George Martin - Tuf Voyaging

Haviland Tuf raised a hand, palm outward. “Say no more,” he said. “I have grasped the inference. Continue.”

“Lots of solitary maniacs, too,” she said. “Someone dumped highly toxic waste into a food factory holding tank eighteen months ago. More than twelve hundred fatalities. Mass culture—S’uthlam has always been tolerant, but lately there’s a hell of a lot more to be tolerant of , if you catch my float. There’s this growing obsession with disfigurement, death, violence. We’ve had massive resistance to our attempts to re-engineer the ecosystem according to your recommendations. Meatbeasts have been poisoned, blown up, and fields of pods set afire. Organized thrill gangs hunt the goddamned wind-riders with harpoons and high-altitude gliders. It makes no goddamned sense. The religious consensus—all kinds of weird cults have been emerging. And the war! Life only knows how many will die, but it’s as popular as—hell, I don’t know, it’s more popular than sex, I think.”

“Indeed,” said Tuf. “I am unsurprised. I take it the imminence of disaster remains a closely guarded secret of the S’uthlamese High Council, as in years past.”

“Unfortunately, no,” Tolly Mune said. “One of the minority councillors decided she couldn’t hold her bladder, so she called in the puling peeps and pissed the news out all over the vidnets. I think she wanted to win a few million more votes. The hell of it is, it worked. It also kicked off another goddamned scandal and forced yet another First Councillor out of office. By then there was no place to look for a new human sacrifice but upstairs. Guess who got grabbed? Our favorite vidshow heroine, controversial bureaucrat, and Ma Spider, that’s who.”

“You are obviously referring to yourself,” said Tuf.

“By then nobody hated me much any more. I had a certain reputation for efficiency, the remnants of a popular romantic image, and I was minimally acceptable to most of the big council factions. That was three months ago. So far it’s been one hell of a term of office.” Her smile was grim. “The Vandeeni listen to our newsfeeds, too. Simultaneous with my goddamned promotion, they decided S’uthlam was, I quote, a threat to the peace and stability of the sector, end quote, and got together their goddamned allies to try and decide what to do about us. The bunch of them finally gave us an ultimatum: enforce immediate rationing and compulsory birth control, or the alliance would occupy S’uthlam and enforce it for us.”

“A viable solution, but not a tactful one,” Tuf commented. “Thus your present war. Yet all this fails to explain your attitude toward me. I have been able to offer your world succor twice before. Surely you did not feel I would be remiss in my professional duties on this third occasion.”

“I figured you’d do what you could.” She pointed a finger. “But on your own terms, Tuf. Hell, you’ve helped, yes, but always on your own terms, and all of your solutions have proved unfortunately impermanent.”

“I warned you repeatedly that my efforts were mere stopgaps,” Tuf replied.

“There are no calories in warnings, Tuf. I’m sorry, but we have no choice. This time we can’t allow you to clap a stick-on bandage over our hemorrhage and shunt off. The next time you came back to check on how we were faring, you wouldn’t find a puling world to come back to. We need the Ark , Tuf, and we need it permanently. We’re prepared to use it. Ten years ago you said that biotech and ecology were not our areas of expertise, and you were right. Then. But times change. We’re one of the most advanced worlds in human civilization, and for a decade we’ve been devoting most of our educational efforts to training ecologists and biotechs. My predecessors brought in top theorists from Avalon, Newholme, and a dozen other worlds. Brilliant people, geniuses. We even managed to lure some leading genetic wizards off Prometheus.” She stroked her cat and smiled. “They helped with Blackjack here. A lot.”

“Indeed,” said Tuf.

“We’re ready to use the Ark. No matter how capable you are, Tuf, you’re only one puling man. We want to keep your seedship permanently in S’uthlamese orbit, with a full-time staff of two hundred top scientists and genetic technicians, so we can deal with the food crisis daily. This ship and its cell library and all the lost data in its computers represents our last, best hope, you can see that. Believe me, Tuf, I didn’t give Ober orders to seize your ship without considering every other goddamned option I could think of. I knew you’d never sell, damn it. What choice did I have? We don’t want to cheat you. You would have been paid a fair price. I’d have insisted.”

“This assumes I remained alive after the seizure,” pointed out Tuf. “A doubtful proposition at best.”

“You’re alive now, and I’ll still buy the damned ship. You could stay aboard, work with our people. I’m prepared to offer you lifetime employment—name your own salary, anything you want. You want to keep that eleven million standards? It’s yours. You want us to rename the puling planet in your honor? Say the word, and we’ll do it.”

“Planet S’uthlam or Planet Tuf by any name would be as overcrowded,” Haviland Tuf replied. “Should I agree to this proposed purchase, undoubtedly it is your intent to use the Ark only in these efforts to increase your caloric productivity and thus feed your starving people.”

“Of course,” said Tolly Mune.

Tuf’s face was blank and serene. “I am pleased to learn that it has never occurred to you or to any of your associates on the High Council that the Ark might be employed in its original capacity as an instrument of biological warfare. Sadly, I have lost this refreshing innocence, and find myself prey to uncharitable and cynical visions of the Ark being used to wreak ecological havoc upon Vandeen, Skrymir, Jazbo, and the other allied homeworlds, even to the point of genocide, thereby preparing those planets for mass colonization, which I seem to recall is the population policy advocated by your troublesome expansionist faction.”

“That’s quite a goddamned implication,” snapped Tolly Mune. “Life is sacred to the S’uthlamese, Tuf.”

“Indeed. Yet, poisonous cynic that I am, I cannot help but suspect that ultimately the S’uthlamese may decide that some lives are more sacred than others.”

“You know me, Tuf,” she said, her tone crisp and chilly. “I would never allow anything like that.”

“And if any such plan was enacted over your objections, I have no doubt that your letter of resignation would be quite sternly worded,” Tuf said flatly. “I find this insufficiently reassuring, and have a hunch, yes, a hunch, that the allies might share my sentiments on this point.”

Tolly Mune chucked Blackjack under the chin. The cat began to growl deep in his throat. Both of them stared at Tuf. “Tuf,” she said, “millions of lives are at stake, maybe billions. There are things I could show you that would curl your hair. If you had any puling hair, that is.”

“As I do not, this is obvious hyperbole,” said Tuf.

“If you’d consent to shuttle in to Spiderhome, we could take the elevators downstairs to the surface of S’uthlam—”

“I think not. It would seem to me to be conspicuously unwise to leave the Ark empty and undefended, as it were, in the light of the climate of belligerence and distrust that presently festers upon S’uthlam. Moreover, though you may think me arbitrary and overfastidious, with the passage of years I find I have lost whatever small degree of tolerance I once had for swarming crowds, cacophony, rude stares, unwelcome hands, watery beer, and minuscule portions of tasteless food. As I recall, these are the principal delights to be found upon the surface of S’uthlam.”