A golden ring of info, interweaving the yarn
Of the world’s destiny. Data processing is more
Than a magic ring’s all-conquering spell to awe
The workers to enrich its wearer; it endows legally
With the power to control the world, to change the economy,
The legal and scholastic process, the nation state;
Those with the facts at their fingertips will have a mandate
To burn all books, to degrade all wisdom into knowledge,
All knowledge into factual information, all data into image -
The most potent and socializing image of all being mine!¹
(Observing the Wanderer fixedly through the screen, Mime invites him close with a wheedling gesture of the cursor and asks softly and ingratiatingly)
May I keep my powers, to put some questions of mine?
WANDERER
(lowers his head in thought)
He seems to travel into depths of self to explore
The myth-maker’s annexed country. Although he is sure
That myth has no hold on the world, he affects an interest -
Whether in sympathy or to keep his head can be guessed.
He was doing exactly what the user desires in bawling
Me out. These questions are at daggers drawn with his calling.²
(boldly)
Three questions are yours. If I answer them brightly,
I have three to ask of you: if wrongly, contritely
I leave you with your android brain - and rightly.
MIME
(racks his brains)
² Mime is not yet sold on the idea of having a mythic consciousness, because it involves thinking in a quite implausible and arbitrary way in defiance of the facts. Mime doesn’t believe in pixies and Leprechauns, though the fact that he thinks at all is implausible enough!