It wasn’t just hunger for short-term gain. Enthusiasts for a particular project often create their own mental versions of reality, minimizing any possibility things might go wrong. They convince themselves any potential critic is a fool or cretin.
Fortunately, society was entering the “era of criticism.” Public scrutiny led to an outcry, and the Bodega Bay site was abandoned. So when the great northern quake of ’98 struck, half the State of California was saved from annihilation.
The other half was preserved four years later during the great southern quake. Only a few thousand were killed in that tragedy, instead of the millions who would have died if the nuclear facilities at Diablo Canyon and San Onofre hadn’t been reinforced beforehand, thanks again to the free give and take of criticism. Instead of adding to the calamity, those power plants held fast to assist people in their time of need.
Other “nuclear” examples abound. Just a few small pumps, installed to placate critics, kept Three Mile Island from becoming another Chernobyl — that catastrophe whose radioactive reverberations bridged the interval from Nagasaki to Berne and delay-triggered the first cancer plagues.
Many still seek uranium’s banishment from the power grid, despite its present safety record and improved waste-disposal situation. They warn we are complacent, demanding each design and modification be released for comment on the net.
Ironically, it is precisely this army of critics that inspires confidence in the present system. That plus the fact that ten billion people demand compromise. They won’t stand for ideological purity. Not when one consequence might be starvation.
• MANTLE
Sepak Takraw finished his third circuit of the ASEAN perimeter that day and verified that there was still no way out of the trap. Elite Indonesian and Papuan troops had secured this little plateau deep in rain-drenched Irian Java. Nothing got in or out without sophisticated detectors tracking and identifying it. Actually, Sepak was impressed by the troops’
professionalism. One hardly ever got to see military craftsmanship up close, except the presidential band on Independence Day. It was fascinating watching the sentries meticulously use pocket computers to randomize their rounds, so what might have become routine remained purposely unpredictable.
The first few days after finding his own rat-hole path to the surface, Sepak had his hands full just keeping out of the soldiers’ way. But then, for all their sophistication, they weren’t exactly looking for anyone already inside their perimeter. That meant George Hutton’s techs had kept mum about him, damn them. Their loyalty planted an obligation on him in return.
So once a day he squirmed through his tiny rocky passage to check up on the Kiwis. For the first few days things looked pretty grim. The boys and girls from New Zealand slumped against the limestone walls, staring at their captors, speaking in monosyllables. But then things changed dramatically. Inquisitors were replaced by a swarm of outside experts who descended on the site in a storm of white coats, treating the New Zealanders with utter deference. Suddenly, everything looked awfully chummy.
Too chummy. Sepak didn’t want any part of it. He especially took to avoiding the caverns during meal times, when he’d have to peer over a high gallery and smell civilized cooking. He, meanwhile, had to make do with what his grandfather had taught him to take from the forest itself.
By the bank of a trickling stream, Sepak dabbed streaks of soft clay across his brows, renewing the camouflage that kept him invisible to the soldiers… so far… and just so long as he didn’t try to cross those unsleeping beams at the perimeter. He chewed slowly on the last bits of a juvenile tree python he’d caught yesterday. Or the last bits he intended to eat. Grandfather had shown him how to prepare the entrails using some obscure herbs. But he’d been too nauseated to pay much attention that time. Reverence for your heritage was fine. Still, some “delicacies” pushed the limits.
The forest hadn’t been hunted this way for several generations. Perhaps that explained his luck so far. Or maybe it was because Sepak had left a cluster of bright feathers and butterfly wings at the foot of a tall tree, as sacrifice to a spirit whose name he’d forgotten, but who his grandfather had said was strong and benevolent.
I’m doin’ all right, he thought. But bloody ocker hell I wish I could take a bath!
Sepak caught his reflection in the shallow water. He was a sight, all right. Kinky hair greased back with marsupial fat. Dark skin streaked with pale, muddy tans and dabs of leaf sap. Only when he grinned was there any semblance to a twenty-first-century man, whose teeth suddenly seemed too white, too well ordered and perfect.
All around he sensed life slither and crawl, from tiny beetles scrabbling through the forest detritus all the way to the high canopy, where he glimpsed quick patches of fur, the glint of scales, the flash of eyes. Branches rustled. Things slowly stalked other things. You had to be patient to see any of it though. It wasn’t a skill you learned in school.
For the most part, the main thing you noticed was the quiet.
Suddenly, the calm was interrupted by a mob of foraging birds, which spilled into the tiny clearing in a storm of feathers. They swept in from the right, a chirping, rowdy chaos of colors and types. After that instant of startlement, Sepak kept perfectly still. He’d read about this phenomenon before, but never seen it until now.
Small, blue-feathered birds dove straight into the humus, flinging leaves and twigs as they chased fleeing insects. Above these, a larger, white- and yellow-plumed species hovered, diving to snatch anything stirred into sight by the bold blue ones. Other varieties swarmed the trunks and looping tree roots. It was amazing to witness how the species cooperated, like members of a disciplined jungle cleanup squad.
Then Sepak noticed some of them squabbling, fighting over this or that squirming morsel, and revised his first impression. The white-and-yellow birds were opportunistic, he now saw, taking advantage of the smaller ones’ industriousness. He watched a black-tailed root hopper swipe a tidbit already wriggling between the jaws of an irate bird in bright orange plumes. Other breeds did the same, warily keeping an eye out for each other while they worked over the trees’ lower bark, gobbling parasites and protein-rich bugs before any competitor could get at them.
This wasn’t teamwork, then. It was a balance of threat and bluster and force. Each scrounger fought to keep whatever it found while taking advantage of the others.
Funny. Why do they keep together, then?
It seemed to Sepak the white-and-yellows could have harassed the smaller birds more than they did. They missed opportunities because they were distracted, spending half their time scanning the forest canopy overhead.
He found out why. All at once, several yellows squawked in alarm, triggering a flurry of flapping wings. Faster than an eye-blink, all the birds vanished… taking cover a bare instant before a large hawk flashed through the clearing, talons empty, screeching in frustration.
The yellows’ warning saved everybody, not just themselves.
In moments the raptor was gone, and the multispecies mob was back again, resuming its weird, bickering parody of cooperation.
Each plays a role, he realized. All benefit from one type’s guarding skill. All profit from another’s talent for pecking…