Free 2312 by Kim Stanley Robinson Page B

Sometimes such individuals were sovereign to quite remarkable little Ruritanias. Swan wondered if Alex had been right in her notion that the solar system’s balkanization was a deliberate but unconscious human reaction to qubes, some kind of resistance to their incipient power.
    Wang greeted Swan and Wahram, and with a quick “Ah, thank you,” took the envelope from Alex that Swan offered to him. It appeared he had already known about it. He read the letter in it, then plugged the tab that fell from it into the nearest desk. He stared atthe desk console for a long time, reading carefully, using a forefinger to keep his place.
    “So sorry to lose Alex,” he said to Swan finally. “Condolences from the heart. She was the hub of our little wheel, and now we spin off like broken spokes.”
    Surprised at this, Swan said, “She told me in her note to me that I should come to you. The messages were left for me in her study. A kind of contingency plan, I guess. And part of it was this envelope for you.”
    “Yes. She told me she might do this. And you also loaded a tab into your internal qube, Alex suggests in her note here.”
    “That’s right. But my qube won’t tell me about it.”
    “That was no doubt Alex’s instruction. The data are specialized. What you have is a kind of backup,” Wang explained apologetically.
    Swan glared at Wang, and then Wahram, and saw that they were in cahoots, like Wahram and Genette back on Mercury. “Tell me what’s going on,” she demanded. “You two were working with Alex on something.”
    The two of them hesitated, and then Wang said, “Yes. For many years. Alex was the hub, as I said. We were working with her.”
    “But she didn’t like being in the cloud,” Swan said, gesturing around her at the station. “She kept things in her head, right? But you work with qubes, isn’t that right? Wang’s qube, Wang’s algorithm?”
    “Yes,” Wang said.
    Wahram said, “To stay off the record, Alex had to stay clear of qubes. And for that she needed a qube’s help. That’s just the way it is now, and she knew that.”
    Wang nodded. “So she chose me. I can’t say why. Possibly she thought I have more contact than I really do with what she used to call the league of unaffiliated worlds. I do have a network ofcontacts like that, but it’s not comprehensive. No one has an accurate description of the system as it exists now.”
    “Is that what Alex wanted?” Swan asked.
    Wahram shook his head. “She knew the system as well as anyone could. Wang knows the unaffiliateds, but more importantly, to my mind, his qube is sequestered here. Its contact with the rest of the system is controlled by Wang. Alex liked that, because she was trying to shift all her dealings over to direct human communication.”
    “But she left these messages,” Swan said. “For if she couldn’t talk. So she wanted
us
to talk. For you two to talk to me.”
    “Evidently.”
    “So tell me what you’re up to!”
    The two men glanced at each other. For a long time they stared at the floor.
    Then Wang looked her in the eye, which caught Swan by surprise. His gaze was intense. “No one knows exactly how to deal with this situation, because it has to do with qubes, and you have a qube embedded in you. So Alex would not tell you about this part of things, and I don’t want to either. Now that Alex’s list of contacts is safely here, we who were working with her can try to proceed with her plans.”
    Swan said, “So you have information from Alex, and my qube has information from Alex, but I can’t have any information from Alex.”
    Wang looked at Wahram. Wahram’s broad face looked as if pins were being stuck into him somewhere. His pop-eyed stare, Wang’s basilisk intensity: they stood there looking at her. They didn’t know what to say to her. They weren’t going to tell her anything.
    With a sudden snort Swan waved them away and left the room.
    T here wasn’t anywhere to go in this little station