The Best of Bova

by Ben Bova

  “I don’t care about no fishermen or Indians,” I said. “They don’t mean nuthin to me.”

  “But they do! Whether you know it or not, they are part of you. We are all bound together on this world of ours.”

  “Bull[deleted].” It just popped out. I mean, I kinda liked the guy, but he kept talkin’ this crazy stuff.

  “Listen to what he’s trying to tell us,” Jade said. That surprised me, her tellin’ me what to do.

  “The reason the World Council was created, the reason it exists and I serve as its Chairman, is to help everyone on Earth to live a better life. Everyone! All ten billions of us.”

  “How’re you going to do that?” Jade asked. She was lookin’ at the Chairman now with her eyes wide. She wasn’t holdin’ my hand anymore.

  “There’s no simple answer,” he said. “It will take hard work, for decades, for generations. It will take the cooperation of all the nations of the world, the rich and the poor alike.”

  “You’re dreamin’,” I said. “The United States is one of the richest countries in the whole [deleted] world and we still got people livin’ like rats, people like me and Jade and who knows how many others.”

  “Yes, I understand,” he said. “We are trying to convince your government to change its attitude about you, to admit that the problem exists and then take the necessary steps to solve it.”

  “Yeah, they’ll solve the problem. The [deleted] Controllers swoop in and take you away, scramble your brains and turn you into a zombie. You wind up as slave labor in some camp out in the woods.”

  “Is that what you believe?”

  “That’s what I know.”

  “What would you say if I told you that you are wrong?”

  “I’d say you’re fulla [deleted].”

  “Vic!” Jade snapped at me.

  But the Chairman just kinda smiled. “When all this is over, I hope you will give me the opportunity to show you how misinformed you are.”

  “If we’re still alive when this is over,” I said.

  “Yes,” he admitted. “There is that.”

  He was quiet for a minute or so. I didn’t like the way Jade was starin’ at him, like he was a saint or a video star or somethin’. But I didn’t know what I could say that would get her to look back at me.

  Finally the Chairman pipes up again. “You know, I was born of a poor family also.”

  “Yeah, sure,” I muttered.

  “My grandmother escaped from Vietnam in an open boat with nothing but the clothes on her back and her infant son—my father. They went from Hong Kong to Canada. My grandmother died of pneumonia her first winter in Vancouver. My father was barely two years old.”

  “You’re breakin’ my heart,” I said. Jade hissed at me.

  “My father was raised in an orphanage. When he was fourteen he escaped and made his way into the United States, eventually to Houston, Texas.” The Chairman was lookin’ at me when he was sayin’ this, but it was a funny look, like I wasn’t really there and he was seein’ things from his own life that’d happened years ago.

  “My mother was Mexican. Two illegal immigrants for parents. We moved around a lot: Houston, Galveston, the cotton fields of Texas, the orchards of California. I was picking fruit almost as soon as I learned to walk.”

  “You never went hungry, didja?” I said.

  “I have known hunger. And poverty. And disease. But I have known hope, also. All through my childhood my mother told me that there was a better way of life. Every night she would kneel beside me and say her prayers and tell me that I would live better than she and my father. Even when my father was beaten to death by a gang of drunken rednecks my mother kept telling me to keep my eyes on the stars, to work hard and learn and aim high. She worked very hard herself.

  “After my father died we settled in California, in a little city called Modesto, where she worked twelve to fourteen hours a day cleaning people’s homes by day and office buildings at night. By the time she died, when I was sixteen, she had saved enough money to get me started in college.”

  “At least you had a mother,” I muttered. “I was so young when mine died I don’t even remember what she looked like.”

  “That is very sad,” he said. Real soft.

  “Yeah.”

  “I remember the prayer my mother taught me to say: she called it the ‘Our Father.’ ”

  “Oración al Señor, “ whispered Jade.

  “Yes. Do you know it? And the line that says, ‘Thy kingdom come?’ That is what we must aim for. That is what we must strive to accomplish: to bring about a new world, a fair and free and flourishing world for everyone. To make this Earth of ours as close to heaven as we can.”

  “Thy kingdom come,” Jade repeated. There were tears in her eyes now, real big ones.

  Me, I didn’t say nuthin. I kept my mouth shut so hard my teeth hurt. I knew that prayer. The one thing I remember about my mother is her sayin’ that prayer to me when I was so little I didn’t know what it meant. That’s all I can remember about her. And it made me want to cry, too. It got me sore at the same time. This [deleted] big shot of a Chairman knew just where to put the pressure on me. I sure wasn’t gonna start bawlin’ in front of him and Jade. Not me.

  And I had lied to them. I did remember my mother. Kinda hazy, but I remember what she looked like. She was beautiful. Beautiful and sweet and— I pulled myself up short. Another minute of that kinda thinkin’ and I’d be cryin’ like a baby.

  The Chairman kind of shook himself, like he was cornin’ out of a blackout or somethin’. He looked at me again. “Education is the key, my young friend,” he said to me. “If we are to build a new world, we must educate the people.”

  “You mean, like school?” I asked him.

  “Schooling is only a part of it,” he said. “If we survive this, will you allow me to get you started on a decent education?”

  “School? Me? You gotta be kiddin’!”

  Jade said, “But Vic, he’s giving you a chance—”

  She never got no farther. Moustache came in, with Lou and Rollo behind him.

  Moustache looked funny. Like he was real tired, all wiped out. Or maybe that was how he looked when he was scared. He stood in front of the Chairman, who stayed in his seat lookin’ up at him. I kept my eye on Lou; he was watchin’ Jade like he was thinkin’ what he’d do with her later on. Like he already owned her.

  “We are at an impasse,” Moustache said to the Chairman. “Your security forces seem perfectly content to sit and wait for us to give up.”

  “They have standing orders for dealing with terrorists,” said the Chairman. “This is not the first time someone has attempted to kidnap a Council member.”

  “They will not attack us?”

  “There is no need to, as long as they are certain you will not harm your hostages.”

  Moustache said, “We have only one hostage, but a very important one.”

  “Then all the others who were with me are dead?”

  “Unfortunately, yes.”

  The Chairman seemed to sag back in his seat. “That is truly unfortunate. It means that you will not be allowed to escape. If no one had been killed . . .” His voice trailed off.

  “Are you telling me that the troops will risk your life in order to punish us for killing a few of your bodyguards?”

  “Yes.” The Chairman nodded slowly. “That too is their standard operational procedure. No negotiations with terrorists. And no leniency for murderers.”

  “They were armed! They killed four of my men!”

  “Only six of them were armed. There were nineteen all together, most of them harmless administrators and my personal aides. Five of them were women.”

  Moustache sank into the empty chair across the aisle from the Chairman. “It was those Moslem madmen. When the shooting started they killed everyone, indiscriminately.”

  “They were under your command, were they not?”

  “Yes, but not under my control.”
<
br />   “That makes no difference.”

  “You leave us no course, then, but to use you as a shield to cover our escape.”

  “The security forces will not allow it. Their orders are quite specific. Their objective is to capture the terrorists, irrespective of what happens to the hostages.”

  “They will let you be killed?”

  “I am already dead, as far as they are concerned.”

  “You will pardon me if I fail to believe that,” Moustache said.

  “It doesn’t matter what you believe,” said the Chairman back to him. “That is our standard operational procedure. It is based on the valid assumption that there are no indispensable men. The Chairman of the World Council can be kidnapped or even assassinated. What difference? Another will take his place. Or hers. You can do what you want to me, it does not matter. Violence will not deter us. Threats will not move us. The work of the Council will go on regardless of the senseless acts of terrorists. All you can do is create martyrs—and damage your own cause by your violence.”

  Moustache looked up at Lou, who’d been standin’ there through all this talk with a kind of wiseguy grin on his face.

  With a sigh, Moustache said, “We will have to try your way, then.”

  I got to my feet, facin’ Lou. Without even thinkin’ about what I was doin’. Like my body reacted without askin’ my brain first.

  “Don’t try to be a hero again, Sal,” Lou said to me. And Rollo took a step toward me. But Lou went on, “We ain’t gonna use any rough stuff—not unless we got to. We’re just gonna sneak him out through the tunnel.”

  “But the soldiers got the tunnel blocked off,” I said. “All the entrances—”

  “Not all of ’em,” said Lou. “There’s a side passage for the electric cables and water pipes and all. It’s big enough for maintenance workers to crawl through. So it’s big enough for us to get through, too.”

  Lou yanked a map of the tunnel system outta his back pants pocket. It was all creased up and faded, but Moustache pulled a little folding table outta the wall and Lou spread his map on it. Then he pointed to where we was and where the nearest door to the maintenance tunnel was. Moustache decided that only the six of us would go. The rest of his men would stay with the train and keep the soldiers thinkin’ we was all still in there.

  While Lou and Moustache were talkin’ all this over, Jade leaned over to me and whispered, “Vic, you gotta do something.”

  “Do? What?”

  “You can’t let them sneak him outta here! You gotta figure out a way to save him.”

  “Me? What the [deleted] d’you think I am, Superman?” She just looked at me with those eyes of hers. Beneath the fancy surgery that had made her Jade Diamond her deep brown eyes were still Juanita’s. I loved her and I’d do anything for her and she knew it.

  “You’ve gotta do something,” she whispered.

  Yeah. What the whole [deleted] World Council and half the U.S. Army can’t do she wants me to do.

  So Moustache calls in a couple of his men and gives them their orders. You can see from the looks on their faces that they don’t like it. But they don’t argue. Not one word. They know they’re gonna be left hangin’ out to dry, and they take it without a whimper. They must’ve really believed in what they were doin’.

  Me, I’m tryin’ to look like I’ll do whatever they tell me. Rollo is just waitin’ for Lou to give him the word and he’ll start poundin’ me into hamburger. And I figure Lou will give him the word as soon’s we got the Chairman outta this trap and someplace safe. Lou wants Jade, so he’ll give me to Rollo to make sure I’m not in his way. Moustache wants the Chairman so he can get what he wants back in his own country.

  And the Chairman? What’s he want? That’s what I was tryin’ to figure out. Was he really willin’ to get himself smacked around or whacked altogether, just for this dream of his? A better world. A better life for people. Did he mean he could make a better life for Jade and me?

  Well, anyway, all these thoughts are spinnin’ around in my head worse than when Rollo had slugged me. We get down off the train with Lou in the lead, Moustache with his big pistol in his hand, the Chairman, me and Jade all in a bunch, and Rollo bringin’ up the rear. Lou’s kinda feelin’ his way through the tunnel, no light ’cause he don’t want the soldiers to know we’re outta the train.

  So we’re headin’ for this steel door in the side of the tunnel when I accident’ly-on-purpose trip and fall to my knees. Rollo grabs me by the scruff of the neck hard enough to make my eyes pop and just lifts me back on my feet, one hand. But not before I slip my blade outta the tape on my ankle. It’s dark so Rollo don’t notice; I keep the blade tucked up behind my wrist, see.

  All of a sudden my heart’s beatin’ so hard I figure Rollo can hear it. Or maybe the army, a couple hundred yards up the tunnel. Half my brain’s tellin’ me to drop the blade and not get myself in any more trouble than I’m in already. But the other half is tellin’ me that I gotta do somethin’. I keep hearin’ Jade’s voice, keep seein’ whatever it was that was in her eyes.

  She wants a better life, too. And there’s no way we can get a better life long as guys like Lou and Rollo can push us around.

  So I let myself edge up a little, past Jade and the Chairman, till I’m right behind Moustache. It’s real dark but I can just make out that he’s got the gun in his right hand.

  “Hey! Here it is,” Lou says, half whisperin’. “Rollo, come and help me open up this sucker.”

  Rollo pushes past me like a semitrailer rig passin’ a kid on a skateboard. My heart is whammin’ so hard now it’s hurtin’ my ears. Moustache is just standin’ there, watchin’ Lou and Rollo tryin’ to open up that steel door. They’re gruntin’ like a couple pro wrasslers. It’s now or never.

  I slash out with the blade and rip Moustache’s arm open from elbow to wrist. He grunts and drops the gun and it goes off, boom!, so loud that it echoes all the way down the tunnel.

  “Run!” I yell to Jade and the Chairman. “Get the [deleted] outta here!”

  The Chairman just freezes there for a second, but Jade shakes his arm and kind of wakes him up. Then the two of them take off down the tunnel, toward the soldiers. I can’t see where the [deleted] gun landed but it don’t matter anyway ’cause Lou and Rollo have spun away from the door and they’re both cornin’ right at me. Moustache is holdin’ his arm with his left hand and mumblin’ something I can’t understand.

  “You dumb little [deleted]-sucking [deleted],” Lou says. “I’m going to cut off your balls and feed ’em to you one at a time.”

  I hear a click and see the glint of a blade in Lou’s hand. I shoulda known he wouldn’t be empty-handed. Rollo is cornin’ up right beside Lou. He don’t need a knife or anything else. I’m so scared I don’t know how I didn’t [deleted] myself.

  But I’m standin’ between them and Jade and the Chairman.

  “Never mind him,” Moustache yells. “Get the Chairman! Quickly, before he makes it to the soldiers!”

  Everything happened real fast. Lou tried to get past me and I swiped at him with my blade and then Rollo was all over me. I think I stuck him pretty good, but he just about ripped my arm outta my shoulder and I musta blacked out pretty quick after that. Hurt like a bastard. Then I woke up here.

  So I’m a big shot hero, huh? Saved the Chairman from the terrorists. He came here himself this morning to thank me. And now that the TV reporters and their cameras are all gone, you guys are gonna send me away, right?

  Naw, I didn’t do anything except set up the gizmo for them. And they made me do that. Okay, so grabbin’ Jade outta the tank was a crime. I figured you mother-[deleted] wasn’t gonna let me go free.

  But what’d they do with Jade? I don’t believe that [deleted] [deleted] story the Chairman told me. Jade wouldn’t do that. Go to a—what the [deleted] did he call it? Yeah, that’s it. A rehabilitation center. She wouldn’t leave here on her own. She wouldn’t leave me. They musta forced her, right. The [de
leted] Controllers must be scramblin’ her brains right now, right? The [deleted] [deleted] bastards.

  Yeah, sure, they’re makin’ a new woman outta her. And they wouldn’t do nuthin to her unless she agreed to it. Sure. Just like she agreed to have her eyes changed. Big Lou said to change ’em and she agreed or she got her [deleted] busted.

  You bastards took Jade away and don’t try to tell me different. She wouldn’t leave me. I know she wouldn’t. You took her away, you and that [deleted] gook of a Chairman.

  Naw, I don’t care what happens to me. What the [deleted] do I care? I got no life now. I can’t go back to the neighborhood. Sure, you nailed Little Lou and Big Lou and everybody in between. So what? You think that’s the end of it? Whoever’s taken Big Lou’s place will kick my balls in soon’s I show up back on the street again. They know I saved the Chairman. They know I went against Big Lou. They won’t give me no chance to go against them. Not a chance.

  Sure, yeah, you’ll take care of me. You’ll scramble my brains and turn me into some [deleted] zombie. I’ll be choppin’ trees out West, huh? Freezin’ my butt in some labor camp. Big [deleted] deal.

  I know I got no choice. All I want is to find Jade and take her away with me someplace where we can live decent. Naw, I don’t give a [deleted] what happened to Moustache. Or the dictator back in his country. Makes no difference to me. All I want is Jade. Where is she? What’ve you [deleted] bastards done with her?

  Note: Juanita Dominguez (Jade Diamond) graduated from the Aspen Rehabilitation Center and is now a freshman at the University of Colorado, where she is studying law under a grant from the World Council.

  Salvatore ( Vic) Passalacqua was remanded to the Drexel Hill Remedial School to begin a course of education that would eventually allow him to maximize his natural talent for electronics. He was a troublesome student, despite every effort at counseling and rehabilitation. After seven weeks at the school he escaped. Presumably he made his way back to the neighborhood in Philadelphia where he had come from. His record was erased from the computer files. He is presumed dead.