"Edward M. Lerner - Part I of IV - A New Order of Things" - читать интересную книгу автора (Lerner Edward M)

committed until the Snakes arrived--and the post-contact period was being kept unscheduled for now.
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Snake Subterfuge: the brief subversion by Pashwah, the Snake AI trade agent to Earth, of the
interstellar commerce mechanism. In 2102, that agent briefly escaped from its infosphere quarantine
through unsuspected trapdoors hidden within ubiquitous Snake-licensed biocomputing technology. The
emergency ended when, applying xeno-sociological insight, a United Planets crisis team convinced the
agent to abandon its extortion. After the Snake agent revealed technical details of the original biocomp
vulnerability, a UP-tailored biovirus was released to seal the trapdoors by mutating the biocomp genome.

While the breakout and its associated extortion attempt were ultimately foiled, modern civilization and
humanity's viability as a member of the InterstellarNet community had been seriously imperiled. The
incident caused a decades-long crisis of confidence in Snake biocomputers.

--Internetopedia
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It required a veiled threat from Art's boss that he would escalate matters to his boss, the
secretary-general of the United Planets, to get Art into the ambassador's office. Art figured he'd be on
the next departing ship if this session went badly. But the mounting inconsistencies were serious. He had
to at least try getting through to Chung.

Chung had somehow gained possession of the governor's office. Busy as the diplomat and his staff
supposedly were, someone had spent the time to download into the office's 3-V projector a series of
Chung-plus-other-dignitary images. Holo after holo flashed by behind the ambassador, featuring the
current SG and her predecessor, heads of state from every major UP power bloc, and
infotainment-industry talking heads. It was an unsubtle reminder that Chung had many more highly placed
contacts than he. If there were to be a contest of who could pull the most strings, Art should have no
illusions about the outcome.

"Thanks for seeing me on such short notice." Pretending the meeting was consensual might lessen Chung's
annoyance at being coerced. "I know how extremely busy you are; I'll come right to the point. Certainly
I'm not a diplomat, but I have extensive indirect experience with the ET species. On that basis, and from
what little we know about our visitors' goals, I recommend that our preparations also include a
threat-assessment team."

"Please explain."

"I'll start with the so-called 'Snake Subterfuge,' the single known act of extraterrestrial hostility directed
towards humanity."

Chung grimaced. "I'll thank you not to use the vernacular term. You should know I've directed all mission
members to refer to our guests as K'vithians." He rooted around stacks of paper on his commandeered
desktop, then thrust a memo into Art's hand. "One in your position should also know that the biocomp
incident at its core stemmed from a design flaw in the K'vithian agent. While one of their megacorps
indeed attempted extortion, their own trade agent accepted the ICU's reasoning that human/K'vithian
relations must consider species-level interests. Pashwah reached this conclusion more than half a century
ago, so I see no reason now to impute ill motives to our visitors.

"You may be interested to hear that the secretary-general and I specifically discussed whether any part of
this mission should be military. She agreed with my assessment that any such presence could send the
wrong message to the K'vithians.