“I… I don’t know,” Sheida answered. “Not soon. Edmund, we have to talk.”
“Folks, what I want you to do is break up. Tarmac, you and Lisbet are in charge of figuring out what we need for minimal rations for refugees and where and how to serve them. Get a couple of other people together with you. Robert, you’re in charge of preparing to do large-scale hunting and gathering ferals. Get with Charlie on how to keep them and setting up a mass slaughter program. You’ve run the Faire the last couple. Get to work, people, we don’t have much time. Myron, you’re with me.”
CHAPTER NINE
Edmund led Sheida in to the back room of the pub as the conversation exploded behind him. But he could tell from the sound that they were working, not panicking, not spinning their wheels. They were all smart, and experienced and self-starters. All they had needed was a touch of self confidence and a direction to point. With that he could more or less let it run and just make sure it didn’t run out of control.
“You done good, Edmund,” Sheida’s avatar said.
“Thanks,” he replied then looked around. “Are you an avatar or a projection?”
“I’m… I’m an autonomous projection,” Sheida replied.
“That’s proscribed!” Myron snapped.
“So is dropping rocks on my home,” the avatar said with a sigh. “I can only handle about fifteen of these but they can give orders and gather real information while I handle things that only I can do, like give code commands to the Net. Right now, both sides are fighting for controls. We discovered that we could lock out programs and sub-programs and we’ve been doing that as fast as we can. Unfortunately, they noticed and now they’re at it. And it requires direct orders of a council member. So creating full avatars was the only way to get anything else done. Every hour or so I take a break and upload all the data I’ve gained and make any corrections I have to. It’s working. We know that because we’re still alive.”
“Is it that close?” Edmund asked.
“Every few minutes I think they’re going to finally kill me,” she answered with a sigh. “And then sometimes I think we’ve finally come up with the one true thing that is going to wipe the floor with them. And it never does.”
“Bitchin’,” Edmund said with a snort. “You need to back up. This kind of battle never gets won thinking purely tactical. Back up and take a look around for a deep strike.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Sheida asked.
“I don’t know. I don’t understand the nature of the battlefield. But winning a war is not about killing your opponent, it’s about making them give up. To do that you place them in a situation where they believe, whether it is true or not, that they’ve already lost. In the best of all possible worlds, your enemy creates those conditions for you. But that takes an idiot on the other side. I take it that Paul hasn’t shown any signs of tactical idiocy. Let’s hope he’s less capable at strategy. And that is what you should be thinking about.”
Sheida thought about that for a moment then shook her head. “I don’t see anything off the top of my head. But that’s not what I wanted to talk to you about. Later, maybe. But not right now.”
The room had a table where during the Faire Tarmac would sometimes retreat to play chess. But the rest was filled with barrels. After rummaging for a bit Talbot came up with a cup and poured some liquid out of an unmarked barrel. He took a sip and wrinkled his face but didn’t pour it out.
“So, talk,” Edmund said.
“Why didn’t you come here when I asked?” Sheida said. “The answer didn’t make any sense.”
“You, we, have huge problems,” Edmund said.
“So far I’m keeping up,” Sheida said dryly. “Maybe you should go slower, though.”
“Glad to see you’re keeping your sense of humor,” Talbot replied. “But I’m not just talking about the ‘war.’ I’m talking about the famine.”
“Yesss…” Sheida sighed. “So, any answers?”
“Why do you think I brought Myron,” Edmund said with another chuckle.
“Right now our greatest problem is farming,” Myron replied. “Or rather, lack of it and where it does exist it’s of no use. We’re going to have to have food, and soon. We still have some supplies but we’re going to burn through them fast. And other places don’t have anything.”
“We’re getting started on that,” Edmund noted. “We’ll be putting the refugees we get to work.”
“Well, Edmund, you know farming is an art more than a science, especially at this level,” Myron contradicted with a shake of his head. “Every farm, every patch of soil, is different. And it’s not as if we can run up a soil analysis. Chemistry, conditions, weather. It all comes down to knowing what you’re doing with your farm. Learning that… well… I’ve been studying it a lifetime and there’s still things I don’t know.”
“So you’re saying that everyone is going to die of starvation,” Sheida said, shaking her head. “Maybe we should just give up.”
Edmund frowned at her angrily and shook his head. “War… you know, Paul knows, nothing about war. It is said that war is the most evil thing ever invented by man. That statement is fatuous and downright ignorant. Man has created much worse things than war. More people have been killed by totalitarian regimes, during times of peace, than in all the wars in the world combined.”
“But…”
“This war will be… awful. Worse, I think, than the AI wars. The lack of industry, transportation methods other than teleportation and the explosives proscriptions mean that we’re going to be forced to a preindustrial or at least pregunpowder lifestyle.”
“I… hadn’t thought it out that far,” Sheida admitted.
“Many people are going to die in the first two years…”
“Two years?” Sheida asked. “We… I was hoping that… Well wars don’t have to take that long!”
“Are you winning? Right now? Decisively?” Edmund asked.
“No, I told you that. If anything, we’re losing.”
“If you don’t lose in the next three months, and I pray you don’t, then it’s going to be a long war. And until the Council stops sucking up all the power, we’re not going to be able to recover.”
“What about more plants?” Myron interjected. “I mean… why can’t you just build more? I know it will be a race who can build them the quickest…”
Sheida sighed in exasperation and shook her head. “More proscriptions. I didn’t realize how many we worked under until this. Power usage peaked shortly after the AI wars during the regrowth period. Usage eventually got so high that it was affecting the biosphere; the heat from all the energy usage was melting the ice caps and to prevent flooding Mother was having to divert more energy into various ways of preventing it. So the Council of the time, and it was a very controlling period in Council history, when the explosive prohibitions and several others were introduced, placed a cap on construction, requirement for Council approval for new construction and roll-back targets. We were well under the roll-back targets, and still had an abundance of power, before the Fall. But now, if we lose a power plant it’s gone. We can’t get it back. And power distribution, under the Council… severance proscriptions means having physical control of the plants.”
“Ugh,” Myron said, shaking his head. “I’m beginning to understand why Edmund hated the whole system.”