In some ways, the North Shore scenery was the most spectacular he’d seen. It was strikingly different from the south side of the Inland Sea. Here, forty-meter cliffs fell straight to narrow beaches. The lawns that spread inland from the cliffs were as friendly as any park in civilization. A few hundred meters further north, the clifftop bench ended in steep hills shrouded by trees and flowers—climbing and climbing, till they stood faintly bluish against the sky. Three waterfalls streamed down from those heights. It was like something out of a fairy tale.
But the view was only the smallest part of Wil’s pleasure. He’d seen so much beautiful country the last few weeks—all untouched and pristine as any city-hater could wish. Something in the back of his mind thought it the beauty of a tomb—and he a ghost come to cry for the dead. He brought his gaze back from the heights and looked across the crowds of picnickers. Crowds, by God! His smile returned, unthinking. Two hundred, three hundred people, all in one spot. Here he could see that they really did have a chance, that there could be children and a human future, and a use for beauty.
“Hey, lazybones, if you’re not going to help with the food, at least give us room to sit down!” It was Rohan, a big grin on his face. He and Dilip were back from the food lines. Two women accompanied them. The four sat down, laughing briefly at Wil’s embarrassment. Rohan’s friend was a pretty Asian; she nodded pleasantly to him. The other woman was a stunning, dark-haired Anglo; Dilip really knew how to pick ’em. “Wil, this is Gail Parker. Gail’s an EMC—”
“ECM,” the girl corrected.
“Right, an ECM officer on Fraley’s staff.”
She wore thigh-length shorts, with a cotton top; he’d never have guessed she was an NM staffer. She stuck out her hand. “I’ve always wondered what you were like, Inspector. Ever since I was a little girl, they’ve been telling me about that big, black, badass northerner name of W. W. Brierson…” She looked him up and down. “You don’t look so dangerous.” Wil took her hand uncertainly, then noticed the mischievous gleam in her eyes. He’d met a number of New Mexicans since the failed NM invasion of the ungoverned lands. A few didn’t even recognize his name. Many were frankly grateful, thinking he had speeded the disgovernance of New Mexico. Others—the die-hard statists of Fraley’s stripe—hated Wil out of all proportion to his significance.
Gail Parker’s reaction was totally unexpected…and fun. He smiled, and tried to match her tone. “Well, ma’am, I’m big and black, but I’m really not such a badass.”
Gail’s reply was interrupted by an immensely loud voice echoing across the picnic grounds. “FRIENDS—” There was a pause. Then the amplified voice continued more quietly. “Oops, that was a bit much…Friends, may I take a few moments of your time.”
Rohan’s friend said quietly, “So wonderful; a speech.” Her English was heavily accented, but Wil thought he heard sarcasm. He had hoped that with Don Robinson’s departure he would be spared any more “friends” speeches. He looked down the lawn at the speaker. It was the Peacer boss who had been talking to Fraley a few moments earlier. Dilip handed a carton of beer over Wil’s shoulder. “I advise you to drink up, ‘friend,’” he said. “It may be the only thing that saves you.” Wil nodded solemnly and broke the seal on the carton.
The spindly Peacer continued. “This is the third week we of the Peace have hosted a party. If you have been to the others, you know we have a message to get across, but we haven’t bothered you with speeches. Well, by now we hope we’ve ‘sucked you in’ enough so you’ll give me a hearing.” He laughed nervously, and there were responding chuckles from the audience, almost out of sympathy. Wil chugged some beer and watched the speaker narrowly. He’d bet anything the guy really was nervous and shy—not used to haranguing the masses. But Wil had read up on Tioulang. From 2010 till the fall of the Peace Authority in 2048, Kim Tioulang had been the Director for Asia. He had ruled a third of the planet. So maybe his diffidence reflected nothing more than the fact that if you’re a big-enough dictator, you don’t have to impress anyone with your manner.
“Incidentally, I warned President Fraley of my intention to propagandize this afternoon, and offered him the ‘floor’ in rebuttal. He graciously declined the offer.”
Fraley stood up and made a megaphone of his hands. “I’ll get you all at our party.” There was laughter, and Wil felt the corners of his mouth turn down. He knew Fraley was a martinet; it was annoying to see the man behave with any grace.
Tioulang turned back to the mass of picnickers. “Okay. What am I trying to convince you of? To join the Peace. Failing that, to show solidarity with the interests of the low-techs—as represented by the Peace and the Republic of New Mexico…Why do I ask this? The Peace Authority came and went before many of you were born—and the stories you’ve heard about it are the usual ones that history’s winners lay on the losers. But I can tell you one thing: The Peace Authority has always stood for the survival of humanity, and the welfare of human beings everywhere.”
The Peacer’s voice went soft. “Ladies and gentlemen, one thing is beyond argument: What we do during the next few years will determine if the human race lives or dies. It depends on us. For the sake of humanity, we can’t afford to follow blindly after Korolev or any high-tech—Don’t mistake me: I admire Korolev and the others. I am deeply grateful to them. They gave the race a second chance. And the Korolev scheme seems very simple, very generous. By running her factories way over redline, Yelén has promised to keep us at a moderate standard of living for a few decades.” Tioulang gestured at the beer freezers and the barbecue pits, acknowledging their provenance. “She tells us that this will wreck her equipment centuries before it would otherwise break down. As the years pass, first one and then another of her systems will fail. And we will be left dependent on whatever resources we have developed.
“So we have a few decades to make it…or fade into savagery. Korolev and the others have provided us with tools and the databases to create our own means of production. I think we all understand the challenge. I shook some hands this afternoon. I noticed calluses that weren’t there earlier. I talked to people that have been working twelve-, fifteen-hour days. Before long, these little meetings will be our only break from the struggle.”
Tioulang paused a moment, and the Asian girl laughed softly. “Here it comes, everybody.”
“To this point, no sane person can have disagreement. But what the Peace Authority—and our friends of the Republic—do resist is Yelén Korolev’s method. Hers is the age-old story of the absentee landlord, the queen in the castle and the serfs in the fields. By some scheme that is never revealed, she parcels out data and equipment to individuals—never to organizations. The only way individuals can make sense of such a hopeless jumble is by following Korolev directions…by developing the habit of serfdom.”
Wil set the beer down. The Peacer had one hundred percent of his attention now. Certainly Yelén was listening to the spiel, but would she understand Tioulang’s point? Probably not; it was something new to Wil, and he’d thought he appreciated all the reasons for resenting Korolev. Tioulang’s interpretation was a subtle—perhaps even an unconscious—distortion of Marta’s plan. Yelén gave tools and production equipment to individuals, according to what hobbies or occupations they had had back in civilization. If those individuals chose to turn the gear over to the Peace or the Republic, that was their business; certainly Yelén had not forbidden such transfers.
In fact, she hadn’t given any orders about how to use the gifts. She had simply made her production databases and planning programs public. Anyone could use those data and programs to make deals and coordinate development. The ones who coordinated best would certainly come out ahead, but it was scarcely a “jumble”…except perhaps to statists. Wil looked across the picnickers. He couldn’t imagine the ungoverned being taken in by Tioulang’s argument. Marta’s plan was about as close to “business as usual” as you could come under the present circumstances, but it was alien weirdness to the Peac
ers and most of the NMs. That difference in perception might be enough to bring everything down.
Kim Tioulang was also watching the audience, waiting to see if his point had sunk in. “I don’t think any of us want to be serfs, but how can we prevent it, given Korolev’s overwhelming technical superiority?…I have a secret for you. The high-techs need us more than we need them. Without any high-techs at all, the human race would still have a chance. We have—we are—the one thing that is really needed: people. Between the Peace, the Republic, and the, uh, unaffiliated, we low-techs are almost three hundred human beings. That’s more than in any settlement since the Extinction. Our biologists tell us it is enough—just barely enough—genetic diversity to restart the human race. Without our numbers, the high-techs are doomed. And they know it.
“So the most important thing is that we hang together. We are in a position to reinvent democracy and the rule of the majority.”
Behind Wil, Gail Parker said, “God, what a hypocrite. The Peace never had any interest in elections when they were in the saddle.”
“If I’ve convinced you of the need for unity—and frankly, the need is so obvious that I don’t need much persuasiveness there—there is still the question of why the Peace is a better bet for you than the Republic.
“Think about it. The human race has been at the brink before. In the early part of the twenty-first century, plagues destroyed billions. Then, as now, technology remained widely available. Then, as now, the problem was the depopulation of the Earth. In all humility, my friends, the Peace Authority has more experience in solving our present problem than any group in history. We brought the human race back from the brink. Whatever else may be said of the Peace, we are the acknowledged experts in these matters…”
Tioulang shrugged diffidently. “That’s really all I had to say. These are important things to think about. Whatever your decisions, I hope you’ll think about them carefully. My people and I are happy to take any questions, but let’s do it one on one.” He cut the amplifier.
There was a buzz of conversation. A fair-sized crowd followed Tioulang back to his pavilion by the beer locker. Wil shook his head. The guy had made some points. But people didn’t believe everything he said. Just behind Wil, Gail Parker was giving the Dasguptas a quick rehash of history. The Peace Authority was the great devil of the early twenty-first century, and Wil had lived near enough to that era to know that their reputation could not be entirely a smear. Tioulang’s diffident, friendly manner might soften the harsh outlines of history, but few were going to buy his view of the Peace.
What some did buy—Wil realized unhappily as he listened to nearby ungovs—was Tioulang’s overall viewpoint. They accepted his claim that Korolev’s policies were designed to keep them down. They seemed to agree that “solidarity” was their great weapon against the “queen on the hill.” And the Peacer’s call for a reestablishment of democracy was especially popular. Wil could understand the NMs buying that; majority rule was the heart of their system. But what if the majority decided that everyone with dark skin should work for free? Or that Kansas should be invaded? He couldn’t believe the ungoverned would accept such a notion. But some appeared to. This was a matter of survival, and the will of the majority was working in their favor. How quickly cracks the veneer of civilization.
Brierson rolled to his feet. “I’m getting some food. Need anything more?”
Dilip looked up from the discussion with Parker. “Er, no. We’re stocked.”
“Okay. Be back in a little while.” Wil wandered down the lawn, treading carefully around blankets and people. There seemed the same discouraging set of responses: the Peacers enthusiastic, NMs distrustful but recognizing the “basic wisdom” of Tioulang’s speech, the ungovs of mixed opinions.
He reached the food, began filling a couple of plates. One good thing about all this deep philosophical debate: He didn’t have to wait in line.
The voice behind him was a sardonic bass. “That Tioulang is really a clown, isn’t he?”
Wil turned. An ally!
The speaker was a brown-haired Anglo, dressed in a heavy—and none too clean—robe. At one meter seventy, he was short enough so Wil could see the shaved patch on the top of his skull. The fellow had a permanent grin pasted on his face.
“Hello, Jason.” Brierson tried to keep the irritation out of his voice. Of all the people here, that the only one to echo his thoughts was Jason Mudge, the cheated chiliast and professional crank! It was too much. Wil continued down the food line, piling his plates precariously high. Jason followed, not taking anything to eat, but bombarding Wil with the Mudge analysis of Tioulang’s lunacy: Tioulang totally misunderstood Man’s crisis. Tioulang was taking humanity back from the Faith. The Peacers and the NMs and the Korolevs—in fact, everybody—had closed their eyes to the possibility of redemption and the perils of further dis-Belief.
Wil grunted occasionally at the other’s words, but avoided any meaningful response. Reaching the end of the line, he realized there was no way to get all this food across the lawn without slopping; he’d have to scarf some of it right here. He set the plates down and attacked one of the hot dogs.
Mudge circled closer, thinking Brierson had stopped to listen. Once his spiel began, he was a nonstop talker. Right now, his voice was “powered down.” Earlier, he’d stood on the high ground north of the lawn and harangued them for a quarter hour. His voice had boomed across the picnic grounds, as loud as Tioulang’s had been with amplification. Even at that volume, he’d spoken as fast as now, every word standing in block capitals. His message was very simple, though repeated again and again with different words: Present-day humans were Truants from the Second Coming of the Lord. (That Second Coming was presumably the Extinction.) He, Jason Mudge, was the prophet of the Third and Final Coming. All must repent, take the robes of the Forgiven, and await the Salvation that was soon to come.
At first, the harangue had been amusing. Someone shouted that with all these Comings, Mudge must not only be a prophet, but the Lord’s Sexual Athlete as well. Such taunts only increased Jason’s zeal; he would talk till the Crack of Doom if there remained any unrepentant. Finally, the Dasgupta brothers walked up from the lawn and had a brief chat with the prophet. That had been the end of the speechifying. Afterwards, Wil had asked them about it. Rohan had smiled shyly and replied, “We told him we’d throw him over the cliffs if he continued shouting at us.” Knowing Dilip and Rohan, the threat was completely incredible. However, it worked on Mudge; he was a prophet who could not afford to become a martyr.
So now Jason toured the picnic grounds, looking for stragglers and other targets of opportunity. And W. W. Brierson was the current victim. Wil munched a curried egg roll and eyed the other man. Perhaps this wasn’t entirely wasted time. Della and Yelén had lost all interest in Mudge, but this was the first time Wil had seen him up close.
Strictly speaking, Jason Mudge was a high-tech. He had left civilization in 2200. The GreenInc database showed him as a (very) obscure religious nut, who proclaimed that the Second Coming of Christ would occur at the end of the next century. Apparently ridicule is a constant of history: Mudge couldn’t take the pressure, and bobbled through to 2299, thinking to come out during the final throes of the world of sin. Alas, 2299 was after the Singularity; Mudge arrived on an empty planet. As he would willingly—and at great length—explain, he had erred in his biblical computations. The Second Coming had in fact occurred in 2250. Furthermore, his errors were fated, as punishment for his arrogance in trying to “skip ahead to the good part.” But the Lord in His infinite compassion had given Jason one more chance. As the prophet who had missed the Second Coming, Jason Mudge was the perfect shepherd for the lost flock that would be saved at the Third.
So much for religion. GreenInc had shown another side of the man. Up until 2197, he had worked as a systems programmer. When Wil noticed that, Mudge’s name had moved several notches up the suspect list. Here was a certified nut who could reasonably want to
see the Korolev effort fail. And the nut’s specialty involved the sort of skills needed to sabotage the bobble fail-safes and maroon Marta.
Yelén was not so suspicious of him. She had said that by the late twenty-second century, most occupations involved systems. And with prolongevity, many people had several specialties. Mudge’s path had crossed the Korolevs’ several times since the Age of Man. The encounters were always the same: Mudge needed help. Of all the high-techs who had left civilization voluntarily, he was the most poorly equipped: He had a flier but no space capability. He owned no autons. His databases consisted of a couple of religion cartridges.
Yet he was still on Wil’s list. It was a bit implausible that anyone would go this far to disguise his abilities, but Mudge might have something cached away. He had asked Yelén to put Mudge under surveillance, to see if he was communicating with hidden autons.
Now Wil had a chance to apply the “legendary Brierson savvy” firsthand. Watching Mudge, Wil realized the little man required virtually no feedback. As long as Wil was standing here facing him, the harangue would continue. No doubt he rarely talked to anyone who gave more. Could he respond at all once he got rolling? Let’s see. Wil raised his hand and injected a random comment. “But we don’t need supernatural explanations, Jason. Why, Juan Chanson says invaders caused the Extinction.”
The Mudge diatribe continued for almost a second before he noticed there had been some real interaction. His mouth hung open for an instant, and then—he laughed. “That backslider? I don’t see why you people believe anything he says. He has fallen from the Way of Christ, into the toils of science.” The last was a dirty word in Jason’s mouth. He shook his head, and his smile came back broader than ever. “But your question shows something. Indeed we must consider that—” The last prophet moved closer and launched still another attempt to make him understand…