Remi knew it wasn’t very likely Joseph’s memoirs would work their way up, through good reviews and word of mouth, to best-seller status. But that hardly mattered. It could happen. For all the old man knew, Remi’s nonchalant ramblings and dreams could be sifted by a million voyeurs or more!
“Why, Joseph?” he asked, hoarsely. “Why?”
Then another face came on screen. Delicate features framed in white. It was a voice Remi had managed to purge from memory, until now.
“I’m sorry, but I just couldn’t be interested in a man so egotistical as to insist, in a world of ten billion people, that his genes are desperately needed. If you haven’t done the right thing, can you point to some great accomplishment or virtue… ?”
Remi screamed as he threw the unit through his bedroom window.
Strangely, Roland and Crat didn’t seem to grasp what he was so upset about. Perhaps, for all their stylish talk, they didn’t really understand privacy. Not really.
They worried, though, over his listlessness and learned not to speak of Joseph when each of them received small royalty checks in their accounts, for their parts in what was fast becoming a small-time social-documentary classic. They spent their shares on their diverging interests, while Remi took his out in cash and gave it to the next NorAChuGa he met… for the Trillion Trees.
And so there came a day when he encountered, once again, a small band of Ra Boys in the park, this time without his friends, without any company but his loneliness.
This time the odds mattered not at all. He tore them up, top to bottom, using sarcasm like a slug rifle, assaulting them as he might have taken on Gnome mercenaries, had he been born in a time when there was honorable work for brave men to do and an evil that could be grappled with.
To the Ra Boys’ amazement it was he who demanded to exchange net codes. It was he who challenged them to a rendezvous.
By the time Remi actually met them later, in the darkness behind the monorail tracks, however, they’d done their own net research, and understood.
Understanding made their greeting solemn, respectful. Their champion exchanged bows with Remi across the makeshift arena, and even held back for a while, letting his clumsy opponent draw honorable blood before it was time at last to end it. Then, dutifully, one tribesman to another, he gave Remi what he desired most in the world.
For weeks afterward, then, the Ra Boys spoke his name in honor under the Sun.
The Sun, they said, was where at last he had settled.
The Sun was the final home of warriors.
Living species adapt when individuals stumble onto new ways of doing things and pass on those new ways to their descendants. This is generally a slow process. Sometimes, however, a species accidentally opens a door to a whole new mode of existence, and then it flourishes, pushes aside its competition, and brings on many changes.
Sometimes those changes benefit more than just itself.
In the beginning, the Earth’s atmosphere contained copious amounts of nitrogen, but not in a form living things could easily turn to protein. Soon however, an early bacterium hit on the right combination of chemical tricks — enabling it to “fix” nitrogen straight from the air. The advantage was profound, and that bacterium’s descendants proliferated. But other species profited too. Some plants grew tiny knobs on their roots, to shelter and succor the inventive microbes, and in return they received the boon of natural fertilizer.
In a similar way, once upon a time, the ancestor of all grasses fell upon a way to cover soil like a carpet, with tough, fibrous leaves that soak up nearly every ray of sunlight. Other plants were driven back by an onslaught of grasses, some even to extinction. But for certain animals — those making the right counter-adaptations — the advent of grass opened opportunities. Ungulates, with multiple stomachs and the knack of chewing cud, could graze on the tough stems and so spread onto uplands and plains formerly barren of much animal life.
So, too, when flowering plants arrived some ferns had to retire, but the victors shared their new prosperity with all the crawling, flying, creeping things that came to feed on nectar and pollinate them. Into newborn niches spread a multitude of novel forms… insects, birds, mammals…
Of course, sometimes a species’ invention only benefited itself. Goats developed an ability to eat almost anything, right down to the roots. Goats proliferated. Deserts spread behind them.
Then another creature appeared, one whose originality was unprecedented. Its numbers grew. And in its wake some other types did flourish. The common cat and dog. The rat. Starlings and pigeons. And the cockroach. Meanwhile, opportunity grew sparse for those less able to share the vast new niches — huge expanses of plowed fields and mowed lawns, streets and parking lots…
The coming of the grasses had left its mark indelibly on the history of the world.
So would the Age of Asphalt and Concrete.
• HOLOSPHERE
Jen Wolling found the Ndebele Rites of Gaia charming. The canton’s Kuwenezi Science Collective pulled out all the stops, sparing nothing to put on a show of their piety. To watch the lavish torchlight celebration under a midnight moon, one might imagine they were commemorating Earth Day itself, and not just a going-away party for one old woman they had known barely a fort-night.
Dancers in traditional costumes capered and whirled before the dignitaries’ dais, stamping bare feet on the beaten ground to the tempo of pounding drums. Feathered anklets flapped like agitated captive birds. Spears thudded on shields as men in bright loincloths leaped in apparent defiance of gravity. Women in colorful dashikis waved bound sheaves of wheat, specially grown in hothouses for this out-of-season observance.
Jen appreciated the dancers’ lithe beauty, taut and powerful as any stallion’s. Perspiration flew in droplets or smeared to coat their dark brown bodies in a gleaming, athletic sheen. Their rhythm and power were mighty, exultory, and marvelously sexual, which brought a smile to Jen’s lips. Although tonight’s purpose was to venerate a gentle metaphoric goddess, the choreography had been co-opted from much older rites having to do with fertility and violence.
“It’s far, far better than in the days of neocolonialism.” the tall ark director said to her. Sitting cross-legged to her left, he had to lean close to be heard over the percussive cadence. “Back then, the Ndebele and other tribes maintained troupes of professional dancers to pander to tourists. But these young men and women practice in their spare time simply for the love of it. Few outsiders ever get to see this now.”
Jen admired the way the torchlight glistened on Director Mugabe’s brow, his tight-coiled hair. “I’m honored,” she said, crossing her arms over her heart and giving a shallow bow. He grinned and returned the gesture. Side by side, they watched rows of young “warriors” take terrific risks, exchanging whirling spears to the delight of clapping women and children.
Venerable and ancient this dance might be, but there was no correlation here with the primitive. Jen had just spent two weeks consulting with Kuwenezi’s experts, learning all about Ndebele Canton’s plans for new animal breeds better able to endure the challenging and ever-changing environment of southern Africa. They, in turn, had listened attentively to her own ideas about macroecological management. After all, Jen had virtually invented the field.