Ruler of Naught Read Free Page B

him.
    “Why can’t you just cut out the circuits responsible for the
apparition and get this under control?” Barrodagh demanded. “Just yesterday,
because of your incompetence and delay in dealing with this, two of the Tarkans
posted in the Ivory Antechamber were tricked by the apparition into shooting
each other. One of them will likely die.”
    But Barrodagh had gone too far. By making his accusation so
specific, within the realm of the tech’s profession, he’d given Ferrasin an
out.
    “C-c-c-c-ut out the circuits?” The tech’s voice squeaked
with nervousness as he forced his way past a painful stammer, but the sarcasm
came through clearly nonetheless. He gulped and resumed speaking with a hint of
singsong, his stammer subsiding somewhat. “Do you think the palace computer is
like your compad, a little chip on a substrate? This system is almost a
thousand years old, distributed across thousands—perhaps millions—of nodes
throughout the Mandala and the entire planet, self-maintaining... ” He paused,
swallowed as a strange expression crossed his face and his voice dropped to a
tone of almost superstitious awe. “... almost self-aware.”
    Anaris listened carefully. He could sense a faint fear that
the apparitions were more than just computer artifacts—or perhaps that was just
Ferrasin’s Panarchist terror of trespassing the Ban. But certainly the majority
of Dol’jharians in the palace would interpret the specters as supernatural, no
matter what explanations were offered.
    That could make the haunting an integral part of Anaris’s
campaign, if he could understand its powers and limitations. And I am the
only one here who’s had any experience with it—who is really sure what it is. He would have to be sure of Ferrasin before revealing that knowledge.
    “So find the node with the ghost in it and cut it
out!” A tic twitched at Barrodagh’s right eye, and it fluttered furiously as
the Bori apparently realized his error in using the word “ghost.” The Avatar frowned,
and Juvaszt’s face lost a little of its impassivity.
    “Of course, serach Barrodagh,” said Ferrasin with snarling
courtesy, almost singing the words, his anger expunging his caution with the
remainder of his stutter. “As well tell your surgeon, ‘Find that neuron with
the memory of getting caught with my tuszpi in my hand and cut it out so
I don’t have to suffer the embarrassment of remembering it.’”
    Barrodagh’s face tautened to skull-like rigidity. The tech’s
use of the Dol’jharian diminutive for penis—and the reference to masturbation,
an abomination to Dol’jharians—was bad enough, but to say that to a Catennach,
smooth to the belly—
    After a beat, Ferrasin blanched, too late aware of the
magnitude of his trespass. Next to Anaris, Morrighon jotted a note. I can be
sure of him now. No one else can protect him from Barrodagh.
    The tableau broke as the Avatar snorted with amusement. Discipline
here has suffered greatly , thought Anaris as he took the opportunity.
    “What would the likely consequences of trying to stop the
apparition be?” he asked.
    Barrodagh’s tic returned and Ferrasin answered him with
returning boldness. His speech was easier in the security of expertise. “Lord,
no information in this system has any location, as we understand it, any more
than memory has a location in your brain. The secrets of a millennium of
Arkadic rule are here, and if we go about snipping and cutting to expunge a
basically harmless holographic projection, we could lose it all. As it is,
we’re trying to remove the projectors from critical areas, as in here, but the
computer keeps replacing them—and that ability most definitely cannot be
destroyed without crashing the whole system.”
    “Enough,” said the Avatar. “We will endure the apparitions,
as long as you continue to extract information from the computer. When the
information ceases, do whatever is needed to eliminate them.”
    Ferrasin bowed and