Free Foundation Fear by Gregory Benford Page A

in those leagues.”
    “I appreciate the concern,” Hari said dryly.
    Dors tapped a finger to her lips. “I think you came over rather well.”
    “I didn't want to seem as though I were deliberately cutting up a majority leader from the
     High Council,” Hari said heatedly.
    “But that's what you were doin',” Yugo said.
    “I suppose, but at the time it seemed like polite ... banter,” he finished lamely. Edited
     for 3D, it was a quick verbal Ping-Pong with razor blades instead of balls.
    “But you topped him at every exchange,” Dors observed.
    “I don't even dislike him! He has done good things for the Empire.” He paused, thinking.
     “But it was ... fun.”
    “Maybe you do have a talent for this,” she said.
    “I'd rather not.”
    “I don't think you have much choice,” Yugo said. “You're gettin' famous.”
    “Fame is the accumulation of misunderstandings around a well-known name,” Dors said.
    Hari smiled. “Well put.”
    “It's from Eldonian the Elder, the longest-lived emperor. The only one of his clan to die
     of old age.”
    “Makes the point,” Yugo said. “You gotta expect some stories, gossip, mistakes.”
    Hari shook his head angrily. “No! Look, we can't let this extraneous matter distract us.
     Yugo, what about those bootleg personality constellations you 'acquired'?”
    “I've got 'em.”
    “Machine translated? They will run?”
    “Yeah, but they take an awful lot of memory and running volume. I've tuned them some, but
     they need a bigger parallel-processing network than I can give them.”
    Dors frowned. “I don't like this. These aren't just constellations, they're sims.”
    Hari nodded. “We're doing research here, not trying to manufacture a superrace.”
    Dors stood and paced energetically. “The mat ancient of taboos is against sins. Even
     personality constellations obey rigid laws!”
    “Of course, ancient history. But -- ”
    “Prehistory.” Her nostrils flared. “The prohibitions go back so far, there are no records
     of how they started -- undoubtedly, from some disastrous experiments well before the
     Shadow Age.”
    “What's that?” Yugo asked.
    “The long time -- we have no clear idea of how long, it lasted, though certainly several
     millennia -- before the Empire became coherent.”
    “Back on Earth, you mean?” Yugo looked skeptical.
    “Earth is more legend than fact. But yes, the taboo could go back that far.”
    “These are hopelessly constricted sims,” Yugo said, “They don't know anything about our
     time. One is a religious fanatic for some faith I never heard of. The other's a smartass
     writer. No danger to anybody except maybe themselves.”
    Dors regarded Yugo suspiciously. “If they're so narrow, why are they useful?”
    “Because they can calibrate psychohistorical indices. We have modeling equations that
     depend on basic human perceptions. If we have a pre-ancient mind, even simmed, we can
     calibrate the missing constants in the rate equations.”
    Dors snorted doubtfully. “I don't follow the mathematics, but I know sims are dangerous.”
    “Look, nobody savvy believes that stuff any more,” Yugo said. “Mathists have been running
     pseudo-sims for ages. Tiktoks -- ”
    “Those are incomplete personalities, correct?” Dors asked severely.
    “Well, yeah, but -- ”
    “We could get into very big trouble if these sims are better, more versatile.”
    Yugo waved away her point with his large hands, smiling lazily. “Don't worry. I got them
     all under control. Anyway, I've already got a way to solve our problem of getting enough
     running volume, machine time -- and I've got a cover for us.”
    Hari arched his eyebrows. “What's this?”
    “I've got a customer for the sims. Somebody who'll run them, cover all expenses, and pay
     for the privilege. Wants to use them for commercial purposes.”
    “Who?” Hari and Dors asked together.
    “Artifice Associates,” Yugo said triumphantly.
    Hari looked blank.