"Excuse me," I said as I studied the man, "but did you say 'global chaos?'" "Oh, all in a good cause," he rushed to reply. "Well-generally, at any rate. But to understand that cause I'm afraid you'll first have to wrap your mind around the philosophy we've all chosen to share."

"I'm listening."

Tressalian nodded. "Well, then-where to start? Perhaps simple observation would be best. Did you enjoy the sights along the coast?"

I looked up suddenly: was that why the ship had spent so long in those filthy waters? To make an impression on me, just as Larissa had done when she'd so expertly manned the ship's big rail gun during the battle with our pursuers? "It was fairly depressing," I said carefully.

"And the sea around us now," Tressalian went on. "Does anything appear to be missing?"

"Just the fish," I joked; but the tableful of straight faces that looked back at me indicated how terribly serious my words had actually been. "Jesus," I fumbled. "Have things really gotten that bad?"

"The sights speak for themselves, Doctor," Colonel Slayton said gravely, running a finger along the terrible scar on the side of his face. "The Atlantic seaboard is almost literally a hog sty, and the last of the important fish species, thanks to government lies about enforcing fishing regulations around the world, have been chased into the furthest recesses of the ocean, where they'll be found and, soon enough, slaughtered." He kept gently rubbing that scar, reminding me of how much "government lies" had contributed to his disastrous experiences during the Taiwan campaign.

"Yes," Tressalian agreed gloomily. "Another chapter thoroughly in keeping with the great tradition of human experience. And yet, according to a generation of rhetoric, our age should have separated itself from that tradition, shouldn't it, Doctor?"

"How do you mean?"

"Well, after all, the dawn of this century did present humanity with an enormous opportunity to improve both its own lot and the condition of the planet. The necessary tools were all at hand." His voice became distinctly ironic. "The 'age of information' had been born."

I was puzzled by his tone. "Yes-thanks in large part to your father." Tressalian's irony quickly took on a hard edge. "True. Thanks in large part to my father ƒ "

I pushed my plate aside and leaned forward. "You referred to his work earlier as 'a sin'-why?"

"Come now, Doctor," Tressalian answered, toying with a slender silver knife. "I think you know exactly why-and what's more, I suspect that you agree with the assessment."

"I may share some of your opinions," I said, weighing it. "But I also may have reached them through entirely different reasoning."

Tressalian smiled again. "Oh, I doubt that. But let's investigate, shall we?" He struggled to his feet, having eaten only half his food, and began to pace around the table. "Yes, Doctor, my father and his colleagues made certain that most of the world was given access to the modern Internet. To what was marketed-quite seductively and, of course, successfully-as 'unrestricted information.' And in an era when capitalism and global free trade had triumphed and were running rampant, such men had little trouble in further promoting the belief that by logging on to said Internet one was tapping in to a vast system of freedom, truth-and power. The mass of mankind withdrew to their terminals and clicked away, and those afflicted with philosophical scruples allowed themselves to be cajoled into believing that they were promoting the democratic cause of a free exchange not only of goods and information but of ideas. Convinced, in other words, that they were changing the world, and for the better."

His face turned toward the ocean again, and his manner softened once more. "Yet in the meantime, inexplicably but undeniably, the water and the air grew dirtier than they had ever been. New pandemics appeared, with no medicines to treat them. Poverty, anarchy and conflict ravaged more and more parts of the world." He sighed once, his silver eyebrows arching. "And the fish-disappeared ƒ " When he turned to me again his face radiated a paradoxical and disquieting calm. "How did it happen, Dr. Wolfe? How, in an age when the free flow of information and trade were supposedly creating a benevolent global order, did all this happen?"

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