Worlds in Chaos

by James P. Hogan

  “But here’s an angle that these guys never thought of,” Tolly said.

  “I suspect we did, but it got suppressed,” Krossig interjected.

  Tolly continued, “Cars powered that way could run all the time without choking up the planet. So how about this: Instead of owning a big chunk of capital investment that spends most of its time depreciating in driveways and parking lots, you use a turbine driving an electric generator-motor system to make it a mobile power plant as well as a vehicle. When it isn’t going anywhere, you plug it into the grid and get credited for what you deliver. Millions of people take care of their own power requirements. We reckon an average car could net the owner around ten thousand dollars per year.”

  Cade was intrigued. “You think something like that could happen?”

  “We’re working on it.”

  “So who would own it?”

  “I don’t know. Scientists from all over are working here with Hyadeans.”

  “Mike Blair’s due to be joining us anytime,” Krossig said.

  Hueng, who it turned out was on some kind of loan from the Chinese government, chimed in. “The Western Federation has the right idea. This side of the world is the way of the future. The interests that the Globalists are trying to hang on to are finished. When a system has to resort to force and deception to preserve itself, you know it’s only a matter of time before it collapses. I am Chinese, Mr. Cade. I know. The military empires of earlier times have passed away. The fascist and socialist political empires of the last century are gone. Now we’re seeing the end of the Western- and Hyadean-style financial empires. Everybody will manage their own affairs.” He grinned broadly. “So we still call it the People’s Republic. It fits the reality rather well.”

  “Maybe Hyadeans are discovering their own version too,” Krossig said. “Away from the restrictions of the system we’ve known.”

  “The same kinds of restrictions that Americans and Europeans have come to regard as normal,” Susan Gray put in. She was in her thirties, Cade guessed, with neck-length blond hair, sun-bronzed and frighteningly fit looking, dressed in a tan shirt and light green jeans. “We do things kind of casually and informally around here. The region has a strong independent tradition of minding its own business and not trusting the central government. Somehow it seems to provide the right atmosphere for everyone to get along. That was a big reason why the Hyadeans stayed.”

  “I feel I have begun to awaken,” Krossig said. “Many Hyadeans that I’ve met here say the same thing.”

  Cade stared out as they drove into the outskirts of the city. All it took was to experience what free thinking could be like. Then there was no going back. If this was what the Hyadeans who came here were finding, could exposure to Earth eventually cause their whole population to wake up?

  The hotel was in the tradition of the architectural cloning which for decades had been creating airport environs and urban peripheries that were in danger of becoming indistinguishable the world over. But it was cool, clean, and comfortable. Cade and Hudro were given separate suites and then left to freshen up, change, and spend the remainder of the afternoon relaxing with beers by the pool among palm-tree-enclosed gardens at the rear.

  That evening, there was a dinner in town for the occasion, hosted by Tolly and Hueng on behalf of the state and attended by Krossig, Freem, Susan, and others from the scientific center, several more Hyadeans connected with other enterprises, and a mix of a few business figures and other local notables that it seemed fitting to invite or who had otherwise wangled their way in. It was all very colorful and cheerful, especially as the drink continued to flow generously, and at midnight they called Cade’s house in California, got Marie and Yassem, and toasted them over the phone. Cade promised he would be back before much longer. Hudro hadn’t decided yet what his intentions were.

  The late stayers then retired to a private bar. Krossig, by then well stimulated and loquacious, told Cade, Hudro, and Susan about his discovery of Asian philosophies from his dealings among some of the area’s varied populace. He was particularly enthralled by the notion of reincarnation, according to which individual personalities were created for the purpose of assisting a soul on its path of development. The circumstances of each incarnation were chosen to provide the experiences and lessons that the soul needed in order to heal itself and grow. This seemed to follow so naturally from the many-worlds view of quantum reality that Krossig and Mike Blair back in California saw as a purposefully contrived learning environment in which the choices that a consciousness made created its path of experiences. Their latest thought was that despite all the things that were heard about Eastern mysticism and Western science converging toward saying the same thing, perhaps both were missing the whole point of it all equally. Krossig explained:

  “Physics exposes the backstage machinery. Eastern insight says that what the machinery supports is illusion. But surely the whole purpose of it is to experience the illusion.” The company was listening intently. “It’s a bit like a physicist finally figuring out that the movie is a product of electrical patterns and photons, and the mystic observing that what they depict isn’t real. But all the time, neither of them sees that the purpose of the movie was to . . .” He waved a hand about. “Whatever the movie is made for.”

  “Tell a story. Teach a lesson,” Susan supplied. She was now transformed in a close-fitting black cocktail dress and looking devastating.

  “Exactly.”

  Susan looked at the others. “Interesting. I’ve always thought of myself as a hard-boiled science type too. But you know, fellas, I like it.”

  “You see, it needs Hyadean and Terran brains combined,” Freem said.

  Hudro was enraptured. “So, is all designed for consciousnesses to make choices and learn,” he said to Krossig. “What is it does the designing?”

  Krossig spread his hands. “I don’t know. Not my department.”

  Hudro turned to Cade. “Here is what I seek. Is as you say, like fresh air. We bring Yassem here. Already I think we stay in this country.”

  Cade looked inquiringly at Susan and Freem.

  “I don’t think that would be too much of a problem,” Susan said. “There’s a good community of Hyadeans here—all learning to be individuals. Sounds like they’d fit right in.”

  For the next couple of days, Cade and Hudro were given a tour of the area, particularly to see some of the ways in which Hyadeans and Terrans were working together without organizing directives from above or centralized policies favoring corporate economics. The scientific station was larger and more diverse in its activities than Cade had imagined. He toured the labs and workshops, saw prototype rigs of the catalyzed hydrogen turboelectric system that Tolly had talked about in the bus on the way from the airport, and didn’t really understand a lot else. Like the mission in Los Angeles, the station had gravitic communications equipment in touch with Chryse via the orbiting Hyadean relay system, and Cade watched Terran scientists still spellbound at the thought of interacting with counterparts light-years away.

  “This makes the web look like Pony Express,” one of them told him.

  They were from a surprisingly wide range of places and backgrounds, brought in one way or another through influences of the cosmopolitan influx of the individualist-minded from Asia, Europe, and the Americas to what had already been a mixed region. There were also a lot more Hyadeans than Cade would have expected. Freem said that most had paid their own way privately to come to Earth in search of the independent way of living they had heard of that was new to them. Krossig felt there was more going on here than just a collaborative scientific center. It could be a microcosm of how an alternative might evolve to the imposed, top-down form of organized dealings between the two races that had taken root in the West.

  But there was another side that was disconcerting. “China’s policy,” Susan said when she and Cade were with Freem in Freem’s office, next to the gravcom room. “What we think is their real aim in leading the
AANS—and we’ve talked to Hueng about it, and he agrees. They see the lineup of Hyadean and America-Europe as an attempt to preserve a Western-dominated economic order that should have died after the twentieth century and two world wars. They made the Hyadeans a symbol for the rest of the world to rally against. Beijing seems to think that now the U.S. has broken up, it’s as good as over. All it has to do is deliver a knockout blow. They’re underestimating what they could be up against. We could never beat Hyadeans by taking them on in a straight fight—if it ever came to that. Hudro understands that. But there’s no need to. From the things we’re hearing here, they’re ripe for their own form of revolution. Why confront when you can undermine? With the right strategy, we can win enough of them over that their system caves in.”

  Cade was both intrigued and gratified. In effect, this was stating in other words what he himself, Vrel, Luodine, and others had also concluded. At the same time, he was mildly perplexed. “I agree with what you’re saying,” he told them. “But why are we going through all this? You sound as if you expect me to do something about it.”

  “I talked to Hueng,” Freem replied. “His connections in Beijing go higher than you perhaps imagine. I’m sure he provides an efficient direct conduit back of anything of interest that goes on here.” Freem held up a hand before Cade could respond, as if to say that was of no consequence. “But he also shares our concern. Naturally, he has made his superiors fully aware of the presence here of the American featured in the South American documentary, and the Hyadean officer whose story he helped narrate. Hueng put out some feelers, and it seems they would be interested in inviting you there. You have a chance to present our case maybe where it stands the most chance of having some effect.”

  Cade blinked. “You mean go to Beijing? Me?”

  “While there’s still a chance,” Susan said. “You understand Hyadeans as well as anyone.”

  Cade didn’t have to think too much about it. He was prepared for just about anything by now. “It would need Hudro there too,” he told them. “The documentary wasn’t only me. He’d carry a lot of weight there too.”

  “Then let’s talk to Hudro,” Freem suggested.

  Hudro returned that evening from visiting an experimental school the Hyadeans had set up for teaching their way of science, which was proving to be a big hit with the local children. Cade and the other two put Hueng’s proposition to him over beer and burgers in the station’s canteen. “There are people in Beijing who have the power to make decisions that will affect many people, but I’m not sure they understand what a full-scale conflict might bring,” Freem told him. “You are a former Hyadean military officer. Also, your experiences in South America give you insights that they do not share. If you really want to prevent what could happen, there would be your place to try.”

  Cade and Susan stared at each other somberly. Hudro gave Freem a long, searching look. Finally, he nodded. “Very well. I will go to Beijing with Roland and say what I know and what I think. Then I come back to you here. Yassem comes across from over ocean. Then we live here in Australia as Terrans. Is what we dream.”

  “That would be understood,” Freem said.

  CHAPTER FORTY-SIX

  They stayed in Cairns a little over a week. Everything Cade saw reinforced his impression that it modeled on a small scale the way things could have been: Australian whites and blacks, Europeans, Asians, Americans, Hyadeans, working out their own ways of getting along.

  Meanwhile, three Eastern Union nuclear supercarrier groups had put to sea in the Atlantic and were heading south, presumably to enter the Pacific via Cape Horn. The confrontation in Texas was heating up, with both sides using air support. Oil installations along the banks of the Houston ship canal were ablaze under artillery fire. A suburb of St. Louis had been hard hit by overshoots from an attack on an air base.

  Then the formal invitation that Hueng had set up came through from Beijing. A farewell party that included Krossig, Freem, Susan, Hueng, and Tolly but which had grown significantly from the one that had greeted them accompanied Cade and Hudro to the airport, where they boarded a Chinese government executive jet sent with two officials from the Department of Foreign Affairs to collect them. The flight north lasted six hours and brought them to Beijing’s International Airport, ten miles south of the city center. A white limousine flying the new pennant of the Democratic Republic of China from its hood, preceded by a police escort that seemed to delight in using its siren and lights to clear regular traffic grudgingly out of the way, conveyed them to the seventeen-story Beijing Hotel on Wangfujing Avenue, the busiest of Beijing’s shopping streets, marking the eastern edge of the old Imperial City.

  The atmosphere was very different from the colorful, provincial informality of Cairns. Even with the time together through the plane trip, the two officials who accompanied them seemed stiff and formal after the easygoing smiles of Tolly and Hueng. The talk was of things hypothetical and impersonal, grandiose schemes for the future, and how people would need to adapt and be educated to play their part—not of people simply allowing life itself to determine whatever kind of scheme took shape.

  The same mood set the tone of the obligatory dinner that was given later in one of the hotel’s private rooms. Cade had the feeling that in addition to paying the requisite courtesies, it was designed to send a political message. The ranks and numbers of the guests seemed calculated to convey that Cade and Hudro’s presence, while acknowledged to be of interest, shouldn’t be seen as carrying cosmic significance.

  The speeches dwelt on political theory and abstract ideals. China might have made heroic efforts to change the form, but the old habits of thinking were still there, Cade thought as he nodded, smiled, and applauded. It was still the thinking of Earth, which created vast, imaginative symphonies of fantasy setting out what ought to be, and then tried forcing reality to fit. The community that had grown at Cairns embodied, even if it probably didn’t understand, what Hyadean thinking had been before opportunism took advantage of it, and conformity stifled it—the thinking that had accepted reality as it is, and pointed the way to building starships; understood it the only way it could be understood: spontaneously, by living and expressing it.

  It would have been an oversimplification to say even that Asia stood for one side or the other of the tussle that was dividing Earth. Should that be resolved, then Asia itself would break up into factions, as would other alignments that seemed stable for as long as the greater common threat persisted. Cade was beginning to see Terrans from something like the perspective that he imagined Hyadeans saw them. Whether one agreed with and liked what one saw depended on where in the Hyadean social order the viewing was from. The true dividing lines were complex. There were bulky, blue-to-gray “Terrans,” and there were slender pink-to-black “Hyadeans.” What better words might have more accurately described which of both groups stood for what was far from obvious.

  The next day, they were taken on a tour of the city by four intense young people, two men and two women, polite, impeccably groomed, dressed, and mannered, all speaking English, and two, to Hudro’s surprise and commendation, ably versed in Hyadean. One couple was from the public relations office of the Department of Foreign Affairs, the other from the Central Military Directorate. Beijing had been China’s capital city since its founding in the Yuan Dynasty during the thirteenth century, and the layout was still dominated by its imperial past. The city proper, as opposed to the greater metropolitan area of modern times, consisted of two distinct sections: the square Inner, or Tartar City to the north, and adjoining it to the south, the more cosmopolitan and commercial, oblong Outer, or Chinese City. The Tartar City, dating from the earliest period, had originally been enclosed by walls forty feet high, removed only during the 1950s, in the Communist period. Within its fifteen-mile perimeter, it enclosed two other nested walled cities erected during the fifteenth-century Ming Dynasty: the Imperial City, with parks, temples, secondary palaces, and residences and offices of the nation
’s leaders; and within that the moated Forbidden City, containing the Imperial Palace with its 9,000 chambers, as well as audience halls and terraced courtyards extending over 250 acres, now maintained as a museum. Cade and Hudro stood in reverence at the shrines and temples of wooden beams, red clay walls, and massive, yellow tiled roofs with upturned eaves; admired the broad marble steps, carved stone lions, and ceremonial gates; and walked among the gardens with their ornamental lakes. But it was all an enclosed wonderland, a preserved relic of a past that had gone. When they came back outside, the humorless office blocks of glass and concrete, and imposing government buildings with brooding stone frontages pushing their way in and joining up like a rising tide around the shrinking islands of times gone by, reminded them that the serious business of the world at large and its future set the tone and the rhythm now.

  The four young guides talked eagerly about plans for the future and a new society to be built. Yes, mistakes had been made in the past, but they had brought their lessons. In essence, the global conformity that the Hyadeans would impose on Earth if they were allowed threatened the same kind of exploitation that the West’s imperialism had the century before. Eastern Asia had resisted successfully then, and it was natural and inevitable that it should form the nucleus of the resistance growing across the world today. Cade heard the total self-assurance that can come only from minds incapable of conceiving the possibility that they could be wrong. The belief that the future could be molded as desired determined planning, and guidance remained unquestioned. Only the plan had changed.