George Martin - Tuf Voyaging

But not too sad. Dax had been Tuf’s hole card, and she’d trumped him. She smijed and ran her fingers through Blackjack’s thick smoke-and-silver fur, eliciting another thunderous purr. “The more things change the more they stay the same,” she said in answer to Tuf’s comment.

“This is one of those venerable sayings that collapses upon close logical examination,” Tuf said, “being obviously self-contradictory on the face of it. If indeed things have changed upon S’uthlam, they obviously cannot have remained the same as well. To myself, coming as I have from a great distance, it is the changes that seem most notable. To wit, this war, and your own elevation to First Councillor, a considerable and unanticipated promotion.”

“And a puling awful job,” Tolly Mune said with a grimace. “I’d go back to being Portmaster in a blink, if I could.”

“Your job satisfaction is not the subject under discussion,” Tuf said. He continued. “It must also be noted that my welcome to S’uthlam was distinctly less cordial than on the occasion of my previous visit, much to my chagrin, and notwithstanding the fact that I have twice placed myself squarely between S’uthlam and mass famine, plague, cannibalism, pestilence, social collapse, and other unpleasant and inconvenient events. Moreover, even the most venomously rude races frequently observe a certain rudimentary etiquette toward those who are bringing them eleven million standards, which you recall is the amount of principal remaining on my debt to the Port of S’uthlam. Ergo, I had every reason to expect a welcome of a somewhat different nature.”

“You were wrong,” she said.

“Indeed,” Tuf said. ’“Now that I have learned that you occupy the highest political office on S’uthlam, rather than a menial position upon a penal farm, I am frankly more mystified than ever as to why the Planetary Defense Flotilla felt it necessary to greet me with fierce bombastic threats, dour warnings, and exclamations of hostility.”

Tolly Mune scratched at Blackjack’s ear. “My orders, Tuf.”

Tuf folded his hands atop his stomach. “I await your explanation.”

“The more things change—” she began.

“Having already been pummeled with this cliche, I believe I grasp the small irony involved in it by now, so there is no need for you to repeat it over and over endlessly, First Councillor Mune. If you would proceed to the essence of the matter I would be deeply appreciative. “

She sighed. “You know our situation.”

“The broad outlines, certainly,” Tuf admitted. “S’uthlam suffers from an excess of humanity, and a paucity of food. Twice I have performed formidable feats of ecological engineering in order to enable the S’uthlamese to forestall the grim specter of famine. The details of your food crisis vary from year to year but I trust that the essence of the situation remains as I have outlined it.”

“The latest projection is the worst yet.”

“Indeed,” said Tuf. “My recollection is that S’uthlam stood some one hundred nine standard years from mass planetary famine and societal collapse, assuming that my recommendations and suggestions were dutifully implemented.”

“They tried, damn it. They did try. The meatbeasts, the pods, the ororos, neptune’s shawl—everything’s in place. But the changeover was only partial. Too many powerful people were unwilling to give up the luxury foodstuffs they preferred, so there are still large tracts of agri-land devoted to raising herds of food animals, entire farms planted with neograss and omni-grain and nanowheat—that sort of thing. Meanwhile, the population curve has continued to rise, faster than ever, and the puling Church of Life Evolving preaches the sanctity of life and the golden role of reproduction in humanity’s evolution to transcendence and godhood.”

“What is the current estimate?” Tuf asked bluntly.

“Twelve years,” said Tolly Mune.

Tuf raised a finger. “To dramatize your plight, perhaps you ought to assign Commander Wald Ober to count down the remaining time over the vidnets. Such a demonstration would have a certain grim urgency that might inspire the S’uthlamese to mend their ways.”

Tolly Mune winced. “Spare me your levity, Tuf. I’m First Councillor now, goddamn it, and I’m staring right into the pimpled ugly face of catastrophe. The war and the food shortages are only part of it. You can’t imagine the problems I’m facing.”

“Perhaps not the fine detail,” said Tuf, “yet the broad outlines are readily discerned. I make no claim to omniscience, but any reasonably intelligent person could observe certain facts and from them draw certain inferences. Perhaps these deductions thus arrived at are wrong. Without Dax, I cannot ascertain the truth of that. Yet somehow I think not.”

“What puling facts? What inferences?”

“Firstly,” said Tuf, “S’uthlam is at war with Vandeen and its allies. Ergo, I can infer that the technocratic faction that once dominated S’uthlamese politics has yielded up power to their rivals, the expansionists.”

“Not quite,” said Tolly Mune, “but you’ve got the right puling idea. The expansionists have gained seats in every election since you left, but we’ve kept them out of power with a series of coalition governments. The allies made it clear years ago that an expansionist government meant war. Hell of it is, we still don’t have an expansionist government, but we got the damned war anyway.” She shook her head. “In the last five years we’ve had nine First Councillors. I’m the latest, probably not the last.”

“The grimness of your current projections suggests that this war has not yet actually touched your populace,” Tuf said.

“Thank life, no,” said Tolly Mune. “We were ready when the allied war fleet came calling. New ships, new weapons systems, everything built in secret. When the allies saw what was waiting for them, they backed off without firing a blast. But they’ll be back, damn it. It’s only a matter of time. We’ve got reports that they’re preparing for a major strike.”

“I might also infer,” said Tuf, “from your general attitude and sense of desperation, that conditions upon S’uthlam itself are already deteriorating rapidly.”

“How the hell do you know that?”

“It is obvious,” said Tuf. “Your projection may indeed indicate mass famine and collapse to be some twelve standard years in the future, but this is hardly to say that S’uthlamese life will remain pleasant and tranquil until that moment, whereupon a bell will ring loudly and your world will fall to pieces. Such an idea is ludicrous. As you are now so close to the brink, it is only to be expected that many of the woes symptomatic of a disintegrating culture will already be upon you.”

“Things are—puling hell, where do I begin?”

“The beginning is frequently a good place,” said Tuf.

“They’re my people, Tuf. That’s my world turning down there. It’s a good world. But lately—if I didn’t know better, I’d think insanity was contagious. Crime is up some two hundred percent since your last call. Murder is up five hundred percent, suicide more than two thousand percent. Service breakdowns become more common daily—blackouts, systems failure, random strikes, vandalism. We’ve had reports of cannibalism deep in the undercities—not isolated instances, but entire puling cannibal gangs. Secret societies of all kinds, in fact. One group seized a food factory, held it for two weeks, and fought a pitched battle with world police.

“Another bunch of crazies have taken to kidnapping pregnant women and . . . ” Tolly Mune scowled; Blackjack hissed. “This is hard to talk about. A woman with child has always been something special to the S’uthlamese, but these . . . I can hardly even call them people, Tuf. These creatures have cultivated a taste for—”