Judge (20 page)

“So why are we even discussing it?”

“Because, Niall, I would love to be able tell the UN to shove it, stop trying to broker some
understanding,
and concentrate on reminding the FEU that piling up military assets around a nation's maritime borders is bad form.”

Bari had expected a very rough ride in Cabinet for making a string of decisions on the hoof without discussion. Instead, ministers took it all quietly and seemed almost grateful that he was going it alone. Perhaps they wanted someone to blame afterwards, if they thought there would be any
afterwards
when the shit finally hit the fan.

“It must be bloody significant biotech if they're going to all this trouble,” said Nairn. “And nothing concrete's coming out of intelligence?”

Storley shook his head. “Nothing. I can't help being curious, even though I know it's not really the biggest issue on the table.”

Bari kept an eye on the various status screens in the cabinet room showing the positions of ships, news feeds, and diplomatic contact activity. “It's academic, and I'm damned if I'm going to upset the Eqbas by asking Frankland what makes her so special, but let's keep an eye on that.”

“Here's my worry,” said Andreaou. “The FEU got away with opening fire on the Eqbas once. They might think they can get away with a lot more without serious consequences.”

“Could they?” Storley asked. “I know the Eqbas trashed Umeh, but would they do the same on Earth?”

“We're no more special than the isenj to them, but we have a hell of a lot more wildlife that would be collateral damage.”

“I'm not worried for the welfare of the Eqbas, PM, I'm worried about
us
—because if they launch an attack using us as a base, especially bioweapons, then we're automatically an international pariah and we'll come under attack.”

Nairn held up a finger. “Our ambassador in Beijing has had private assurances that the Sinostates won't intervene if Europe takes a pounding. Noises, condemnation at the UN, but no action.”

“Clears the world stage for them, doesn't it? How about the African Assembly?”

“Waiting and watching. More concerned about stopping refugees coming across its borders.”

“Everyone's expecting a shooting match centered on Europe.”

Bari sat back and scrolled through the screens to see where the FEU had moved its warships. It was just a gesture. If they were going to attack, they'd use air assets, but it still didn't reassure him.

“I'm going to see if I can get some undertaking from the Eqbas that they'll defend us if we take stick for their activity. I think that's the most I can do.” Bari turned to the communications director. “Mel, our ratings?”

“Eighty-seven percent still in favor of going with the Eqbas plan,” she said. “But a tangible benefit would help a lot right now.”

“I'll get the desalination stepped up and ease water rationing in the major cities. Any other grim business?”

“Prachy, PM,” Storley said. “I hear there's a motion going to the UN from the Canadians, asking for Prachy to be handed over to the UN International Crimes Directorate to be tried in neutral territory. The ambassador here says they think it'll take the confrontational heat out of it.”

“Niall, I know they've stayed on side since Canh Pho's day, but I wish they'd keep their lovely polite expansionist noses out of it.” Bari tried to imagine how an Eqbas would take that move: peacemaking gesture, or trying to obstruct their justice? “Keep me posted, especially if they manage to find any
neutral territory
on this planet. I'm seeing the Eqbas next.”

Bari grabbed his folio and walked up the back stairs to his office to wait for Esganikan and her environment scientist, Mekuliet. He needed a show of Eqbas largesse, something that would not only reassure the Australian electorate that there was some benefit to having aliens in the backyard, but also to show the rest of the world that this was rescue, not invasion. He'd gloss over the population issues. It wasn't as if they were new, or if no human had ever suggested equally draconian measures. There were even humans who'd suggested self-extinction. They'd be recruiting for the Eqbas now.

Esganikan and Mekuliet were sitting in his office, not entirely at ease on chairs, watching the feed from the UN chamber for a few minutes in bemused silence.

“
Should
I have done this through the UN?” Esganikan asked.

“A lot of member states are concerned that you haven't started from that platform,” said Bari. It was as good a time as any. “They could extradite and try Prachy for you.”

“The UN has shown no ability to make nations unite, so it's of no tactical importance to us. It couldn't even protect the gene banks it set up in the past. The Christians had to step in.”

She didn't seem bothered by the extradition idea. “Nevertheless, it's the only truly global organization we have.”

“The world can hear me as well from here as it can from the UN headquarters. As I recall, Australia extended the invitation to us to restore global ecology, so
that
is where I start, with the society most likely to be willing to maintain the planet once restored.”

“You have to deal with the whole planet eventually.”

“Prime Minister, if every nation realized that their boundaries are no protection against a deteriorating environment, I wouldn't need to be here except to punish those responsible for the genocide on Bezer'ej.”

Bari chewed the thought over. It was a long way to come just to smack a few humans. Wess'har seemed a remarkably motivated species. “Has your team finished their estimates?”

“Yes. The global population needs to be reduced to approximately one billion or fewer, zero growth to prevent further premature extinctions of other species, and to free up resources to reintroduce species whose habitats have been destroyed by human activity.”

So, five or six billion had to go.
It was the time and manner of their going that made the difference. But he'd definitely seen worse scenarios. A billion…that took Earth back to the population of the nineteenth century. Life wasn't too bad then. It wasn't Year Zero. This was
survivable.

“We've had
worse
estimates from climate modeling,” he said. “We've even got a movement, been going for a few hundred years, dedicated to voluntary human extinction, except it's still here, which always strikes me as being like an anarchists' group drawing up a rule book.”

“You'll go extinct anyway,” Esganikan said. “Either through the natural course of evolution, or by bringing a disaster on yourselves. The issue for us is how many other species you destroy by altering the environment beyond its normal fluctuations.”

“Okay, we pay for the climate change we caused. We still can't agree on how much is down to us.”

“You forget that climate change is only one aspect of this. There's killing other life, and irresponsible land use too, and direct poisoning from pollution. Tell me, Prime Minister, when you see images of Umeh, do you see that as your own future?”

“It's hard to get humans to see that. It's hard enough to get them to stop eating things that they know will end up killing them in a few years, let alone something that'll affect future generations. Which is why we're in the mess we're in now.”

“But there are many who do heed warnings. They change their lives to reduce the harm to other life-forms, and refuse to use other species for their own benefit.”

“I like to think we've got a lot of people like that here.”

“Presumably you don't have the monopoly on them.”

“No, but we have a long history here in the Pacific Rim states of environmental responsibility and protection.”

“Then I'll be looking to you to demonstrate a more sustainable and civilized lifestyle here, which would include ending all livestock farming and use of animal products.”

Bari knew it wasn't going to be easy, and common sense told him this was coming.
Gethes.
Carrion eaters. Humans ate other animals, but didn't need to. He tried to see it through Eqbas eyes: people here objected to dog meat and it was banned, but other cultures couldn't see what the fuss was about. It was still going to be a bloody hard sell. On the other hand, drought had been the end of most cattle and sheep farming, and 90 percent of meat sold now was cell culture anyway.

It'll just be the rich bastards who can afford natural meat…and then there'll be a black market in it….

He thought he'd check anyway.

“Does this extend to vat-grown meat and fish?”

Esganikan looked at Mekuliet. Bari thought it was an ethics issue, but the Eqbas seemed not to separate ethics from anything.

“We still find it repellent,” Mekuliet said. “But for the time being, it can remain, because no live person suffers.”

“Person?”

Esganikan looked puzzled for a moment, then the light went on. “All creatures are people. We have no concept of our own species as being unique.”

“Got it,” said Bari. If he'd thought negotiating was hard, then non-negotiating was even harder. Did he dare ask for some sweetener to balance that? He imagined the headlines when this went public—
GO VEGAN OR ELSE
. It was the kind of small dumb thing—and it
was
small, in the scheme of global catastrophe—that brought down governments while much bigger sins like sleaze, death squads, and dubious allies passed unremarked. “Time scale?”

“As soon as you can.”

Bari wished he'd studied the interminable Michallat programs more thoroughly. One thing he recalled was that wess'har—and Eqbas were still wess'har—came out straight with whatever was on their mind. It had to be worth trying. Esganikan certainly wouldn't understand the give and take that was expected and unspoken, and he had no cards to play anyway.

“Can I ask you two direct questions, Commander?”

“Yes.”

“If the FEU attacks us, will you give us military support?”

“Australia is our
pilot project,
as you call it, just as the Northern Assembly was our basis for progress on Umeh. Yes, we would defend you.”

Shit. That was so simple.
“And is there any environmental improvement you could carry out in the short term to show our citizens what's possible? Hope is a great motivator for humans. Most of our grand climate change remedies haven't worked as well as we'd hoped.”

Mekuliet, who'd been speaking when spoken to up to that point, suddenly perked up. “You have inadequate models. I saw your attempts at reflecting solar energy with devices in orbit. Your concepts are promising, but your calculations are flawed.”

Puny Earthling.
He really expected her to say it. “There's also the complication that countries don't like geo-engineering because it might benefit one nation's environment but screw theirs. Very contentious. Wars have been fought over it.”

“We have to think in global terms,” she said. “While we decide whether to accept
Shan Chail
's wish that the planet be restored to a much earlier optimum state, such as the early twentieth century, what measure would
you
find most useful for your country right now?”

“Water,” Bari said. He didn't even have to think about it. “We need more water. Always have.”

He had no idea if Canh Pho had this conversation with Esganikan in the past. But even if he had, it was worth repeating. Bari wasn't sure if he was asking for rain-seeding or sophisticated recovery methods, although he'd seen the Eqbas tapping deep into the desert to find water that engineers here couldn't get at. Bari was ready to believe that a million years head start on humans bought you something akin to magic.

“Desalination,” said Mekuliet. “You use it, but we can do it better. Your engineers have seen how we created a desalinated supply for the reception center.”

She made it sound so simple. Bari knew he should have involved the scientists right from the start, but he hadn't, and now he was glad he'd played it that way. They would have dived straight into detail when what really needed doing was to look this relatively benign army of occupation in the eye and ask if they would take care of the place if the residents behaved.

It
was
that simple. Now the scientists could get on with the job. He had no doubt that the Eqbas would play it exactly as they saw fit, and roll over any interdepartmental rivalries.

“I'll get the Minister for the Environment to see you right away,
Chail,
” he said, pleased with himself that he'd picked up at least one honorific.

The two Eqbas left, and Bari took a few minutes' breathing space to reflect on the fact that it was barely a week since they'd landed and he was getting results. The planet hadn't been plunged into war. Death rays hadn't reduced the place to rubble. The future was going to be horribly hard, but not for Australia or its neighbors, and weaning the country off meat was a small price to pay.

He sipped his coffee, kept hot since early that morning in the socket on his desk. So Shan Frankland had enough influence to make Esganikan think twice about the restore point for Earth; that was something he hadn't realized.

Nobody was ever going to hand her over to the FEU, then. And if the FEU were going to get shitty over that—well, now there was a new line of defense.

The Eqbas fleet and its Skavu army.

 

Surang, Eqbas Vorhi: Place of Maintenance and Innovation for Fleet Vessels.

 

Rayat still had time—days anyway; maybe months.

He sat among the transparent panels of the maintenance control room, feeling as if he was in a room full of shower curtains. The sheets of material were alive with colors and movement, looking very much like
virin've
—the transparent Eqbas communication devices—after a nasty accident in a rolling mill. When he reached out to touch them, they were soft and pliable. This was the live code that instructed the extraordinary liquid-solid nanite technology of the wess'har to create a home, or a robe, or a constantly changing warship. Wess'har could program matter.