Fractions_ The First Half of the Fall Revolution - Ken MacLeod [42]
He looked around for anyone he might recognize, sadly thinking the old comrades hadn’t been such old comrades after all, and saw an unchanged, familiar face frowning down at the now-deserted table of pamphlets. Moh bounded over.
‘Bernstein!’ The face that turned to him, though lined and leathery, hadn’t gained a line in the six years since Moh had last seen it. The receding shock of white hair hadn’t receded further. For a moment Moh was puzzled that Bernstein didn’t recognize him; then he remembered that the last time he’d looked at this face he’d been looking up.
‘I’m Moh Kohn,’ he said.
Bernstein stared at him, then shook his hand vigorously. ‘Amazing!’ he said. ‘I would never have known you.’
‘You haven’t changed.’
Bernstein nodded absently. ‘What brings you here?’ He patted the stack of books and pamphlets he was about to buy, and added, ‘You know what brings me here. Real collector’s pieces, this lot.’
‘Uh-huh.’ Bernstein had fallen out with (and from) the Fourth International as a result of some split that he was by now the only living person able to explain, and had embarked on the sisyphean project of writing the movement’s definitive history. An indefatigable archivist in his own right, he made some kind of living by trading in rare items of every conceivable persuasion of radical literature. Moh’s father had been one of his regular customers.
Moh wasn’t sure how to answer his question. What had brought him here?
He shrugged. ‘Curiosity,’ he said.
Bernstein looked past him and said, ‘Let’s join your friends.’
‘Can I get you a drink?’
‘Thought you’d never ask. Guinness, please.’
When Moh returned from the bar he found Stone, Bernstein, Logan and the old man and woman around the table in an animated discussion. After a few minutes Logan turned to him and said, ‘And you’re Moh Kohn, right?’
‘Hi.’ Moh raised his glass. ‘Pleased to meet you, too.’
They talked for a bit about working in space and about their respective unions. Moh found himself beginning to relax. Then Logan shot him an awkward glance.
‘You’re Josh Kohn’s son?’
‘Yes,’ Moh said. ‘If it matters.’
Logan looked back at him calmly, then leaned closer. ‘Something I wanted to ask you,’ he said. ‘Do you know anything about the Star Fraction?’
‘The “Star Fraction”?’ He could see from Logan’s face that he’d spoken too loudly, and out of the corner of his eye he could see why: Bernstein had cocked an ear in their direction. ‘No.’ He hesitated. ‘It…sort of…rings a bell, but…’ He shook his head. ‘Nah. It’s gone. Sounds like what you must be in.’
‘I guess you could say I’m in the space fraction.’ Logan laughed. ‘I am the space fraction.’
‘Must make for interesting internal discussions.’
‘Jes, it does.’
‘So what is this Star Fraction?’
Logan glanced at Bernstein, then at the two old cadres. Moh saw the old man nod slightly. Logan leaned forward, elbows on knees, held out his open hands. ‘We don’t know. Josh was the Party’s, the International’s, software wizard. He really pushed for using the net, using crypto and all that, from way back. You could say he got us into cyberspace. There were big arguments…faction fights…about that. Hard to believe, now.’
Bernstein snorted. Logan smiled and continued. ‘Anyway, some of the systems he set up survived the war, the EMP hits and all that and escaped the big clean-outs during the Peace Process. Impressive. We, that is the FI, still use them as far as we can.’
‘How d’you know that they aren’t compromised by now?’ Bernstein asked.
‘There are test protocols,’ the old man said. He was not going to explain further. Moh thought he understood. There must be ways of testing the security of any such system by running schemes that, if intercepted, would have to provoke a response.
Hairy, and not the sort of thing you’d want to talk about.
‘Every so often,’ Logan continued, ‘we come across references