Imperial Stars 3-The Crash of Empire (20 page)

Bennett Rook stood perfectly still. "Senile? Hardly. Your mind is clear and sharp as ever; you are one of very few who can best me in debate. Idealism I will not answer; I am not qualified. But you are less of a fool than anyone I have ever met. I admire you vastly, respect you enormously, even love you in my own manner, perhaps. Yet, given the opportunity, I would replace you tomorrow."

"Because I am too soft?"

"Because you are too soft," he said.

"Thank you for stopping by, Bennett. May I remind you once again to prod PR on the Sennich Trial coverage?"

"I'll take care of it immediately," Rook tipped his head; there was nothing sarcastic about his deference. "Good day, Victoria." His eyes were veiled as he left the office.

In silent reflection, Victoria Duiño gazed at the closed door for quite some time before resuming her labors.

And the Egyptians will I give over into the hand of a cruel lord; and a fierce king shall rule over them, saith the Lord, the Lord of hosts.

And the waters shall fail from the sea, and the river shall be wasted and dried up.

(Isaiah 19:4,5)

In midafternoon, the intercom's buzz interrupted Victoria Duiño's train of thought. "Yes, Harold?"

"Cardinal Freneaux is in the anteroom, madame. And your granddaughter is calling—channel sixteen."

She glanced at the clock. "If I am not mistaken, His Eminence made an appointment for three. It is not but two fifty-eight. Surely he will allow me two minutes to indulge my only grandchild."

"Surely he will, madame. I will tell him."

"Thank you, Harold." Keeping one eye and a portion of her attention on a flashing digital readout, Dr. Duiño switched on the vidicom. "Monique, I can't talk very long just now. I trust that you and Stewart are well?"

"Hello, Grandma." The image that formed in the small tube was of a petite, attractive young woman whose dark hair was in disarray. Her eyes were red-rimmed, desperate.

Victoria Duiño straightened in her chair. "What is it, child? What has happened?"

"I've got . . . big troubles, Grandma."

"What sort of troubles? Can I help?"

"Oh, God, I hope so! I . . . doubt it. I just got back from the doctor, I'm . . . in the family way, if you know what I mean."

"Monique!" Sra. Duiño clutched the arms of her chair. "How did this happen? Were you careless?"

"No. I don't know. I . . . took my pills. I never missed. I just don't know, Grandma. Fate, I guess—or bad luck."

After the first flush of emotion had washed through her, Victoria relaxed and began to think. She seized a yellow legal pad and a stylus. "I want to know where you buy your birth-control tablets."

"What? But, Grandma, what does that have to do with—?"

"Never mind, child. Just tell me. I assume you buy them regularly in one specific place?"

"Uh, yes. At Gilbert's Pharmacy here in the arcology complex. But I—"

"Have you any left?"

"A few," said the younger woman. "I think. Yes; a few."

"Send them to me. Mail them this afternoon—special delivery, and insure the package. Address it to Harold Strabough, United Nations Tower, and beneath the address write the initials V.M.L. That will assure prompt attention. I should receive it tomorrow."

"I . . . all right, Grandma. I will. Oh, Stew's so broken up; we would have been approved for parenthood within the year. What can we do?"

"Leave that to me."

"Can you . . .? Do you think you can do something?"

"I think so, Monique. I want you to be as calm as you can about this. Follow the doctor's instructions verbatim, and let me know at once if any complications arise."

"Grandma, wh . . . what will they do to me—to my baby?"

"Nothing, for the time being," said Dr. Duifio with assurance. "Unauthorized birth is a crime; unauthorized pregnancy is not. We have many months to effect a solution. Don't be afraid."

"Stew's talking kind of wild," said her granddaughter. "He's been raving about running off to Brazil."

"Hum-m-mph! To live in the jungle with the other outcasts, I suppose. Think about that, Monique. Would the Amazon Basin be a fit place for Stewart and yourself to raise an infant? It is a jungle, just now, in more ways than one. You wouldn't last long enough to give birth, let alone build anything more than an animal existence for yourselves."

"Are you sure, Grandma?"

"Absolutely certain," said the old woman. "I am in a position to know. Do exactly as I have advised. I'll call you later in the week when we have more time to chat. Above all, don't despair, my dear. Until later, then."

"God bless you, Grandma. And . . . thank you. I love you."

Seething inside, Victoria switched off the vidicom. She permitted herself the use of an expletive not in keeping with the dignity of her high office, then seized her bamboo cane and rose stiffly to stand upright, her mind whirling. Monique's call had come at a most inopportune moment; she had only seconds to contemplate its ramifications before receiving the Cardinal.

Diminutive and birdlike, she hunched beside the desk, squinting down at the carpet. It was an attack, of course. But from what quarter? She had been the victim of numberless attacks, both political and physical, during her long career. She had survived eleven attempts on her life, attempts ranging from clumsy bunglings like the homemade bomb thrown by that theology student in Buenos Aires, which had permanently impaired the hearing in her right ear, to the ingenious poisoned croissants, four years ago, which had resulted in the death of a loved and trusted friend.

The old woman heaved a sigh, feeling something wither and die inside her. Damn them! There was no time to think about it now. No time. She closed her eyes tightly, washing the residue of Monique's call from her mind, and pressed the intercom button. She hobbled to mid-office, leaning on her cane.

His Eminence Louis Cardinal Freneaux stood framed in the doorway, a wasted figure whose rich robe hung loosely about him. Victoria knew that he made it a point of honor to limit his caloric intake to something commensurate with that of the most deprived member of his vast flock. She respected him for it, and considered him one of the more intelligent churchmen in her acquaintance. Beneath the red skullcap, the Cardinal's eyes were lackluster and sad.

"You are looking very well, my dear," he said.

"Thank you, Louis. At my age, I can't imagine a nicer compliment." She bent stiffly as if to kiss the prelate's ring.

"That . . . is not necessary," he said, withdrawing. "My visit is official, I'm afraid."

Sra. Duiño straightened slowly. "Is it to be like that?"

"Please don't be offended, Victoria."

"I take it the Holy Father is even more displeased with me than usual," she said. "I am truly sorry to have caused him further pain. What is it this time?"

"Egypt."

The old woman nodded once. She turned slowly and stumped toward her desk, motioning the Cardinal to a chair. "Four million inhabitants of the Nile Delta, formerly Class Three, were declared Class One last week. I fear there was little choice: the vote was unanimous."

"Deplorable!" said the Cardinal.

"No one deplored its necessity more than I. Damanhur, El Mansura and Tanta, Zagazig, El Faiyum and El Minya share the fate of numberless villages scattered along the dry gulch that was once a mighty river."

"There are many Coptic Christians in Egypt," said Cardinal Freneaux. "They have petitioned the Holy See for redress."

"Oh?" Victoria's dark eyes flashed. "And why, pray, have they not petitioned the Father and Teacher in Moscow who refuses to allow them to help themselves? More than a decade ago, UNDEP warned of what the Aswan Dam was doing to the Nile. The weight of Lake Nasser upon the land, swollen by spring floods in East Africa, helped create a severe seismic disturbance; the upper Rift Valley developed a subsidiary fracture, and the river found a new path through Nubia to the Red Sea. Today, Cairo is a dusty ruin, as dead and forgotten as the pyramids to the west."

"Rationalization is useless, Victoria." The Cardinal frowned. "We must be practical."

"
Practical,
is it? In modern Egypt, more than three thousand
fellahin
crowd every remaining square mile of arable land.
Something
had to give, Louis."

The Cardinal coughed apologetically. "Four million . . . somethings." he said in a low voice.

Victoria Duiño reacted as if the Cardinal had slapped her. "That was unkind of you. They are four million helpless human beings; they work and love and have aspirations and laugh together on rare occasions, even as you or I. Unfortunately, they also have appetites. Do you—does the Holy Father—suppose that we
enjoy
our work?"

"Of course not, Victoria."

"Then why does he refrain from exercising whatever influence he has over Eastern Orthodox churchmen inside the Soviet Union? Why can't they aid in making the Kremlin realize that its insensate drive for world domination is literally starving millions? With Soviet help instead of hindrance our triage activities would dwindle significantly."

Cardinal Freneaux made a small sound of disgruntlement. "You know how little public opinion is worth in Russia."

Sra. Duiño silently recited a Hail Mary, allowing her temper to subside. She tapped a stylus on the desktop. "Louis, the impoverished portion of the Third World sprawling across Africa, Asia Minor, and the Arabian Peninsula is a Russian creation; it is perpetuated solely as a political weapon. Soviet-controlled military forces outnumber UN forces two to one; we are powerless to inflict our wills upon the Third World, save for the Indian subcontinent and South America, except as Russia allows. The Great Northern Bear graciously condescends to permit triage judgments rendered wherever and whenever we choose, then points a long propaganda finger and calls us 'murderers of millions.'

"But let us suggest something
beneficial
, such as the Qattara Project, and the Bear immediately exercises his veto. The measure dies without question of recourse."

Cardinal Freneaux looked uncomfortable. "I am not familiar with the project," he dissimulated, hoping against hope to divert the old woman's waxing anger.

"Really?" Victoria's eyes radiated pale fire. She spun a tickler file, then touched a series of buttons on the video controller. A full-color map of the Middle East formed in the large tank. "Just southwest of Alexandria is El Alamein, a town of some historical significance. Near there, Britain's armored forces turned back those of Nazi Germany in one of the climactic land battles of the Second World War.

"Which is neither here nor there, except that Britain chose that particular site to make her winner-take-all stand for an excellent reason. To the uninitiated, it would have seemed easy for Rommel's
Panzers
to swing out into the open desert, avoiding Montgomery's trap on his drive toward Alexandria and the Suez. Such was not the case; on a larger scale, the area is a corridor much like Thermopylae, and British strategy much like that of the Greeks who stood off the Persian hordes in classical times. You see, Rommel had neither the petrol, nor supplies, to skirt a huge natural obstacle.

"Let your eye drift southward from El Alamein, Louis. See the long crescent marked Qattara Depression? It is a vast sink rather like Death Valley, which lies between the Libyan Plateau and the Western Desert, and is more than four hundred feet below the level of the Mediterranean in most places.

"UNDEP's ecosystems engineers proposed a fifty-kilometer-long canal, excavated by use of 'clean' mini-fusion devices from a point east of El Alamein to the depression. A hydroelectric power station was to have been built on the brink: seventy years would have been required for a large, fan-shaped inland sea to form, stretching from Siwa Oasis near the Libyan border to the foundations of the pyramids at El Giza, with a long neck reaching southward along the Ghard Abu Muharik almost to El Kharga. The Qattara Sea would have altered the climate of the Western Desert, bringing rainfall to the parched, rich soil; in ancient times, much of the region was a garden. Egypt could have reclaimed millions of hectares of arable land, helping to alleviate her perpetual famine.

"The Father and Teacher in Moscow vetoed the proposal out-of-hand." With an abrupt gesture, Victoria switched off the video map. "Pardon me; I did not mean to lecture."

Cardinal Freneaux shifted disquietedly in his chair. "You make it sound so brave and simple. The situation is much more complex. Visionary schemes, such as this Qattara Project—"

"There is nothing 'visionary' about it," she said in an icy tone. "I could name a dozen similar UNDEP proposals vetoed by the USSR."

The Cardinal ran his tongue around his upper lip. He rose and began pacing the office, hands clasped behind his back. "The Church is not blind," he said. "Russia's geopolitical game is far from subtle. Yet the Bear is not to be provoked, Victoria. His Holiness dreads war. Have you any concept of the carnage thermonuclear weapons would wreak among the vast populations of Asia, Africa, Europe, and the Americas?"

"I have indeed; a global holocaust would either extinguish our species, or reduce our numbers to something the Earth could once again tolerate. Triage on a grand scale, Louis."

The Cardinal was aghast. "How can you even
think
such a thing?"

The old woman shrugged. "There are wars, and then there are wars. We are engaged in a global war right this instant, and one of the major battles is taking place in Egypt. If His Holiness refuses to recognize this fact, I am hard-put to explain it."

"I've never heard you speak like this before, Victoria."

Victoria sighed. "I suppose my optimism and diplomacy have begun to wear out, like the rest of me." She searched the Cardinal with her eyes. "No, that isn't true. Louis, we are not winning the war just yet. But, we will—must! There are, after all, only three alternatives left: triage, Armageddon, or a sniveling decline that is certain to end in a whimper."

Cardinal Freneaux remained silent for a time. "Our conversation has wandered far afield," he said. "Victoria, do you consider yourself a good daughter of the Church?"