Keiko was completely silent; even her crystals lost their mobility. YGBM. That was a bit of science-fiction jargon from the turn of the century: You-Gotta-Believe-Me. That is, mind control. Weak, social forms of YGBM drove all human history. For more than a hundred years, the goal of irresistible persuasion had been a topic of academic study. For thirty years it had been a credible technological goal. And for ten, some version of it had been feasible in well-controlled laboratory settings.

The crystals shifted; Alfred could tell that Keiko was looking at him. "Can this be true, Alfred?"

"Yes, I'm afraid so. My people have studied the report. Gьnberk's luck was extraordinary, since this was really a simultaneous test of two radical innovations. The honeyed-nougat compulsion was far more precise than needed for a test of remote disease triggering. The perpetrators knew what they were coding for — consider the cloaking advertisement for nougats. My analysts think the enemy may be capable of higher semantic control in as little as a year."

Keiko sighed. "Damn. All my life, I've fought the cults. I thought the great nations were beyond the most monstrous evils… but this, this would make me wrong."

Gьnberk nodded. "If we are right about these labs and if we fail to properly… deal… with them, that could be the end of history. It could be the end of all the striving for good against evil that has ever been." He shook himself, abruptly returning to the practical. "And yet we are reduced to working through this damned rabbit person."

Alfred said gently, "I've studied Rabbit's track record, Gьnberk. I think he can do what we need. One way or another. He'll get us the inside information, or he'll create enough chaos — not attributable to us — that any evil will be clearly visible. If the worst is true, we'll have evidence that we and China and even the nonculpable parties in the U.S.A. can use to stamp this out." Suppression attacks on the territory of a Great Power were rare, but there was precedent.