Frederik Pohl - The Cool War

“Or better! How about starting a back-to-religion thing? Get all the women to become nuns.”

The professor said thoughtfully, “That actually happened, you know, back in the Middle Ages. So many people taking vows of celibacy that the French kings got worried about the population drop. Only that would take pretty long to be effective—twenty or thirty years before it mattered much, and who knows what the world would be like then?—Oh, hi, Sister. We were just talking about nuns—”

Sister Florian sat down, looking pleased with herself. “I heard what you were talking about.” Her usually severe face was conspicuously good-humored.

“Okay, Sister,” said Tigrito. “You got something goin’ for you. What is it? You figure out what we was up to last night?”

“No,” she said cheerfully, “I didn’t figure it out. I found it out. You all took off and left me alone with the computer. I gave it the unlock command and ordered it to look up Team projects involving large-mammal genital areas.”

“Come off it, Sister! How’d you do that?”

“Well, I set up a matrix of large-mammal genitals, chemical or biological agents, Team projects—•”

“No, no! I mean about the unlock command.”

She smiled sunnily. “I watch what she does, Tigrito. She types out the date of the month, plus two, and then her own last name. Then it’s open. So I did exactly the same thing. It took it a little while to hunt, but it came up with equine gonorrhea.”

“Equine gonorrhea?”

“There was an epidemic of it in America back in the 70s. Now there’s a new strain that’s infectious for all large mammals, and antibiotic-resistant, too. I guess what we’re going to do, some of us, sometimes, is infect breed cows, so that they’ll infect stud bulls, so we’ll knock out a big chunk of a cattle-breeding program. Somewhere. My own guess is maybe Argentina. Maybe England or Australia? Could be anywhere. Anyway,” she said, “I wrote it all down and time-stamped it and left it on Deena’s desk, so that’s that.” And she folded her hands in her lap and beamed around at them.

But Hake was no longer listening. A chain of associations had formed in his mind. Nuns. Convents. People flocking to religious orders. A back-to-religion movement. He began to write quickly with the stub of a pencil Mary Jean had provided him: “Religious leaders like Sun Myung Moon, Indian gurus, Black Muslims and others have effectively taken significant numbers of persons out of the work force in America. Proposal: Charismatic religious leaders be identified and evaluated. Where they may be effective they can be subsidized or—”

He pulled his feet back just in time to avoid having them stepped on as Tigrito, stalking furiously around the scuba pool, stopped in front of him. The youth grinned down at Mary Jean. “Hey, let’s pick up where we left off,” he said, clumping himself down between them. Hake instinctively made room as the boy took Mary Jean into his arms.

“Watch it,” Hake said irritably.

“Oh, man! I am watchin’ it, been watchin’ it a long time, now I’m ready for touchin’ it and squeezin’ it— Shit, lady!” He went sprawling into Hake’s lap as Mary Jean’s elbow, traveling no more than eight inches, got him just under the ribs. Hake shoved him away.

“Fuck off, Tigrito,” said Mary Jean.

“Yeah,” said Hake. The youth glared at him, then rolled to his feet and came up with his arms spread and curved.

“Lady tells me to fuck off, that’s her business,” he said, moving toward Hake. “Ain’t yours, mother-fucker.”

Hake was on his feet by then too, his arms automatically responding by coming to the grappling position, but he took a shuffling half-step back. It wasn’t really his fight, he told himself. If anyone’s, Mary Jean’s, who could handle it fine by herself.

“Chickenshit too,” jeered Tigrito, and feinted a kick at Hake’s belly.

Hake had an immense respect for Tigrito as a brawler, having lost a dozen falls to him in the ritualized hand-to- hand on the training field. But the part of his mind that evaluated and weighed was not operative then. When Tigrito’s foot came up Hake sidestepped and caught it; as Tigrito spilled backward he gripped Hake’s arms and pulled him over his head, flying; Hake twisted in mid-air and kneed the boy in the chin. In ten seconds it was all over, Hake kneeling on the boy’s chest and lifting his head to thump it on the rough cement.

“Dear God,” came Deena’s voice from behind. “Leave you guys alone for a few minutes and what do I find? Hold it right there, killer. Fight’s over. You’re all on punishment detail tonight.”

When he finally reached his bed that midnight Hake was so exhausted that sleep was out of reach. He tossed for a while and then stumbled into the latrine to write his compulsory postcards. One for Jessie Tunman, a picture of a gorge on the Pecos River: Having a fine time, getting a lot of rest, see you soon. One to go on the church bulletin board: Miss you all, but will be back full of energy for the church year; that was a picture of a herd of three-five hybrids, with a cowboy in a helicopter moseyin’ them along. They were each supposed to send three postcards a week, but Hake had fought it out and got the number reduced. He didn’t have three people to send postcards to. Apart from the church, he hardly had anybody.

Crawling back to his bed, he wondered what the church would have thought of their battling minister that day, street-fighting with a barrio kid. Alys, at least, might have been delighted. And it would be very nice to have Alys delighted, in some ways, he thought, tossing angrily and very aware of Mary Jean’s tiny snores two bunks away. He counted up. He had been Under the Wire for eleven days. It seemed longer. He was not exactly the same person who had flown west from Newark. He was not at all sure what person he was, but the old Reverend Hake would not have brawled over a woman.

And the twelfth day, and the thirteenth day, and the fourteenth day came and went, and everything outside the state of Texas receded farther and farther from his thoughts. The people who mattered were Deena and Tigrito and Beth Hwa and Sister Florian and Pegleg and Mary Jean, especially Mary Jean. On the fifteenth day, behind the bunkhouse, they kissed. There was no conversation. He simply followed her around the building. When she turned, his hands were on her. For three or four minutes their tongues were wild in each other’s mouths; and then he released her and they trotted to the lecture on ChemAgents, Use of.

Hake’s glands were aflame, and concentration on Peg-leg’s drone wasn’t easy. When Hake became conscious of the youth’s suspicious glower he sat up straighter and tried to get Mary Jean (not to mention Alys and Leota and the nurse from International Pets and Flowers) out of his mind. “You got these agents,” Pegleg droned, staring at Hake while he drummed on his artificial limb, “and you will be conversant with your use of them when you leave here, any questions? Right.”

Thankfully, one of the others was smothering a yawn and Pegleg’s glare was diverted. Hake listened, trying to square what the instructor was saying with what he had been told was basic gospel. The Team’s charter did not permit the taking of human life.- All the instructors had emphasized that. Other kinds of life, though, were not protected, and Pegleg seemed to be giving them guidelines for extermination. “You take your agent V-12,” he was droning, “along with your Agent V-34 and you dump them in a pond, any questions? Right. Next day you have a solution of your O-ethyl S-diethylaminoethyl methylphos-phonothiolate, what you used to call your Agent VM, any questions? These here quantities are adjusted to your average barnyard pond of 100,000 gallons and produce your concentration of zero point two parts per million, which will kill your fish and your frogs and your small mammals, any questions?” He gazed challengingly at them, drumming on his leg. “Right. Your concentration increases with time,” he said, “and so after the first day it becomes toxic to your larger mammals as well.”