A Desert Called Peace (26 page)

"I'd always thought of those as existing to do good," the high admiral objected.

Khan, the realist, smiled. "They manage to do pretty
well
by doing good, Admiral. And it is highly questionable whether they do any real good, at least of the kinds they claim and probably even think they do. Do they feed the hungry? Surely. And they will keep feeding the hungry, as long as the hungry look pitiable enough to collect money for doing so. But the net result of feeding the hungry tends to be the destruction of local agriculture, which ensures a continuing supply of the hungry, a continuing supply of poster children, and a continuing supply of donations to assuage guilt.

"Then, too," Khan continued, "they can afford to pay for the best local housing wherever they go, and that drives the price of local housing beyond the reach of all but a very few locals. Do they educate people? Indeed they do, and thereby ensure that the most capable people get enough education to leave the place of their birth and go where the money and living are better. Alternatively, they will tend to hire highly educated people in these undeveloped hellholes they inflict themselves upon and use them for highly skilled work . . . like driving around and translating for the humanitarian aid workers. Oh, yeah,
that's
value added."

The fleet's Druidic chaplain interjected, "I remind you, Ms. Khan, that it was precisely those kind of groups that helped our ancestors bring Earth to peace and stability at last."

"The admiral asked me for analysis, Your Wisdom," answered Khan respectfully. Atheist or not one had to respect the power of Earth's official clergy of which the Druids were a part. "I make no moral judgments. What I have told him
is
the effective operating method of the local international humanitarian aid community, as it was for our own planet's. They are a plague to whatever place they visit, but they are equally a boon to the cause of international progressivism."

"What Sosh has said is true, Admiral," added the staff communications officer. "But it could not be true unless the news media and entertainment industries of which she spoke were willing to accentuate the positive and cover up the negative."

Khan nodded her head in agreement.

Robinson tapped his fingers against his face, thinking. "How long," he asked, "before the Novans can achieve interstellar travel?"

Estimates ranged wildly from "Fifty years" to "Centuries."

Engineering disagreed. "Twenty years, Admiral. Possibly as few as fifteen."

That
was a shock.

"Explain that estimate," the high admiral ordered.

"The state of their technology right now is about where Earth was in the early twenty-first century. But that's only in general. They're already ahead of where we were in some areas—the Federated States of Columbia is, in any case—because a), they know a lot more of what is possible than our ancestors did and b) the FSC has been fanatical about space research ever since your predecessor nuked two of their cities."

"That doesn't mean they
will
though," Ms. Khan objected. It really was a frightening thought, the barbarians of Terra Nova loose in space.

"No," Engineering agreed. "But they could and
that
is what the High Admiral asked."

"Could we prevent them from doing so short of war?" Robinson asked.

"No." Everyone agreed. "No."

Khan added, "Though the kind of war might make a difference."

They met in Robinson's ashore quarters, a spacious house set apart from all other buildings by a high wall and broad, green lawn. Lit naturally by tall, narrow windows, the apartment was furnished in the best of Earth and Novan styles, kept spotless by a crew of dimwitted proles. The tables were gleaming wood; the couches and chairs supple leather. Thick rugs covered the porcelain tiles of the floors and rare art hung on the walls.

"We cannot be directly involved, Mustafa. Understand that much from the beginning. We can guide you, help you, partially fund you and give you a certain amount of intelligence. But we
will
not get directly involved under any circumstances."

Barely, Mustafa restrained the urge to pronounce UE's high admiral a "coward." Then again, the Salafi doubted that the word would have meant much to the high admiral. Mustafa was certain that the idea of cowardice had left the UE lexicon every bit as completely as had the concept of courage. Besides, coward or not, the man was an infidel, an atheist, and that was, in Mustafa's opinion, infinitely worse.

"Money?" Mustafa sneered. "I have money. Intelligence? Allah will provide victory to us or not, as he wills, without your "
intelligence
." I am wasting my time here."

"Not so fast, son of the desert." Robinson was really thinking
son of a bitch
but that would have been impolitic to say. "Our aid means more to you than you imagine."

In one of those little quirks of fate that sometimes happen, the Fleet chaplain, Druid though he was, had proven of more value than all the rest of Robinson's other counselors. The Druid, at least, understood Islam, though it could hardly be said he approved of it.

"Allah will provide," Robinson echoed. "Allah will provide your weapons, then? Or will you have to find them yourself? Allah will make the Federated States complacent, or will you have to be clever on your own behalf and in His cause? How do you know, Mustafa, that Allah did not provide
me
? Or do you question that all things, to include me, come to pass only through his favor? I am shocked,
shocked,
that you think to spurn the gift He has provided."

Robinson keyed the intercom on the table at which he and Mustafa spoke. "Bring my car around for my guest. My business here is concluded."

"Wait," the Salafi said, holding up a hand. "Perhaps I was hasty. We may yet be able to do business together."

Unni Wiglan was thrilled,
thrilled
, that the high admiral had invited her, personally, to return to Atlantis Base for consultations. The prestige alone was invaluable. And the comfort of being in the one place on Terra Nova which gave proof that her values were true? Priceless.

She'd shown the high admiral her gratitude, too, in a number of ways.

Better, the high admiral had shown himself to be a man of both caring and culture. He'd been nothing but questions and concern about the very things Unni herself cared about: improving the low regard in which the World League was held, limiting the anarchic and archaic "sovereign" rights of Terra Nova's two hundred and twelve nation-states, the plight of the people of Filistia, groaning under the heel of Zion, among other worthy causes. She'd been especially pleased when the high admiral had dismissed Zion's claims with the words, "Bloody Jews."

United Earth
had
no more Jews; they'd all been either killed or sent off world to the colony the Arab League had given them to entice them away.

And then there was the great concern the high admiral had shown for the Terra Novan natural environment. He'd himself noted that in the last two hundred years Terra Nova's mean temperature had increased a staggering .3 degrees Celsius. "It just can't go on, my dear Unni. Why, in a thousand years the planet will become uninhabitable. And did you know, my people say you may already have reached the tipping point; that, or you soon will. There's no time to waste."

Here,
finally,
was a representative from Earth who understood, who cared. For the first time in her life, Unni Wiglan thought there might be some hope for peace for her planet.

UEPF
Spirit of Peace
, Earth Date 28 June, 2513

"Computer, view screen on," Robinson ordered. Immediately the computer turned on the wall-mounted Kurosawa. "Find me the news, Federated States. Make it the Global News Network."

". . . and it's a bright and sunny day here in First Landing, Hudson," the announcer said. "Not a cloud in the sky and . . . What the fu—? Oh, dear God . . . there's been a terrible accident at the Terra Nova Trade Organization."

Robinson winced as the view switched from the studio to a tall tower, standing alone but with other, similar ones in the background. The tower had a gaping hole near the base from which smoke poured out. He winced again when another airship slammed into a second building and then again when a third skyscraper was hit. Both of those shots were seen distantly, as the second and third towers were across the city.

He didn't really feel it, though, until the camera on site focused on people beginning to jump from the upper stories to avoid burning to death. Shivering, he remembered back to the smoke-filled cabin of the shuttle, to the face of the crew chief suffocating in the faulty EV suit.

"Poor people," he whispered. "But what am I to do? Wait until you're strong enough that it becomes
my
people jumping from burning buildings? I'm sorry for you; truly I am. But it was necessary.

"I hope, I really do, that no more, or not much more, will be necessary."

The speech was televised. Moreover, it was watched with keen interest in certain quarters.

Margot Tebaf had prepared long and hard for the occasion. The best speechwriters available to her had taken her thoughts—hers and Dominique's, who had quickly become rather more than a casual fling—and turned them into shining prose, a beacon to light the dark night and turn it to day.

Margot's speech was, from the progressive point of view, exactly on point. Perhaps many, even most, viewers thought it full of pious platitudes, inanities and wishful thinking. She and they simply didn't share the same concepts, even the same vocabulary. In that sense it was a failure, but a predictable one. Moreover, those people really didn't matter. In the more important sense, for people who did share the same world view and did matter—the news media, the European Parliament, the various humanitarian aid and human rights activist organizations around the world (of which there were hundreds of thousands, large and small), and the increasingly hereditary bureaucrats at the United Nations—the speech was a resounding success.

They
could read the code phrases put into the speech by Margot's speechwriters.
They
knew that "increased political stability" was a nicer way of saying "deportation of troublemakers."
They
knew that "fair distribution of human talent" meant "keep the highly talented from emigrating out of their own hellholes to the United States."

Moreover, the insightful among the viewers saw something that Margot grasped, if at all, only in embryonic form. If they could cut off the flow of immigrants to the United States, and make this new world the only permissible outlet for people who simply didn't care for transnational governance, that would be good. But what would be infinitely better would be the effect of moving those same people
out
of their home countries in even greater numbers than the United States had ever been willing to accept. For each one that left, say, Europe weakened the resistance to supranational and transglobal governance while each weakening of resistance led to more supranational and transglobal governance. This, in turn, led to more people wanting to leave which, if allowed, would still
further
weaken resistance to transglobal governance.

It was, the viewers saw, a perfect solution, an
elegant
solution. Moreover, it did not have the distressing side effect of increasing resistance, and providing an unfortunate counterexample, within the United States. To one another they said, "What's not to like?"

And so the consensus grew—for it was a consensus, not a conspiracy—
this new world is the solution to our problems here on Earth.

Among other evils which being unarmed brings you, it causes you to be despised.

—Machiavelli,
The Prince

If one picture was worth one thousand words, how many words were saved by half a dozen, in living color? The pictures fronted a newspaper that lay unopened upon the desk. There was no need to open it. That front page said everything necessary with its display of dismembered arms and legs, broken bleeding children, and people burned and blasted almost beyond recognition.

They have given me what I asked for,
thought an inexpressibly saddened Patricio Carrera.
But I will not thank them for it. I wish they had not.

His eyes wandered down again, down to a picture of a little girl. This one, at least was alive. Bloody, she was; covered in blood from head to foot. In the picture her skin showed through only at the twin tear tracks on her cheeks. The little girl was standing perfectly well. She was quite unhurt.

The baby's mother, however, was a ghastly, exsanguinated ruin— torn and bloody meat—lying on the street before her.

Though Carrera was saddened, an element of celebration charged the air of
Casa
Linda. Men passing in the hallways of the house spontaneously lifted their hands to "high five" as they passed.
The Boss can do it now! We're going to war!
Daugher and Bowman butted heads, literally and for the sheer violent joy of the thing, every time they passed in a hall.

Carrera, himself, was rather more restrained. He had a plan. He had all the diagrams. He had tables of manning and equipment, pay scales, grade requirements, training schedules . . . 

And I have
guilt.
Is it my fault, my doing, that these people were attacked? Or would it have happened eventually, anyway? I suppose I'll never know.

Lourdes interrupted his thoughts with a cup of coffee. She pretended not to notice as he quickly wiped a forming tear from his own eye. "What happens now, Patricio?"

"I don't know, not for sure. I don't yet have the authority. I don't have the money; I don't have the equipment, I don't have the men. I don't have the land to train on. I don't have the uniforms, the ammunition, the barracks . . . even tents we lack. All I have is a plan and control of
some
money, with more on the way . . . that, and a few connections."