Joe Haldeman - Worlds Enough and Time

“I see where you’re headed. The last thing these people need is a charismatic leader. To use your word.”

“Exactly. They need managers—not totally colorless; people whose abilities they can recognize and respect. But no one too exciting, no one with wild ideas about changing things. There will be changes, but they must happen slowly, deliberately. This is a boat, so to speak, that we cannot afford to rock.”

I had a couple of arguments there, about the danger of my supposed charisma and the paternalism of his attitude, but decided I’d save them until after I’d seen what Sandra had to say. I didn’t give any sign of agreement or disagreement. “So. When should we meet next?”

“Not tomorrow. I’ll be suffering through pro forma condolences. Thursday sometime. I’ll call or leave a message on your queue.”

“Okay.” I’m not often at a loss for words. You look awfully tired, I should say; why don’t you lock your door and get some rest? Or I’m sorry about all this; I wish it weren’t happening to someone I’ve actively disliked for nearly half my life. “Uh, should I bring John and Dan?”

“No, I’m done with them. You’re my project now.” He made a shooing motion with his hand. “Go on. I have some calls to make.”

I backed out of the room, nodding obediently, into the shelter of the corridor. I didn’t know how to feel or what to think; things had happened too fast. Even if I wanted to like him, to help him, he wasn’t going to let me, and besides, his attitude, his postures, still annoyed the hell out of me, dying or not.

I was tired and rattled, but if I didn’t look at the slide tonight, curiosity would keep me awake. I went over to the commissary and squandered four dollars on a small box of wine to take up to the office.

Probably out of respect for Berrigan, O’Hara never mentioned viewing the slide; not to me; not to her diary; certainly not to any flesh person other than Harry Purcell. But nothing that went on in her office was secret to me, a detail I never mentioned to her. (She never asked, I think deliberately.)

28 September 2097 [14 Bobrovnikov 290]—O’Hara enters her cubicle and tells the door to lock, then removes the small recorder from her pocket, turns it off, and puts it away. She sets down her purse on the cot and takes out a box of wine. Selects a glass from the cabinet, inspects it, blows into it, and half-fills it with red wine. She sets the glass on her work console, then reseals the box and puts it in the cabinet. She kicks off her shoes, sits in the swivel chair, turns on the console. Out of habit, she keys the message queue, but turns it off without looking at it. She unseals her blouse halfway and blows down it, then stretches, whispers “Shit,” takes the slide out of her pocket, and studies it. She takes a sip of wine, slips the slide out of its protective jacket, and inserts it in the viewer. She swivels to watch the corner where I normally appear to her.

Berrigan is seated, wearing a formal dark blue suit. Her hair is long, so the holo must have been recorded more than two months ago.

IMAGE: Hello, Marianne.

O’HARA: Hello. Do you have logic capabilities?

IMAGE: I can respond to simple queries, though my memory is limited. My main function is to deliver a message, and then erase myself when you turn off the machine.

O’HARA: I was told to physically destroy the slide as well.

IMAGE: Yes.

O’HARA: I can’t imagine being party to anything so top secret.

IMAGE: I cannot assess your ability to imagine. Shall I begin?

O’HARA: Go ahead.

IMAGE: (Blurs momentarily, then relaxes) Sorry for this format, Marianne, (smiles) I guess I didn’t see any way to bring this up safely face-to-face. Not while you are who you are now, and I am who I am. (Fingers the Coordinator “C” figured into her lapel.) What I am.

I wanted Harry to keep an eye on you, and give this to you when he thought the time was right. At least ten years. He hasn’t seen it… nobody has… but he knows what it’s about.

I must ask your word that you will never discuss this with anyone but Harry, for the time being. And never with anyone who isn’t in the Cabinet or Coordinator pool.

O’HARA: What if I feel I can’t do that?

IMAGE: (blurs) I will have to erase myself.

O’HARA: May I have some time to think over the responsibility? A hint as to what it’s about?

IMAGE: No.

O’HARA: Well… all right. You have my word.

IMAGE: (blurs) This will be short and not sweet, Marianne. The government you’re participating in is not a democracy by anyone’s definition. The weekly referendum is a total hoax; the results are arrived at before the voting; and I doubt that one out of three decisions follows the will of the people.

O’Hara is staring openmouthed.

You’re now a member of a hand-picked meritocracy. Part of the psychological testing that we all have to put up with is to ensure that we will be able to participate in a benign conspiracy, before getting on the socalled ballot.

This goes beyond realpolitik , and it’s not a rejection of democracy as a principle. But there are situations when democracy doesn’t work unmodified, and you’re in the middle of one of them.

O’HARA: Ten thousand people sealed up together in a small pressure vessel.

IMAGE: You may remember that we considered the possibility of instituting a quasi-military kind of social structure in Newhome —captain, officers, crew.

O’HARA: In the Start-up discussion group.

IMAGE: It was rejected because our people have lived under democracy, or at least its illusion, for too long. We would never have found ten thousand volunteers if they thought they were giving up their citizenship.

O’HARA: Has this been going on from the beginning?

IMAGE: (blurs) You mean since New New’s original charter?

O’HARA: Whatever. How long?

IMAGE: I have no historical data beyond Sandra Berrigan’s actual experience. The degree of interference increased dramatically after the war, but the principle was firmly in place before she took office.

You should ask Harry Purcell.

The image is flickering because of some sort of overload phenomenon; you can only pack so much logic into ten nanograms of circuitry. It steadies when it goes back to Berrigan’s prepared speech.

IMAGE: The decision to manufacture and distribute the anti-plague drug to Earth, for instance. Only thirty percent of the electorate were in favor of that. The prevailing sentiment was obviously that the groundhogs had gotten what they deserved; let them go ahead and die out.

But the chances are they wouldn’t perish; the plague would run its course. Even if the Earth’s population were reduced to a million gibbering savages, they were still sitting on a resource base a trillion times the size of ours. And a lot of the survivors thought that we were responsible for the war.

This was the unanimous decision of the Privy Council and Coordinators: we wanted to be remembered as saviors, not as aggressors. They could have nuclear weapons again in a generation or two. The next time they might do a more thorough job.

A second example is Newhome itself. Only thirty-nine percent were in favor of building it; a solid majority felt the money would be better spent in rebuilding the Worlds.

The executive decision was that Newhome was necessary for several reasons. One was spiritual, or I suppose you would rather say “emotional”: we had to direct people’s aspirations outward. If we spent twenty years just licking our wounds and glaring resentfully down at the Earth, we might never regain anything like normal relations with them again. Even now, there’s a strong isolationist sentiment, as you surely know.