LEGAL OLIGARCHY: A GOVERNMENT WHOSE BIOLOGICAL TIME HAS FINALLY COME?
HOW DID IT HAPPEN? INDEPENDENT COMMISSION TO INVESTIGATE PA CAMPAIGN OUTRAGE
“LET MY PEOPLE GO”—THE INAPPROPRIATE FORMULA THAT MASKS GOVERNMENTAL DISASTER
“TIME TO RECONSIDER VOTER REGISTRATION TESTS,” DECLARES MAJORITY LEADER BENNETT
Paul said, “I ran the probabilities through an Eisler significance program. If this Liver candidate wins the election, the system effects come out far more far-reaching than one county. It has an event index of 4.71. A Liver win stands an eighty-seven percent chance of becoming the nucleus of a fundamentally transformed system.”
“Can he win?” Jennifer said.
“No.”
“Money?”
“Of course. The donkey candidates will buy the election.”
“Then our concern is…”
“A test site.” Paul ran his hand through his hair, still thick and glossy brown. Sanctuary men wore their hair short and simply cut; so did Sanctuary women. Jennifer’s long black hair was an anomaly. She kept it in a knot low on her neck; Will said it made her look like a Roman matron. This was one of the few things Will had said lately that pleased her.
Paul continued, “I know we’d planned on testing Strukov’s compound on a donkey enclave. After all, they’re the target population. But using this Liver tribe may be even better. We’ve had nothing to do with the election, neither incumbent nor challenger. No one would have reason to think us involved.”
“But don’t the Liver voters winter in widely scattered places? Delivery of the compound would be much more difficult.”
“Not really,” Paul said. “Willoughby County is mostly hills and low mountains. The winter climate is tedious. There are only twenty-one Liver camps in the county. All of them have plastic-tented feeding grounds, easily penetrated by drones. And none of them have any kind of radar, which of course the donkey enclaves do. There’s a map on the last page of the printout.”
Jennifer studied the map, and then the page of Eisler equations. She nodded. “Yes. I see. If the Livers lose this election, the system effects are negated?”
“Everything is as it was before. And then we can go ahead with the enclaves.”
“Yes. Go ahead. This will make an interesting little pre-test, as well as averting a large-scale systems change.”
Paul nodded. “We want as few variables as possible for the big campaign. I’ll advise Robert. He’s handling the delivery negotiations. He’ll have a report for you by the end of the week.”
“Not Arab, Russian, French, or Chinese. And no one who is known to have ever before worked, however remotely, with Strukov.”
“These men are Peruvian.”
“Good. La Guerra de Dios?”
“No. Freelancers.”
“And Strukov has agreed to work with them?”
“He has. Although only with his procedures, his locations, his security team.”
“Naturally,” Jennifer said. “Schedule a meeting with Robert.”
“For you and me and Caroline?”
“Also Barbara, Raymond, Charles, and Eileen. I want everyone to know everything the others do.”
Paul nodded, less happily, and left. He didn’t understand, Jennifer thought. Paul would rather apportion knowledge according to each individual’s contribution, as if it were money. Why was it so hard for some of them—Paul, even Will—to grasp the moral principle of this? Sanctuary was a community. Those who led the community must act from responsibility, duty, loyalty. And no one could owe one-third less loyalty or duty than the others. Therefore, all twelve of the people who were going to make Sanctuary safe from the United States must share equally in the risks, the planning, and the knowledge. Anything less was to act not from morality, but from a desire for rank. That was what the Sleepers did. The immoral ones.
Jennifer swiveled her chair back to face her office window. It was full of stars: Rigel, Aldebaran, the Pleiades. Suddenly she remembered something she’d once said to Miranda, so long ago, when Miri had been just a little girl. Jennifer had lifted Miri to the window in the Sanctuary Council, and a meteor had streaked past. Miri laughed and reached out her fat little arms to touch the beautiful lights in the sky. “They’re too far for your hand, Miri. But not for your mind. Always remember that, Miranda.”
Miranda had not remembered. She had used her mind, yes, but not to reach outward, upward. Instead, she’d used her boosted intelligence—which Jennifer Sharifi had given her—to wallow in the muck and dirt of Sleeper biology. For the benefit of the Sleepers who had betrayed Sanctuary. As had Miranda herself.
“The friend of my enemy is likewise my enemy,” Jennifer recited aloud. Beyond the window, Earth moved into view. Sanctuary orbited over Africa, another place the Sleepers had ruined.
Her screen brightened. Caroline again. But this time the communications chief looked shaken. “Jennifer?”
“Yes, Caroline?”
“We have some… new data.”
“Yes? Go ahead.”
“Not on link,” Caroline said. “I’ll come to you. Immediately.”
Jennifer didn’t allow her composure to slip. “As you wish. Can you say what the new data concern?”
“They concern Selene.”
The screen blanked. While she waited for Caroline, Jennifer wiped the nib of her calligraphy pen. Her twenty minutes were long since up. Looking down, she saw that while thinking about Miranda she had gone on drawing, not even aware of what her hand sketched. On the thick white paper, outlined and crosshatched, were the frontal, temporal, and parietal lobes of a human brain.
Interlude
TRANSMISSION DATE: February 12, 2121
TO: Selene Base, Moon
VIA: Lyons Ground Station, Satellite E-398 (France), GLO Satellite 62 (USA)
MESSAGE TYPE: Unencrypted
MESSAGE CLASS: Not Applicable; Foreign Transmission
ORIGINATING GROUP: Unnamed group, Ste. Jeanne, France
MESSAGE:
Nous sommes les gens d’une petite ville en France qui s’appelle Ste. Jeanne. Nous n’avons plus de seringues de la santé. Maintenant, ici, il n’y a pas beaucoup d’enfants qui ne sont pas changés, mais que ferons-nous demain? S’il vous plaît, Mademoiselle Sharifi, donnez-nous plus de seringues de la santé. Que somme-nous obligés faire pour vous persuader? Nous sommes pauvres, mais vous aurez les remerciements. Commes les riches, nous aimons les enfants, and nous avons peur de l’avenir.
S’il vous plaît, n’oubliez-nous pas!
ACKNOWLEDGMENT: None received
Eleven
You can’t,” Lizzie said to the sullen Liver. Jackson, standing seventy-five yards away in a stand of oak still tattered with last year’s withered leaves, wore zoom lenses and a receiver the size of a pea. He watched Lizzie’s face struggle not to set itself into ridges of disapproval. She smiled the most hollow smile he’d ever seen.
The man said, even more sullenly, “Shockey said, him, that I can.”
“Shockey said you can?”
“Yeah.”
“Just a minute, please,” Lizzie said. She walked away from the man, who stood just outside his tribe’s feeding area, the usual stretched plastic tent. Inside, twenty naked Livers were having lunch. It seemed to Jackson that every time he checked on Lizzie’s tribe, he ended up watching naked Livers have lunch. This time, however, three donkey reporters with cameras stood outside the enclosure, fully clothed, recording the meal. More robocams hovered inside. This particular group of Livers, unlike some other tribes in Willoughby County, was enjoying its temporary notoriety. Jackson noted that two of the women had gold barrettes in their hair. Another, he suddenly saw, wore a necklace with what looked to the zoom like a diamond. More trouble.