Vernor Vinge - True Names

TRUE NAMES

The story is a marvelous mixture of hard-science SF and sword-and-sorcery imagery. Vinge posits that in a direct neurocybernetic interface, the information would be analogized by the brain into symbols it is comfortable with. The place in which the Coven meets, for example, is or seems to be a castle, guarded by a program which manifests itself as a frebreathing dragon, sitting in a magma moat, wearing an asbestos T-shirt. Fail to satisfy it, and it will kill you, dumping you back into the real worlda fate most Wizards seem to regard as very little better than death.

Vinge set himself about fifteen challenges in this story, any one of which might have wrecked a lesser writer, and pulled them all off with appalling ease. No point in listing them allbut the most important one to my mind is this: he succeeded in making me feel, for over an hour, what it is like to be more than human. That is one of SFs major challenges, and it is bloody hard to do.

Do not miss this ingenious and truly original storyit is one of those that, when youre done, you wish the author were present so you could applaud.

Analog Magazine

Other books by Vernor Vinge:

GRIMMS WORLD

THE WITLING

THE PEACE WAR (available
from Bluejay Books)

All the characters in this book are fictitious, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is coincidental.

A Bluejay Book, published by arrangement with the Author.

Copyright by Vernor Vinge

Cover and interior art copyright 1984 by Robert Walters

Afterword copyright 1984 by Marvin Minsky

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage or retrieval system, without the express written permission of the Publisher, except where permitted by law. For information, contact Bluejay Books Inc., 130 West Forty-second Street, New York, New York 10036.

Manufactured in the United States of America

First Bluejay printing: November 1984

In the once upon a time days of the First Age of Magic, the prudent sorcerer regarded his own true name as his most valued possession but also the greatest threat to his continued good health, forthe stories goonce an enemy, even a weak unskilled enemy, learned the sorcerers true name, then routine and widely known spells could destroy or enslave even the most powerful. As times passed, and we graduated to the Age of Reason and thence to the first and second industrial revolutions, such notions were discredited. Now it seems that the Wheel has turned full circle (even if there never really was a First Age) and we are back to worrying about true names again:

The first hint Mr. Slippery had that his own True Name might be knownand, for that matter, known to the Great Enemycame with the appearance of two black Lincolns humming up the long dirt driveway that stretched through the dripping pine forest down to Road 29. Roger Pollack was in his garden weeding, had been there nearly the whole morning, enjoying the barely perceptible drizzle and the overcast, and trying to find the initiative to go inside and do work that actually makes money. He looked up the moment the intruders turned, wheels squealing, into his driveway. Thirty seconds passed, and the cars came out of the third-generation forest to pull up beside and behind Pollacks Honda. Four heavy-set men and a hard-looking female piled out, started purposefully across his well-tended cabbage patch, crushing tender young plants with a disregard which told Roger that this was no social call.

Pollack looked wildly around, considered making a break for the woods, but the others had spread out and he was grabbed and frog-marched back to his house. (Fortunately the door had been left unlocked. Roger had the feeling that they might have knocked it down rather than ask him for the key.) He was shoved abruptly into a chair. Two of the heaviest and least collegiate-looking of his visitors stood on either side of him. Pollacks protestsnow just being voicedbrought no response. The woman and an older man poked around among his sets. Hey, I remember this, Al: Its the script for 1965. See? The woman spoke as she flipped through the holo-scenes that decorated the interior wall.

The older man nodded. I told you. Hes written more popular games than any three men and even more than some agencies. Roger Pollack is something of a genius.

Theyre novels, damn you, not games! Old irritation flashed unbidden into Rogers mind. Aloud: Yeah, but most of my fans arent as persistent as you all.

Most of your fans dont know that you are a criminal, Mr. Pollack.

Criminal? Im no criminalbut I do know my rights. You FBI types must identify yourselves, give me a phone call, and

The woman smiled for the first time. It was not a nice smile. She was about thirty-five, hatchet-faced, her hair drawn back in the single braid favored by military types. Even so it could have been a nicer smile. Pollack felt a chill start up his spine. Perhaps that would be true, if we were the FBI or if you were not the scum you are. But this is a Welfare Department bust, Pollack, and you are suspectedputting it kindlyof interference with the instrumentalities of National and individual survival.

She sounded like something out of one of those asinine scripts he occasionally had to work on for government contracts. Only now there was nothing to laugh about, and the cold between his shoulder-blades spread. Outside the drizzle had become a misty rain sweeping across the Northern California forests. Normally he found that rain a comfort, but now it just added to the gloom. Still, if there was any chance he could wriggle out of this, it would be worth the effort. Okay, so you have license to hassle innocents, but sooner or later youre going to discover that I am innocent and then youll find out what hostile media coverage can really be like. And thank God I backed up my files last night. With luck, all theyll find is some out-of-date stock-market schemes.

Youre no innocent, Pollack. An honest citizen is content with an ordinary data set like yours there. She pointed across the living room at the forty-by-fifty-centimeter data set. It was the great-grandchild of the old CRTs. With color and twenty-line-per-millimeter resolution, it was the standard of government offices and the more conservative industries. There was a visible layer of dust on Pollacks model. The femcop moved quickly across the living room and poked into the drawers under the picture window. Her maroon business suit revealed a thin and angular figure. An honest citizen would settle for a standard processor and a few thousand megabytes of fast storage. With some superior intuition she pulled open the center drawerright under the marijuana plantsto reveal at least five hundred cubic centimeters of optical memory, neatly racked and threaded through to the next drawer which held correspondingly powerful CPUs. Even so, it was nothing compared to the gear he had buried under the house.

She drifted out into the kitchen and was back in a moment. The house was a typical airdropped bungalow, small and easy to search. Pollack had spent most of his money on the land and hishobbies. And finally, she said, a note of triumph in her voice, an honest citizen does not need one of these! She had finally spotted the Other World gate. She waved the electrodes in Pollacks face.

Look, in spite of what you may want, all this is still legal. In fact, that gadget is scarcely more powerful than an ordinary games interface. That should be a good explanation, considering that he was a novelist.