George Martin - Tuf Voyaging

Tolly Mune stared at the lines crossing upon the screen. “Puling hell,” she muttered. “I should have figured, goddamn it. This sort of information is classified, for obvious reasons, but I should have known.” Her hands clenched into fists. “Goddamn it to hell,” she said. “Creg made such a newsfeed carnival out of the goddamned Flowering, no wonder this is happening. Why should anyone refrain from birthing—the food problem has been solved, right? The goddamned First Councillor said so. Good times had arrived, right? All the damned zeros had turned out to be puling anti-life alarmists once more, the technocrats had worked another miracle. How could anyone doubt that they’d do it again, and again, and again? Oh, yes. So be a good church member, have more kids, help humanity evolve to godhood and defeat entropy. Hey, why not?” She made a disgusted noise. “Tuf, why are people such puling idiots?”

“This quandary is even more perplexing than the dilemma that is S’uthlam,” said Tuf, “and I fear I am not equipped to answer it. So long as you are engaged in the division of blame, you might also assign some to yourself, Portmaster. Whatever misleading impression might have been given by First Councillor Cregor Blaxon was most certainly confirmed in the popular mind by that unfortunate final oration delivered by my impersonator in Tuf and Mune. ”

“All right, damn it. I’m guilty, I helped gnarl it up. That’s past now. The question is, what can we do about it?”

“You can do little, I fear,” said Haviland Tuf, his face expressionless.

“And you? You worked the loaves and fishes miracle once. Can we get a second helping, Tuf?”

Haviland Tuf blinked. “I am a more experienced ecological engineer now than when I first attempted to deal with the problem of S’uthlam. I am more familiar with the full range of species contained within the Ark ’s cell library, and the effect of each upon individual ecosystems. I have even increased my stock in trade to a certain extent during the course of my travels hither and yon. Indeed, I can be of service.” He cleared the screens and folded his hands atop his stomach. “There will be a price.”

“A price? We paid your damn price, remember? My spinnerets fixed your goddamned ship.”

“Indeed they did, even as I repaired your ecology. I do not require any further repairs or refitting of the Ark at this time. You, however, appear to have damaged your ecology once again so you have further need of my services. It strikes me as only equitable that I be compensated for my efforts. I have many operating expenses, chief among which is my still-formidable debt to the Port of S’uthlam. By dint of exhausting and unremitting labor on numerous scattered worlds, I have raised the first half of the thirty-three million standards you assessed me, but an equal amount remains to be paid, and I have but five additional years to earn it. How can I say if this will be possible? Perhaps the next dozen worlds on which I call will have ecologies without blemish, or will be so impoverished that I will be forced to grant them severe discounts if I am to serve them at all. Day and night the size of my debt preys upon my mind, often interfering with the clarity and precision of my thoughts and thus making me less effective at my profession. Indeed, I have a sudden hunch that when wrestling with a challenge of the vast magnitude of that posed by S’uthlam, my performance might be far superior were my mind to be clear and untroubled.”

Tolly Mune had expected something like this. She had told Creg as much, and he’d given her limited budgetary discretion. Still, she managed a frown. “How much do you want, Tuf?”

“The sum of ten million standards leaps to mind,” he said. “Being a round number, it might be deducted from my bill easily without posing any knotty problems of arithmetic.”

“Too damn much,” she said. “Maybe I could get the High Council to agree to lop off, say, two million. No more.”

“Let us compromise on nine million,” said Tuf. A long finger scratched Dax behind a small black ear; the cat silently turned its golden eyes on Tolly Mune.

“Nine isn’t much of a compromise between ten and two,” she said drily.

“I am a better ecological engineer than mathematician,” said Tuf. “Perhaps eight?”

“Four. No more. Cregor will implode on me as it is.”

Tuf fixed her with an unblinking stare, and said nothing. His face was cool and still and impassive.

“Four and a half million,” she said under the weight of his gaze. She felt Dax staring, too, and suddenly wondered if that damn cat was reading her mind. She pointed. “Damn it,” she said, “that little black bastard knows just how high I’m authorized to go, doesn’t he?”

“An interesting notion,” said Tuf. “Seven million might be acceptable to me. I am in a generous mood.”

“Five and one-half,” she snapped. What was the use?

Dax began to purr loudly.

“Leaving a net principal of eleven million standards to be paid within five years,” said Tuf. “Accepted, Portmaster Mune, with one additional proviso.”

“What’s that?” she said suspiciously.

“I will present my solution to First Councillor Cregor Blaxon and yourself at a public conference, to be attended by newsfeed peeps from all of your vidnets, and broadcast live over the entirety of S’uthlam.”

Tolly Mune laughed aloud. “Incredible,” she said. “Creg will never agree. You can forget that idea.”

Haviland Tuf sat petting Dax, and said nothing.

“Tuf, you don’t understand the difficulties. The situation is too damned volatile. You’ll have to give on this one.”

The silence lingered.

“Puling hell,” she swore. “Tell you what, write down what you want to say, and let us look it over. If you avoid anything that might stir up problems, I suppose we can give you access.”

“I prefer that my remarks be spontaneous,” Tuf said.

“Maybe we can record the conference and broadcast it after editing,” she said.

Haviland Tuf kept silent. Dax stared at her, unblinking.

Tolly Mune looked deep into those knowing golden eyes, and sighed. “You win,” she said. “Cregor will be furious, but I’m a puling heroine and you’re a returning conqueror, I suppose I can cram it down his gullet. But why, Tuf?”

“A whim,” said Haviland Tuf. “I am often taken by such fancies. Perhaps I wish to savor a moment in the light of publicity and enjoy my role as savior. Perhaps I wish to show the S’uthlamese billions that I do not wear a mustache.”

“I’ll believe in goblins and ghouls before I pay one standard for that load of ore,” said Tolly Mune. “Tuf, there are reasons why our population size and the gravity of the food crisis are kept secret, you know. Policy reasons. Now, you wouldn’t be thinking about, ah, opening that particular box of vermin, would you?”

“An interesting concept,” Tuf said, blinking, his face blank and noncommittal.

Dax purred.

“Unaccustomed as I am to public speaking and the unflattering glare of publicity,” Haviland Tuf began, “I felt it incumbent upon myself to come before you and explain certain things.”

He stood before a four-meter-square telescreen in the largest hall in Spiderhome, with a seating capacity for almost a thousand. The room was packed; newsfeed reporters were jammed in elbow-to-elbow up front, twenty rows of them, a tiny miniaturized camera in the center of each forehead busily recording the scene. Farther back were the curious who had come to watch—spinnerets of all ages, sexes, and professions, from cybertechs and bureaucrats to eroticists and poets, wealthy groundworms who had come up the elevator for the show, flies from distant systems passing through the web. On the platform with Tuf were Portmaster Tolly Mune and First Councillor Cregor Blaxon. Blaxon’s smile looked forced; perhaps he was recalling how the newsfeed peeps had all captured the long, awkward moment when Tuf blinked at his proffered hand. For that matter, Tolly Mune looked a bit uneasy.