Waking Gods (Themis Files #2)(11)

Daniel Stewart (Rutland and Melton) (LD): I would like to remind the Prime Minister that this government survives because of Lib Dem votes. It would be imprudent for the Prime Minister of a minority government to brush aside our concerns if he wishes to continue governing. The Prime Minister thinks he can ignore the British people until the next election, but he cannot ignore us, or that election will happen much sooner. Liberal Democrats will not be silenced. I for one will give some serious thought to these issues before casting my vote next week.





FILE NO. 1429

INTERVIEW WITH MR. BURNS, OCCUPATION UNKNOWN

Location: New Dynasty Chinese Restaurant, Dupont Circle, Washington, DC

—Greetings, Mr. Burns. I took the liberty of ordering for you.

—Did you get the Indonesian rice?

—Kung Pao chicken. It has been nine years after all.

—What if I’d been here yesterday? You know people do eat even when you’re not around.

—Forgive me. I did not mean to be presumptuous. I assumed you had been away since I have been unable to reach you for nearly a decade. I have also had this restaurant under surveillance, and I know you have not eaten here since we last met.

—For nine years? I should be flattered.

—Only during business hours.

—Of course. I wouldn’t want anyone to work overtime on my account. No sniper this time around?

—No. Not this time.

—Ahhh. I’m touched. How’ve you been?

—Occupied. Can you tell me why you disappeared?

—I didn’t disappear! I was … occupied. And now I’m back!

—You are back, just as a giant alien robot materializes in the middle of London. That seems … convenient.

—I know! Can you believe I almost missed it?!

—Are these the people who built Themis?

—Oh, it’s them all right.

—Can you tell us what their intentions are?

—I don’t know. Right now—

—The robot is not moving at the moment.

—It may not be moving, but it’s doing something. Right now, it’s scanning everything and everyone around it.

—For what purpose?

—Maybe they’re curious.

—What should we do?

—Now? We should eat!

—Please. We are in the midst of a pivotal moment in our history, one that could signal a new era of discovery, or put an end to us all. Whatever … personal conviction is stopping you from helping us must be weighed against the stakes at hand.

—You really haven’t been listening to anything I say if you think I’m keeping things from you out of some misguided principles. That robot will do what it came here to do, whatever that is. There isn’t anything you can do about that. For now it’s scanning you, so be scanned.

—Is it here because of Themis?

—It could be. Does it really matter? It’s here.

—My understanding of space travel is very limited, but if traveling from their home world to our planet takes several years, or decades, they might not be aware of what has transpired recently, or that we have discovered the robot they buried. This may sound stupid to you— —No! Not at all. You’re a little off. It takes about ten days to get from there to here. But you’re absolutely right in that they’re probably completely unaware of what happened during that time. If you did anything really bad last week, you might just get away with it.

—Making fun of my ignorance will not stop me from asking. I am trying to prevent a war. There must be something you can tell me that will increase the likelihood of a peaceful resolution.

—Do you like squirrels?

—I ask for your help in preventing a conflict of apocalyptic proportions and your answer is: “Do you like squirrels?”

—Yes. I have a good squirrel story.

—Of course. By all means.

—Squirrels can hide thousands of nuts every year. They— —What species?

—Does it matter?

—There are several species. Some bury nuts individually in multiple locations, others will stockpile them aboveground.

—I don’t know. The grey ones with the bushy tail. The ones in the parks. They bury thousands of nuts every fall and they look for them during winter when they get hungry. Squirrels have tiny brains, though. They can’t remember where they hid them all, so— —Studies suggest they recover about one-quarter of the nuts they bury, but— —That’s what I said. So they end up sniffing around everywhere and they find a lot of nuts that were buried by other squirrels.

—I was going to say that they do remember a significant number of cache locations. In a controlled environment, they have been shown to retrieve nuts from their own cache sites up to two-thirds of the time after delays of four to twelve days.

—Can you stop interrupting? It’s a story. There’s a fairy in it. No, I don’t know what species of fairy.

—My apologies.

— …

—Please, continue.

—Too late. I’m curious now. How do you know so much about squirrels?

—Work. Squirrels do not simply hide nuts and dig them out when they get hungry, they will check on their cache sites to make sure they have not been pillaged, and will often … reorganize their stock, rebury nuts in different locations. When a squirrel surveying its hiding sites encounters another squirrel looking for food, it will use various techniques—visiting empty sites, pretending to bury something—to deceive the predator and avoid revealing valuable nut-location information. I briefly monitored a research project hoping to mimic squirrel deceptive behavior in robots and automated drones. A robot designed to guard military supplies could, for example, alter its patrol route to lead an approaching enemy away from what it is trying to protect.