MELISANDE STOKES: In order for the Chronotron to do its job it has to have a vast database of historical facts in memory. Going back to the weather analogy from yesterday, you can build a computer that’s really good at performing the mathematical calculations needed to predict weather, but it’s going to be totally useless unless you can feed it real-time information about actual weather conditions. Which is why we need weather balloons and satellites and so on—to supply that data. In the case of the Chronotron, we have these QUIPUs that know how to do the math, but they’re useless without historical data.
EFFINGHAM: I believe we covered this in Lines 420 through 487, which describe a program to extract this information directly from digitized history books already in the Library of Congress.
STOKES: Yes, that covers ninety percent of it, but some books contain ambiguous material that confuses our natural language processing algorithms. When that happens, the offending passage can be sent up the line to a human reader who can try to parse it. For obvious reasons we think that historians will do the best job.
EFFINGHAM: Very well, but it appears that their cost is being split with another subprogram called . . . DORC?
STOKES: We should probably come up with a different name for it, but DORC is the Diachronic Operative Resource Center. Colonel Lyons and I had to improvise our own training program when we learned how to speak, dress, and behave in colonial Boston and Elizabethan England. As DODO’s scope of operations expands to other DTAPs . . .
EFFINGHAM: Ah, yes, thank you for jogging my memory, Ms. Stokes. DORC is like the Starfleet Academy, if I may indulge myself with a reference to Star Trek.
STOKES: The Hogwarts.
EFFINGHAM: Yes, the training ground where DOers will acquire the requisite skills.
STOKES: Those budget entries begin around Line 950.
EFFINGHAM: Yes, my aide has found it for me.
STOKES: It makes sense to split the historians’ time so that they can help out with DORC activities.
EFFINGHAM: This is quite a large section of the budget and I may need additional time to go through it . . .
[REDACTED]
SENATOR EFFINGHAM: Line 1162 jumps out at me. Why do you need to spend so much money on swords?
LIEUTENANT COLONEL LYONS: It turns out that they are more expensive than you might think. They have to be hand-made from special kinds of steel.
EFFINGHAM: You are missing the point of my question, Colonel Lyons. Let me rephrase: this seems to imply that you are assembling a squad of warriors and assassins.
LYONS: Probably not assassins per se because of the risk of Diachronic Shear.
EFFINGHAM: You can’t just go back and kill Napoleon.
LYONS: It would be a terrible idea.
EFFINGHAM: Renewing my question . . .
LYONS: People back then—people of the upper classes—carried swords and other edged weapons all the time. And they knew how to use them. Any DOer, at least any male DOer, who went back pretending to be such a person, but who had no skill with using a sword, would be as conspicuous as someone who couldn’t mount a horse or speak the language.
EFFINGHAM: Are you expecting some of your DOers to engage in swordfights?
LYONS: I had to do it several times during my DEDE in London.
EFFINGHAM: But that was before you had the Chronotron—it was an improvised DEDE.
LYONS: Wars, battles, and duels are important events. In some cases, depending on what the Chronotron tells us, we may need DOers who are capable of effecting that kind of change—or at a minimum, staying alive in such environments.
EFFINGHAM: It sounds dangerous.
LYONS: It is, by definition. Only a small minority of DOers will be fighters. They make a big splashy impression in the budget because we have to buy them training equipment.
EFFINGHAM: But the majority will have other specializations?
LYONS: Yes. As an example, during the current CRONE phase, our efforts are focused on making discreet insertions into certain DTAPS, trying to develop and nurture our relationships with KCWs—
EFFINGHAM: With what?
LYONS: Known Compliant Witches.
EFFINGHAM: Ah. Yes. This takes us back to, er, Line 345 or thereabouts. Developing the witch network. The subway map.
LYONS: Yes, like the subway map that tells us how we can route our DOers from one DTAP to another and eventually get them home safe. Obviously, this relies on having friendly relationships with witches.
EFFINGHAM: Who tend to be, shall we say, peculiar individuals.
ERSZEBET KARPATHY: I find your tone offensive, Senator.
CHAIRWOMAN ATKINSON: Order!
EFFINGHAM: Go on, Colonel Lyons.
KARPATHY: Are you ignoring me? I said I find your tone offensive. I do not even want to be here, I am here only out of the goodness of my heart, but all of you, all of these millions of dollars and plans to rule the planet and all that, do you understand that all of it depends on me? And yet you use that tone with me? Who do you think you are?
EFFINGHAM: It’s all right, Madame Chair. Now, Ms. Karpathy—
KARPATHY: Don’t “Ms. Karpathy” me. Apologize for your tone.
EFFINGHAM: I apologize, Ms. Karpathy.
KARPATHY: I do not accept your apology.
EFFINGHAM: Why not?
KARPATHY: You do not sound at all sincere about it. It does not count if it is not sincere. I am going to leave this room and I want you to think about what happens if I do not return. Then when I do return, I expect you will apologize appropriately.
MELISANDE STOKES: Tristan, shall I—?
LYONS: Yeah.
ATKINSON: Let the record show that Ms. Erszebet Karpathy has left the hearing room without authorization at 1723 hours accompanied by Dr. Melisande Stokes.
EFFINGHAM: Colonel Lyons, you were saying?
LYONS: Erszebet has just given you an excellent example of why we require very specialized agents to win over witches. They don’t want money. They’re not the sort to join us on behalf of Truth, Justice, and the American Way. Every witch has her own agenda for why she might or might not help us. So we need to be able to find witches, but then also to win them over. Sometimes that can be a complicated undertaking, involving a series of actions that require various sets of skills.
EFFINGHAM: I suspect I’m not the only one in the room who would appreciate an example of what you mean.
LYONS: Okay, recently we wanted to establish a foothold in the Balkans for reasons that General Frink can explain if you need to know, so we did research to anticipate where a witch was, and then we Sent back one of our agents to find the witch. Well, he found her, and she did agree to Send him back here, but she wasn’t interested in being on call for us, so to speak, unless we made it worth her while. Her husband was imprisoned, so she told our DOer that if he could get the husband out of prison, she’d work with us.
EFFINGHAM: Why didn’t she just, you know, use magic to get him out?