How wondrous humanity must be by your era, my noble master, that you believe ten days are enough for us train a new daimon to rule that ebb and swerve which keeps eight hundred million cars in flight. Alas, the human animal is not yet so excellent. Perry, in the thoroughness of his machinations, killed the backup crew, and the art does not come swiftly, even to a monstrous set-set. Sidney Koons was captured, but is working the system still, wired into the heart of the great network, and guarded by Papadelias as closely as a rider may guard the horse that carries him. As for Eureka Weeksbooth, the set-set who fled with Sniper would not leave forty out of forty-five senses behind.

“What other advice have you for me?” Caesar asked.

Achilles breathed deep. “Not much.”

“Because you are not yet sure we’ll be on the same side?” MASON tested.

The famous runner smiled. “Exactly. At this point all I’m willing to share are universals. There are certain mistakes you don’t want even enemies to make.”

“Like what?”

“You need food.”

“That’s obvious.”

The veteran shook his head. “You need more food than you think. Assume your productive capacity will be gone as soon as the war starts. Pump out a hundred times as much food as normal for however many days we have left. You want stores of food in every city, enough to feed the population for six months, more. Assume most of it will be destroyed or stolen. Think of it as currency as well as food, assume you’ll need to trade and bribe with it as well as eat it. Assume however much you have is half of what you need. Assume whatever supply lines might exist will fail. Think of it as preparing for a giant siege, where every city on Earth will have to feed itself. Flood the world with food.”

“You’d say this to an enemy? Starvation has often been key to victory.”

“Better that my enemies have food stores I can steal than that we both starve.”

A nod. “What else?”

“Guard the food. Looting will hit the food stocks quickly.”

“We don’t have vast food stocks lying about, these aren’t the olden days. Most bash’houses buy extra rice, and flour, and cream, and things, but they actually can feed themselves for six months on a few sacks of salt and fertilizer for their algae tanks, meatmaker, and kitchen tree.”

“Assume the kitchen trees will burn, and that, before they do, people will fear they’ll burn, and loot things anyway. In my day, when we ran low on food, we’d attack whatever town was nearby, loot it, and kill whoever we didn’t feel like taking prisoner. That technique still works; you don’t want your people using it.”

“What else?”

“Medicine.”

Kosala smiled. “Already on it. We’re triple stocking every hospital on Earth, our own and those few run by other Hives.”