27 - A Humble Man, A Noble Man

"Terence Charles Arthur Cameron..."

The screen almost quivered with the force of his brother's indignation as he rolled off every one of Terry's given names.

"... if you persist in writing such heretical filth to me I shall have to reluctantly break all communication with a once beloved brother, may the Font of All Knowledge have mercy on your over-reaching, overly curious soul. Do not succumb to the Demons of Impertinence, Intelligensia, Curiosity and Vile Hubris above your station."

...Well, Gerry, you have certainly changed now that you've achieved Manager SSC Tech status...

"Not only are you presuming to recognize the existence of my wife in such a public letter, as if she could or would do such horrific things as reading, or learning.  I did not mention to her delicate sensibilities that you inquired after her.  I am her Keeper and will not allow such horrors near her frail brain.  You threaten her with damnation and mental illness!  How dare you!  To include our sainted mother in your letter was horrific! Their brains might overheat and explode from the sheer assault on their insubstantial and slight intellects!"

"As the heir to the Cameron lands and position of Technician the First, of the Second Class, I must diligently work to protect the family name and skill-set, no matter how unchurched you are and seem to be being led off the garden path by intergalactic demons of knowledge, visions of durance vile, slave to the overwhelming onslaught of information that you are, by birth, forbidden!  We, here, on Xanadu are intensely moral people."

"In sincere concern for your soul, little brother, I abjure you in the strongest of my words.  Do not step outside the knowledge base you have been graciously provided.  Do what you are commanded and leave the more dangerous of the knowledge to your betters, lest you fall into a hell of your own making."

"If I may remind you of one of the verses of our childhood, from the Sainted Daffyd: “To display one’s intelligence is not the mark of a humble man. Don’t be arrogant.  Rubbing someone’s face in their relative smarts is not the position a noble man should take.  Be self-effacing.  Everyone is as everyone does.  To each their place and station in the heavens and God will be happy.  The professor questions everything. The scholar is unhappy because his knowledge hurts him.  He cannot affect it, he can only know it and is helpless in the face of it.  Why cultivate something that makes you feel helpless?”

“It is more comforting and less worrying to merely believe.  Have faith that everything is going as it should and that every man should live his life without having to fight anything!  Knowledge brings strife and contention and disturbs the peace.”

"The Font of All Knowledge has stated, himself, “Hell is knowing and being able to do nothing. Rest content in the amount of knowledge you are allowed to have.”

"And that is my final word on the subject."

... pompous much, big brother?...

In spiritual concern and consternation,

Your brother,

Gerald

**

Terry stared at the screen for a long moment.  He paged up and then down again.  It didn’t change the ranting, hateful words on the screen in the slightest and he deleted the copy with a jab sharp enough that he chipped the nail on that finger.

The picture of a cute kitten on the flat-screen he was allowed came up as the letter vanished, with its one icon of ‘Technical Levels and Knowledge allowed for Second Class’ in the corner of the screen.

Siva had showed him the newest computer links.  You didn’t need a box or a screen.  You spoke to the connection in your head... and if you needed external videos you got a hologram on the desk or the table or floating in the air in front of you.  Most of the time people just had things sent straight to their optic receivers... like daydreaming with a purpose.

There was no need for a terminal.  If you were going to compute you might need to sit or lie down while you were inside your head... connected to the computer apparently. Siva's Brainseed was level five.

“And you, my elder Font of Wisdom,” Terry snarled at the kitten picture as if his older brother could hear him.  “You want me to stick to quill pens.  You and that old fart who have it all... I know.  I know that the Heir to a Name gets more information than a mere second son.  You... you pompous hypocrite!”

Siva... before he’d left, had given him a seed.  A flattened bean.  “If you want to send me a letter sometime off planet.  A message...  Rub that over your hands to warm it up, then swallow it.  It’ll set up the computer connections.”  Then, almost without seeming to realize how subversive he was being, just happened to mention that the Seed I... even though it was only a I... would give him access to the Corporation Library system.  A 2 would have given him access to the University Library systems stretching back to Earthen roots.

Terry pulled the seed out of its box and looked at it.  It looked like a greenish stone.  A little flattened.  It glittered in his palm.

“Yeah,” Siva had said.  “You guys have a greater comp node here, like everyone else, but it takes someone physically coming here to update things.  I mean, that’s my job.  Just my presence in a noded system brings things up to speed with the rest of the galaxy.”

“Would I be able to access the computer node here?”

“Sure... well, maybe.  It depends on what kind of security your CEO’s put on it.  If you try it... build a door for yourself and you should have access to whatever you need... without getting brain-fried.”

“Brain-Fried?”

“Some idiot over in the Fair Lands Planets put a ‘burning-eye’ security system on things and people’s minds were getting snuffed out.  You know, lights on but nobody home?  The corps police got on that one... it wasn’t covered up and the Home system lawyers came out... the whole United Planets Sentient code of rights hounds.  The whole round of lawsuits are still going on, but at least the Fair Lands computer nodes are public again.”

“I... see.”

To be honest, half of what Siva said was just incomprehensible to Terry.  It was the right language, the predominantly old corporate English with Indian subcontinent languages along with a solid smattering of old Russian with Serbo-Croatian thrown in.  It was the San and the Neo Asians that used what they fondly imagined was old Japanese and old Chinese.  But what Siva was saying might as well be gibberish.  Terry knew that he didn't even know enough to formulate the right questions, much less ask them.

He looked at the smugly sleeping kitten on his screen, then to the display that showed the planet turning below him; and the one that showed the shut down garage.  The seed was cool in his hand, then starting to warm up and pulse as he turned it in his fingers.

“... a noble man... stupid and self effacing?”  His mouth twisted in the light from the screen and he snapped the seed into his mouth and swallowed it.