John Ringo: There Will Be Dragons

The rifles were Paul’s design, air rifles that compressed air to a pressure just under the level where Mother’s protocols would start taking an interest. But while they had less range than an old style chemical rifle, much less the gauss rifles of the AI wars, their projectiles made them in a way even more deadly; each little dart that was loaded in the magazine had a drop of acid. Anyone hit by a flail of the little bullets would not only have the damage that they made going through but would find their bodies riddled with acid.

Chansa wasn’t worried about the guards per se. The avatar was a creature of energy fields, holograms and nannites, not a human being subject to the vagaries of flesh and blood. Furthermore, even the avatar was protected by a field more than proof against the darts of the guards. But something about them always made him shudder.

He entered the Council Chamber and stopped, looking at the new addition on the back wall.

“Do you like it?” Paul asked from over his left shoulder.

Chansa shook his head at the indoor waterfall and stream that now took up half the chamber.

“I don’t know,” he admitted. “It’s pretty .”

“I didn’t summon it because it is pretty, ” Paul rasped.

Chansa turned to look at the head of the New Destiny Movement and tried not to let the shock show on his face; Paul looked like a skeleton. He was wearing nothing but rags and was shoeless. His hair had been allowed to grow out and now hung in his eyes in greasy strings. His fingernails had grown out as well, and there was a feral light in his eyes. He also stank as if he had not washed in days, not just the somewhat pleasant reek of body odor but a less pleasant undertone of funk.

“I walk the world, you know,” Paul said, walking towards the water. “I visit my people and watch over them. I care for them and guard them in their sleep. But their life is so hard, so hard.”

“Yes, Paul, but it’s for the good of mankind,” Chansa said uneasily.

“Of course it is,” Paul snarled back. “But I cannot simply ignore their tragedy. I must live it. If it is good enough for the people then it is good enough for me.”

Chansa looked at the falls and saw the pile of clothes by the side of the river. He began to get a sinking feeling about what they represented.

“As my avatars wander the world I come here to work,” Paul said, dropping to his knees. “I work and I work and I work…”

Chansa watched him as the leader of half the world dipped the clothes in the swirling water and rubbed them on the rocks.

“I brought these back from a peasant woman who was washing them by a river,” Paul said. “I told her I would wash them for her. And I will.”

“I see,” Chansa replied. “Paul, have you been eating?”

“I eat what the people eat,” Bowman responded. “Once a day I have a bowl of beans. On Sundays I add a little meat. I am one of the people. I will eat as the people do.”

Chansa had spent enough time with his partisan groups that he knew that what Paul was saying had some truth. But only as an average . There were people who were starving, still. On the other hand, there were people who were eating very well indeed, especially the ones that he had promoted to positions of command. He had to say that what Paul was limiting himself to was even a low-end average daily food consumption.

If he starves himself to death, who gets the Key? Chansa wondered.

Only thirteen percent die-off, well under her estimates. Humans had, again, astounded her. And with the return of the terraforming power she again had sufficient energy to prevent non-human-induced catastrophe. The societies were reconstructing and many of them showed promise of tremendous growth. All in all an interesting outcome to the induced disaster.

It was going to be interesting to see how it all turned out.