David Brin - Earth

June Morgan bounded out, the wind whipping her hair and bright blue skirt. He met her halfway as she ran to throw her arms around him. “Kiss me quick, you troublemaker, you.” He obliged with some pleasure, though Alex sensed a tremor of tension as he held her. Well, that was understandable of course.

“You put on some show, hombre!” she said, pulling away. “Here Glenn and his people spend weeks studying gazer-based launching, and you yank the rug right out from under him! I laughed so hard… after leaving the room of course.”

Alex smiled. “Did you bring his answer?”

“Now what other reason would I have to come all this way?” She winked and patted her briefcase. “Come on, I’ll show you.”

Alex asked the driver to go fetch Teresa as June took his arm and pulled him toward the entrance. There, however, the way was barred by a massive dark man with crossed arms. “Sorry, doctor,” he told June. “I must inspect your valise.”

Alex sighed. “Joey, your men sniffed her luggage at the airport. She’s not carrying a bomb, for heaven’s sake.”

“All the same, tohunga , I have orders. Especially after last time.”

Alex frowned. The first sabotage attempt still had them perplexed. Spivey vehemently denied involvement, and the saboteur himself seemed to have no links at all to NATO or ANZAC.

“That’s all right.” June laid the briefcase flat in the arms of one big guard and flipped it open. Inside were several pouched datacubes, two reading plaques, and a few slim sheets of paper in a folder. Auntie Kapur’s men ran humming instruments over the contents while June chattered animatedly. “You should have seen George Hutton’s face when he heard Manella had shown up here! He started out both angry and delighted, and finally settled on plain confusion. And you know how George hates that!”

“Indeed I do, madam. ”

June and Alex turned as a figure approached from within. Nearly as tall as the Maori guards, and much heavier, Pedro Manella came into the sunlight holding out his hand. “Hello, Doctor Morgan. You bring good tidings, I assume?”

“Of course,” she replied. “And aren’t you a sight, Pedro! Wherever you’ve been hiding yourself, you’ve certainly eaten well.”

The second guard returned June’s valise. Alex said, “Let’s go to my office and play the message.”

“Why such privacy?” June pulled the other way. “We’ll use my old station. Everyone should hear this.”

The huge perovskite cylinder looked like some giant artillery piece, delicately balanced on its perfect bearings. It towered over what had once been June’s console — back when a dozen or so fatigued workers first set up here on the flank of a rocky, weather-beaten isle, searching desperately for a way to beard a monster in its den. The tech who had been working at that post cheerfully made room.

“Here it is,” June said, pulling a cube from its pouch and tossing it to Alex playfully. She insisted he take the seat. A semicircle of watchers gathered as he slotted the cube. Someone from the kitchen handed out cups of coffee, and when everyone was settled, Alex touched the PLAY toggle.

A man in uniform appeared before them, seated at a desk. His hair had grown out, softening somewhat those harsh, scarred features. Glenn Spivey looked out at them as if in real time. He even seemed to track his audience with his eyes.

“Well, Lustig,” the colonel began. “It seems people keep underestimating you. I’ll never do it again.” He lifted both hands. “You win. No more delays. The president met with our alliance partners. Tonight they hand over control of all resonators to the new tribunal—”

The technicians behind Alex clapped and sighed in relief. After all these wearing months, a heavy weight seemed lifted.

“ — gathering in Iceland, headed by Professor Jaime Jordelian. I think you know him.”

Alex nodded. As a physicist, Jordelian was stodgy and overly meticulous. But those could be good traits in such a role.

“The committee hasn’t formally met, but Jordelian urgently asked that you attend the opening session. He wants you in operational charge of all resonators for an initial period of six months or so. They also want you center stage for the first news conference. If you’ve been watching the Net, you know what an all-day session that will be! The hypersonic packet that brought Dr. Morgan has orders to wait at Hanga Roa for your convenience.”

“Lucky bastard,” one of the Kiwis muttered in mock envy. “Iceland in winter. Dress warm, tohunga .” Alex broke into a grin. “Hey, what about me?” June complained. “You take my transport and I’m stuck here!” The others made sounds of mock sympathy.

Spivey’s image paused. He cleared his throat and leaned forward a little.

“I won’t pretend we haven’t been surprised by events these last few weeks, doctor. I thought we could finish our experiments long before word leaked out. But things didn’t go according to plan.

“It wasn’t just your little demonstration, yesterday, which nearly everyone in the Western Hemisphere got to witness by naked eye. Even neglecting that, there were just too many bright people out there with their own instruments and souped-up ferret programs.” He shrugged. “I guess we should have known better.

“What really disturbs me, though, is what I hear people saying about our intentions . Despite all the innuendo, you must believe I’m no screaming jingoist. I mean, honestly, could I have persuaded so many decent men and women — not just Yanks and Canadians, bat Kiwis and Indonesians and others — to take part if our sole purpose was to invent some sort of super doomsday weapon? The idea’s absurd.

“I now see I should have confided in you. My mistake, taking you for a narrowly focused intellectual. Instead, I found myself outfought by a warrior, in the larger sense of the word.” He smiled ruefully. “So much for the accuracy of our dossiers.”

Alex sensed the others’ silent regard. Eyes flicked in his direction. He felt unnerved by all this talk centering on him personally.

“So, you might ask, what was our motive?” Spivey sighed. “What could any honest person’s goal be, these days? What else could ever matter as much as saving the world?

“Surely you’ve seen those economic-ecological projections everyone plays with on the Net? Well, Washington’s had a really excellent trends-analysis program for two decades now, but the results were just too appalling to release. We even managed to discredit the inevitable leaks, to prevent widespread discouragement and nihilism.

“Put simply, calculations show our present stable situation lasting maybe another generation, tops. Then we all go straight to hell. Oblivion. The only way out seemed to demand drastic sacrifice… draconian population control measures combined with major and immediate cuts in standard of living. And psych profiles showed the voters utterly rejecting such measures, especially if the outcome would at best only help their great-grandkids.

“Then you came along, Lustig, to show that our projection missed some critical information… like the little item that our world is under attack by aliens!

“More important, you showed how new, completely unexpected levers might be applied to the physical world. New ways of exerting energy. New dangers to frighten us and new possibilities to dazzle. In another age, these powers would have been seized by bold men and used for better or worse, like TwenCen’s flirtation with the atom.

“But we’re growing up … that’s the popular phrase, isn’t it? We know new technologies must be watched carefully. I’m not totally against the science tribunals. Who could be?