The Little Green Book of Chairman Rahma (12 page)

A squadron of anarchists appeared, marching in formation from the front of the relocation train. They carried Splitter rifles.

“Uh-oh,” Sabe McCarthy said. “I've seen this before.” He slapped his cards down on the table, rose to his feet. His face went ashen. “I'm going to my cabin.”

Joss didn't move, felt so paralyzed that he was unable to even toss his hand of cards on the table. He suspected what was going to happen next, but had only heard rumors about it before. So it was true! He hated to think of it.

The prisoners stood on a surface that looked like it had been split previously, leaving a hardened gray amalgam that had not been greenformed, an apparent killing field of bodily remains. In the background, he heard the government announcer describe nonchalantly how roving bands of scofflaws were pursued and rounded up in the wilds, and how most of them could “never be rehabilitated.”

A shudder ran down Joss's back. They were going to be recycled.

Outside, the anarchist squad pointed their Splitter guns at the prisoners and fired little bursts of black death. For a lingering moment the hapless prisoners were outlined in black like a macabre art piece. Then they disintegrated and crumbled into a horrific, gooey conglomeration on the ground.

Sickened, Joss looked away, into the face of Kupi across the table.

She did not appear to be pleased by what they'd just seen, yet she nodded toward the killing field and said, “Some things are unavoidable for the greater good.”

Joss nodded, but inwardly he could not agree. Later he would think back on this moment many times, and would identify it as one of the turning points in his life.

 

11

It was so easy to discover bad things about large corporations, and so difficult to find anything good. As just one example of their transgressions, the major corporations provided only a tiny percentage of the employment in the United States, but were plundering a much higher percentage of human and planetary resources. The bottom line was, they contributed the minimum and took the maximum.

—Chairman Rahma Popal, Commentaries

CHAIRMAN RAHMA STOOD
at the balcony railing outside his third-floor office, feeling the warmth of afternoon sunlight on his gray-bearded face. The greensward stretched into the distance, with its wetlands and grazing pastures for buffalo, elk, and other animals—a pastoral view that was edged by evergreen forests extending from the valley up to the mountains. Several hundred meters to the left, he saw the net- and fabric-covered aviaries and the adjacent clearplex-and-alloy greenhouses, a network of connected structures that were filled with endangered species of birds and plants.

In the other direction stood the Shrine of Martyrs, a black marble mausoleum where ten of Rahma's fallen comrades from the revolution were entombed. Their electronic images adorned the interior walls, and there were reliquaries for each hero containing some of their personal things—a piece of uniform fabric, a ring, a watch, a pair of eyeglasses, a little book of haiku, a lock of hair, and the like. Rahma used the shrine as a private sanctuary, where he could visit with his dead comrades and honor them. There were hundreds of facsimiles of the shrine around the GSA (all built to scale), for the use of the public.

He had just finished a sparse vegan lunch and midday tryst with Jade Ridell, a young redhead he had invited to become one of the women living in his personal compound. She was pretty and had a cheerful personality, as well as considerable intelligence, though he didn't think she could ever be a threat to his favorite for the past two years, Dori Longet, or to Valerie Tatanka, the doctor at the clinic who was also his lover.

At his desk inside, he'd just read several reports, one on the Quebec attack that took place two days ago. Half a dozen Army warplanes had been destroyed there by a small rebel group, one that didn't seem to have any Corporate financing. The saboteurs had been questioned and summarily executed.

Another report concerned the much more troubling Bostoner attack that took place four days ago. A pair of enemy combatants who survived had been interrogated. One had refused to answer questions and had died during the grilling process; the other had received a serious head wound in the battle, and had lapsed into a coma. Yesterday, however, the man began slipping in and out of consciousness, mumbling incomplete sentences with unintelligible words, such as “voleer,” and references to something that sounded like “VT digging technology,” which Rahma's investigators and engineers suspected had something to do with the craft burrowing underground.

Thus far, no one understood how the mysterious burrowing machine worked, because it had been detonated by a self-destruct mechanism. There had been evidence of a place where the machine emerged from the ground, but further investigation of the site had revealed nothing more. Had it been hidden there and dug its way out for the sneak attack, like a desert fighter hiding in sand and leaping out to strike? That sounded like the most plausible explanation, but if the attackers had buried the sizable machine there, how had they eluded detection from satellites? Weather patterns were being analyzed in detail now, to see if there had been extended periods in which visibility from orbital space might have been impaired. With no more answers yet, Chairman Rahma tried to think of something else.

As he gazed out on the broad expanse of greenery and the snowcapped mountains, he could almost envision an entire planet like his cherished game reserve, much the way it had been millions of years ago. How marvelous that would be! In his mind's eye he imagined vast forestlands as well as mountains, rivers, lakes, and seas, all undamaged by mankind in his self-seeking, relentless drive to hold domain over every aspect of Earth and its resources.

In his boyhood Rahma had imagined becoming a dedicated environmentalist one day, working to preserve nature habitats for future generations of humankind to enjoy. By the time he reached his teens he came to realize, however, that his goals were too small and that his focus on humanity was wrong, that his thoughts were being filtered by a worldview that had proven harmful to the Earth. He became politically active, after deciding that he had to think on a much larger scale, and that he wanted to reverse the historical course of ecological ruination by man, in whatever way he could. In the process he developed a more mature worldview, in which people mattered only to the extent that they could protect and enhance nature. He often reminded himself that his own life no longer mattered, except to advance the restoration of the planet.

His involvement with the street revolution and the Berkeley Eight revolutionary council had been momentous in his life, enabling him to disseminate his ideas to a wide audience. The subsequent work he had performed as Chairman of the Green States of America had been a stepping-stone in a larger plan in which he hoped to expand greenification to other regions around the world. But entrenched Corporate and other political interests held foreign lands in such vise grips that he had grown to think that it might be impossible to ever expand beyond the Americas, and that he would have his hands full maintaining what he had accomplished here. Every day he received reports of guerrilla tactics being employed against GSA interests—hit-and-run attacks that often did not result in the perpetrators being killed, caught, or even identified.

He regretted the human deaths that resulted from forcing more than a billion people to relocate, but the tens of millions who died were either weak or resisted. Their ongoing deaths were not his fault, and he felt very little personal guilt over them.

This planet comes first
, he thought.

Going back inside his office, the Chairman saw a red light flashing on his bamboo desk, in a code that indicated he had a visitor waiting for him. He voice-activated the door to his outer office, and it slid open with almost no sound. The trusted hubot Artie stood in the open doorway, looking in with the eyes of the Chairman's dead friend Glanno Artindale. “You have a visitor,” the hybrid said, in a throaty voice that approximated that of Glanno.

“I have no appointments scheduled this afternoon.”

“We thought you would want to see this one, Eminence. It is Director Ondex and one of his subordinates.”

“Ondex again? What does he want this time?”

“He would not tell me, only said it was a matter that he could discuss only with you.”

Rahma Popal's shoulders sagged. “Very well. Send the bastard in.”

Moments later, the tall, patrician man marched in, followed by a female assistant in a white gown and two Greenpol officers carrying their helmets. The assistant had a large volume under one arm.

The Chairman exchanged signs of the sacred tree with Ondex, then sat at his desk. The visitors remained standing.

“You have not yet submitted your identification package for the genetic database,” Ondex said.

Rahma smiled. “A joke? A bit of amusement? Why are you really here?”

The Director of Science scowled. “No joke, Eminence. It is required.”

“Don't be absurd! I do not need to submit an identification package! I am the Chairman of the Green States of America!”

Ondex snapped his fingers, and the assistant handed the thick volume to him. Rahma noticed that it was a federal law book.

Opening it to a marked page, Ondex read, “‘For the good of the GSA, every citizen must comply with identification procedures.'”

“You SciOs don't run the ID database,” Rahma said. “Greenpol does, and need I remind you?
I
control the police.” He nodded to the officers, but they were looking at the floor, not at him.

Ondex smiled. “But under the GSA Charter, every branch of government—including mine—has access to the police database.”

“You're going over the line now, you nitpicking SOB. You tend to your duties, and I'll tend to mine.”

“Since you helped draft the law, you should understand it better than anyone. Aren't you a citizen of the GSA?”

“Of course, but—”

“Then you must submit cell samples to the DNA bank, along with details of other identifying features of your body. This should have been done years ago.”

The Chairman shook his head, but more out of dismay than anything else. The genetic database had been his own idea, so that his Greenpol forensic pathologists could study the brains and cellular material of eco-criminals and other miscreants, to come up with medical treatments that would prevent the living from repeating their crimes—drugs, brain wipes, genetic reprogramming. But his researchers were having trouble coming up with useful patterns or treatments, and Rahma had been considering abandoning the program.

“All right,” he said, in exasperation. “If the bureaucracy must be fed, let's get it over with.”

Ondex closed the volume, and snapped his fingers crisply.

The Greenpol officers stepped past the Director of Science and stood on either side of Rahma Popal. One took cell scrapings from the skin on his arm and neck, along with fingerprints, and snippets of gray hair from the back of his head. The other officer performed retina scans and caliper readings of Rahma's ears and nose and took a series of photographs of his face from several angles. Then both of them performed thermal imaging of his brain, using scanners that cast varying colors of light on different portions of his cranium. After that, they ran another scanner over his clothing, picking up all the details of his body.

“I feel like I'm being arrested by my own police,” the Chairman said, as he watched the officers accumulate the information and mark off a checklist on an electronic clip pad.

“In view of your high position, Eminence, no one would object if you supplement this with updated information from your doctor each time you have a physical examination,” Ondex said.

“Well, don't you think of everything!”

Director Ondex narrowed his eyes and said, “Perhaps your information should be analyzed to form the basis of the perfect human being that you seek—one that reveres the planet Earth and takes every possible action to enhance nature.”

“Ah,” Rahma said, “but I'm not perfect and I've never claimed to be.”

“Oh, but you are! At least, we've been led to believe that. You represent the ideal of goodness and selflessness, the ultimate and faultless human that you would like to create among your followers.” His mouth twisted in a cruel smile. “Think of it—an entire race of Rahma Popals. I could put some of my own SciO researchers on it right away.”

“Greenpol analyzes my ID package, not you.”

Ondex bowed, but his eyes flashed in a way that made Rahma realize that he would do it anyway.

“It's a pity you can't read my thoughts from cell samples,” Rahma said, “or you'd learn what I really think of you.”

“I think you've made that abundantly clear,” the SciO leader said. He moved toward the door, with his assistant close behind him. The two Greenpol officers hesitated, now awaiting instructions from the Chairman.

He nodded, said, “Go ahead and add my information to the database.”

They bowed, and hurried off.

In a short time the data would be assembled and organized onto computer files, then loaded into the GSA genetic library system for distribution across the network. Every department in the government would have quick access to the identification package via terminals.

How ironic, Rahma thought, that a program of his own design had found a way to annoy him. And he wondered what, if anything, the researchers would discover when they analyzed his file. Under the Charter he had no way of stopping the process, or of reining it in.

The question was, what would the SciOs do with the information? Find some way to compare Rahma Popal with known eco-criminals? Was this part of a coup attempt?

He didn't want to believe that.

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