Asher had been following this quietly. "It seems to me absurd to assume that the military hasn't duplicated your experiment. Then figured out a way around this inconvenient aberration, pacifism. Humanization."
"Not impossible, Asher, but unlikely. I'm jacked, one-way, with hundreds of military people, from private to general. If anyone was involved in an experiment, or had even heard a rumor of one, I would know."
"Not if everyone in authority was also jacked oneway. And the experimental subjects isolated, like yours, or disposed of."
That was worth a moment of silence. Would military scientists have inconvenient subjects killed?
"I'll admit the possibility," Marty said, "but it's remote. Ray and I coordinate all the military research on soldierboys. For someone to get a project approved, funded, and implemented without our being aware ... possible. But it's possible to flip a coin and come up heads a hundred times in a row."
"Interesting that you bring up numbers, Marty," Reza said. He'd been scribbling on a napkin. "Take a best-case scenario, where you have everyone agreeing to become humanized, and lining up to get jacked.
"First of all, one out of ten or twelve dies or goes crazy. I'm already trying to figure ways to get out of it."
"Well, we don't know – "
"Let me go on just a second. If it's one out of twelve, you're killing six hundred million people to ensure that the rest of them won't kill anybody. You're already making Hitler look like an amateur, by two orders of magnitude."
"There's more, I'm sure," Marty said.
"There is. What do we have, six thousand soldierboys? Say we build a hundred thousand. Everybody has to spend two weeks jacked-and that's after they spend five days getting their brains drilled out and recovering. Call it twenty days per person. Assuming seven billion survive the surgery, that's seven thousand people per machine. It sounds like a hundred forty thousand days to me. That's almost four hundred years. Then we all live happily ever after-the ones who live at all."
"Let me see that." Reza handed the napkin to Marty. He traced the column of figures with his finger. "One thing that's not in here is the fact that you don't need a whole soldierboy. Just the basic brain-to-brain wiring, and IV drips for nourishment. We could set up a million stations, not a hundred thousand. Ten million. That reduces the time scale to four years."
"But not the half-billion deaths," Belda said. "It's academic to me, since I only plan on living a few more years. But it does seem a high price to ask."
Asher pushed the button for the waiter. "This didn't come off the top of your head, Marty. How long have you been thinking about it, twenty years?"
"Something like that," he admitted, and shrugged. "You don't really need the death of the universe. We've been on a slippery slope since Hiroshima. Since World War One, actually."
"A secret pacifist working for the military?" Belda said.
"Not secret. The army tolerates theoretical pacifism – look at Julian-so long as it doesn't interfere with work. Most of the generals I know would call themselves pacifists."
The waiter shambled in and took the order. When he left, I said, "Marty's got a point. It's not just the Jupiter Project. There are plenty of lines of research that could ultimately lead to the planet being sterilized, or destroyed. Even if the rest of the universe is unaffected."
"You're already jacked," Reza said, and finished his wine. "You don't get a vote."
"What about people like me?" Amelia said. "Who try to be jacked and fail? Maybe you can put us in a nice concentration camp, where we can't hurt anybody."
Asher laughed. "Come on, Blaze. This is just a thought experiment. Marty's not seriously proposing – "
Marty slapped the table with his palm. "Damn it, Asher! I've never been more serious in my life."
"Then you're crazy. It's never going to happen."
Marty turned to Amelia. "In the past, it's never been imperative that any one person be jacked. If it became an effort on the order of your Jupiter Project-the Manhattan Project-all the work that's been begging to be done would be done!" To Reza: "The same with your half-billion dead. This isn't something that would have to be implemented overnight. A lot of cautious, controlled research, refinement of techniques, and the casualty rate would dwindle, maybe to zero."
"Then to put it in the least kind terms," Asher said, "you're accusing the army of murder. Granted, that's what they're supposed to do, but it's supposed to be people on the other side." Marty looked quizzical. "I mean, if you have thought all along that jacking installation could be made safe, why hasn't the army held off on making new mechanics until it is safe?"
"It's not the army who's a murderer, you're saying. It's me. Researchers like me and Ray."
"Oh, don't get dramatic. I'm sure you've done your best. But I've always felt the human cost of the program was way too high."
"I agree," Marty said, "and it's not just the one-in-twelve installation casualties. Mechanics have an unacceptably high death rate from stroke and heart attack." He looked away from me. "And suicide, during their enlistment or after."
"The death rate for soldiers is high," I said. "That's not news. But it's part of the argument: get rid of soldiering as an occupation.
"Suppose we could develop a way that jacking was a hundred percent successful, with absolutely no casualties. There's still no way you could get everyone to do it. I can just see the Ngumi lining up to have their heads drilled by a bunch of Alliance demon-scientists! Hell, you couldn't even convert our own military. Once the generals found out what you were doing, you'd be history. You'd be compost!"
"Maybe so. Maybe so." The waiter was bringing our drinks. Marty looked at me and stroked his chin. "You feel up to jacking?"
"I suppose."
"Free at ten tomorrow?"
"Yeah, until two."
"Come by my place. I need your input."
"You guys are going to hook up together and change the world?" Amelia said. "Save the universe?"
Marty laughed. "That's not exactly what I had in mind." But it was, exactly.
JULIAN HAD TO BICYCLE a mile through much-needed rain to get to Marty's lab, so he didn't arrive in too festive a mood.
Marty found him a towel, and a lab coat against the airco chill. They sat on a couple of straight-back chairs by the test bed, which was literally two beds, equipped with full-face helmets. There was a nice view of the sodden campus, ten stories down.
"I gave my assistants the Saturday off," Marty said, "and routed all my incoming calls to my home office. We won't be disturbed."
"At doing what?" Julian said. "What do you have in mind?"
"I won't know for sure until we're linked. But I'd just as soon keep it between ourselves, for the time being." He pointed to the data console on the other side of the room. "If one of my assistants was here, she could patch in one-way and eavesdrop."
Julian got up and inspected the test bed. "Where's the interrupt button?"
"You don't need one. You want out, just think 'quit' and the link is broken." Julian looked doubtful. "It's new. I'm not surprised you haven't seen it before."
"Otherwise, you're in control."
"Nominally. I control the sensorium, but that's trivial for conversation. I'll change it to whatever you want."
"One-way?"
"We can start out one-way and go limited two-way, 'stream of conversation,' on mutual consent." As Julian knew, Marty couldn't jack deeply with anyone; he'd had the ability removed for security reasons. "Nothing like you and your platoon. We can't really read each other's minds. Just communicate more quickly and clearly."
"Okay." Julian hiked himself up on the bed and let out a long breath. "Let's get on with it." They both lay down and worked their necks into the soft collars, slipped the plastic sleeves off the water tubes and moved their heads around until the jacks clicked. Then the front half hinged shut over their faces.