Jim Baen's Universe Volume 1 Number 5 Read online

  "Respect this, Chumlord! You think we don't know the law?"

  Oh, brother. Pete didn't believe there'd ever really been a time when the law concerned itself with who was right and who was wrong, but even in such a mythic age, this would have been a stupid ploy. There was no law against acting like a jackass. In today's world the move was even dumber, because right and wrong were coded in the rules of probity if they existed at all. The law itself was simply a weapon, indifferent to the plights and whims of the people who took it up.

  Laughing would have been the worst possible response, though the stilted, hostile wording of the letter was quaintly generic. Second worst would be backing out of the page like those three paragraphs actually meant anything. Pete settled instead for the third-worst response: rising to the bait.

  "The informal embodiment of my name," he texted, less calmly than he would have liked, "is Pete. By addressing me otherwise you risk a violation of trademark."

  And by allowing such violations to occur, Pete risked a weakening of his mark. So he annulled the C&D, drafted a full-fledged restraining order and a punitive damage claim, and jabbed a fat bolus of meaningless data in the stranger's pipe to further lag up his response time. One click could send the guy spiraling into debt, and suddenly he seemed to know it; emoticons cooling from red to blue to a deep, submissive pink. Pete's upbringing, his years of legal training, his automated responders and motion scripts were way more than a match for some random 'scriber's temper tantrum.

  Now, objectively the stranger deserved to be taught a lesson, and emotionally speaking, Pete wanted to be that teacher. And since the letter of the law required him to defend his mark with all due diligence and vigor, he'd be well within his rights. Unfortunately, in unequal encounters like this, the code of probity required the mark holder to be the better man, and, anyway, barging in here oozing money and 'tude was clearly a provocative and ill-thought-out move. Winning this exchange would not advance Pete's cause, and might hurt it.

  "This could get expensive," he texted publicly to Muffy, in fonts and formats of mock concern. To the stranger he said, "I see you do know the law, sir. I wish more of my own subscribers did. What say we settle for zero damages?"

  That brought another flare of red, and for a moment Pete thought—even hoped?—the guy was really going to try something. But the color faded quickly to gray. "Misunderstanding," the stranger footnoted, in the smallest text his interface would allow.

  And that was good enough for Pete and Muffy, who logged the exchange, then took the opportunity to back out with all marks and subscribers intact. But it wasn't exactly an auspicious start to their inquiry, and as they surfed away Pete mentally began the task of drawing up litigation plans against Chaos Home. He wasn't giving up hope—not by a life annuity!—but he needed a Plan B ready if things went skippy on him.

  Said Muffy, "No offense, Poot, but I'm picking the next place."

  * * *

  In fact, she picked the next eleven places, ten of which were uncannily savvy choices but still came up napes. The eleventh, though—a massively multipersonal delusion called Vee Rail Cartel—provided a solid lead.

  "John Wireless Access Point, III," said an anonymous lady gamester in tricorn space helmet, dangling from the vent stack of an Iron Mammoth on a megameter of vertical rail. "He used to play proxy golf geocache with the director, back in the century."

  Scuttlebutt around the delusion held this gal's network to be deeply connected, if perhaps a bit stale.

  "Really," Pete said, mulling that. He himself was dressed as a Sector Sheriff, with twin lightshooters strapped crossways on his hips and a column of vaporized reactor coolant chuffing backstream in the space above his head.

  "We've heard that name, John Point," confirmed Muffy, in the garb of an Air Tax Auditor. These Old Space dramas were corned cheese and speedball, but gawd if they weren't a hoot on a Sunday morning. Chaos Home owned them all, of course.

  And Muffy was right, hyah, they had heard that string of syllables at least twice already in the course of their investigation. But Pete realized suddenly that without the tribal tongue-click to signify a trademark symbol, it simply hadn't registered as a human name, or anyway not the name of a person you'd expect to find virching the corridors of power.

  "Last I heard was some decades ago," the gamester noted, "before I retired from Point's service. I could be out-of-date."

  "What did you do, exactly?"

  "Geocaddy," the lady said, shrugging, as if it should be obvious. "I was good; I'd hand you the whip for any half wavelength at all, without so much as a word to the wise. Just there, you know? The director even tried to hire me away, once. Of course, he was just another marklord back then, Barry Pondu Cleaning Products. He wasn't a scalp or anything, I just . . . couldn't see myself there." A pause, and then: "Do sometimes wonder what might've happened if I hadn't laughed."

  "Can you forward us a link to, uh, Mr. Point?" Muffy asked prettily.

  "Lespoint III, dear," the lady snarked. "That's what his friends call him. I take it the name doesn't index for you? I'll summarize a long and sordid bio with one word: 'Neoscetic.'"

  Pete frowned, parsing and dredging the term. "He's off-line? Some old-tech purist?"

  "And then some." The gamester's smirk said a lot, but nothing Pete could actually interpret. "He started out as a conscientious nonsubscriber in the Mark Litigations, and later encouraged the Great Infringement through a program of graywaring and flaccid resistance. He even filed actions against the open-source licensing cartel for price fixing, racketeering, and enforcing an undeclared lien."

  "Jeez," Pete said, with appreciative horror. "I take it the Sourcers 'voked his privs?"

  "And then some." The woman's smile deepened, becoming wistful. "I'll summarize with another word: 'exnetworkated.' Oh, don't look so shocked. In the end they pulled the fiber right out of the ground, on the theory that he gave a crap. But you see, that's what he wanted all along. Not just for himself, but for all of us. A true ideologue, that man."

  "We'll say hi to him for you," Pete told her sincerely.

  * * *

  There was more to it than that—a bit of ceremony and a bit of theater, a bit of help with her causes inside the delusion's gameworld. A light fight, of all things! Pete had absorbed the protocols for this sort of deal with his mother's milk; among the holder class and even the high-end functionaries he knew exactly what dance to dance. It took an hour and a half, but he came away with permissions to the woman's real name and a set of GPS coordinates.

  So Muffy really did rent them a dragonfly, and surprised Pete by piloting it herself. This was only slightly more complicated than, for example, surfing the undeveloped terabytes of Cheese Information Center, but it still took a certain measure of confidence, of verve, of full-presence training. He owned a pilot's license himself, but without chauffeurs at her beck Muffy had apparently had more chance to practice the art; she coolly flitted them out of the city and across an expanse of ocean, and Pete was too embarrassed to tell her she was flying fast enough and low enough to really scare him. Dodging ship masts and radio buoys—gawd, what a trip!

  "My goodness," she said later, when they'd completed their ocean crossing—and an even hairier mountain crossing—and were hovering above their destination: the poor, exnetworkated homestead of John Wireless Access Point, III. "It's an orchard."

  "Yeeesss," Pete grudgingly agreed. But this was a real stretch of the term; other words might just as easily apply, like "paddy" or "jungle" or "maze." There were vine-covered trees down there in a rough grid pattern, but between them were squares of marsh that glittered in the noonday sun, and high glass walls scattered here and there, separating one square of the grid from its immediate neighbor. The purpose of this was not at all obvious; since the walls didn't form any actual enclosures, it seemed to Pete that critters and pollen and such could go right around them. There were antique robots, too; a bewildering variety of rolling, hopping, floating forms down there
amid the vegetation. So right away the place gave off a kind of crazy-obsessive vibe. Otherworldly, almost.

  There was a farmhouse of sorts, too: a mound of earth covered in grass and flowers, but also in terraces and glass domes. There was even an obvious landing pad, marked out on a flat stretch of lawn with rings and symbols in different-colored grass.

  Under normal circumstances he and Muffy would've called ahead, or at least proximity-pinged the household with their biographical data and purpose of visit. As it was, Pete settled for popping the dragonfly's canopy and shouting down with a bullhorn, "Ho, Lespoint III! Your old caddy, Veronica Von Biergarten, says hello! May we touch down?"

  This produced no immediate response, so he repeated it twice more, until finally a grumpy-looking figure—his gray hair and bathrobe fluttering in the downdraft—stalked out through a doorway and onto the lawn, then waved them down with a pair of faded semaphore flags.

  Minutes later, when the engines had stopped and the entomopter wings were rocking slower and quieter with every passing second, the man called out to Pete and Muffy, "Veronica's not with you. Is this a joke? Are you reporters again, after all these years?"

  "No, sir," Pete reassured, giving his full name and title, and adding, "We disturb you only with the greatest reluctance."

  "Yes?" He was striding up, looking at the two of them narrowly. "Well, welcome to Real Estate, my home. Are you familiar with physical space? Can you walk?"

  "Um, yes," Muffy answered for them, sounding put off by such a strange question.

  "No offense," the man said, sidling up to the cockpit and offering his hand. "The world's been getting awfully . . . hypothetical lately. Hi, yes. I'm Lesspoint III, as you seem to know. Climb on out of there . . . I . . . may I offer you . . ."

  He stood by awkwardly while Pete and Muffy exited the dragonfly and stepped out into the dewy grass.

  "What can I help you with?" he asked finally.

  "I'm told you know the director," Pete said without preamble, because in this particular situation, that was how the dance went. "Can you be persuaded to help us?"

  "Ah." Lesspoint sucked his teeth and once again looked the two of them over. He seemed genuinely puzzled. "Persuaded, eh? Do you . . . have something I need?"

  "Uh," said Pete, "well, possibly. I'll confess we're not really familiar with your needs."

  "They're minimal," said Lesspoint, not snarking but simply stating it as a fact. He turned, waving a hand toward his trees. "I've got mulberry over nut palm and citrus over pandanus over blueberry and flax and hemp, with green beans creeping over all of it. Six edible layers! In between I've got rice and cattail over flightless ducks over catfish and crawfish. There . . . boy, there isn't a living thing on this property I can't eat, wear, smoke, or stuff in a pillow. Over behind the hill I've got limestone for cement, and clay for, you know, clay. My fuel sources are deadwood and sunlight."

  He spoke as though these were the only things in the world: food, clothing, shelter, energy. What more could I need? his tone implied.

  "What about medical care? Or entertainment?" Muffy tried. "Without a network connection you must have a hard time receiving content. Or paying royalties!"

  "Old books and movies," Lespoint answered, sounding even more puzzled. "And old music, synthesized of course. Doctors? I don't use 'em. Royalties? I haven't paid a license fee in thirty years."

  And now it was Pete's turn to be confused. "But the formats, sir. The formats for those media are controlled by Chaos Home. You know that, right? You're not . . . committing piracy, I hope."

  John Wireless Access Point snorted, squinting hard at Pete and Muffy for a long moment. "Are you for real?" Then his face grew more serious, and he ran a hand over it in a funny sort of despair. "Oh, gawd, you are. A marklord and his secretary, living in a world of linked portfolios. The United Directory of Properties, is it? It'd cook your brain to imagine anything outside of that. People like me are from some other dimension you can't even perceive. Listen, why don't you come inside? I've got something to show you."

  "People like you?" asked Pete. "You mean Neoscetics?"

  "I mean free human beings," the man answered, without anger or condescension but with perhaps a trace of pity.

  They followed him inside.

  * * *

  It was educational, to say the least. Shelves groaned under the weight of paper books; speakers chattered with voice traffic over unlicensed radio frequencies. Unlicensed, in this day and age! The aud-vid synthesizer was old enough that Lespoint actually seemed to own it outright; he could turn it on without paying royalties, connection charges, or subscription fees—to Chaos home or anyone else. Even his electricity was generated on-site.

  "Living outside your system," he said to Pete and Muffy, handing them clay mugs of fresh-squeezed juice, "does not by itself mean piracy. Just how vital do you think 'content' is, that I'd need to steal it? For you, the mark holders—the landlords of intellectual property—are on top of the world, and subscribers are at the bottom. And that may be true. Poor subscribers! Forced to choose between exorbitant fees to a hundred different portfolios, or else selling all their choices for a single-provider discount. Or, yes, breaking the precious law your kind has stacked so heavily against them."

  They were in a kitchen, bathed in natural light.

  "'Our kind?'" Pete said, feeling defensive not only for himself but for his entire demographic. "That's hardly fair, sir. The marklords stepped up in an age of turmoil. Baseless suits were bankrupting innocent professionals and even common laborers. The 'insurance' industry abandoned its commitments and fled, until finally no one was safe. People flocked to the holders for protection, and they got it. They still do."

  Lespoint snorted. "'Flocked' is an apt word, kiddo. With snapping dogs on all sides, the people were driven like sheep. Into your loving arms, yes. No offense, but the mark holders simply found a loophole to enrich themselves, never suspecting the fiduciary and attorney-client duties that would tumble in through the same gap. You're a CompService boy, aren't you? Cheese Information Center? Gawd, I remember your grandpappy, dreaming a world of safe profits. Well, the subscribers were protected from each other, I'll give him that. And to a lesser extent, from the naked greed of the other holders. His license-sharing agreements allowed people to eat and breathe without fear of getting personally sued for it. But could he shield himself? He lived out his days in constant litigation, and from the look of things, so will you."

  "We've been infringed," Pete told him.

  "Of course you have."

  "Subscribers indebted, useful properties called into dispute," said Muffy.

  "Yes, well. That's the way these things go."

  "It's stupid." Pete glowered. "It undermines mutual profit. It's bad for holders and subscribers everywhere. It flies in the face of probity!"

  Lespoint threw back his head and laughed. "Probity is a pleasant dream, kiddo. Have you mistaken it for real life? Gawd, I see you have. Really, when have fancy words ever stood in the way of greed? Even for an idealist like you?"

  "I beg your pardon?" Pete said, rising from his chair. "We offer basic food rights to all comers, and reasonable code charges on designer cuisine. Nearly every subscriber is a potential contractor or creditee. We provide a full-service media bar, along with scaled access to the latest clothing and medicine. Capacity is the only thing holding us back; with limited IP, we're forced to barter for certain necessities. But we do. Even our lowliest subscribers are fully privved."

  "No offense," Lespoint said, amusedly motioning for Pete to sit back down. "But your subscribers' fortunes are yours to control. Yes? You charge what you like, on whatever terms you like, then you give back what you like in services, legal protection, and billing credit. Oh, sure, if you turn the cost/benefit dial down too far, they'll revolt, or flee to some other portfolio. Not that anyone will offer them better terms, of course. But this is the genius of our age: to force everyone to subscribe to something. Ultimately, the entire mar
ket is captive."

  "Our fees are the lowest in the business," Pete snapped, now sliding toward genuine anger. "And our customer service ratings are among the highest."

  "Are they?" Lespoint raised an eyebrow. "Well, then, it's no wonder your rival lords are infringing. You've broken the cartel, the unwritten agreement to keep people poor, lazy, and beholden. Shame, shame."

  After that came an uncomfortable silence, which Pete and Muffy covered by sipping from their mugs.

  "You're a very cynical man," Muffy said, finally.

  To which Lespoint just nodded his agreement. "I am. It's the curse of anyone wise enough to imagine a better world. Or old enough to remember one."

  He took a drink from his own mug, and added, "You probably pay the Pauls folio for every bite of fish you've ever eaten. Am I right? When I was a boy, you know, it was legal to harvest wild trout right out of the streams. Just gut 'em and fry 'em with some lemon and butter. You needed a license, of course, and someone to police for cruelty and overfishing, but the natural world belonged to everyone. That, of course, made it the enemy of commerce, but I still have some trout here on the property, breeding in tanks. No gene splices, no royalties, no one to beg for my supper. Can you imagine? Gawd, what a fossil I am. Keeping this place up takes a lot of work, kiddo. Someday I'll drop dead, and the weeds and lawyers will have it all."