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Authors: Jr. L. E. Modesitt

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THE OLD DRAFF'S TALE
I
n the low and still-too-near old days before the small stars scarred the fields to ashes, before the lands smoked, and before the ice walked the world, there were many types of fishes in the sea, and many animals that roamed the forests and plains and hills, and birds with all colors of feathers that roosted and perched and strutted.
But there was only one kind of human. Sometimes that kind was man, sometimes woman, sometimes child, but for all the names, they were the same. Some were taller, and some were shorter, or thinner or thicker, and some spoke Anglas, and some Nippin, and some Mandi. But they were the same. That is, they all thought in the old-fashioned manner, and their thoughts stayed inside their heads.
Their thoughts stayed inside their heads.
Yet into that low and not-so-far-off time were born the fathers of the cybs and the demis, the dreamer Krikwats, the doer Ibmer, and the mighty Gates.
Ibmer, with wire and diode and solder and chip, made the first cyb. It was not a good cyb, for it was of metal and ceramic and wire, and it was not really alive. It could count very fast and compare pictures of things, if a human fed those pictures into its head. And it was backwards, because it could only calculate. People could see its calculations, but it could see nothing that it was not told, and its calculations stayed within its metal head.
Its calculations stayed within its metal head.
Then came Gates, and he asked, “How can I make this cyb help humans?” Because no one answered him, he answered himself, and his answer was, “I will build something that will help the cyb think.” So he did, and he built an invisible softweb that gave the first cybs commands on how to turn calculations into thoughts. At first, it took all sorts of different softwebs, and the way the metal cybs thought was very, very slow. Their thoughts were very, very simple and very, very strong, and those thoughts stayed within their webs and metal heads.
Their thoughts stayed within their webs and metal heads.
Then came the Interleavers, and they took the unliving cybs and made them smaller and smaller, and they extended the webs of Gates so that humans could think their complicated thoughts as quickly as the mechanical cybs could think their simple thoughts. Among the first was halfJack, and he died, and yet he did not, and his circuits wound through OldCity unto the generations.
Soon there was no telling where the thoughts of the human ended and the thoughts of the machine began, and the new human-cybs sent their thoughts along the wires and circuits and around all of Old Earth, and they
began to insist that everyone send thoughts and ideas along the fibrelines.
They insisted that everyone use the fibrelines.
But some did not want to open their minds to all who prowled the circuits, and some could not, and still others said that the new-cybs were no longer even human. Others, such as the sons and daughters of Krikwats, used the metal cybs that spun thoughts on the webs of Gates to prod and peer within themselves, and they unwound their souls and the very cells of their bodies. Then they rewound them back into helices, but they rewound themselves tighter and straighter than they had been, and some of the thoughts and cells were left outside their bodies.
“Now what shall we do with what remains outside us?” asked the one called Neverte.
“Let us weave them into an invisible net to link us together,” answered her sister Sebine, “for together we can sense what is happening before it occurs and hear what is said before the words are spoken.”
They did, and, for the first time, their thoughts ran outside their heads, without wires and circuits and fibrelines.
Their thoughts ran outside their heads.
They were the first demis, and that was the beginning of the new world, and those who knew what had happened were few, and those who did not were many, and they were those who would soon be called draffs. And the thoughts of the old draffs, as is yet proper, still remained inside their heads.
The thoughts of the draffs still remained inside their heads.
Soon, where once there had been only one kind of human, there were now three, and fearful halfbreeds as well. There were the cybs, who wielded the fibrelines like whips, and the demis who walked free of the fibrelines but shared their thoughts beyond the reach of the cybs. And
there were the draffs, who kept their thoughts to themselves.
There were hundreds of scores of demis, and millions of cybs, and millions upon millions of draffs in those days. And the demis planned and ordered, and the cybs organized and directed, and the draffs worked. Thus, the demis became as well-off as all the kings of the ancient days, and though the cybs were like lords, they were not happy.
“You have risen on the work of the cybs and shared nothing,” said the cyb leader Greencross to the great demi Wayneclint. “You must divide your riches with the cybs.”
“We have struggled strong and hard to obtain what we have,” answered Wayneclint, the great coordinator of the demis. “We have toiled long and late into all the nights of the years, and we have improved the lot of all those in the world. We have reduced illness and made the wilderness bloom. We have reclaimed the sea. You have followed our advice and profited, yet you are not satisfied.”
“We, too, have worked hard,” said Greencross. “We have fired the fibrelines of the world, and our brains have burned to help you, but you are rich, and we are not.”
“The draffs work hard, also,” said Wayneclint. “Why have you not shared with them?”
“Because they do not fire the fibrelines of the world, and they do not burn their brains into the evening.”
The draffs do not fire the fibrelines of the world, nor do they burn their brains into the night.
The more the two talked, the angrier and angrier that Greencross became, until sparks flew from his fingers, and the blue glow of power from the nets shrouded him, and he said, “If you do not share willingly, then you will share unwillingly, but share you will.”
“Yet you refuse to share with the draffs, and you chastise us for failing to share with you.” Wayneclint laughed, and his voice was gentle.
“It is not the same!” insisted Greencross.
Wayneclint smiled, but he said nothing, and Greencross became angrier yet.
The next day, Greencross decided to punish the demis for their arrogance, and he changed the moneynets so that no demi could obtain credits or coins through the bank-machines, nor would any of the doors to the cybs' buildings open to a demi, nor could the demis use the skimmers and flitters or even the undersurface ways to get about the great cities. Nor would the food stores sell them provisions.
For days there was confusion as the demis became hungrier and hungrier, and as their children grew weaker, and the smile across Greencross's face grew broader. And he waited for Wayneclint to share … and he waited, and his thoughts of victory crossed the fibrelines to all the cybs.
And his thoughts of victory crossed the fibrelines to all the cybs.
The draffs waited, their eyes turning to the sealed buildings of the cybs and back to the hills beyond the cities where the demis waited behind their walls.
Then, in a space of hours, the mindblazes began, lines of firepain that seared every cyb linked to the fibrelines. The cybs shriveled in pain, and they groveled, and they died.
They shriveled, and groveled, and died.
But before they died, they sent orders along the fibrelines, to the ancient war machines, to the powerblades hanging in the skies, and the mushroom-shaped sledges of death. And the small stars fell across the land and broke it. And the fields were carpeted with ashes, and death-smoke rose from the ash heaps that had been great cities.
The very next morning, the doors to the few buildings of the cybs that yet stood flew open, where there were buildings still left, but none remained within but corpses. Even Greencross was a corpse, with his broad smile
burned into his face, and over all the world there remained but scattered handfuls of cybs.
For every hundred souls that had been draffs, cybs, or demis, but a handful remained, and few indeed were cybs.
Then, before the ashes settled or the small stars ceased falling, Wayneclint gathered the remaining cybs and chastened them and stuffed them into the longships and cast them into the darkness of space. And he told those who remained on Old Earth, “Trust not your thoughts to the fibrelines or to the machines, for all who seek to chain humans with cybnets shall perish as these.”
All who use cybnets shall perish.
And of the draffs of that time? Most died, and those who lived were those who kept their thoughts safe within themselves, and waited, as we still wait, our thoughts safe within us.
Our thoughts are safe within us.
I
'd flown up to Parwon early that morning, keeping the flitter low over the valley under the high and featureless gray clouds. A few sambur had scattered at the sound of the rotors, but some had not, and that bothered me. Were my flitter trips too common, so common that they were accustoming the deer to the aircraft despite my attempts to vary my flight path?
Even after all my maintenance efforts, the odor of hot metal and oil crept into the cockpit, and I ended up flying in a flitter filled with very cold and fresh air.
Another dusting of snow covered the Esklant Peaks to the north, but the flattened mountains to the east of the
locial center had no new snow. Some of the red rocks were showing through, as were the patches of darkness that represented the meleysen groves.
After securing the flitter on the side of the Deseret locial tower away from the two black landers where the cybs were already unloading, I walked the three klicks to center Parwon, at not quite a run, but more than a fast stroll.
The wind gusted out of the north, and the ground was hard underfoot. Two ground shuttles whined past me toward the landing station, and both drivers waved. Though I knew neither, I waved back and kept walking, past the nearly full-klick band of the low bungalows where the admin draff families lived, past the cinqplexes that housed the singles on compensatory duty of some sort, past the residential transient blocs, and across the park toward the Deseret admin building. Most of the functions were below ground, in spaces far larger than the three-story structure in the northwest corner of the park.
The shouts of children playing came from the school west of the admin area, and I smiled. Yslena had gone there, oh so long ago, before …
I shook my head. She had her own life, and that was what she had chosen, three continents away, although she was certainly warm enough when we netlinked, or got together all too infrequently.
The Coordinator's office was on the top level of the admin building. Outside the office was a cedar-paneled waiting room with two long wooden benches backed up against the inside walls. Guarding the door to the office was a cedar-framed and covered console station where Keiko sat. The faintest hint of flowers filled the space, though none were in evidence.
Keiko smiled as I walked in, though she'd certainly known the minute I'd touched down at the station. Her teeth shimmered white against her dark olive skin and
black hair. Keiko was acting as the Coordinator's aide and receptionist—though Old Earth never had a Coordinator except in times such as these, or a receptionist. Certainly, she really didn't need the screen and keyboard input before her, but visible technology always seemed to disarm and reassure people, and we needed someone to remain as a link-point while the world unraveled.
“Greetings, Coordinator.” Keiko's voice was deep and smooth, revealing nothing she did not want disclosed.
I tried not to wince at the title, and my eyes flicked to the closed door to the office, and the three-centimeter-high brass letters.
COORDINATOR
ECKTOR DEJANES
The letters were very shiny, like a vorpal's eyes, and about as soulless.
“The cybs have landed,” she said.
“I saw them, and I probably should go over to the residence bloc—be a presence on site.”
I opened the office door. An antique cedar desk, seemingly as broad as the landing dock of an equally antique battlecruiser, surveyed the seamless expanse of windows that overlooked the park and offered a panorama of the eastern peaks. The Deseret landing station spire was visible to the left side of that expanse.
I turned back to Keiko. “Later, I'll need a shuttle to Ell Control. Just me.” I could have set up the arrangements, but Keiko was there, and before long I wouldn't be able to handle it all, not the way things were headed.
“Yes, ser. Is it safe to leave the cybs unattended?”
“It is right now. Before long, it won't be.” My guts told me I needed to actually check out the feel of the ell station, although a cyb would have called making a noncomputed decision illogical. But life wasn't yes-no, on-off. Life was shades of gray, and rainbows not in the order of
the spectrum. Our bodies have always known more than our minds have acknowledged they knew.
For a few moments, I walked around the enormous office, past the low chairs and matching green upholstered couches, before eyeing the leather swivel.
A long black cloak was draped carefully on the coatrack in the corner by the door. I stepped back and asked aloud, although I could have used the net, “What's this?”
“It's a cloak. Arielle left it for you. She said you needed something dramatic.” There was a slight hint of laughter in the smooth voice.
Dramatic? The cybs probably thought we were all too dramatic, dark villains of the evil past. I lifted the heavy fabric, my fingers sliding over the smooth red lining. It was dramatic all right—red and black. Fresh blood and cold dead ashes. The cybs would love that symbolism.
After resettling the cloak on the rack, I tried the swivel chair behind the desk. It squeaked as I sat down, and the odor of well-kept old leather rose around me, bringing back the sense of earlier times. I got up and tried it again. It still squeaked.
“Keiko.”
“I've already asked for some oil from maintenance.” She had: I'd caught the energy pulse of the request that she'd flicked off at the second squeak.
The desk had drawers, two on each side, and they were empty. They'd stay that way. Accumulating paper was hard on the ecology and hard on whoever had to maintain and read it. Besides, the growth of documents generally reflects the lack of trust in a society. No paper trail can make someone accountable. Only self-assumption can. Too many societies had used paper as a substitute for accountability. So far, we'd avoided that mistake. We'd made lots of others, though, and I wasn't certain that naming me Coordinator hadn't been yet another mistake.
Outside the wide windows, snow flurries swirled for a few minutes, then subsided.
With a sigh, I stood and looked toward the east side of the park, in the general direction of the residential bloc that the cybs would be occupying shortly.
“Don't forget the cloak,” Keiko prompted. “Arielle said …”
“She probably said that the imagery was important, didn't she?” I retorted. Crucelle thought the straight demonstration of power was the key. They were both right, which was probably why they'd pushed my name through the Consensus as Coordinator. There have only been eleven Coordinators, and that's if you count the mythical Wayneclint. Maybe he existed, but we'd have had to invent him if he hadn't.
“Yes, ser.” Again, there was the hint of laughter concealed behind the smooth modulated tone.
I took off my jacket and used the straps to fasten the cloak in place, not as heavy as it seemed. I hung the jacket on the wooden rack and headed for the residential bloc.
Keiko gave me a mock-militaristic salute as I left.
“You better be careful. I'll institute conscription, and send you after the cybs.”
“I'll be right behind you, ser.”
“Such confidence.”
“We all have great confidence in our leader.” The white teeth flashed in another smile.
I got the emphasis on “leader.” That's the problem with being Coordinator. You're expected to lead from the front. “I appreciate it.”
By then I was downstairs, but I could feel her grin over the net.
When I stepped outside the admin building, the wind was gusting and swirled the cloak away from my body, and it carried the odors of distant meleysen and not-so-distant snow. I resettled the cloak around me and walked toward
the southern residence bloc and the cyb troopers. Despite the chill and the wind, I didn't even need to jump my metabolic rate; the cloak was warmer than I had expected. That bothered me, because it meant Arielle had made it to be used and worn. She was dead serious about my wearing it as a sort of badge of office. I trusted her comprehensive and calculated logic, but it underscored the nature of the Coordinator as not only leader but target.
I reached the residential bloc just before the ground shuttles arrived and had barely gathered the cloak back around me when out of the first ground shuttle stepped a dozen or more of the marcybs, their dark green dress uniforms crisp, matching dark green berets in place. None wore heavy jackets, just dress blouses that could scarcely have broken the wind, but the chill did not seem to bother them. Their eyes, no matter what color, were flat, like mechanical scanners that missed nothing.
None bore visible weapons, but each carried a large and long kit bag that could and probably did conceal complete ground combat kits. I had few doubts that additional equipment would arrive with each Vereal Union lander.
Studying each marcyb as he or she emerged was Majer Henslom, cold green eyes flicking from one figure to the next, occasionally nodding. The entire process was silent, and I could sense that a portable netlink had already been established in the housing bloc to supplement the personal short-range net capability of the belt units the marcybs wore.
They formed up in rows, by squads or whatever their organizational units were called, each with the nearest corner of a kit bag precisely fifteen millimeters from the toe of each marcyb's right boot. In front of the group, silent, stood Majer Henslom, waiting.
The other majer—Ysslop—waited by the doors to the residential bloc. Her eyes—I realized Ysslop was female—were colder than the intermittent swirls of snow. That I
hadn't sensed her sex the first time I had encountered her indicated to me exactly how alien the cybs really were, or at least some of them were.
On the short side avenue—Frensic—a couple with a single child between them watched as the first group of marcybs walked briskly into the building. The woman shook her head, and the man looked at the cybs. All the cybs were short-haired, whether men or women, all with eyes that saw and did not see.
The draff couple shivered, and I understood why. Cold were the cybs, colder by far than the supercooled mechcybs that ran our own Old Earth, colder than the heart of an antique supercon line or deep space beyond the Oort. And hot was their hatred—hot as the gaze of a kaliram—and their scarcely concealed desire to wreak vengeance upon Old Earth.
Yet what could I do, under the power paradigms? We had retained the ability to apply force, but applying it in anticipation against the cyb-ships would be costly. More important, it would invalidate the Construct.
Then, I reflected with a twisted smile, allowing our destruction would also invalidate the Construct.
Another group of marcybs stiffened, then peeled off, and began to file into the residence bloc, their measured steps automatically transforming the building into a staging barrack.
I glanced back at the couple who had crossed Frensic and were walking slowly across the park toward the Statue of the Unknown, their breath trailing them like white fog. The dark-haired boy between them turned his head and glanced back toward the uniformed cybs, but his mother tugged on his hand, and he finally looked away.
The figure on the red stone pedestal could have been anyone. The sculptor had caught the agony of a soul caught in mindblaze and fire. I always had thought of the statue as the “unknown draff,” and most demis did, but a
good percentage of demis had died in the mindblazes, as well as cybs and draffs.
As another file of marcybs straightened, I swirled the niellen cloak back enough to reveal the red lining and walked through the irregular snow flurries to Majer Henslom.
He nodded, brusquely, as I stopped a good meter from him.
I waited, faintly amused smile in place, listening in on his tactical net.
“ … the local headhonch … scanning me …”
“ … be nice to him, Henslom …”
“ … silly in that black cloak, like a melldram hero … vacuous grin … what do I say …”
“ … less the better …” snapped a nearer transmission, probably from Majer Ysslop. “He can't be as vacuous as he seems, and that means he's dangerous.”
“Him? I could take him apart in moments, even without weapons,” Henslom net-answered.
“You might be surprised, one way or the other.”
“Stuff it, Ysslop.”
“Your farm, Senior Majer Henslom.”
I wanted to sigh, even as I was willing to acknowledge Majer Ysslop's pragmatic insights. The more I heard, the more likely it seemed that nothing had changed over a millennium. Then again, despite all the growth in abilities, basic human emotions never changed. The bottom line was always force. The problem facing me was that the cybs didn't seem to recognize the difference between force and violence.
That was the basis of the SoshWars, back before The Flight. The Mascs relied on violence, and the Fems didn't understand that social controls represented force as surely as the violence of the Mascs. Even millennia after The Flight, the cybs seemed to carry some of the Masc heritage.

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