Survivors - Jean Lorrah [59]
At least Nalavia would be meeting with her counselors that afternoon; Data was free to act on automatic programming while his mind concentrated on the information he had only begun to sort through in the night.
Children were fascinated by Data, and quickly got over being frightened or shy. He had a well-rehearsed routine, which he was conscious of only enough to recognize that the children responded in an apparently normal fashion. Possibly Nalavia was right-perhaps class attitudes were so strongly embedded in Trevan society that only the young people could be educated out of them.
On the other hand, while the children did shout and giggle, there were no outbursts of anger or crying, even among the youngest. Coincidence? Insufficient information.
So he put most of his attention on the megabytes of information he had gleaned from Nalavia’s computer. Much of it he could discard as inapplicable: public transport schedules, weather data, crop reports, manufacturing quotas. But wait-an inordinate amount of intoxicating substance seemed to be produced on Treva, and the records indicated that little was exported. He remembered the video broadcasts he and Tasha had monitored, full of advertising for intoxicants as beverage, inhalant, even topical application cream.
Intoxicants might be the reason for the Trevans’ dulled sensibilities. The children seemed more normal because they did not use those substances. He focused his concentration for a moment on the teacher of the class he was visiting, to lead the conversation around so he could ask, “Are you educating the children against the use of intoxicants?”
The teacher seemed completely puzzled. “Why should we do that? Intoxicants put joy in life-a well-earned pleasure after a job well done.” She was parrotting one of the advertisements, apparently quite unaware of the source.
Data’s guide hastily thanked the teacher, and moved them on to another class. Data went back to playing friendly android, while internally he concentrated on the revenue figures for intoxicants and advertising of same. They were huge … but when he looked into the production figures he found something peculiar: chemical substances were a giant industry, but the substance with the highest production rate was something called “Riatine,” which had no advertising budget whatsoever. However, Data was able to trace the largest stockholders in the companies manufacturing it: Nalavia, and several members of her cabinet.
Perhaps the substance was called something else in the form in which it was sold to the public. But no-it was not sold, and it was not exported. In the files indexed under manufacturing, the substance was produced … and there the information ended.
Data’s internal programming, however, was a thousand times more efficient than that of Nalavia’s computer. He searched for any reference to Riatine in any file-and found it in open government records: Riatine was a purifier distributed to all city water systems.
No great mystery, then. And yet … he searched the files for the chemical formula for Riatine. Not in the open government files. Not in the manufacturing records. Treva did not have anything like a patent office, it seemed-but continuation of the global search for the term “Riatine” located it in a top security eyes-only file coded to Nalavia and only two other people.
Data read the formula, and then began a search of his own data banks for the effect of such a chemical on humanoids of Treva’s genetic makeup. “Creates susceptibility to hypnotic command while suppressing negative emotions,” the file told him. “Nonaddictive. As adjunct to psychotherapy, used to control excessive anger or grief. Commonly used as an aid in sleep-learning. No negative short-term side effects. Not recommended for long-term use.”
The long-term effects included “emotional deprivation, suppression of assertiveness. Deprived of emotional outlet, subject loses self-reliance and turns to external sources for mental and emotional stimuli. If not carefully supervised, subject may seek chemical stimuli to induce emotion.