Nor was “allowing the planetary climate to follow its natural course” an option. Because thanks to the wonders of science and technology, “the natural course” no longer existed.
Condition Disney had produced Condition Chaos.
“The lunatics have taken over the asylum,” Eric said. “The passengers have hijacked the flight, and now like it or not,
we’re
flying the planet.”
“And like it or not,” said Monique Calhoun, “we’re going to have to fly it blind. Unless . . .”
She nodded in the direction of Davinda. “Unless . . .”
“Unless we try to weasel our way out of it by turning the controls over to the latest self-proclaimed version of Mr. I Am?” Eric said. “Seems to me, we’ve been trying that one for a few thousand years, and where, need I ask, has it gotten us?”
Monique Calhoun sighed.
“Where we are now,” she admitted.
“And so . . .”
“And so, sweet Prince . . . ?”
Eric shrugged. “I can tell you what my mother would say,” he told her, and switched over to an emulation of Mom, if not quite up to Ignatz’s version.
“Know the one about how people in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones, kiddo? Well setting off a nuke inside a planetary aquarium don’t seem like such a swift idea either.”
“Meaning what?”
“Meaning that if we both welch on our contracts, Big Blue will trot out Davinda as their heroic volunteer risking death to save the world by providing definitive proof of the onset of Condition Venus while there’s still time to do something about it,” Eric told her. “And they plug him into the computer before the horrified eyes of the world and boot it up and out comes—”
“An atrocity!” said Monique. “A public relations catastrophe! A raving psychotic proclaiming himself the Steersman of the Planetary Tao. Not even Bread & Circuses could spin Big Blue out of that. And if he
dies
during the process—”
“Hope he does,” Eric told her. “Because there’ll be plenty of people out there grateful to be able to bow down to Lao and turn things over to the Steersman of the Planetary Tao. Speaking of the lunatics taking over the asylum.”
“And so, to save a bunch of lying capitalist bastards from the justly earned deserts of their misdeeds, we have to . . . we have to . . .”
“A wise man told me that the buck stops with every citizen-shareholder,” Eric said. “Well, this one stops here. This one’s ours.”
“I was always advised never to be a citizen of anything in which I wouldn’t want to hold shares,” Monique said.
And then, in a small voice, with forlorn bravery: “But I suppose when it’s the Earth, there’s really no choice, huh?”
“We both accepted our contracts, Monique,” Eric said, doing a last minute recheck of the magazine of his flechette pistol in the approved professional manner. “We’re honor-bound.”
“Just like that? How can you . . . how can you kill a man?”
“It’s easy,” Eric told her, making sure the safety was off, “especially with a weapon like this. You just aim, take a deep breath, hold it, and squeeze, don’t pull, the trigger. The recoil isn’t that bad at all.”
“You’ve . . . done this before. . . ?”
Eric nodded. He raised the pistol. Monique scrambled out of the line of fire.
“And you
really
believe that you’re doing the right thing?”
Eric took two steps backward. The pistol would fire a cloud of flechettes that would send quite a bit of blood and flesh flying and this
was
a good suit.
“Don’t you, Monique? If the Marenkos would sacrifice Siberia the Golden if they knew it was the right thing to do, would it really make us pure as the returning snow to turn up our righteous noses at a little necessary wetwork?”
Eric took aim at the indifferent head of John Sri Davinda.
“Well . . . it’s . . . it’s not as if I’m the Virgin Mary, is it, Eric?” said Monique.
She bit down on her lower lip. She went to Eric’s side. She put her left arm around his waist. She raised her pistol and took aim.
“Deep breath . . . ?” she said in a tremulous voice. “Hold it. . . ?” And inhaled.
“Squeeze, don’t pull,” Eric said gently. “On the count of three . . . one . . . two . . .”