I hadn't noticed, but during dinner the ship had inclined its angle of progress, and in just a few seconds the rippling image of the nearly full moon became visible through the surface of the ocean. Again maintaining its speed, the vessel rushed up out of the water and into the open air, its superconductive electromagnetic generators propelling it into the heavens at a fantastic rate that did not even rattle the china on the table.

Colonel Slayton moved quietly toward the stairs, heading up to the control level with calm purpose. "There's no need to contact the island, Colonel," Tressalian called after him. "I've already double-checked the apparatus-we're set for dawn."

"Sorry, Malcolm," Slayton answered, continuing on. "The military mentality dies hard-call it 'redundancy.'"

Tressalian laughed quietly in my direction. "The Islamic terrorists in Afghanistan," he explained, "have refused to heed our warnings about the American strike-so we'll have to force them to leave. They've got their women and children down in those tunnels with them, and that's not blood I particularly want on my hands."

"But how can you force them to go?" I asked.

"Well-I could tell you, Doctor," Tressalian said as he began to drag his body away from the transparent hull. "But I think it'll be much more effective if you observe."

Once we had leveled off in the thin, cold stratospheric air, Tressalian led a slow procession up to the observation dome atop the nose of the ship, and as we passed by the guidance center on the middle level I saw the consoles of monitors blinking and humming under Colonel Slayton's direction. I noted that my earlier amazement at the fantastic advances embodied in the ship was beginning to fade, and found myself marveling at how quickly the human mind can accept and become adjusted to technological leaps. Of course, Tarbell's vodka and Larissa's continued and ever more pointed physical overtures went a long way, on this particular night, toward assisting my own acclimation; but ultimately it was a testament to the seductive power of technology, a power that my host-who refused to explain any further about the Afghanistan business until we got there-expounded on as he sat in his wheelchair in the observation dome:

"While the average citizen, Doctor, was engaged in this mass love affair with information technology-and while the companies that produced that technology happily painted themselves as the democratizing agents of a new order-real economic and informational power, far from being decentralized, became concentrated in an ever decreasing number of megacorporations, companies that determined not only what information was purveyed but which technologies were developed to receive and monitor it. And while in your own country there was at least a struggle early on for control over this mightiest and most pervasive public influence in history, the crash of '07 put an end to the fight. In a collapsing world, Washington had no one to turn to for help except my father and his ilk. And they offered it, to be sure-but only for a price." "To put it simply," Colonel Slayton said as he rejoined us from the control level, "they purchased the government."

Tressalian smiled at him, then turned back to me. "The colonel has a gift for brevity that is sometimes mistaken for detachment-but remember that no one experienced the practical effects of what we're talking about more than the soldiers of the Taiwan campaign, who, as you yourself have pointed out, unknowingly sacrificed themselves for a bigger share of the Chinese market. Yes, the information technocrats, my father among them, purchased the government-and after that all legislative initiatives and material resources were diverted from regulatory programs, from environmental and medical research, from education and foreign aid, even from weapons development-diverted from everything, that is, save the opening of new markets and the expansion of old ones."

"All right," I agreed, shivering once as Larissa, who was sitting next to me, began to run a finger around one of my ears. "I'll admit I agree with you, but so what? You've said yourself that this sort of thing has happened before in human history."

"Non, Gideon," Julien FouchÚ said, as he wrapped one meaty hand around a small espresso cup. "That is most distinctly not what Malcolm has said. The beginning of the story may have precedents, but this last chapter? There has never been anything like it. The floodgates were thrown open, and human society, already saturated with information, began to drown in it. Tell me-you are familiar, I suppose, with the concept of the 'threshold moment'? When a process increases so drastically in rate and severity-"

"That a quantitative change actually becomes a qualitative one," I finished for him. "Yes Professor, I know."

"Well, then," FouchÚ went on, "let us put it to you that world civilization has itself reached just such a moment."

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Read Chapter One of Killing Time

Will We Travel to the Stars?