Part 15 (2/2)

”I'm real y sorry,” she said, her voice appropriately choked. ”You've caught us al a bit unprepared. Give us-give us two or three hours, and someone wil be back out here to deliver a statement, okay?” Then she gave a stiff bow and dashed up the walkway to join the rest of the fiefcorp.

”Thanks, everybody,” Jara broadcast to the others over ConfidentialWhisper. ”Wel done.

That should do the trick.”

”Do what trick?” scowled Ben.

Jara could hear Horvil's snort from several paces away. ”Don't be an idiot, Ben.”

”But I don't see what-”

”Al five of us, sitting in your mother's estate in West London. Two hundred drudges camped at the gates waiting for us to make a statement. It's probably the safest place in the entire universe right now.”

Benyamin cut his multi connection as soon as the doors closed behind them.

Jara stood in the marbled atrium with the rest of the fiefcorp, simultaneously afraid to sit stil and afraid to move. Just yesterday, the Surina/Natch MultiReal Fiefcorp had been headed for a triumphal exposition before bil ions of potential customers. Now the fiefcorp was-what? Under new management? On hiatus? Defunct?

Moments later, Ben emerged in the flesh from a side hal way and led the group to a large parlor in the house's west wing. Jara kept waiting for the infamous Aunt Beril a or one of her factotums to burst out of some antechamber, but not so much as a liveried attendant came to greet them. Horvil or Benyamin must have told Beril a they were coming. Either she didn't care enough about their presence to raise a fuss or she cared too much to give them the satisfaction.

The group stood in the parlor and stared at the careful y preserved trappings of an earlier age. Cherrywood furniture, stately purple curtains. n.o.body said anything. Final y Jara stepped forward.

”Listen,” she said, her voice low and husky. ”I know ... I know this is al very confusing.

It's confusing to me too. I have no idea what's going on. I don't know what's happening with Natch or Margaret or the leaders.h.i.+p of the fiefcorp or your contracts or-or anything. But here's what I suggest.” She took a breath. ”Let's just pretend that every thing's normal right now. Until we have more information, let's just al ... do the best we can.” She trailed off lamely, hearing the razzes from Natch's imaginary audience in her head.

Hesitant nods from the rest of the fiefcorp. A shrug or two.

Within minutes, they were turning the stuffy parlor into a bona fide war room. Benyamin cleared the drapes off the windows and replaced them with Data Sea news feeds. Horvil converted an antediluvian rol top desk into a bio/logic workbench with the press of a b.u.t.ton. Jara and Merri went around picking up crystal knickknacks, while Vigal found enough seating to form a makes.h.i.+ft conference area.

”Someone get ahold of Robby Robby,” said Jara when everyone had settled down. ”Let's start working on that statement for the drudges. Merri?”

The channel manager crumpled onto a delicate chair next to the sideboard. ”Sure,” she replied in a hoa.r.s.e whisper. ”What are we going to say?”

Jara could feel her mind s.h.i.+ft onto an express track. ”Start with this: 'The Surina/Natch MultiReal Fiefcorp joins the entire world in expressing its sorrow at the pa.s.sing of Margaret Surina. Margaret's bril iance, wisdom, and compa.s.sion set an example for al to fol ow.”'

”That's good s.h.i.+t,” put in Horvil.

”Okay.” Merri nodded. ”I can work with that.”

”The drudges are going to want more detail,” said Serr Vigal, reclining on a plaid sofa so stiff it might never have actual y contained a human being before. ”They're going to ask about the dispensation of Margaret's shares, the work she left behind, what happens to MultiReal, that sort of thing.”

Jara shrugged. ”It doesn't matter. Al we can tel them is what we know, right? And we don't real y know anything. So let's just keep it brief and bland.”

”I'l do the best I can,” said Merri, climbing slowly to her feet like one of the walking dead.

Jara gave her a perplexed look. The channel manager was not the type to bemoan her fate or engage in clumsy theatrics. ”Don't worry,” said Jara.

”Robby can help you ma.s.sage the wording. That's what we're paying him for. Take as long as you need-we've got to keep that crowd out there for a few hours, at least. Maybe longer.”

The a.n.a.lyst swiveled around to face Horvil, who had already managed to unpack half of his bio/logic programming bars on an antique cherrywood hutch. ”Horv, I need you to scour the dock for me. Make sure Natch didn't actual y fol ow through on those threats and release Possibilities when we weren't looking.”

The engineer blinked rapidly with his eyebal s tilted rafterward. ”Nope.”

”Good. Then why don't you do everything you can to unprepare that program for launch.

Wipe the fore and aft tables, the pricing structure, everything.

Put up as many barriers as you can to stop Natch from pul ing that again. We don't want him just throwing MultiReal out to sixty bil ion people on a whim.”

”Natch won't like that,” said Benyamin with a grimace.

”No, he probably won't,” replied Jara. ”But look at it this way. We're not doing anything he can't undo later. We just need to ... slow him down a bit.”

”Why? If his license is suspended, he can't launch a bio/logic program on the Data Sea anyway. Or, at least, he can't charge for it.”

Jara was growing very frustrated very quickly with Benyamin's contrarian att.i.tude. ”Not official y he can't,” she said. ”Not legal y. But when has the law ever stopped Natch from doing anything?”

The young apprentice gave a grudging nod. Even he couldn't argue that point.

Horvil stood behind the desk and cal ed up Possibilities in Minds.p.a.ce. Displayed on such an old workbench, the program looked positively minuscule. ”You know, Pierre Loget has this great dock management routine I've always wanted to try,” he said. ”Lets you craft these sophisticated fore and aft tables, ties in with your accounting ... puts al kinds of access controls on everything. I bet DockManage 35'd tie Natch's hands for a few hours.”

”Go ahead,” said Jara. ”Ben, what's going on with your mother's a.s.sembly line? Are they stil rol ing back the MultiReal code?”

Benyamin shook his head. ”They pretty much stopped doing that when the infoquakes started.”

”Good. Let's cut off their access while we stil can. Shouldn't be a big deal to just revert to the last functioning version before they started tinkering, should it?”

”If MultiReal was a normal program, no, it wouldn't be a big deal,” interjected Horvil. ”If Margaret had built it with standard workbenches and standard bio/logic programming bars from start to finish, no. As things stand ... yes. It's going to be a real pain in the a.s.s.”

Jara sighed. ”See what you can figure out, Ben. Ask some questions, but keep it quiet.

Let's see if we can bring everything back to normal in the next couple days.”

Serr Vigal leaned forward with his hands folded on his lap, looking smal and fragile. ”Is there something I can do to help?”

The a.n.a.lyst blinked. It suddenly occurred to her that the neural programmer had his own company to deal with. He would have been on a shuttle heading for that cognitive processes conference right now if al this chaos hadn't happened. ”Why don't you help me go through the news coverage,” she said. ”We need to know what's going on out there, and we can't rely on InfoGathers to convey al the subtleties.” Vigal nodded.

Jara stopped and took a look around. Aunt Beril a's sterile parlor had become a hive of activity, ful of industrious hands and discreet conversations.

That's good, thought the a.n.a.lyst. We need to keep busy. She moved next to Vigal on the sofa and began combing through Data Sea video feeds.

It didn't take long to track down footage from Andra Pradesh. Drudges, videographers, and curiosity seekers by the hundreds were converging on the Surina compound. A privileged few had already been at the premises when the chaos began. As a result, there were hundreds of different viewpoints and conflicting spins to sort through.

After a few minutes, they located a feed from a tourist group that had been locked in the Center for Historic Appreciation by anxious Council guards.

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