John Varley - Steel Beach

She reached behind the cooler and brought out a can of something which she poured on the fire. It flared up immediately. She looked at me, and grinned.

"Rendered b-saur fat," she said. "Great for barbecues; gets the fire blazing real quick. I've used it on the meeting fires for eighty years. One of these days when he provokes me enough, I'll tell David about it. I'm sure he'll love me in spite of it. Will you toss some more of those logs on the fire? Right behind you, there's a pile of them."

I did, and we sat watching them blaze.

"You're not telling me something," she said, at last. "If you don't want to, that's your business. But you're the one who wanted to talk."

"I know, I know. It's just very hard for me. There have been a lot of things going on, a lot of new things I've learned."

"I didn't know about that memory-dump technique," she said. "I wouldn't have thought the CC could do that without your permission." She didn't sound alarmed about it. Like practically all Lunarians, she viewed the CC as a useful and very intelligent slave. She would concede, along with everyone else, that it was a being devoted to helping her in every possible way. But that's where she parted company with her fellow citizens, who also thought of the CC as the least intrusive and most benevolent form of government ever devised.

The CC hadn't mentioned it, but his means of access to the Double-C Bar Ranch was limited. This was no accident. Callie had deliberately set up her electronics such that she could function independent of the CC if the need should arise. All communication had to come through a single cable to her Mark III Husbander, which really ran the ranch. The link was further laundered through a series of gadgets supplied by some of her similarly paranoid friends, designed to filter out the subversive virus, the time bomb, and the Chinese Fire Drill-all forms of computer witchery I know nothing about apart from their names.

It was wildly inefficient. I also suspected it was futile; the CC was in here, talking to me, wasn't he? Because that was the real reason for all the barriers, for the electronic drawbridge Callie could theoretically raise and lower at will, for the photo-etched moat she hoped to fill with cybernetic crocodiles and the molten glitches she meant to dump into invading programs. She claimed to be able to isolate her castle with the flick of one switch. Bang! and the CC would be cut adrift from its moorings to the larger datanet known as the Central Computer.

Silly, isn't it? Well, I'd always thought so, until the CC took control of my own mind. Callie had always thought that way, and while she was in the minority, she wasn't alone. Walter agreed with her, and a few other chronic malcontents like the Heinleiners.

I was about to go on with my tale of woe, but Callie put her finger to her lips.

"It'll have to wait a bit," she said. "The Kaiser of the Chordates is returning."

Callie immediately went into a sneezing fit. David's already avuncular expression became so benign it bordered on the ludicrous. He was enjoying it, no doubt about it. He seated himself and waited while Callie fumbled through her purse and found a nasal spray. When she had dosed herself and blown her nose, he smiled lovingly.

"I'm afraid your offer of ninety-eight murders is-" He held up his hand as Callie started to retort. "Very well. Ninety-eight creatures killed is simply unacceptable. After further consultation, and hearing grievances that have astounded me-and you well know I'm an old hand at this business…"

"Ninety-seven," Callie said.

"Sixty," David countered.

Callie seemed to doubt for a moment that she had heard him right. The word hung in the air between them, with at least as much incendiary potential as the fire.

"You started at sixty," Callie said, quietly.

"And I've just returned us there."

"What's going on here? This isn't how it's done, and you know it. There's no love lost between us, to put it mildly, but I've always been able to do business with you. There are certain accepted practices, certain understandings that if they don't have the force of law, they certainly enjoy the stamp of custom. Everyone recognizes that. It's called 'good faith,' and I don't think you're practicing it here tonight."

"There will be no more business as usual," David intoned. "You asked what's going on, and I'll tell you. My party has grown steadily in strength throughout this decade. Tomorrow I'm making a major speech in which I will outline new quotas which, over a twenty-year period, are intended to phase out the consumption of animal flesh entirely. It is insane, in this day and age, to continue a primitive, unhealthy practice which demeans us all. Killing and eating our fellow creatures is nothing but cannibalism. We can no longer allow it, and call ourselves civilized."

I was impressed. He hadn't stumbled over a single word, which must have meant he'd written and memorized it. We were getting a preview of tomorrow's big show.

"Shut up," Callie said.

"Countless scientific studies have proved that the eating of meat-"

"Shut up," Callie said again, not raising her voice, but putting something else into it that was a lot more powerful than shouting. "You are on my land, and you will shut up, or I will personally boot your raggedy old ass all the way to the airlock and cycle you through it."

"You have no right to-"

Callie threw her beer in his face. She just tossed it right through the fire, then threw the empty can over her shoulder into the darkness. For a moment his face froze into an expression as blank as I've ever seen on a human; it made my skin crawl. Then he relaxed back into his usual attitude, that of the wise old sage bemused by the squabbles of an imperfect world, looking down on it with god-like love.

A mouse peeked out of the weeds of his beard to see what all the commotion was about. It sampled one of the beer droplets, found it good, and began imbibing at a rate it might regret in the morning.

"I've squatted out here beside this damn fire for over thirty hours," Callie said. "I'm not complaining about that; it's a cost of doing business, and I'm used to it. But I am a busy woman. If you'd told me about this when we sat down, if you'd had the courtesy to do that, I could have kicked sand into the fire and told you I'd see you in court. Because that's where we're going, and I'll have an injunction slapped on you before that beer can dry. The Labor Relations Board will have something to say, too." She spread her hands in an eloquent Italianate gesture. "I guess we have nothing further to talk about."

"It's wrong," David said. "It's also unhealthy, and…"

While he was groping for a word to describe a horror so huge, Callie jumped back in.

"Unhealthy, that's one I never could understand. Brontosaurus meat is the healthiest single food product ever developed. I ought to know; I helped build the genes back when both of us were young. It's low in cholesterol, high in vitamins and minerals…" She stopped, and looked curiously at David.

"What's the use?" she asked herself. "I can't figure it out. I've disliked you from the first time we met. I think you are plainly crazy, egotistic, and dishonest. All that 'love' crap. I think you live in a fantasy world where nobody should ever get hurt. But one thing I've never accused you of, and that's stupidity. And now you're doing something stupid, as if you really think you can bring it off. Surely you realize this thing can't work?" She looked concerned as she stared at him. Almost as if she wished she could help him.

Nothing could be more certain to light a fire under David, but I honestly don't think Callie meant to provoke him. By her lights he really was planning to commit political suicide if he intended to keep Lunarians from their bronto meat, not to mention all other forms of flesh. And she never did understand foolishness in other human beings.