open contact, I will act as your agent,” he added, a moment later. “All of your contacts with other Pillars should go through me.”

***

Elyria was surprised at the intensity of the debate raging between the AIs, Thor, Jorlem and the contact team. It shouldn’t have been such a surprise, although it bespoke a level of political sophistication that no one had recognised on Darius. When the Confederation had contacted Fourth Age societies, the aliens had always been concerned about the effect of contact on their own people. Even the ones that had been human, rebuilt after being cut off from the rest of the human race, had been concerned. And
they
could simply have been absorbed into the Confederation.

Master Faye was clearly no fool, even though there was something about his attitude that nagged at her mind. Rejuvenation treatments would be a political tool he could use to help secure alliances among his fellow magicians – and even the rich and powerful in his city, if he felt like using it for them. It would cause problems for the locals, though; ambitious sons would watch helplessly as their parents remained in control for years, perhaps decades, rather than dying naturally. There were societies where rejuvenation treatments had led inevitably to civil war.

In the long run, it might not matter. If they cracked the secret behind manipulating the quantum foam, they could offer Darius’s citizens a better life in the Confederation. Even if they didn’t, they could still start removing them from the planet. Who knew what a magician would be able to do if he or she were brought up in the Confederation?

The debate concluded a moment later. “Subject to our superiors rejecting the agreement, we accept,” Adam said. “We look forward to working with you.”

Elyria saw Joshua smile. He, at least, wanted to see what the Confederation could do. And Elyria would be happy to show him, and allow him to show off his talents. They could even take him to the
Hamilton
, if the Captain would allow it, and see if he could work magic there.

And if he couldn’t, that too would be interesting. Very interesting.

CHAPTER
T
WENTY

“Your horses are very well behaved,” Joshua said. “I hate mine.”

Elyria smiled at him as the carriage headed out of the city and up towards the hidden base, outside the borderline. A night’s sleep had left her feeling better, although it had been broken by a message from the CSC. They had decided to tentatively approve her actions – they’d realised that she hadn’t had any choice – but there was no way her career wasn’t going to take a serious blow. The last person to accidentally expose a Confederation observation team on a primitive planet had never been allowed anywhere near a second one.

On the other hand, as the AIs had agreed, local cooperation would make it easier to study magic. In the event of their sensors being compromised on the buried shuttle, they’d started making plans to fly Joshua to space – although Captain Thor had vetoed the plan to bring him onboard the
Hamilton
. A small space station was already being assembled from pieces manufactured by the fabricator. It wouldn’t be anything like as massive as the starship, but it would suffice. Besides, it wouldn’t pose a major security risk.

“We already had several offers from breeders to use them for breeding purposes,” Elyria said, wryly. There were thousands of questions she wanted to ask him, but she wasn’t even sure where to begin. “Do you think that Master Faye would be interested in more of them?”

“I’d rather you didn’t offer,” Joshua said, and winked at her. Elyria understood; anyone who couldn’t develop a real rapport with horses wouldn’t want to ride if there was any other choice. The flying carpets would serve as much better transport. “Can you not make something that wouldn’t need a horse to pull it?”

“We’d have to experiment to find out what works here,” Elyria admitted. It would be relatively simple to put together a car that ran on gasoline, or something along the same lines, but no one knew if it would work permanently. Whatever interfered with modern technology on Darius was curiously selective, but it seemed to learn as it went along. “But we could certainly try to build something for you.”

She smiled. “Tell me about your society,” she said. “How does it actually
work
?”

Joshua smiled and started to explain. Some of it they already knew – Master Faye ruled through force, no matter how benevolent and enlightened he seemed, and he might be unseated at any time – but other details were new. One of them concerned the Booksellers and the Librarians, who seemed to be partly responsible for maintaining civilisation. Most of them were lower-grade magicians in their own right, sworn to their duties. And one of them had been capable of detecting the forged coins. At least
that
wasn’t going to happen again.

“I see,” she said, after Joshua had finally finished speaking. A thought had occurred to her. “How many cities actually stay stable for several hundred years?”

Joshua blinked. “I beg your pardon?”

It was difficult to be sure, but Elyria pressed ahead anyway. “The history book implied that every city eventually ends up with a bad Pillar, someone who rules for his own good rather than that of his people,” she said. “Does that always happen?”

“The richer the city, the more tempting a target it is for Scions who want to rule,” Joshua said, finally. He didn’t seem to understand. “The city declines under their control until they are replaced by someone more capable.”

Elyria nodded. “But that happens all the time,” she said, carefully. “There’s no such thing as a truly stable city. It all depends on the ruler.”

“Of course,” Joshua said, puzzled. “How else could it be?”

The first analysts had suggested that magic was actually impeding Darius’s technological development. That wasn’t uncommon, at least in principle; worldwide states had a history of trying to suppress technological advancement in the hopes of maintaining stability. In the end, they either decayed away completely and fell into civil war, or someone more adaptive destroyed them, but they could sometimes last for centuries before the end came. There was no reason why Darius couldn’t go the same way.

But if she understood Joshua correctly,
every
city on Darius eventually had a bad ruler who tore down everything the locals had achieved while they’d had a good ruler. Warlock’s Bane had had a bad ruler before Master Spark had removed him, and then Master Spark had himself declined until Master Faye had taken over. There was no real stability – perhaps outside of the trading networks – and therefore few grounds for developing a more stable society. Darius was stuck at its current level because the places that might start pushing the level forward were shattered on a regular basis.