Ventus by Karl Schroeder

Karl Schroeder / Ventus / Page 695
can't really command the Winds, can you?"
He stared off into the distance. "I've been on Ventus for
nearly four years. In that time I've investigated hundreds of
possible ways of overthrowing them. The best and purest is to
learn their languages and codes, and simply command them.
There are other ways, though--not as efficient, more
destructive--but they will do."
She pointed above his head. "Those things?"
He nodded. "They are part of it. If you can't tame the
plants in a garden, the best you can do is replace them. Rather
than command the Ventus mecha, I can replace it with mecha
of my own. These mecha are more efficient; they'll choke out
the Ventus mecha in no time."
"But you'll have to cover the world with them. How will
you do that?"
He gestured at the mountains that rose above them.
"This is the nexus of the desal highways. Those highways
even go under the sea--you told me so yourself. If I flood the
highways with my own mecha seeds they will sprout
everywhere. They're hard for the Winds to detect, and as long
as we have the highway system intact we can continue to
disseminate them. We could have a global infestation
underway within days."
"Infestation... Armiger, what will these mecha do to the
other life here--the flora and fauna?"
"Ah." He looked down. "Well, part of the problem with
this plan is that my mecha won't have access to the Winds'
network. They won't be able to coordinate resource usage with
the Winds, so they'll probably throw the Ventus ecosystem out
of whack."
She thought about it. "...How far out of whack?"
"Well, the idea is to threaten the Winds with disaster, so