In 3031 the dead did not always stay down.
Human brains were in demand in an exploding cryocyborgic
data-processing industry. Personality-scrubbed and inplugged to
computation and data-storage systems, a few kilos of human nervous
tissue could replace tons of specialized control and volitional
systems.
No remedy for degradation in nervous tissue had yet been found.
The cryocyborgic environment sometimes accelerated decay.
Nerve life had become the practical span limit for men like
Gneaus Storm, who had power, money, and access to the finest
rejuvenation and resurrection technology.
The number of brains available for cryocyborging never filled
demand. The shortfall was filled in a variety of ways. Old Earth
sold the brains of criminals in exchange for hard outworlds
currency. A few were available through underworld channels. The
bulk came of involuntary salvage.
There were a dozen entrepreneurs who jackaled around the edges
of disasters and armed conflicts, snapping up loose bodies to
resell organs. Confederation’s armed forces often left their
lower grade enlisted men where they fell. The soldiers themselves
were indifferent to the fate of their corpses, Most were desperate
men willing to risk anything to earn a long retirement outside the
slums of their birth.
Gneaus Storm’s agents dogged the service battlegrounds
too, selecting men who had died well. Cryonically preserved, they
were revived later and asked to join the Legion.
Most accepted with a childlike gratitude. A rise from a slum to
the imaginary glory and high life of the Iron Legion, after having
escaped the Reaper by Storm’s grace, seemed an elevation to
paradise. The holonets called them the Legion of the Dead.
Helga Dee used hundreds of scavenged brains in her business.
Only the Dees themselves knew the capacity of her Helga’s
World “information warehouse.” Publicly, Helga admitted
only to capabilities in keeping with brain acquisitions that were a
matter of public record.
Storm was sure she controlled a capacity twice what she
admitted.
Helga’s World was a dead planet. The human contagion had
touched it only once, to create and occupy the vast installation
called Festung Todesangst. The heart of Helga’s far-reaching
Corporation lay there, deep beneath the surface of that remote rock
cold in the claws of entropy, orbiting a dying star. No one went in
but family, the dead, and that occasional person the Dees wanted to
disappear. No one came out but Dees.
The defenses at Festung Todesangst were legend. They were as
quirky and perverse as Helga herself.
Men who went down to Helga’s World were like last
year’s mayflies: gone forever. And Gneaus Storm meant to
penetrate that ice-masked hell hole.
He did not expect Helga to welcome him. She hated him with a
hatred archetypal in its depth and fury. Michael’s children
all hated Storm. Each had compelled him to recognize his or her
existence and respond. His crime was that he had come out on top
every time.
The Dee offspring were worse than their father.
Fearchild had raised his fuss, costing Cassius a hand. Storm and
Cassius now kept him confined in a place only they knew. He was a
hostage guaranteeing restraint by the others. The Dees were,
unfortunately, all irrational, passionate people, apt to forget in
heated moments.
Helga had tried to avenge Fearchild by capturing Storm’s
daughter Valerie and using her as part of Festung Todesangst.
Storm’s response had been to capture Helga and deliver her
to her own fortress so badly mauled that she had been able to
survive only by cyborging in to her own machines. Forever damned to
a mechanical half-life, she calculated and brooded and awaited a
day when she could requite his cruelties.
Seth-Infinite, too, had given frequent offense. He seemed to be
everywhere and nowhere, appearing openly some place like Luna
Command, then disappearing before the swiftest hunters closed in.
Half the things he did were nose-thumbings at the Storms. Like his
father, he was slippery, and he always had several schemes in the
air. Like Michael, he did nothing for a simple, linear reason.
It would be a fine, serendipitous thing, Storm reflected, if
Cassius surprised Seth-Infinite on The Mountain.
In 3031 the dead did not always stay down.
Human brains were in demand in an exploding cryocyborgic
data-processing industry. Personality-scrubbed and inplugged to
computation and data-storage systems, a few kilos of human nervous
tissue could replace tons of specialized control and volitional
systems.
No remedy for degradation in nervous tissue had yet been found.
The cryocyborgic environment sometimes accelerated decay.
Nerve life had become the practical span limit for men like
Gneaus Storm, who had power, money, and access to the finest
rejuvenation and resurrection technology.
The number of brains available for cryocyborging never filled
demand. The shortfall was filled in a variety of ways. Old Earth
sold the brains of criminals in exchange for hard outworlds
currency. A few were available through underworld channels. The
bulk came of involuntary salvage.
There were a dozen entrepreneurs who jackaled around the edges
of disasters and armed conflicts, snapping up loose bodies to
resell organs. Confederation’s armed forces often left their
lower grade enlisted men where they fell. The soldiers themselves
were indifferent to the fate of their corpses, Most were desperate
men willing to risk anything to earn a long retirement outside the
slums of their birth.
Gneaus Storm’s agents dogged the service battlegrounds
too, selecting men who had died well. Cryonically preserved, they
were revived later and asked to join the Legion.
Most accepted with a childlike gratitude. A rise from a slum to
the imaginary glory and high life of the Iron Legion, after having
escaped the Reaper by Storm’s grace, seemed an elevation to
paradise. The holonets called them the Legion of the Dead.
Helga Dee used hundreds of scavenged brains in her business.
Only the Dees themselves knew the capacity of her Helga’s
World “information warehouse.” Publicly, Helga admitted
only to capabilities in keeping with brain acquisitions that were a
matter of public record.
Storm was sure she controlled a capacity twice what she
admitted.
Helga’s World was a dead planet. The human contagion had
touched it only once, to create and occupy the vast installation
called Festung Todesangst. The heart of Helga’s far-reaching
Corporation lay there, deep beneath the surface of that remote rock
cold in the claws of entropy, orbiting a dying star. No one went in
but family, the dead, and that occasional person the Dees wanted to
disappear. No one came out but Dees.
The defenses at Festung Todesangst were legend. They were as
quirky and perverse as Helga herself.
Men who went down to Helga’s World were like last
year’s mayflies: gone forever. And Gneaus Storm meant to
penetrate that ice-masked hell hole.
He did not expect Helga to welcome him. She hated him with a
hatred archetypal in its depth and fury. Michael’s children
all hated Storm. Each had compelled him to recognize his or her
existence and respond. His crime was that he had come out on top
every time.
The Dee offspring were worse than their father.
Fearchild had raised his fuss, costing Cassius a hand. Storm and
Cassius now kept him confined in a place only they knew. He was a
hostage guaranteeing restraint by the others. The Dees were,
unfortunately, all irrational, passionate people, apt to forget in
heated moments.
Helga had tried to avenge Fearchild by capturing Storm’s
daughter Valerie and using her as part of Festung Todesangst.
Storm’s response had been to capture Helga and deliver her
to her own fortress so badly mauled that she had been able to
survive only by cyborging in to her own machines. Forever damned to
a mechanical half-life, she calculated and brooded and awaited a
day when she could requite his cruelties.
Seth-Infinite, too, had given frequent offense. He seemed to be
everywhere and nowhere, appearing openly some place like Luna
Command, then disappearing before the swiftest hunters closed in.
Half the things he did were nose-thumbings at the Storms. Like his
father, he was slippery, and he always had several schemes in the
air. Like Michael, he did nothing for a simple, linear reason.
It would be a fine, serendipitous thing, Storm reflected, if
Cassius surprised Seth-Infinite on The Mountain.