The Little Green Book of Chairman Rahma (32 page)

It hardly seemed possible. But then again, neither did Joss Stuart.

 

34

Millions of years ago, prehistoric man began to use tools and weapons, and this separated him on the evolutionary chart from his simian cousins. Now, ironically, there is a potential for mankind to not need certain tools—because the seeds of destruction and resurrection could be
in
his fingertips, rather than
at
them.

—His Eminence Rahma Popal, ruminations on Joss Stuart

A CREATURE OF
habit, the Chairman awoke early in the morning and sat up on the futon sleeping mat. Beside him, a woman stirred and then stretched, letting the blanket slip from her naked torso. She gave him a kiss on his bearded mouth, rose without bothering to cover herself, and walked into the bathroom.

He admired her curves and the way she moved, the graceful, sensual sashay. Descended from the Lakota (Sioux) Indians of the Great Plains, Valerie Tatanka did not look anything like his favorite, Dori Longet, or Jade Ridell, both of whom were curvaceous. In her mid-thirties, Valerie was tall and slender, with long black hair, high cheekbones, and dark, sensitive eyes. A shy personality, she didn't talk much (though she was quite scholarly), and at times that was what Rahma needed, physical affection without the conversation that sometimes led to stress and conflict. Not that he was averse to talking at depth with women, especially with the intelligent, well-read Dori, but sometimes he liked to get away from all of that, and just succumb to his passions.

Like Dori and Jade, Valerie was smart, much more than just a pretty face and a good lover. She was the doctor in charge of the medical clinic on the game reserve, a two-story yurt where one other doctor and two nurses worked. She was overqualified for her duties and had been offered promotions to major hospitals, all of which she had declined, saying she preferred to remain here, not far from where her people used to roam the plains. On a de facto basis, she had become the Chairman's private physician, in all but title. She was also much more than that to him.

Now Valerie emerged from the bathroom and put on an embroidered dress, beads, and sky-blue Lakota moccasins. Then, with hardly a word, she kissed him again and departed, waving cheerfully to him as she went through the doorway.

Left alone, Rahma ate a large bowl of oatmeal with slivered pecans and chopped apples in it. Afterward he slipped into a formal robe and strolled out onto the grassy area in the midst of his compound of yurts. He was thinking about the busy day ahead of him, meeting with his top military officers to assess the defensive measures that were being taken on an emergency basis. In the two months since the failed Bostoner attack, there had been smaller incidents that did not suggest any usage of SciO technology, hit-and-run strikes that did not appear to be coordinated.

As usual, Dori Longet was waiting for him on the grass. Each morning that weather allowed, the two of them took a stroll together, and went over his daily schedule. The small blonde had a VR heads-up display in front of her face, with the information on it. “Director Ondex is on his way here, sir. He sounded very upset on the sat-call he made, insisted you would want to rearrange your schedule to see him.”

As Rahma and Dori fell into step together, the Chairman asked, “What does he want this time?”

“He didn't say, only that it's extremely urgent. I confirmed this with Artie, who is still with him, then took the liberty of promising the Director we would fit him in. Artie indicates that an important discovery has been made, but he also says that Ondex insists on passing the information on to you personally, and not through the hubot.”

“Most peculiar.”

“Ondex seems to be pulling rank on him.”

“But Artie is my direct representative, and no one outranks me.” He paused. “Not technically, anyway.”

“Artie indicates that he's transmitted the new information into a backup file here at Montana Valley, and you can access it today with the codes you know. However, the Director is quite insistent that he be allowed to address you first to explain the situation.”

“The ‘situation,' eh? Must be something serious, perhaps even incriminating. He's obviously worried. Well, when is he due to arrive?”

“Within half an hour, sir. Your first scheduled appointment was supposed to be at seven thirty, General Preda and Admiral Hansen reporting on our west coast air, land, and naval maneuvers. Shall I move them back an hour, and every other appointment afterward? You have a crowded calendar today.”

Glancing at the tattoolike chrono embedded in his wrist, Rahma grunted in affirmation. It was shortly before seven. “All right. I guess I can hold off on accessing Artie's file until he and Ondex get here. But if they're late, I'm not waiting.”

“Yes, sir.”

The pair went over the other appointments quickly, and then Dori left to make the revised arrangements.

Chairman Rahma was about to return to his office when he heard a roar of engines and saw a VTOL plane descending, with the propellers on its wings tilted up in the position of helicopter rotors. The craft set down on the grass.

Then, with the rotors still spinning, a rear hatch flew open. Arch Ondex disembarked and hurried across the grass, approaching him. He was followed by Artie.

“Shall we go to your office?” Ondex asked, as he reached the Chairman.

“We'll meet out here,” Rahma replied, noting that the Director's left hand was in a cast, which he explained was from slamming his fist on the edge of a casket when Artie was with him.

The Chairman gestured for the patrician man and Artie to accompany him, and they set off across the grass, toward a nature trail that ran beside an electronic pasture fence, invisible except for blinking red lights on top.

Keeping up with the fast pace, Ondex said, “I need to tell you more about the vanishing tunnel project. I've already told you it was a top-secret research program, an offshoot of splitting and greenforming technology, and it failed, with the entire team of inventors committing suicide.”

“And the bodies of the suicide victims?” Rahma asked. He paused to stare out at a herd of antelope on the other side of the fence.

“One is missing, that of Dylan Bane, the brilliant scientist who was in charge of the program. He probably murdered the rest of his team.”

The Chairman shook his head, shot a hard gaze at Ondex. “He took the vanishing tunnel technology with him, didn't he?”

“Right, seventeen years ago, and the traitor tried not to leave any records behind, though we found some clues. Without knowing he was still alive, we've had a crack team working on the technology ever since, and we've made some progress toward developing it ourselves. Our best people are working on it.”

“But you're not there yet?”

“No, there's an ongoing problem with scaling the technology up to the proportions we need for military purposes. The tunneling system uses splitting and greenforming machinery at the same time, and there have been a number of promising clues as to how they work in tandem to bore through the earth. We
are
catching up.”

Rahma glowered at him. “But you're not there yet.”

“No, but we're confident that we will solve it.” He trembled noticeably, almost stumbled into the electronic pasture fence, which would have given him a moderate shock.

“I want results, blast you! Where is that son of a Corporate whore hiding?”

“We don't know. Not yet.” Director Ondex looked like a scolded dog. He hung his head, fearful of meeting the Chairman's gaze.

“Our military forces are already on full alert,” Rahma said, “so there's not any more we can do. And what are we defending against? A phantom? Your rogue SciO inventor is either leading his own forces against us or he's turned the technology over to the Corporates, the Eurikans, or the Panasians—or some combination of them.” He heaved a deep sigh. “Maybe there's yet another foe we don't know about yet. In any event, we have powerful enemies, potentially aligned against us in an unknown form.”

“I've put our best scientists on it and our labs are working around the clock,” Ondex said, scratching under the cast on his hand. “We'll either solve this or die trying.”

“The effort may be too late,” Rahma muttered.

Ondex didn't respond. He looked dismal, but the Chairman felt no compassion for him, only anger for his part in letting dangerous technology escape. Before this revelation, SciO security had seemed impregnable, but Rahma knew now that was not the case.

“Why hasn't Bane made another attack like he did at Bostoner?” the Chairman asked. “Why the delay?”

“I have no answer for that, sir.”

As Rahma gazed out on the pristine beauty of the game reserve, he thought of all he had tried to do in forming the Green States of America, and of the ideals and efforts that were likely to go to waste if his country went to war. He felt what a deep and extraordinary loss that would be.

He also felt very much alone, because no one on Earth cared as much as he did about the welfare of the planet.

 

35

Many anarchists are unaccounted for. Following the Corporate War in which their violent methods proved useful to our cause, some of them discovered that they could no longer fit in, and vanished. Presumably a number of them are living in the wilderness, having gone there to avoid being arrested and recycled. Others perished there, and became food for predator animals.

—a GSA statistical analysis of population decline

THE LONG TRUCK
bumped slowly over a rough desert pan, following satellite coordinates that had been laid out by the local dispatch office. It was midday and unseasonably cool for autumn, with the sun hiding behind a layer of clouds. Joss and Kupi sat in the passenger dome behind the driver's cab of Janus Machine No. 129, wearing crisp, clean uniforms with peace symbols on the lapels. A holo-map projection floated in the air in front of them, over an instrument console.

This was Joss's first greenforming gig since returning to duty, and he felt trepidation as he looked through the dusty clearplex, not knowing what awaited him. He wanted to return to his normal activities, and this job was a step in that direction. But he felt trapped by circumstances, needing to work to get his mind off his concerns, while knowing that he was only delaying the inevitable. Whatever he was becoming physically, he would become, whether he wanted to admit it or not. Despite his hopes, he had a sinking sensation that the powers would not wane.

“We're like Shiva in this machine,” Kupi said, “the Hindu god of the universe's creative and destructive powers. The destroyer side wears a necklace of skulls—that's me, the Black Shirt—while the creative side is a phallic symbol. That's you, in case you're having trouble keeping up.” She ran a finger over a vinelike green scar on his arm.

“An interesting line of reasoning, the way your logic invariably leads to sex. I've been wondering. Is that all we have between us, the physical relationship?”

“Of course not. I like to think we're good friends, too.” She looked hurt.

“I'm sorry. I didn't mean that the way it came out. Of course we're good friends. Thank you for caring about me after my accident, for visiting my hospital room when you could. And for keeping the crew together in my absence.”

“You're a better crew chief than I am, Joss.”

The truck rolled over an especially bumpy area, jostling them around. “Maybe they should have brought in the heavy-lift copters and flown us to the site,” Joss said.

Kupi pointed ahead of them, down a slight hill. “We're almost there,” she said.

Through the dusty dome, Joss saw a sprawling complex of low-lying buildings, surrounded by a broken-down wall of adobe bricks. He checked the holo-map, said, “Villa Cabrón.
Cabrón
—that's a bad word in Spanish, isn't it?”

“Uh-huh. This was a fortified company town, run by a drug lord known as El Cabrón—‘The Son of a Bitch.' He controlled every village in a hundred-mile radius—a reign of terror, from what I hear.”

“Why wasn't it greenformed earlier?” Joss saw vehicles parked outside the compound wall, and people walking around, the privileged who were able to get permits to leave their reservations.

Kupi shrugged. “Just another bureaucratic detail to mop up for all I know, from someone's list. Not too much grows naturally around here, does it? Maybe that has something to do with the delay, because a few more straggly plants instead of buildings aren't going to do jack for worldwide air quality.”

Out on the flatlands, Joss identified small cacti, succulents, mesquite, and varieties of scrub brush that grew in arid climates, and he thought of how hardy such plants were. In a sense, they seemed admirable to him—and considering this for a moment, he thought these plants were more admirable than flora that grew in less-demanding climates. People were that way too, it seemed to him; they were shaped by their environments.

As they neared the compound and parked just outside the front gate, people gathered around the big machine and watched while the crew set up the outriggers and inspected the various components. Kupi went out to the turret platform and stood by the railing, but Joss remained inside, having decided to wait until the last minute before going to his station at the Seed Cannon. Some of the people were looking at him in the dome and pointing.

More vehicles showed up, and more people. The crew set up a clearplex blast shield, and directed the onlookers to step behind it, then cleared stray animals with sonics. Joss saw a desert hare scurry off, and a flurry of rodents. He thought there must be five hundred observers out there with off-reservation permits, which was unheard of at remote jobsites. They had come to see Greenman, with vines on his skin; there could be no other explanation. They wanted to see a carnival sideshow.