Christopher Nuttall - A Learning Experience

Near Riyadh, Saudi Arabia

The mansion had been designed to resemble nothing less than a desert tent, as if the occupants still clung to the lives of their ancestors. It was a lie, of course; the occupants enjoyed riches and luxuries the ancient desert clans would have found completely beyond their comprehension, when they weren’t sneering at them. Oil wealth had warped Saudi Arabia’s society out of all recognition; social unrest threatened every time the government tried to reduce benefits to its population, while the unemployed and unemployable young male Saudis had plenty of time to consider both the finer points of Islam and their own royal family’s adherence to those values.

And now those thoughts will become sharper , the Foreign Minister thought, as he climbed out of the car and walked towards the mansion. His bodyguards fanned out around him, watching for trouble. The Pakistanis were loyal as long as they were paid, he knew. But how long could they be paid?

It might not matter, he knew. Part of their contract was an agreement they could stay in Saudi Arabia if necessary, along with their wives and children. Pakistan looked to be on the verge of civil war, even though large chunks of the Taliban leadership had simply been wiped out. But he didn’t care to gamble with his family’s safety — and their grip over the country they ruled as a private fiefdom. It was already shaky enough after the Americans had started to develop new technology.

He gritted his teeth as they reached the doors and stepped inside. The American infidels didn’t fool him, not really. They wanted — they needed — to break the oil monopoly, particularly now their country held an increasing hatred for Saudi Arabia and the Middle East. No matter the vast sums of money spent on shaping political and public opinion in the West, it was becoming increasingly clear that the flood of off-world technology would eventually shatter the monopoly completely. And once that happened…

The Foreign Minister had no illusions about his family’s popularity. They were hated , increasingly so, by the people they claimed to rule. Any step towards democratic government, no matter how slight, ran the risk of becoming disastrous, while they could hardly become more Islamic without risking an eventual takeover by the religious leaders. Hell, it would be damn near impossible to force his family to become more Islamic. Very few of them even bothered to fast on Ramadan, let alone honour the other tenets of Islam.

There was a long pause as the bodyguards met other bodyguards and exchanged glares, then the Foreign Minister stepped past them and into the meeting room. Three other men stood there, one from Bahrain, one from Dubai and one from Iran. He couldn’t help wondering just what was going through the Iranian’s mind. Iran and Saudi Arabia hated each other so thoroughly that, absent the presence of Saddam and later the Americans, they would have gone to war years ago. But the Foreign Minister had no illusions about the military balance of power either. If the Americans stayed out of the war, Iran would almost certainly win within a year.

It was the age-old problem for any Arab ruler, he knew. If they actually trained their men to be competent soldiers, part of a much larger army, they ran the risk of being deposed in a coup. Allah knew there had been hundreds of coup plots over the last fifty years, some of which had come alarmingly close to being launched. But if they kept their militaries weak and divided, commanders fearful to talk to one another because of the risk of being taken for spies, they would lose all military effectiveness. If the Americans hadn’t protected Saudi Arabia for so long…

He pushed the thought aside as he greeted the Iranian, reminding himself firmly to be diplomatic. The Iranian had been invited, after all, as had the other two. All four nations ran the risk of being completely marginalised, thanks to the influx of off-world technology. If they worked together, they might manage to save themselves. And if they didn’t, they were all thoroughly screwed.

Perhaps I should start sending my family out of the country , the Foreign Minister thought, as he sat down on the rug. Getting Saudis and Iranians to work together will be like herding cats and dogs .

There was a pause as serving men appeared from the side doors, carrying trays of coffee, rice and meat, then — once they were gone — the diplomats started to eat. It felt oddly surreal to the Foreign Minister, who would never normally have chatted to an Iranian in such relaxed surroundings, but it was necessary. Leave it to the Americans to be blunt and direct. The Arabs had a different way of looking at the world. But then, he reminded himself, the Iranians were not Arabs. Indeed, they would find the claim they were rather insulting.

“We have a problem,” he said, when the meal was finished and their coffee was replenished. “The new influx of technology threatens us all.”

“It threatens you more than us,” the Iranian pointed out. “Our country is stable.”

Economically speaking, the Foreign Minister thought, he had a point. Iran had a self-reliance that Saudi Arabia would never be able to develop for itself. But if it couldn’t export oil at all, it would still take a major hit in the pocketbook. The long-term results would be devastating.

“There is also the influx of new computer technology,” the Foreign Minister countered. “What is that doing to you?”

The Iranian glowered, then nodded. Saudi Arabia had had its own problems with the new dongles, despite a hasty religious ruling from the clerics that buying and using one was against Islamic Law. Getting that ruling had cost the family dearly, but it seemed to have had little effect. Several dozen dongles had been confiscated by the Security Ministry, while Allah alone knew how many others were drifting through the country, completely undermining the computer firewalls the government used to prevent its citizens from accessing large parts of the internet. Officially, the firewalls were meant to protect innocent minds from pornography, but everyone knew the truth. The firewalls were intended to keep people who might disagree with the government from talking to one another.

But the dongles were almost completely undetectable…

No matter what the security forces did, this particular jinn was out of the bottle and wouldn’t be put back in a hurry. Half of the religious police were illiterate morons whose sole claim to any form of piety was memorising the Qur’an. They probably wouldn’t recognise one of the new dongles if they laid eyes on it, even without some computer genius taking off the plastic covering and installing the transmitter in his computer. It had already happened, in the West… and Middle Eastern computer nerds had far more reason to hide. He would have been very surprised if the same problem wasn’t happening in Iran.

“Not to mention other problems,” the Iranian continued. “Do you realise they sold Israel a working laser system?”

The Foreign Minister nodded. Iran’s long-term plan for war against Israel was a war of a thousand cuts, using primitive rockets and terror attacks launched by Palestinian groups to undermine the Israeli will to resist. The laser system from outer space — it sounded like the title of a bad movie — simply swatted the missiles out of the air, leaving nothing but dust to drift down to the ground. If nothing else, the whole affair exposed just how hypocritical the lunar settlers were. They claimed not to interfere… and yet they protected a country many of their own people regarded as a menace to world peace.

But he had his doubts about the independence of the lunar settlers. The American Government could have stopped them, if it had seen fit, or simply impeded their operations on Earth. Instead, they seemed to be taking a hands-off approach, which suggested something rather more sinister to a conspiracy-minded thinker. The whole lunar settlement was nothing more than a false flag operation on a gigantic scale. Instead of being actually independent, the whole affair was an American plan to change the world, while the American Government escaped all blame.