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Fenn heard no more, until afterward in reply. While the crowd milled and screamed, while alarms wailed
and observants arrived and human constables came after, he crouched on the duramoss with He'o's body
in his arms.
After all the time since he quit the force, it felt odd to be again in a police chief's office.
Like most of his corps, Georghios believed in physical presence. He made his staff come personally,
daily, to headquarters, as he did himself. Stocky, heavy-featured, gray-haired, he sat behind a battered
desk that was bare except for a terminal and an eidophone, and glowered at the man opposite; but his
anger went beyond this room.
"Yes," he rumbled, "we have identified the killer. Several passersby noticed him lugging his apparatus
down the Prospect before he went inside and up to that vacant apartment. We've gotten fairly reliable
descrip-tions from two or three of them. More to the point, our lab managed to retrieve shed skin cells
off the weapon and map their DNA. He left directly after the murder that rant of his was a recording,
the voice synthesized and disappeared in the confusion. He could be anywhere on Luna. Or if he has
accomplices, which seems likely, he may well have gotten away to Earth. Could have boarded either of
the two ferries that left before we knew who he was and issued our bulletin. A simple disguise would
cover his tracks. But now the alert for him is on the entire net, Solar System-wide. It won't be canceled
till we have him."
That could take years, Fenn thought. Or forever. A clandestine biosculp job to change face and
fingerprints, then a life led cautiously--Even with the cybercosm to help, police resources were limited,
and ever more thinly stretched.
He stirred in his seat. His muscles ached to smash something, anything, but this was the only motion
allow-able here; and he'd better keep speaking low, too. "Who is it?"
"Registered name two names, actually Pedro Do-ver."
Memory surged. "Slag and slaughter, I've met him! He was inciting mayhem on a sophotect in
Mondheim, during the riots after the Prefect's speech about Centauri. I left just a few daycycles later, but
supposed they'd soon hook the scumhead."
Georghios nodded. "Oh, we did. Caught him here in Tychopolis. It took awhile, because there was so
huge a mess to clean up and so many mixed into it. Afterward the courts, the evaluation centers,
everything was swamped with cases. Pedro Dover and other Gizaki members had sharp counselors, who
twisted the 'speedy hearing, determinate finding' rule in knots around the ad-judicators. The upshot was
that he got six months' de-tention for 'emotional instability.' Clear to see, whatever therapy they gave him
there was superficial and didn't take. The offense" " wasn't such as to permit deep-going treatment when
he didn't want it. After release, he con-tinued in his marginal style, doing odd jobs for money he is
good with his hands and spewing his notions at whoever would listen. He didn't seem of any particular
account." A big fist knotted, helpless on the desktop. "Too late now."
Too late indeed, sighed through Fenn. He'o lay dead, frozen till he could be brought home to his people
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for their rites fhat would pive him to the dolnhins. Revival was hardly possible, or if it was, it would be a
cruelty, considering what had been destroyed. No, let the sea re-member him.
Fenn scowled. "Gizaki. I've heard about them, but not much. A dement cult, aren't they?"
"One out of too buggering many. I recall how when I was a sprout, my father told me how we finally had
an adult civilization and in the course of time it would make all of us individually sane. But it's been
changing faster and faster.... Well." Georghios straightened and spoke in a monotone.  Gizaki seems to
have started in thePyr-eneesMountains region of Earth. The word means 'hu-man' in a forgotten local
language. The founder wrote and talked about blood rights, organic life, the heroic Lyudov Rebellion,
which was tragically crushed, that kind of junk memes."
"Yen, we're hearing a lot of them these days, aren't we?"
"The Gizaki are at the far end of the spectrum. I looked up the history of the Lyudovites, trying to see
where this attack today comes from, and found that they weren't totally unreasonable. They feared what
effects sophotectic intelligence, and the general robotization of things, might have. They called for a
moratorium on its development while society decided whether to go ahead with it, and they said the
decision should be no. But it began as a legitimate argument, mistaken or not. Matters did get out of
hand, uprisings followed, casualties were high till order was restored. But that was centuries ago, for
cosmos' sake. The Gizaki don't just say we should stop entropy, they say we've got to reverse it, and if
we don't choose to like maybe because several hundred million people would die when the cybercosm
col-lapsed why, at their appointed hour they'll show us the error of our ways with guns and bombs."
Fenn nodded. "I see. Human trash, knowing they're meaningless, useless, and blaming it on technology.
Put in ifs nlarp anrl humankind will flower, especially their glorious selves. Meanwhile, preach hatred of it
and all its works, including metamorphs. Who're a safer target than the machines." Grimly: "The Lahui
Kuikawa will have to start taking precautions."
"Careful," Georghios said. "We can't let violence run loose, no matter how good it thinks its cause is."
Fenn curbed a rebuttal. He was having matters ex-plained to him at length and in private as a courtesy,
because he had served in the force. No doubt the fact that it had been a close friend of his who died, and [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]