The Complete LaNague Page 7

  “Well…” LaNague paused and a hint of a mischievous smile twisted his lips upward. “You might say he is a member of my family: my great-grandfather.”

  Not sure of just how he should take that, Broohnin glanced from LaNague to the tree. In its rich brown, intricately carved fukuro-shiki-bachi earthenware container, it stood no taller than the distance from the tip of a man's middle finger to the tip of his elbow. The foliage consisted of narrow, five-fingered fronds, spread wide and lined with tiny leaves, all displayed in a soft umbrella of green over its container. The trunk was gently curved to give an over-all picture of peace and serenity.

  A thought occurred to Broohnin, a particularly nasty one that he found himself relishing more and more as it lingered in his mind. He knew he was physically superior to LaNague, and knew there were no Flinters aboard. There was no further reason to fear the Tolivian.

  “What would you do if I uprooted your precious little tree and broke it into a pile of splinters?”

  LaNague started half out of his chair, his face white. When he saw that Broohnin had not yet made an actual move toward Pierrot, he resumed his seat.

  “I would mourn,” he said in a voice that was dry and vibrated with – what? Was it fear or rage? Broohnin couldn't tell. “I might even weep. I would burn the remains, and then… I don't know. I'd want to kill you, but I don't know if I would do it.”

  “You won't allow Metep to be killed, but you'd kill me because of a stinking little tree?” Broohnin wanted to laugh in the other man's face, but the coldness in LaNague's voice gave him pause. “You could get another.”

  “No. I couldn't. There is only one Pierrot.”

  Broohnin glanced over to the tree and was startled by the change in its appearance. The finger-like fronds had pulled close together and the trunk was now laser-beam straight.

  “You've startled Pierrot into the chokkan configuration,” LaNague said reproachfully.

  “Perhaps I'll break you into splinters,” Broohnin replied, turning away from the disturbing little tree that changed shape as mood dictated, and focusing again on LaNague. “You've no Flinters to do your dirty work now… I could do it easily… break your back… I'd enjoy that.”

  He was not saying this merely to frighten LaNague. It would feel good to hurt him, damage him, kill him. There were times when Broohnin felt he must destroy something, anything. Pressure built up inside him and fought madly for release. Back on Throne, he would wander through the dimmest areas of the dolee zones when the pressure reached unbearable levels, and woe to the poor Zemmelar addict who tried to assault him for the few marks he had. The ensuing scuffle would be brief, vicious, and unreported. And Broohnin would feel better afterward. Only the Torportal in his system now kept him from leaping at LaNague.

  “Yes, I believe you would,” LaNague said, totally at ease. “But it might be a good idea to wait until the return trip. We're on our way to Sol System, don't forget. You'd be taken into custody here and turned over to the Crime Authority once we reached the disengagement point. And the Crime Authority of Earth is very big on psycho-rehabilitation.”

  The inner rage abruptly dissolved within Broohnin, replaced by shuddering cold. Psycho-rehab started with a mindwipe and ended with a reconstructed personality.

  “Then I'll wait,” he said, hoping the remark did not sound as lame as he felt. There followed a protracted, uncomfortable pause – un-comfortable, it seemed, only for Broohnin.

  “What's our first step once we get to Earth?” he asked, forcing himself to break the silence. The whole idea of a trip to Earth to lay groundwork for a revolution in the out-worlds bothered him. Bothered him very much.

  “We'll take a quick trip to the southern pole to confirm personally a few reports I've had from contacts on Earth. If those prove true – and I'll have to see with my own eyes before I believe – then I'll arrange a meeting with the third richest man in Sol System.”

  “Who's that?”

  “You'll find out when we meet him.”

  “I want to know now!” Broohnin shouted and sprang from his chair. He wanted to pace the floor but there was no room for more than two steps in any direction. “Every time I ask a question you put me off! Am I to be a part of this or not?”

  “In time you will be privy to everything. But you must proceed in stages. A certain basic education must be acquired before you can fully understand and effectively participate in the workings of my plan.”

  “I'm as educated as I need to be!”

  “Are you? What do you know about out-world-Sol System trade?”

  “Enough. I know the out-worlds are the bread basket for Sol System. It's grain runs like the one we're on right now that keep Earth from starving.”

  “Kept Earth from starving,” LaNague said. “The need for an extraterrestrial protein source is rapidly diminishing. She'll soon be able to feed her own and these grain runs will become a thing of the past before too long. The out-worlds will no longer be Earth's bread basket.”

  Broohnin shrugged. “So? That'll just leave more for the rest of us to eat.”

  LaNague's laugh was irritating in its condescension. “You've a lot to Learn… a lot to learn.” He leaned forward in his chair, his long-fingered hands slicing the air before him as he spoke. “Look at it this way: think of a country or a planet or a system of planets as a factory. The people within work to produce something to sell to other people outside the factory. Their market is in constant flux. They find new customers, lose old ones, and generally keep production and profits on an even keel. But every once in a while a factory makes the mistake of selling too much of its production to one customer. It's convenient, yes, and certainly profitable. But after a while it comes to depend on that customer too much. And should that customer find a better deal elsewhere, what do you think happens to the factory?”

  “Trouble.”

  “Trouble,” LaNague said, nodding. “Big trouble. Perhaps even bankruptcy. That's what's happening to the out-worlds. You – I exclude Tolive and Flint because neither of those two planets joined the out-world trade network when Earth was in command, preferring to become self-supporting and thus sparing ourselves dependency on Sol-System trade – you members of the Out-world Imperium are a large factory with one product and one customer. And that customer is learning how to live without you. Before too long you'll all be up to your ears in grain which everyone is growing but no one will be buying. You won't be able to eat it fast enough.”

  “Just how long is ‘before too long’?”

  “Eighteen to twenty standard years.”

  “I think you're wrong,” Broohnin said. Although he found the idea of a chaotic economic collapse strangely appealing, he could not buy it. “Sol System has always depended on the out-worlds for food. They can't produce enough of their own, so where else can they get it?”

  “They've developed a new protein source… and they're not feeding as many,” LaNague said, leaning back in his chair now.

  The pollution in the seas of Earth had long ago excluded them from ever being a source of food. What could be grown on land and in the multilevel warehouse farms was what humanity would eat. Yet as the population curve had continued on its ever-steepening upward climb, slowing briefly now and then, but moving ever upward, available land space for agriculture shrank. As the number of hungry mouths increased and took up more and more living space, Earth's Bureau of Farms was strained to its utmost to squeeze greater and greater yields out of fewer and fewer acres. The orbiting oneils helped somewhat, but the crush of people and the weight of their hunger surpassed all projections. Synthetic foods that could be processed in abundance were violently rejected; palatable staples could not be supplied in sufficient quantities.

  And so the out-world trade network was formed. The colonies were recruited and made over into huge farms. Since a whole ring of grain pods could be dropped in and out of subspace almost as cheaply as one, the out-world-Sol System grain runs were begun and it appeared that a satisfacto
ry solution had at last been found.

  For a while, it worked. Came the out-world revolution and everything changed. Sol System still received grain from the out-worlds, but at a fair market price. Too broke to start settling and developing new farm colonies, Earth turned inward and began setting its own house in order.

  First step was genetic registry. Anyone discovered to have a defective, or even potentially defective, genotype – this included myriad recessive traits – was sterilized. Howls and threats of domestic revolution arose, but the Earth government was not to be moved this time. It gave the newly formed Bureau of Population Control police powers and expected it to use them.

  An example was made of Arna Miffler: a woman with a genotype previously declared free of dangerous traits. She was young, childless, single, and idealistic. She began a campaign of protest against the BPC and its policies, a successful one in its early stages, one that was quickly gathering momentum. At that time, the BPC re-examined Arna Miffler's genotype and discovered a definite trait for one of the rare mucopolysaccharide disorders. She was arrested at her home one night and led off to a BPC clinic. When released the next morning, she was sterile.

  Lawyers, geneticists, activists who came to her aid soon learned that their own genotypes, and those of their families, were undergoing scrutiny. As some of Arna's supporters here and there were dragged off to BPC clinics and sterilized, the protest movement faltered, then stalled, then died. It was quite clear that the Bureau of Population Control had muscle and was not afraid to use it. Resistance was reduced to a whisper.

  It rose to a scream again when the next step was announced: reproduction was to be limited to the status quo. Two people were only allowed to engender two more new people. A male was allowed to father two children and no more; a female was allowed to deliver or supply ova for two children and no more. After the live birth of the second child, each was to report for voluntary sterilization.

  The option for sterilization after fathering or mothering a second child was about as voluntary as Earth's voluntary tax system: comply or else. The genotype of every newborn was entered into a computer which cross-analyzed each parent's genetic contribution. Once the analysis indicated the existence of a second child derived from a certain genotype, that individual's number was registered and he or she was immediately located and escorted to the nearest BPC clinic, where a single injection eliminated forever the possibility of producing another viable gamete.

  The BPC looked on this approach as a masterful compromise. Each citizen was still allowed to replace himself or herself via a child, something many – too many – considered an inalienable right. But no more than self-replacement was permitted. Fathering or mothering a child was a capital offense, the male or the female parent being chosen for death by lot in order to “make room” for the newborn child.

  The population thus decreased by attrition. Death from disease, although rare, still whittled away at the numbers. Accidental deaths did the same at a faster rate. Children who died after birth – even if they were only seconds old – could not be replaced. The one-person/one-child rule was adhered to dogmatically. Special tax incentives were offered to those who would submit to sterilization before giving rise to new life, higher taxes levied on those who insisted on reproduction.

  It worked. After two centuries of harsh controls, the mother-world's population was well into an accelerating decline. There were still food riots now and again in a megalopolis, but nowhere near as frequently as before. There was breathing space again; not much, but after what the planet had been through, it seemed like wide open spaces.

  “Sol System is rapidly approaching a break-even point,” LaNague was saying, “where its population will be such that the existing farm land, the oneils, and the new protein source will be sufficient to feed everyone. That's when it will stop importing grain from the out-worlds. That's when the Imperium will fall apart. What we do in the next few days, weeks, and years will decide whether anything is to be saved at all.”

  Broohnin said nothing as he stood by his chair and considered what he had been told. LaNague made sense, much as he hated to admit it. Everything was going to fall apart one way or another. That seemed certain now. The two men could at least agree on that point.

  But as for saving something? He and LaNague would be at odds on that score. Broohnin wanted nothing spared in the final collapse.

  VII

  You can see it in their eyes as they sit and move the levers that work the gears of the State. They look at you and know there really is a free lunch. And when they reach to tear off a piece of your flesh, do you bite the hand that feeds on you? Or do you, like so many of your fellows, ask if the maggot likes you rare, medium, or well done?

  from THE SECOND BOOK OF KYFHO

  A drop of blood formed at the puncture site after the needle was removed from LaNague's thumb. The technician dabbed it away and smeared the area with stat-gel to halt any further bleeding. “That should do it, sir. But let's just run a little check to make sure.” She tapped a few numbers into the console on her left, then pointed to a small funnel-like opening at the front of the console. “Put your thumb in there.”

  LaNague complied and a green light flashed on the counter. “Works?”

  The technician nodded. “Perfectly. You are now an official part of the Sol-System credit network.”

  “I may not appear so on the surface,” LaNague said with a wry twist to his mouth, “but inside I am filled with boundless ecstasy.”

  Broohnin watched the technician smile. It was a nice smile; she was a pretty girl. And LaNague's remark went right by her. Broohnin turned back to the huge transparent plate that made up the greater part of the outer wall of the way station. Earth hung outside.

  The Lucky Teela had completed its last subspace jump ahead of schedule and had emerged north of the rotating disk of planets, gas giants, and debris that made up Sol System. The grain pods were deposited in orbit around Earth and the two passengers transferred to the Bernardo de la Paz, an orbiting depot for people and freight run by the Lunarians. People seemed to be scarce at the moment: except for a group of vacationers outward bound for Woolaville on the winter border of Mars’ northern ice cap, Broohnin and LaNague had most of the way station to themselves.

  LaNague's first step had been to establish credit for himself before their descent to the planet below. He had given a pile of Tolivian ags to the station's exchequer official in order to establish a balance in Earth's electronic monetary system. The silver coins had been eagerly accepted, converted into Solar credits, and entered into the computer network. A coded signature device had been implanted into the subcutaneous fat pad of his right thumb with an eighteen-gauge needle. As long as his balance lasted, he could buy anything legally available on Earth. A light on consoles similar to the one beside the pretty technician would flash red when he exhausted it.

  “Ingenious little device, wouldn't you say?” LaNague remarked, admiring his thumb as he joined Broohnin at the viewing wall. “I can't even feel it in there.”

  Broohnin tore his eyes away from the planet below. “What's so ingenious? All I have to do is cut off your thumb and I'm suddenly as rich as you are.”

  “They're ahead of you there, I'm afraid. The little device is sensitive to extreme alterations in blood flow… I imagine that's why they asked me if I had Raynaud's disease. Even a tourniquet left in place too long will deactivate it.”

  Broohnin returned his attention to the view wall. As ever, LaNague was unflappable: he had already considered and discarded the possibility of someone cutting his thumb off. Someday, Broohnin promised himself, he would find a way to break that man. The only time he had been able to pierce the Tolivian's shield was when he had threatened his damned miniature tree. And even that was out of reach now in the quarantine section of the way station. But someday he would get through. Someday…

  Right now he stood transfixed by the motherworld whirling outside the window.

  “Think
of it,” LaNague said at his shoulder. “Down there is where humanity first crawled out of the slime and started on its trek to the stars.”

  Broohnin looked and saw something like a blue Nolevatol thornberry, mottled brown with rot and streaked with white mold. He wanted to jump.

  LANAGUE'S THUMB WAS QUICKLY PUT to good use after they shuttled down to the Cape Horn spaceport. Their luggage was stored, a two-man flitter rented. It was only after they were airborne and headed further south that Broohnin realized the precariousness of his position.

  “Think you're pretty smart, don't you?” he told LaNague. “What's that supposed to mean?”

  “Your thumb. It makes you rich and me penniless. You're free to move, I have to follow. You wanted it that way.” He felt rage growing within him even as he spoke.

  “Never thought of it, actually.” LaNague's face was guileless. “I just couldn't see opening two accounts when we're only going to be here for a day or so. Besides” – he held up his right thumb – “this is not freedom. It's the exact opposite. The Earth government has used these implants and the electronic credit network to enslave its population more effectively than any regime in human history.”

  “Don't try to change the subject–”

  “I'm not. Just think what that implant does to me. Every time I use it – to rent this flitter, to buy a meal, to rent a room – my name, the amount of money I spent, what I spent it on, the place of purchase, the time of purchase, all go into the network.” He thrust his thumb toward Broohnin's face. “And this is the only legal money on the entire planet! Coins and paper money have been outlawed – to use any leftovers is illegal. Even barter is illegal. Do you know what that means?”

  Surprised by LaNague's vehemence, Broohnin fumbled for an answer.

  “I–”

  “It means your life is one big holovid recording to anyone who wants to know and has connections. It means that somewhere there's a record of every move you make every day of your life. Your entertainment tastes can be deduced from where you spend your leisure time, your sexual preferences from any devices you might buy, your taste in clothes, your favorite drink, your confidences, your infidelities!”