"I fail to see why we should be held responsible because a massive surge in tourism demand went unpredicted by us. None of the typical indicators were present."

The blue-tinged figure of the hologram gave an exaggerated frown. It was Director Grunwald of the Analytical review board. It was the fifth holo-conversation in the week and all were about multi-million credit anomalies in consumer behavior. "Still, I would point out that Tucan Lines managed to capitalize very rapidly with their converted freighters. If they had the ability to spot the change in demand within days, then why can't we?"

The human physically present sighed. George Clay was old enough to remember the beginning of the Human Analytical Revolution and the excessively low expectations that had grown into excessively high ones. This call was another unreasonably high expectation set by a logistics person. "Changes in demand come with other patterns we can observe. This had none of them. Maybe Tucan had some massive overhaul planned. Maybe they had some huge mechanical fault that needed a conversion."

Director Grunwald continued her assessment of why it was Human Analytics' fault the company hadn't spotted the tourism boom. "We have confirmed that the pattern for several ship failures was not present. We have also confirmed that the conversion process began BEFORE the rise in tourist demand. We can only suppose their analysts spotted precursors to tourist demand before you did."

George Clay leaned forward before righting himself. "Until last year, the System Party didn't even want an in-person representative. Now, they have their own pilgrimages imitating the Human Party ones that started six months ago. Psychological factors are odd with the least emotionally susceptible showing the greatest changes. None of this makes sense."

The image of the director froze and then resumed. "And yet it was anticipated by others in the same field as you."

"I cannot account for it and I can't believe this was predictable. There must be more to the story than some analyst suddenly spotting a fast-acting pattern that we haven't." insisted the company's sociologist.

"If you find it, let us know. Until then, we will have to search for someone more able to spot these trends if we are to continue to compete." The hologram blinked out.

George smashed his head on his desk. His research assistant walked over and offered him a cup of tea. "They always think we're the tens of thousands of researchers at Starfish City."

"Thank you but no. The last thing I need is a stimulant. I can't think clearly about the problem until I calm down."

The boy frowned. "But if it's clear you couldn't have predicted it…"

George raised his head from his hands. "Management doesn't know that. They just know that someone did and want to know why I didn't."

Mosh Carlin winced. George Clay had even worse problems than him. "All we know is that Tucan got the ships ready in time. Could they have sparked the demand themselves?"

George Clay snorted. "So they have their own private social simulator that can predict media broadcasts a year into the future, the effect on demand and political will, and the types of tourism that result? No."

The intern paused. "Well, isn't that just a more sophisticated version of what we're doing?"

George fell back into his professorial voice. "Do you know what would be needed for that? They would have to slip in thousands of improbably effective triggers, connectors, and boosters related to tourism in the thousands of media channels. Those memes would then have to be timed to go off at a predictable time so that demand would soar just as the ships able to carry it are active. Does any of it strike you as probable?"

Mosh winced. "Errrr. Yes?"

"Another conspiracy theory?" Carlin sighed. "Yes, the government has the Frame of Reference Simulator for aliens. It is designed to understand the Starfish. I doubt it would be applicable to tourism predictions. Even if it were, trying to run a simulation like that would be detected the moment the data left Cu."

Mosh winced again. "Still, a lot of oddly timed developments have taken place. The sheer scale of the shipping refits and the closeness of the timing are suspicious."

"So then we might expect Tucan lines to hire from the same people who designed elements of the simulator. The programming should be similar…"

"I'm not the only person who thinks a lot of weird things have been happening over the past decade. Milazzo Gerry…"

"Is a kook and a pervert." finished George. "Did you catch the story about him touching the senator at her own awards ceremony?"

"That isn't relevant to the fact a lot of improbable moods have hit the public over the past few years. The Frame of Reference Simulator might be corrupted."

"The credibility of a highly individual claim depends somewhat on the credibility of the person making it. People who can't control themselves in public are probably not the most reliable critics of social probabilities."

"No. I don't believe it. Look at his background. That incident just does not make sense." Mosh sounded hurt.

"Well, do you think the dozens of journalists and hundreds of witnesses were all editing their files simultaneously?" asked George.

"No… But there has to be more to the story!" came a plaintive tone from Mosh.

"Look, I like the idea of a looser relationship with Earth too. I just think that the behavior of a lot of the System movement supporters is reprehensible. I'll support the cause IF serious people are in charge. Saying everything is a conspiracy doesn't help."

"Have you even looked at Gerry's record and what he said after the incident?" pleaded Mosh.

"Is there anything it'll tell me that I didn't get from the news?" asked George.

Mosh sucked in his breath. George sighed. "Suddenly a 60 year old man grabs a woman in a formal event with his handlers not stopping him? He had never done more than shake hands in public before. It simply isn't in his character. That doesn't make sense…"

George decided to skip a lot of the blather. "How doesn't it make sense?"

"I… I can't say. It just seems like a deeply improbable level of sexual desire. Improbable for him and his age." Finished Mosh.

George leaned back in his chair and put his fingers together. "OK. Some weird desire builds up. People change. Why should I believe there is anything more to it than that?"

Mosh looked slightly steadier. "Why would desire change that much with all the artificial stuff in a politician? He's got implants and handlers. Whatever it was, it wasn't regular behavior. Ask him yourself, he's having a speech at the Culaan Terraforming University tonight."

George's voice went soft. "If you are trying to get me hooked into your political movement…"

"He's got to provide his explanation for what happened. Everybody would expect it."

George sighed. "Yes, I'll go."

…

"It is conventional to welcome our guest speaker but… perhaps now is the time for some non-conformity!"

The audience's chuckle clearly set the guest speaker on edge but his expression was haggard enough that the dean cut off the preliminary speaker.

Yon Gerry rose, walked unsteadily to the podium, and gripped it as if it was what prevented him from falling into the first row of seats. A twitter of surprise passed over the crowd.

"You are probably wondering about the incident last night." The politician's usually firm voice was now shaky and uncertain. George speculated how many drugs the fanatical Systemer was on. "I'm also curious about that myself." A few chuckles but most of the audience was unsure if it should take the line as a joke or as serious.

"I had been preparing a new video on the abuses of the Frame of Reference Simulator here on our beloved planet, Culaan. We were promised, when the Earthers built it, that it wouldn't be directed towards manipulating our own society. I had managed to find some anomalies in the academic literature on Economic simulations that could only be explained if the simulations were actually directed towards humans!"

A few snorts from the media and members of the crowd. Some of the younger crowd grinned. Predictable old Gerry.

"I was running a slightly higher heart rate and mood when the awards ceremony started. I was reviewing my notes for what to say about the Terraforming Day when I received a direct brain call about some new update to the pituitary software. I accepted it because it was licensed from the GMA."

The audience still looked puzzled. A few of the younger audience members, presumably Earther activists looked dejected. Probably they had been wishing for something more incriminating and/or obnoxious.

"Once the evening started and as I was assigned to hand the tree to the senator, my heart rate spiked as did my sexual desire. None of that was supposed to happen with a properly functioning implant."

One of the suspected protesters jumped up and shouted "So what? You were supposed to have self-control!"

The politician winced. "The desire was uncontrollable." An amplified snort came from the protesters. "Once I was pulled off her, my security detail sedated me and my doctor did a quick brain scan. You should know that cancer runs in my family since the founding and that I have a pituitary implant. Just two hours ago, it was examined and found to have been hacked to release abnormally high levels of certain hormones."

"Then how are you standing?" shouted another protester.

"Injections" came the answer.

"Police still haven't tracked the hacker and my own security team hasn't managed to learn more than that the source transmission came through the Beta Hydri Information Systems College."

The audience was silent and George imagined he could feel the speeded up heartbeat of everyone in the room. That was worse than the time someone slipped a hallucinogen into the water of the Governor during the State of the Colony address.

The protesters looked visibly uncomfortable but like the still needed to earn their money. "Why should we believe you?"

"I am a public figure and, by now, if I don't provide proof, my career is finished and another chance to re-evaluate the unnecessary but firm grip Earth has over our system will have been lost to another odd scandal. The results of the investigation will start to be posted tomorrow at 12 and new evidence will be provided with 48 hours delay."

The protestors walked out.

"The abuses have been especially worrying recently as Earth's market manipulations have been making our own society more erratic. I know many of you think it is simply a matter of changing tariff rates and official spending. I believe the reason I was hacked was to make it harder for people to openly discuss some of the projects ostensibly designed for dealing with aliens but which are now being used to a different purpose."

The introductory speaker had been fidgeting more and more during Gerry's erratic speech and interrupted.

"Mr. Gerry, you have made similarly vague claims in the past but never given a serious example. What are people to make of you complaining about locating the Distant Contact Project here in Hydri? It was only located out here because of the complaints that Earth had too much centralized power. You'd think locating it in one of the more vocal System jurisdictions would be taken as a sign of goodwill."

…

"Professor? What do you think could have caused the anomalous demand?"

The squat old man leaned back and activated the chill air vents. "I'm really not here to do your homework. You have a corporate job now. If I remember, you barely did mine."

George grinned and gritted his teeth but the professor replied before he had the chance to respond in a controlled way.

"Yes, I know the tourism doesn't make sense from a gradualist perspective. That's something I know has been discussed. Here, take a look at this."

George took the reader and blinked. "The ISFRS Study: Large Coordinated Individual Relationship Changes in Kiroku over three month periods"

"What does that have to do with this? Why would relationship theories about the aliens be relevant here?"

The Pavonian was especially unexpressive. "Take it as a correlation."

"But how could it be?"

The professor grinned and said "wait for it" to an imaginary audience.

"Well?"

The professor ceased grinning. "Have you ever seen a serious journal publish findings based on simulations with that level of respect?"

"Yes, all the time." countered George, by now seriously irritated.

"What about articles 30 years ago?" continued the old man.

"Not so much. But haven't there been a lot of improvements in simulations, to the point that we can rely on them in a lot of predictions?" George was getting nervous.

"And you think the randomness starts to even out with a larger sample? No. No simulation is that good. Look through the designation of the Kiroku and tell me what the researchers listed." The Pavonian leaned back again and sipped his ice water.

"Presumably just computer gibberish."

"Actually look."

"I see a listing of Kiroku BH64MA-EO2. I don't do systems simulations…"

"Nobody relies on pure simulations in a serious work like this. Look at the designation in Old Standard Designation."

"Beta Hydri Sixty-Four something Anti-Earth something Two."

The old man smiled. "Now you see. They were very good predictions because they weren't simulations."

"You mean you weren't predicting aliens but US?!"

"Yes. And you know why."

George gasped as the chill air vents tried to sooth him with air meant for a Pavonian. "But that's a betrayal of our free will…"

"The same free will that your founders guided with the building of Crater Grove? The building of the community Domes with delay doors? Everything your founders did was to guide their new society into a certain place. Now that you are comfortable in a pre-planned society, you get angry when others try to plan a more specific future."

"No!" George's voice was raised but brought under control before the sensors decided another blast of chilled air would be needed. "What the founders did was to produce a sane society that would have enough internal initiative to accomplish survival. If you are saying this was part of some grand plan to manipulate us into Earth's orbit…"

The Pavonian was furious. "And why would we do so? I'm from an even less related colony but I worked on the project. Have I ever given you reason to believe I have ill-intent towards Hydri?"

"Then why?"

"There are actual aliens less than 30 lights away! That's why. As long as humanity is one political entity, the risks of sending the wrong signals are predictable. If we have to deal with two or more sets of contact efforts, then we have no idea what will happen. If there is a war, a unified humanity stands a better chance of survival than one oriented to as many poles as systems."

"Then why Earth?"

"Earth is the strongest tie all humanity has in common. Re-enforce that, all humanity needs Earth to understand themselves. This isn't about direct rule, it's about the connections humanity needs to survive."

"So why tell me all this?"

"You work for Culaan Lines. Tucan Lines is headed by one of Etal Dochmu's former students. Etal has always been a big person in the field and the hundreds of thousands on the project are grateful for the work and chance to guide society." The professor fiddled with his chair's buttons before continuing. "All that was good so long as it was clearly for impersonal ends. When only Etal's students were forewarned of the plans to boost pilgrimage, then it was clear that the project was being corrupted."

George Clay had passed into his Historian/General Management mode and his tone had reverted to academic interest. "Of course it was. You direct billions of man-hours and you didn't expect corruption? I'm glad I wasn't selected for the project run by people with that expectation!"

"Corruption would have been minor IF we would have been still working on the Starfish. No, we initially expected the main part of the project to be the analysis of alien behavior. When the robots stopped moving, the side-efforts to mold humanity into something more able to respond productively to aliens became a larger effort to be a humanity able survive in the face of the worst case scenario. Surely you can respect that?"

"Yes, I can. But then people got ambitious and then they got greedy?"

"Yes. You have to understand. Before reliable predictions and accurate modeling, there was little work for sociologists, historians, and psychologists. It wasn't until the Communication Project that people could find a reliable employer or respect for their work. Two hundred thousand people working in one location with many more around humanity is something that is awe-inspiring and many are desperate to stay in that bubble of power and respect. At last, the projects became so big that the public couldn't understand the methodology but they could appreciate the predictions. As long as the predictions kept flowing, nobody wanted to look too closely."

"So what do you want me to do? Go to the media about the corruption of our freedoms? Validate the System Party's worst fears?"

The professor grinned. "I want you to join the project."