"PrÚcisÚment," FouchÚ answered with a nod. "But don't look so amazed, Doctor-the people behind these technologies have themselves been claiming for years that they were bringing about enormous changes. It is simply that we who are assembled here view those changes as"-he took a sip of espresso as he struggled to find a word-"ominous."

Then it was Jonah Kuperman's turn: "The 'information age' hasn't created any free exchange of knowledge, Gideon. All we have is a free exchange of whatever the custodians of information technology consider acceptable."

"And the very nature of that technology means that there is no real knowledge anymore," Eli Kuperman piled on, "because what's available through those delivery systems is utterly unregulated and unverifiable. Mistaken facts-or worse yet, deceptions on a simple or a grand scale, supported by doctored evidence and digitally manipulated images-become commonly accepted wisdom before there's even been a chance to determine the validity of their bases."

"And remember," FouchÚ said, "that we have now raised not one but several generations of children who have been exposed only to such questionable data-" "Whoa, whoa, slow down, now!" I called out, holding up my hands. "This is starting to sound like some kind of runaway conspiracy theory-techno-paranoia of the worst kind. What in the world makes you think that people can pull off deceptions on a level that will change the fundamental underpinnings of entire societies, for God's sake?"

Everyone around me suddenly grew strangely silent; and then, one by one, they turned to Tressalian, who was staring at his fingertips as he slowly bounced them together. After a few seconds he looked up at me, the smile on his face more charming and yet more sinister than it had been at any point in the evening. "We know, Doctor," he said quietly, "because we've done it."

"You?"

Tressalian nodded. "Quite a few times, actually. And the best, I daresay, is yet to come-if you'll help us."

"But-" I tried to grasp it. "But I mean-I thought you were against all that."

"Oh, make no mistake, we are." Tressalian struggled to turn his chair, and then rolled to the forward-most area of the dome, real disgust and even anger coming into his voice. "Human society is diseased, Doctor-this fatuous, trivial, information-plagued society. And our work?" He stared at the eerie stratospheric sky outside, growing calmer. "Our work will be the antibiotic that spurs society to fight the infection." A sudden laugh got out of him. "Assuming, of course, that we don't kill the patient!"

I was about to ask for clarification of this apparently unbalanced statement when the ship's monitoring system suddenly sounded again. Slayton informed us that we were descending to "cruise altitude," an innocuous expression that I soon learned had to do not with any kind of pleasure traveling but with flying some hundred feet above the landscape as we had done when I first boarded the ship in Florida. Everyone stood, the general level of excitement growing, and gathered around Tressalian; and while I tried to follow as best I could, my movements were slowed by the mental need to wrestle with everything I'd just heard. Could they be serious, these people? Could they really mean that they believed it was possible to manipulate the dissemination of important information to the public as a way of alerting that same public to just how easy-and therefore dangerous-such manipulation had, in our time, become? It was absurd, impossible-

And then, with a shudder that had nothing to do with Larissa's close presence, I remembered the scenes of President Forrester's assassination on the disc that Max and I had been given. For a year the world had accepted as true a version of those momentous events that was not even remotely factual. And now the strongest power in the world was about to engage in a military strike that was based on that same misapprehension-a misapprehension manufactured by Tressalian and his team, who were currently on their way to the scene of that strike to-what? Spectate? Participate, with their amazing ship? Or manipulate the proceedings with still more manufactured information? Almost afraid to know the answers, I silently turned to watch the darkness ahead of us with the others.

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Read Chapter One of Killing Time

Will We Travel to the Stars?