Imperial Stars 3-The Crash of Empire (19 page)

He waited for an answer, but nobody offered one.

"There is an old story in our folklore," he continued, "about a boy who bought himself an animal somewhat like your terrestrial calf. He thought that if he lifted it above his head ten times a day while it was little, he would build up his strength gradually until he would still be able to lift it over his head when it was a full-grown animal. He soon discovered the existence of a natural limiting factor. Do you see what I mean? When those people down there reached their natural limits, there was no place for them to go but backward. We had the machine, though, and the machine can always be made smaller and better, so we had no stopping point."

He reached inside his vest and pulled out a small shining object about the size of a cigarette case. "This is hooked by a tight beam to the great generators on Altair. Of course I wouldn't, but I could move planets with it if I wanted to. It's simply a matter of applying a long enough lever, and the lever, if you'll remember, is a simple machine."

Karl looked dazed. In fact, everyone did.

"Yeah," he muttered, "yeah, I see what you mean." He turned to the group. "All right, let's get back to the engine room. We've got a long flight ahead of us."

"How long?" asked the little man.

"Four months if we push it."

"Shocking waste of time."

"I suppose you can do better?" Karl inquired belligerently.

"Oh, dear me, yes," said Mr. Thwiskumb. "It would take me about a minute and a half. You Superiors dawdle so—I'm glad I'm normal."

Jan was doing a happy little dance through his apartment when his buzzer rang. He opened the door and Ferdie stepped in.

"I came up on the elevator," he said. "It's a lot easier on the nerves. My, you look pleased with yourself. I know why, too—I saw her coming out of the lobby when I came in. She walked as if she were wearing clouds instead of shoes."

Jan did a little caper. "We're getting married next week and I got my job back."

"I got mine back, too," said Ferdie. "Old Kleinholtz gave me a lecture about walking out on him when work was at its heaviest, but he was too pleased with himself to do more than a perfunctory job. When he took me back into the lab, I saw why. He's finally got his gadget running."

"What did it turn out to be? A time machine?"

Ferdie grinned mysteriously. "Something almost as good. It lifts things."

"What kind of things?"

"Any kind. Even people. Old Kleinholtz had a little set of controls rigged up that he could strap to his chest. He turned the machine on and went flying around the lab like a bird."

Jan's jaw dropped. "The way we do?"

"Just the same, boy. He's found a way to tap the
terska
force. Really tap it, not suck little driblets out, as we do. Another ten years and the Ordinaries will be able to do anything we can do, only better. And a good thing, too. Telepathy gives us headaches, and levitation is a pleasant Sunday afternoon pastime, but hardly something to build a civilization on. As Mr. Thwiskumb said, the machine has no natural limits, so I guess our worries about the future are over. Nobody is going to be unhappy about us being able to fly thirty miles an hour when they can make it instantaneous. Looks like superman is obsolete before he even had a chance to get started."

He stretched his arms and yawned. "Guess I'd better get home and hit the sack. It's going to be a busy day at the lab tomorrow."

He walked over to the open window and looked out.

"Flying home?" asked Jan.

Ferdie grinned and shook his head. "I'm waiting until the new improved model comes out."

The news this week tells us of floods in Bangladesh: they have denuded the high ground of trees, and now the low ground floods. There is nothing to eat. Food shipments are urgently needed.

Bangladesh has one of the highest rates of population growth on Earth.

We like to believe we have rational control of our lives, but how much history depends on personal accidents? Henry II of England spent many of his evenings getting drunk with his knights. He does not seem to have been an actual alcoholic. He also suffered from chilblains and piles. Were they especially painful the night that Henry drunkenly muttered "Will no one rid me of this meddlesome priest?" A week later Thomas à Becket, Archbishop of Canterbury, was dead in his cathedral. Henry accepted responsibility for the order he claimed he had never intended to give, and seemed genuinely penitent; but the history of the English church and state was changed forever.

Sometimes, too, what seems coldly rational is not. Robert S. McNamara and his Pentagon "Whiz Kids" attempted to subordinate military strategy and doctrine to a mathematical technique called "systems analysis." The notion was that military judgment was flawed; what was needed was "objective criteria." In practice that meant numbers; and soon a great part of our effort in Vietnam was devoted to collecting statistics. One USAF colonel, examining our efforts against North Vietnam, pointed out a new way to make the attack more effective—and was told "Colonel, you have the wrong idea. We're not trying to destroy targets, we're flying sorties and delivering weapons tonnage." The stories about body counts are too well known to need repeating. Decisions can and should be rational; but those who make the decisions remain human.

 
(Tre-áhzh) [Fr.
"sorting"
]. Classification of casualties of war, or other disaster, to determine priority of treatment: Class 1—those who will die regardless of treatment; Class 2—those who will live regardless of treatment; Class 3—those who can be saved only by prompt treatment.

We have met the enemy, and he is us.
From Walt Kelly's cartoon strip,
Pogo
.

The man waited with outward patience, standing stiff-backed, knees together, opposite the desk where a nervous male secretary feigned work under his punishing scrutiny. Seemingly quite at ease, the man was tall, forceful in appearance, with a proud aquiline nose, sleek dirty-blond hair, and chill hazel eyes. The wraparound collar of his pearl-gray jacket was buttoned even though a power brownout had once again paralyzed Greater New York during the night and early morning hours, leaving the anteroom overwarm and stuffy.

The secretary darted occasional furtive looks toward the tall man. At last, their glances crossed. The secretary squirmed. "Sorry . . . for the delay, Mr. Rook. I can't imagine what's keeping her."

"Madame Duiño is busy, Harold." The man folded his arms. "Don't trouble yourself; pretend that I'm not here."

"Yes, sir." The secretary plunged back into his paperwork. When the intercom buzzed, moments later, he said hastily, "You can go right in now, sir." The inner door eased shut; the secretary looked immensely relieved.

The office of Dr. Victoria Maria-Luisa Ortega de Duifio, Chairperson of the Triage Committee, UN Department of Environment and Population, was as severe and desiccated as the woman herself. A blue-and-white United Nations ensign hung behind her desk on the left; on the right, atop a travertine pedestal, the diorite bas-relief presented to her by Emilio Quintana, Mexico's preeminent sculptor, depicted a stylized version of UNDEP's logo; the globe of Earth, with a set of balanced scales and the motto TERRA STABILITA superimposed across it. A pair of guest chairs hand-crafted of clear Honduras mahogany were adrift upon a sea of wall-to-wall shag the color of oatmeal. Save for an old-fashioned French pendulum clock, and the floor-to-ceiling video panels—now dark—Sra. Duiño's sanctum was enclosed by barren oyster-white walls. Lined damask draperies shrouded a picture window overlooking the East River ninety floors below.

Rook did not take a seat. He chose a spot just inside the door, studying the old woman with an indolent expression.

If aware of the man's presence, Dr. Duiño gave no sign, occupying herself with the sheaf of papers before her on the desktop. Her hair, as short and brittle as her temper, was reached stiffly backward to form a platinum aura; her features were wrinkled, sagging, though her eyes retained the dark and shining luster of youth. Around her frail neck, pendant against the lace mantilla thrown over her shoulders, was a large silver crucifix. In six months and eleven days, Victoria Duiño would celebrate her eighty-eighth birthday. She was the most reviled and detested human on Earth.

"My apologies, Bennett." The old woman looked up at last. "Please sit down. I had not intended to keep you away from your desk so long."

"Quite all right, Victoria." The tall man made it a point to remain standing. "I take it the matter is pressing?"

"No. Not really." She touched a button: a hologram condensed in the largest video tank across the office, allowing them to eavesdrop on a courtroom scene. Now in its penultimate stages, the trial was taking place half a continent away. "I merely wish to assure myself that we were obtaining full PR value from the Sennich Trial," she said. "Have you been following it?"

Bennett Rook turned with leisurely grace. He listened briefly to the defense attorney's final plea. "Alas, no," he said. "Actually, I've been too busy. Is it the gluttony action you mentioned in your memo?"

The old woman made no rejoinder. Her interest in the trial was exclusively political. In her mind, the guilty verdict soon to be handed down was a foregone conclusion. One Nathan Sennich, and a pair of miserable codefendants, had resurrected the ancient sin of gluttony, which reflected but one symptom of an ailing society in her opinion. But, for UNDEP, the trial carried important propaganda overtones; widespread public indignation, fanned by tabloid journalism, had begun to create a welcome avalanche of letters and calls. If UNDEP press releases were to add fuel to the fire, were to milk the sordid affair for all it was worth . . .

"The gall of those swine!" she said. "In a starving world, they dared slaughter and gorge themselves on the roasted flesh of a fawn stolen from Denver's zoo." Rook's lip curled. His voice was resonant, unruffled. "Grotesque, Victoria. But I can't imagine what's in it for us. In forty-eight hours, or less, the remains of our mischievous gourmands will be fertilizing crops in Denver's greenbelts: or perhaps those of the Denver Zoo itself. Poetic justice, eh?"

"Don't make light of it." A throaty burr crept into Sra. Duiño's voice. "I asked you to get PR cracking on this action. You have ignored my request. We stand to reap a certain amount of public sympathy if trial coverage is properly handled, Bennett."

"We?" The man's brows lifted. "Triage Committee? Nothing could improve our image, Victoria. Day before yesterday,
L'Osservatore Romano
once again referred to you as the 'Matriarch of Death.' PR abandoned all attempts to 'sell' the committee years ago."

"You know perfectly well what I meant," said the old woman tautly. "Bennett, must we always fence? Can't you ever sit down and converse with me sociably?"

Rook smiled an arctic smile. He rocked on his heels, returning her stare with steadfast calm. "There are several matters we shall never see in the same light, Victoria. Nothing personal, you understand; if you want the truth, I rather like you. If I did not, I would tell you so. I am no hypocrite."

"No," she agreed, "you are not a hypocrite. Blunt, perhaps; but not a hypocrite."

He made a slight gesture, turning over the flats of his hands. "Blunt, then, if you will."

Dr. Duiño watched him with unwinking concentration. "I want your cooperation," she said, "not your enmity."

Rook sighed. "I'd rather not discuss it."

"Why not? Are you afraid?"

Rook tensed the least bit. "I'm afraid of nothing. Pardon me; of almost nothing."

"Your use of a qualifier makes me curious."

"My only fear," he said slowly, "is for the continuation of our species."

"And mine, Bennett. But that is what we are laboring so earnestly to ensure."

"To little avail," he said.

"That is not a fair and reasonable statement."

"Oh?" Rook stood firm under her withering gaze, his eyes aglow with patriotic fervor. "You are familiar with this week's global delta, of course."

Victoria Duiño hesitated. "I am. It is most encouraging—less than one-quarter of one percent."

"Bravo!" Rook clapped his hands in genteel emphasis. "Despite our sanctions, proscriptions, lawful executions and extensive triage judgments; despite floods, earthquakes, plagues, and the further encroachment of desertlands upon our remaining arable soil, there are now some twenty-five thousand
more
human beings on Earth than the nine and three-quarter billions we could not feed last week. And you tell me all's right with the world."

Sra. Duiño looked taken aback. After a moment, she said quietly, "Zero population growth will be a reality in one and one-half to three years."

"Too damned little, Victoria—too damned
late
. With sterner measures, we would be on the downslope instead of approaching the crest."

"I am familiar with your views," said the woman. " 'Sterner measures,' as you call them, would have made us less than human. I refuse to subscribe to inhumanity as a cure-all for the world's ills."

"Humane philosophy is a luxury we cannot afford."

"Bennett, Bennett! You are intelligent, industrious, thoroughly dedicated; that is why I selected you from the crowd these many years past. But have you no compassion, no slight twinge of conscience for the dreadful judgments we must pass day after day, month after month, year after year?"

"None," said Rook. "It's an interesting facet of human nature; mortal danger to a single individual—the victim of a mine disaster, or someone trapped in a fire—never fails to stimulate a tidal wave of public sympathy, while similar disasters affecting gross numbers are mere statistics, hardly worth a shrug. We do what must be done. We do it analytically, dispassionately, dutifully. Were it otherwise, there would be no sane committee members."

"I . . . see. And you think me a senile, idealistic old fool who should step aside and allow a younger individual, such as yourself, to chair the committee?"