"Poor people," he whispered. "But what am I to do? Wait until you're strong enough that it becomes my people jumping from burning buildings? I'm sorry for you; truly I am. But it was necessary.
"I hope, I really do, that no more, or not much more, will be necessary."
Interlude
31 January, 2050,
Turtle Bay, New York, New York,
United States of America, Earth
The speech was televised. Moreover, it was watched with keen interest in certain quarters.
Margot Tebaf had prepared long and hard for the occasion. The best speechwriters available to her had taken her thoughts-hers and Dominique's, who had quickly become rather more than a casual fling-and turned them into shining prose, a beacon to light the dark night and turn it to day.
Margot's speech was, from the progressive point of view, exactly on point. Perhaps many, even most, viewers thought it full of pious platitudes, inanities and wishful thinking. She and they simply didn't share the same concepts, even the same vocabulary. In that sense it was a failure, but a predictable one. Moreover, those people really didn't matter. In the more important sense, for people who did share the same world view and did matter-the news media, the European Parliament, the various humanitarian aid and human rights activist organizations around the world (of which there were hundreds of thousands, large and small), and the increasingly hereditary bureaucrats at the United Nations-the speech was a resounding success.
They could read the code phrases put into the speech by Margot's speechwriters. They knew that "increased political stability" was a nicer way of saying "deportation of troublemakers." They knew that "fair distribution of human talent" meant "keep the highly talented from emigrating out of their own hellholes to the United States."
Moreover, the insightful among the viewers saw something that Margot grasped, if at all, only in embryonic form. If they could cut off the flow of immigrants to the United States, and make this new world the only permissible outlet for people who simply didn't care for transnational governance, that would be good. But what would be infinitely better would be the effect of moving those same people out of their home countries in even greater numbers than the United States had ever been willing to accept. For each one that left, say, Europe weakened the resistance to supranational and transglobal governance while each weakening of resistance led to more supranational and transglobal governance. This, in turn, led to more people wanting to leave which, if allowed, would still further weaken resistance to transglobal governance.
It was, the viewers saw, a perfect solution, an elegant solution. Moreover, it did not have the distressing side effect of increasing resistance, and providing an unfortunate counterexample, within the United States. To one another they said, "What's not to like?"
And so the consensus grew-for it was a consensus, not a conspiracy- this new world is the solution to our problems here on Earth.
Chapter Ten Among other evils which being unarmed brings you, it causes you to be despised. -Machiavelli, The Prince
Casa Linda, 29/9/459 AC
If one picture was worth one thousand words, how many words were saved by half a dozen, in living color? The pictures fronted a newspaper that lay unopened upon the desk. There was no need to open it. That front page said everything necessary with its display of dismembered arms and legs, broken bleeding children, and people burned and blasted almost beyond recognition.
They have given me what I asked for, thought an inexpressibly saddened Patricio Carrera. But I will not thank them for it. I wish they had not.
His eyes wandered down again, down to a picture of a little girl. This one, at least was alive. Bloody, she was; covered in blood from head to foot. In the picture her skin showed through only at the twin tear tracks on her cheeks. The little girl was standing perfectly well. She was quite unhurt.
The baby's mother, however, was a ghastly, exsanguinated ruintorn and bloody meat-lying on the street before her.
Though Carrera was saddened, an element of celebration charged the air of Casa Linda. Men passing in the hallways of the house spontaneously lifted their hands to "high five" as they passed. The Boss can do it now! We're going to war! Daugher and Bowman butted heads, literally and for the sheer violent joy of the thing, every time they passed in a hall.
Carrera, himself, was rather more restrained. He had a plan. He had all the diagrams. He had tables of manning and equipment, pay scales, grade requirements, training schedules…
And I have guilt. Is it my fault, my doing, that these people were attacked? Or would it have happened eventually, anyway? I suppose I'll never know.
Lourdes interrupted his thoughts with a cup of coffee. She pretended not to notice as he quickly wiped a forming tear from his own eye. "What happens now, Patricio?"
"I don't know, not for sure. I don't yet have the authority. I don't have the money; I don't have the equipment, I don't have the men. I don't have the land to train on. I don't have the uniforms, the ammunition, the barracks… even tents we lack. All I have is a plan and control of some money, with more on the way… that, and a few connections."
Lourdes glanced down at the newspaper, then back to her boss. "But you and General Parilla have an appointment with the acting president in just three days, Patricio. Isn't that about getting all those things?"
"Yes. But Parilla and I both have our doubts about how easy it will be. Even after this," he said as his hand gestured towards the paper.
"I have faith in you, Patricio. You will get what you need."
He sighed. Maybe the girl was right. "Lourdes… you're a reasonable girl, as reasonable as anyone in the country. Do you believe we… Balboa should go to war over this?"
Lourdes' eyes flashed pure Castilian fire, glowing hot with rage and hate. This fire would have been commonplace during the Reconquista , the centuries-long drive to rid Spain of the hated Moslem. On Cortez's march to Tenochtitlan to conquer the Mexica a similar flame had lit the eyes of his conquistadors. Aboard the ships of the Holy League the night before the bloody naval battle at Lepanto, Don John's sailors' and marines' eyes had shone so. It was the very fire that had once made Spain "the nation with the bloody footprint."
"Oh, very much, yes. Yes, yes, yes." Her foot stamped. "You must make them pay for this!"
Carrera nodded, satisfied. A hand reached out for a cigarette. "Lourdes, would you get Professor Ruiz on the phone for me? Then call Parilla's secretary and see when he will be available."
Saint Nicholasberg, Volga, 30/9/459 AC
Smoke curled up from half a dozen vile Volgan cigarettes to gather and congeal along the ceiling and walls of the room. A small buffetand that was not vile at all-sat pillaged on a table near the room's only door. Inside, men no longer young argued over their state's future.
"Stefan Ilyanovich, I tell you for the last time there is no more foreign exchange to be had." The speaker, Pavel Timoshenko, a subminister of finance for economically moribund Volga, spoke, on behalf of his chief, to an assistant to an industrial minister.
A note of something like hysteria crept into Ilyanovich's voice. "Our factories are crumbling. We are losing even the ability to extract our own oil. We are in desperate need of the technology that only the East, the FSC and the TU, or Yamato can supply us. And you tell me we cannot even buy it." Ilyanovich looked despondent, almost crushed. He hung his head in despair.
Timoshenko, not wanting to appear unsympathetic, said, "My friend, it is not that we would not buy it if we could. It is not even that the East will not sell to us. Since the Reds"-for the tsar who had instituted Tsarist-Marxism in Volga had, like his philosophical predecessors, chosen that color to symbolize his social revolution"have been gone, the East, most of them at least, are quite willing to sell. But they will not give it away. Welcome to the free marketplace." He reached over to squeeze Ilyanovich's shoulder.