Island Worlds (29 page)

As head of the Confederate delegation, Yuri Pereira had been given a villa equal in size to the one occupied by Jameson. It had been built by a director of the old Mars Settlement Corporation, a subsidiary of Ciano-McNaughton, and it was lavish by Martian standards. The terrace overlooked a valley, under a colossal translucent dome, that had been transformed from desert to lush agricultural land, growing plants gene-engineered for Martian conditions. The fortified air was thin but quite breathable, although Earth-dwellers found themselves yawning frequently.

"I am so glad you could come, Mr. Carstairs," Pereira said when Carstairs stepped onto the terrace.

"Wouldn't have missed it," Carstairs assured him. "This is a beautiful setting."

"Isn't it? Although I am a citizen of the Confederacy, Mars is very dear to me. My grandparents, all four of them, were among the original pioneers of Tarkovskygrad. They are buried not far from here."

Carstairs made polite noises and wended his way into the large parlor that opened off the terrace. Its walls were decorated with murals of Mars; not the true planet around them, but the mythical Mars of Burroughs, Bradbury and Weinbaum.

"Mr. Carstairs." He turned to see Thor approaching with the graceful low-grav glide he would never master. More interestingly, he was accompanied by the young lady of mystery. "Have you met Sieglinde Kornfeld?"

"I've not had the pleasure," Carstairs said, taking her hand. "So you're the young lady who beat our best computers and busted Martin Shaw right out of our clutches!" Jackpot! Taggart jerked as if he'd been hit by a cattle prod. Sieglinde didn't twitch so much as an eyelash. Christ, he thought, this is one I'm going to have to watch out for.

"The praise of peers is always welcome," she said.

"I've met many people of little significance, Miss Kornfeld," he said, "but you're the first I've encountered who doesn't seem to exist at all. Now they're ringing the dinner bell and I find myself without companionship. Would you do me the honor?" He offered his arm and she took it.

"Delighted," she said.

"I'll be looking forward to speaking with you later, Mr. Taggart," Carstairs said as he turned toward the dining room.

Thor stood nonplussed and he heard Pereira chuckle behind him. "You said he was a formidable man, Thor. Quite a different proposition from Jameson, isn't he?"

"Jameson," Thor said, almost, but not quite spitting. "How can one man come across so well on the holos and be so boring in person?"

"Fu could probably explain it," Pereira said. "It's not my field. However, you'll be happy to know that he hasn't robbed you of female company. We've seated you with Mrs. Jameson."

Thor rolled his eyeballs toward the painted ceiling. "There are some things you shouldn't ask a man to do for his country."

The dinner was a great success and Thor found Kathy Jameson to be far more entertaining than he had feared. Condemned to a life of gazing worshipfully at her husband in public, she had a waspish wit which she exercised at that gentleman's expense. Thor deduced that all was not tranquil in the Jameson household.

Carstairs found himself even better entertained. Linde did not go into any of the semi-trances that he had observed when she had been speaking with the other members of her party during the first days of the conference. He noticed that she was giving minute directions to the waiters and seemed to have choreographed the entire dinner.

The evening passed pleasantly if inconsequentially, and after coffee and brandy had been served Mrs. Pereira invited some of the guests to tour the formal gardens, which were extraordinary for the many varieties of genetically-engineered luminous fungi developed there. This effectively removed all the nonessential people from the room.

Pereira brought out a bottle of Armagnac and Thor produced two sets of documents. "If you gentlemen are ready to do business," he said to Jameson and Carstairs, "here are our draft proposals for the armistice. Why don't you look them over while you enjoy your Armagnac."

Jameson sensed that he was being herded and took the offensive. "We'll take them home with us this evening. In a few days, perhaps, we can let you know what alterations we'll need."

"It has to be here and now, I'm afraid," Thor told him. "You'll see why in a few minutes."

"Won't hurt to look them over," Carstairs cut in smoothly. He began to scan the pages. It was an impressive document. Without forcing the U.N. to acknowledge the sovereignty of the Confederacy, it granted the Island Worlds most of the privileges of an independent nation. There were several paragraphs that were obvious throwaways. An appearance of give-and-take was always necessary to any such negotiation, even when an agreement was immediately attainable.

"Excellent proposals, for the most part," Jameson said, after he had gone over his pages. "Of course, there will have to be some changes made. Paragraph L, for instance, and that whole string of clauses under subheading 5 of paragraph P. There are a few others."

Carstairs nodded silently. At least Jameson had picked up on the throwaways.

"I'm sure something can be worked out," Pereira said. "Publicly. After all, we don't want people to think this was all settled in a smoke-filled room."

"Gentlemen," Carstairs said. "This is a fine document, and there's very little I can find fault with. Essentially, it's a return to the
status quo ante bellum
, with a few slight changes that won't bother the public at large. But I fear we still have a problem."

"I know," Thor said. "We were about to come to that. First, let me introduce the unofficial member of our delegation."

A door in one of the walls slid open and a motorized chair rolled in. The man in it was an almost shapeless mass beneath a blanket, but the battered face above the blanket had enormous power. Shaw smiled slightly at the two Earthmen. "Evening, gents. I'm glad to make your acquaintance at last. Forgive me if I don't stand and shake hands."

Jameson shot to his feet, forgetting the gravity and nearly bashing his head on the ceiling. "Shaw! I'll have you arrested and shot! Guards!" He had been startled into an automatic reflex reaction; of course there were no guards.

Carstairs stood more cautiously, but for one of the very few times in his life he was deeply shaken. "Forget it, Taggart. We won't negotiate with him. We won't negotiate with him present. He's the biggest criminal in history."

"Oh, sit down, you scheming bastard," Shaw said. "I'm no diplomat, so I don't have to be polite." He looked at Jameson. "You too, you pathetic moron. Sit down!" The order snapped out so savagely that the Secretary-General of the U.N., virtual dictator of Earth, dropped into his chair like a disciplined schoolboy.

"I'm here," Shaw went on, more gently, "to demonstrate that everything Thor proposes in these documents is agreed to by me. As long as you abide by the accords agreed to here, you and EOS will have no trouble from Defiance. If you break the accords, though, if you attack us while pretending friendship, or if you try to imprison or assassinate Thor, or Yuri, or me for that matter," he bent his battered lips into a smile, "I'll rock-bomb your ass into oblivion."

"You can't threaten us, Shaw!" Jameson blustered.

Carstairs recovered more swiftly. "This is neither here nor there, gentlemen. Earth First still has a problem."

"We're about to come to that," said Thor.

"Against my better judgment," Shaw said, lying through his teeth, "Thor insisted on granting you one of history's biggest concessions."

"If you'll all accompany me out onto the terrace," Pereira said.

Mystified, the two Earthmen followed. Carstairs had been wondering all evening what form this was going to take. Apparently, it was to be spectacular. The terrace was breathtaking at this hour, with its brilliant starscape above and the glowing, formal gardens below. Linde handed him a pair of goggles and he examined them curiously. They were as black as welder's goggles.

"At this moment," Pereira said, "my wife is distributing these to the other guests. Warnings are now being sent out to all settlers and visitors on the night side of Mars and in nearby orbit."

"What is this?" Carstairs demanded.

"You're about to see," said Pereira, donning his goggles. "Please put on your goggles or you'll be blind for a week." Hastily, the others complied.

"Five," Thor said, "three, two—"

There was a flash so bright, so intensely white, that Carstairs turned away from it and covered his eyes with his forearm. Even with his back to the source, he could see the flash. Through the goggles, through his sleeve and the flesh of his arm, he could see the pink outlines of his radius and ulna, as if with an x-ray. Gradually, the light faded. Carstairs had never dreamed that light could be so bright. He took the goggles off. "Now what the bloody hell was that?"

"Ugo Ciano's final invention," Thor said. "The antimatter bomb."

"Is this your threat?" Jameson said. "Are you saying you can destroy us with this weapon?"

God, he's slow. Carstairs thought. "They can already destroy us, Mr. Secretary-General. With rock bombs."

"Exactly," Thor said. "This is your new weapon, demonstrated for the first time. We are properly impressed."

Jameson still didn't get it. "You mean you're giving this thing to us?"

Shaw laughed abruptly. "Not a chance! What were giving you is one more lie to tell your people. Even though you are graciously determined to make peace, you've demonstrated your new weapon, the ultimate hell-bomb, just to show that you're negotiating from a position of tremendous strength."

For the first time, Carstairs spoke as head of the Earth team and let Jameson fade into the background he rated. "Deal! Now, will you guarantee that that goddamn Chih' Chin Fu will get the hell off our airwaves and refrain from buggering up what we've agreed to here?"

"Fu's his own boss," said Thor, "but I think he'll go along with my instructions."

"Right," Carstairs said. "I'll bet you five quid the barstid's been 'graphing this whole meeting." Thor, Shaw, Pereira and Linde just smiled.

As the Earth party was taking its leave, everybody chattering about the remarkable fireworks display, Carstairs took Thor aside. "This has been not only productive, but educational. I'm glad we've had this chance to meet again after all these years." He took Thor's hand and shook it firmly. "Until next time, Mr. Taggart."

The three asteroids were moderate-sized, rich in minerals for future exploitation and with plenty of room for expansion in future years. The inhabitants were a mixed bag; the curious who wanted to try something new, the religious who sought peace and serenity, scientists who sought a new environment for their experiments. The bulk, though, were families whose homes had been shattered by the war, who knew now that there was no safety even in the outerworlds. All were lifelong asteroid-dwellers, many of them second-or third-generation.

"I wouldn't want to try it," Brunhilde said. "The sun isn't much this far out, but I'd hate to have no sun at all." They were in her private yacht, a hollowed-out rock fifty meters long and furnished inside as a luxury villa, with embroidered padding on the walls and free-fall mobile decoration. Most of one wall of the main salon was an oval window of armorglass, ten centimeters thick.

"Pure sentimentality," said Linde. She floated cross-legged in the center of the salon, rotating slowly about her own center of mass. She claimed to think better when she was rotating, and her mass had increased noticeably of late. Propped atop her pregnant belly was a calculator of her own design, which looked like a rectangle of clear, thin plastic across which multicolored figures danced with dazzling speed. "Most people out here never visit any of the planets. Asteroids are all they know, so they'll never miss this solar system."

"Doesn't it make you wonder, though?" Brunhilde said. "After all those generations in interstellar space, what use are they going to have for a solar system when they find one? They won't even be physically capable of going down to an Earth-type planet if they find one. The gravity would kill them and the conditions would seem hellish."

"I suspect they'll do what people have always done," Thor said. "They'll explore. They'll raid the new system's asteroids for resources. Eventually, they'll move on. Maybe some will decide to stay behind and readapt to planetary life. It's rather pointless to make predictions. They'll be a different breed by then, fully adapted to space travel. They'll have lives we can't even imagine."

He sipped at a bulb of prized champagne, broken out by Brunhilde for the occasion. "Do you think," he went on, "that some Eighteenth Century emigrant, climbing aboard a ship at Bristol to break with the old country and go to the new world was thinking, 'My descendants are going to be computer builders and airline pilots in California'? And yet the time frame that separated him from those descendents was a hell of a lot shorter than that separating those pioneers from their arrival in the Alpha Centauri system. We've given them a shot at a new type of life for humanity. What they do with it is up to them.

"If they develop a sense of nostalgia for the old system and wish we hadn't sent them away from the overpopulation and diminishing resources and wars and hell-weapons, it'll just be because romantic foolishness hasn't died out from the human mind."

"If I'm successful," said Linde Kornfeld-Taggart, "it won't come to that anyway." She ran through a set of figures, erased, and tried it again. "So far I see nothing to stop me from developing instantaneous superluminal communication. Once I have that, matter transportation should follow. That'll take a few more years, though."

"Don't take too long," Thor pleaded. "Things are getting much, much worse on Earth. We're projecting a new war within twenty years. Aeaea reports a long buying list for the anti-matter engines. Forty asteroids this year alone."

"For interstellar travel?" Brunhilde asked.

He shook his head. "Most just want to move to a trans-Neptune orbit. They may be safe out there, but they'll be useless to us if it comes to war again."