The Little Green Book of Chairman Rahma (20 page)

“That's not necessary,” Joss said to them. “We already did the splitting portion of the job, and I'm only here to get the special seed preparations, because they weren't ready when we arrived. Just send me back out now, without any delay. This is a sensitive environmental cleanup site.”

“Aren't they all,” one of the SciOs said. He was stocky, with a scruffy red beard. “You oughta know, buddy, we're not supposed to send out half-loaded J-Macs.”

“Well, you did earlier,” Joss said, “because when I got here the machine only had the Splitter barrel ready to go.”

“We didn't prepare this machine that way,” the man said. “Must have been an earlier crew. No matter, they made a mistake, shouldn't have sent the rig out like that. Don't expect us to do the same thing. We have regulations to follow, you know.”

“Oh, for—” Joss caught a curse in his throat. “All right, but I want to inspect everything before it's loaded.”

Joss ran through the inspection process, checking each black cartridge that they planned to load, noting the seals, the quality-control codes, and other details.

“Everything OK?” the red-bearded SciO asked, as Joss checked his notes, and added to them.

“Right,” Joss said. “Go ahead.”

“It will only take a few minutes.” Then the man shouted back to another SciO, “Hey, Tokko, get me another adapter for this thing. It's one of the old rigs.”

Joss shook his head in dismay, watched while they fitted another adapter onto the end of the hose, and then connected it to the rear of the Janus Machine's black barrel. Moments passed as both SciOs held the hose in place. This looked peculiar, because it was supposed to fit and hold on its own, but maybe this was the way they did it on the old machines. He heard a suction noise as the equipment made a connection and began loading the sealed explosive charges. Like everything else on Janus Machines, they were designed to detonate if anyone tampered with them. To further protect their monopoly, the SciOs also had surveillance cameras mounted on the J-Mac trucks, with live relays, to make doubly certain that no one tried to steal any of their technology and attempt to duplicate it.

As Joss waited he felt increasingly uneasy, and finally reached back to an instrument console, where he called up readings about the truck's functions. A screen showed that two splitting projectiles had been successfully loaded, with two more to go.

He took a deep breath, watched the technicians at the other Janus Machine. They appeared to be finishing up, preparing to send the rig on its way. Yes, he was certain of it, because the SciOs were going through another quasi-religious ritual, standing reverently on the decks at each side of the machine, with their hands raised in the air to signify that the unit was fully loaded, sealed, and ready to go.

The exit door on that end of the ReFac building was still closed. Joss noticed a lot more dust between the two machines than he'd seen before, swirling high in the air now, and he heard something hissing—an unfamiliar sound that caused his pulse to race. He smelled fumes, a peculiar odor of strange gas.

Something is not right!
he thought.

The hissing was coming from the fitting on the black barrel of his own machine, he realized, and the smell must be coming from there as well. Some kind of leak in the fitting? That couldn't be good.

The SciOs were trying to adjust the connection. Someone shouted to shut off the loader. But it was too late.

Joss was consumed by a blinding flash, and a deafening noise. Moments passed, in which time and reality seemed to stand on end. He felt as if he were an outside observer, watching as waves of pulsing blackness assailed him, disintegrating his cells, tissues, and organs into their most basic elements. For a moment it all hovered in the air in the shape of a human being, a ghostlike apparition. Then green-and-black particles sprinkled over the form like a warm, gentle rain from the heavens, and he saw an aura remaining where his body had been, an empty, glowing husk.

Whether it was a dream, a nightmare, or a burst of consciousness at the finish of his life, he couldn't tell—but the abnormal experience continued over the course of what may have only been milliseconds, though it seemed like much longer. He heard a faint susurration, a whispering and murmuring as the empty husk of his body was filled with the cellular DNA, chloroplast, amino acids, and proteins of green plants, along with a flow of reconstituted elements and cellular material from his human body … and something more, from the stygian, primal violence that the SciOs had harnessed for their Splitter technology.

Dark Energy
, he realized.

The result was an amalgamation, a humanoid creature resembling Joss but with a light carbon cast to his skin, and forest green, keloid scars (or veins) that wound around his arms, legs, and torso like vines. He felt imbued with strange powers, and saw himself standing outside the ReFac building, lifting his arms in triumph as the structure exploded behind him.

But it must have been a dying dream, requiring only an instant to occur. Abruptly, everything blacked out around him.

 

19

Unknowns are a fact of life. A person has but to consider this for a few moments to realize the universality of the concept. That field of grass and flowers, for example, holds secrets, and so does the person standing in the meadow. Now look in all directions as far as the eye can see, and you will be astonished at what you do not know. Look at the countless mysteries of our planet and the infinite details of space, beyond anything you can even begin to imagine.

—Joss Stuart, remembered thoughts from his boyhood

CHAIRMAN RAHMA POPAL
felt like a schoolboy as he walked through the aviaries with Jade, holding her hand while exotic, endangered birds flew overhead and cried out to one another in their cacophony of sounds. Afternoon sunlight filtered through the net-and-fabric ceiling, splaying across the colorful bodies and wings of the birds and brightening the green leaves of the trees and plants. It was moist in here, and a little humid because of the connected greenhouses and the retractable, atmospheric-control roofs over the aviaries that were closed now.

Only twenty-three, Jade made him feel young again, but even more than that, he genuinely liked her. She had her failings, her little immaturities, but she was innately intelligent and knowledgeable for her age. The young woman was always trying to improve herself, always trying to please him, and he liked that. She was also outspoken, and had interesting things to say, insightful observations about people and the animals of the game reserve. Now she had her pretty red hair clasped in a wood hair band, because he'd told her once that he liked it that way.

Oftentimes Rahma felt as if he was getting old. He would be sixty on his next birthday, reaching one of those decade markers that reminded him so cruelly and unavoidably of his mortality. In his lowest moments he felt the inexorable decline seeping in around his life, the unseen, insidious malady that decayed his physical and mental capabilities; eventually he would wind down entirely, return to the soil of the planet in a process of entropy, and be recycled naturally. It was part of the great circle of life and death, but he was far from ready to be taken away from his conscious relationship with this earth that he loved so much. He still had important work to do.

He thought he might be losing his virility, because he had not fathered a child in more than four years, though he was as active sexually as ever. Maybe Jade would bear a child for him; they had not been using any birth control methods or other protection. He wouldn't mind if she did join the long list of women who had given birth to his children, and if she did, he thought he might keep this one around and take part in raising it—unlike most of the others, who were scattered all across the GSA, and perhaps the world, for all he knew. Still, Jade had said nothing to him about being pregnant, and she certainly didn't look it.

She smiled when he looked at her.

Just then, a rare blue-and-gold finch landed on her head, and with the bird perched in her hair and her eyes trying to look up at it, she looked so comical that he couldn't help laughing.

“Take a picture of me,” she urged, her voice even softer than usual. He could tell she was trying not to disturb the tiny creature.

Mentally, he activated the neuro-optic connection of his implanted camera, which worked through his own eyes, and he gave the silent command to capture the image. He took several, and then said, “Those are great. We'll transfer them to the backup system later and I'll print you copies.”

The energetic little bird landed on her open hand, then hopped over to Rahma's hand. He recognized the signs of a budding relationship. He and Jade were building memories together.

*   *   *

IN THE PAST
two weeks, the marsupial wolf had unexpectedly grown quite large, to the point where its body was the size of a small horse, but to Artie it looked even bigger than that, because of the batlike wings it flexed and extended frequently, even when not flying. The rate of growth this creature had exhibited was astonishing to Artie and his robotic assistants, and he wondered to himself if it had something to do with the educated guesses and assumptions he'd made when growing the animal in the laboratory. The quarter of one percent he had secretly added to the genetic mix.

The skeletal remains of its extinct ancestor that had been found on Lord Howe Island near Australia were considerably smaller, leading to unanswered questions. So far, the hubot had fended them off by saying that one individual skeleton might not fairly represent the species. He was controlling the dissemination of information, and certain details didn't make it into the reports that he passed on to Chairman Rahma.

The glidewolf's appetite for eucalyptus seemed insatiable, and many of the trees in the habitat showed evidence of this, with stripped leaves and bark and bare, scarred branches, as well as missing branches that the creature had ripped apart and chewed into pulp that it could swallow. The sharpness of the creatures' claws and teeth gave Artie considerable pause, not out of concern for his own safety (because he was a hubot), but out of concern for humans that could be injured by them, or worse. Still, the animal was supposed to be herbivorous, not carnivorous.

It was evening, and Artie stood near the tree where the creature nested on a large lower branch. He watched her as she watched him, her pale yellow eyes glinting in the low light of the habitat. “You're not a meat eater, are you?” Artie said aloud.

As if in response, the glidewolf stirred from her nest and descended the trunk of the tree headfirst, keeping her wings folded over her body. Reaching the ground, she walked toward Artie on all fours. Her actions seemed peculiar to him, indeed, because she had never done this before, but Artie held his ground, unafraid. Except for his eyes, he only had artificial skin that could be repaired or replaced, so if necessary he would put his body on the line for the sake of science. He looked human, even had human scents, mannerisms, and other characteristics built into his body, so whatever happened next could be an indication of what the glidewolf might do to a real person.

Reaching Artie, the glidewolf rose up on her haunches, so that she stood more than a head taller than the hubot, in an apparent fighting posture with her forepaws and sharp claws up. She looked down at him with those pale, eerie eyes. It concerned him that the eyes were cold and alien, suggesting a lack of empathy. Her teeth and claws could rip him apart. He reminded himself that he wasn't human for the most part, and he could be repaired if necessary. Even his human eyes could be made to function again if they were damaged, with modern medical techniques.

Fur on the glidewolf's chest pouch rippled a little, and the pouch opened at the top, which was at Artie's face level. The hubot leaned forward to look inside, but saw only darkness.

The pouch opened a bit more, as if in invitation. Artie looked up at the glidewolf's face, seeing the long snout, the mysterious eyes, and the sharp teeth, and feeling very small and powerless himself. Yet Artie had been programmed with the emotions and mannerisms of Glanno Artindale, along with elements of the hero's bravery and his intelligent, scientific curiosity.

Tentatively, the hubot touched the top edge of the pouch and felt it give way and loosen with only a slight amount of pressure from him, as if he and the wolf were of one mind, with the same goal. Now the animal leaned forward slightly to make it easier for Artie, and he climbed inside feetfirst, with his head sticking out of the pouch and his hands holding on to the rough edge. The pouch tightened comfortably around him.

Abruptly the glidewolf turned and scampered up the tree, with Artie holding on. As the hubot watched in amazement, this time as a participant instead of viewing it through a camera feed, the marsupial leaped from a high point and extended her wings, gliding to the top of another eucalyptus tree. Again it leaped, and again it glided, circling around the dimly lit airspace between the treetops and the techplex ceiling of the habitat and then using her clawed feet to grab hold of the vertical trellis that led up to the ingress and egress hatch.

Quickly the wolf scampered up the trellis, nudged open the hatch, and exited the enclosure into the night. Then, without even climbing a tree, she lifted her wings and picked up a strong breeze that enabled the creature and her humanoid passenger to soar upward into the night sky, over the game reserve.

With his simulated senses, Artie felt the coolness of the night air against his face, and with his programmed emotions he also felt exhilaration. To the west he saw the buildings of Chairman Rahma's headquarters compound, as well as the Shrine of Martyrs, the aviaries, and the vaulted greenhouses—all dimly lit—and also the large, oval-shaped rooftop of the subterranean network of extinct animal habitats, glittering with illumination as if it were a decorative pond.