Brother Termite

by Patricia Anthony

  “I have spoken with Tali of the matter,” the Cousin said.

  Reen muttered, “As though he would understand love,” and jerked his right boot on angrily.

  The Sleep Master apparently decided to ignore Reen’s rudeness. In a tolerant voice he said, “The sleep grows weak, Cousin First Brother. The female should be bred. Eggs would soothe her and help the Community sleep better. Tali agrees.”

  Reen stood and stomped his left foot into his boot. “There are too few of us left, Cousin. I will not choose one to die simply because the female should be happy.”

  “Tali suspects the breakdown in DNA can be reversed and that we should try breeding again.”

  The smell of tannic acid and moisture lay heavy in the room. Reen turned his back on the old Cousin and rummaged around in his locker until he found an extra nametag. “The DNA inviability cannot be reversed. If it could be, the humans might then undo what we have done. We use the breakdown as a weapon, Cousin, and both we and the humans now die of the same malady. No race has lived as long as we. All species run to extinction. That we have run more slowly is a lucky thing that should be celebrated and not mourned.”

  “You give all our worlds and goods to these mongrel children, Reen-ja.”

  Angry now, Reen snapped his head around. “They are our children! The only children we will ever have.”

  “They are not Cousins. We should try breeding again.”

  Reen made a derisive click-click with his tongue. “The geneticists all agree that if we breed now, we will only breed more Loving Helpers. We might find ourselves in the unenviable position of having to destroy the larvae.”

  Behind Reen came a sharp gasp. When he turned, the disgust in the old Cousin’s eyes hit him like a blow.

  “Tali is right. You are a monster.”

  “I am a monster for loving; and Tali is not a monster for his hatred. Perhaps you could explain the ethics of that.” Hands shaking, Reen fumbled at the nametag, pricking himself with the pin. In frustration he threw the tag to the floor. “Tell me. When Tali comes to the Community, do you see the ugliness behind his glass mind, Cousin Master of Sleep? Because Tali carries much ugliness in him.”

  The Sleep Master stared back impassively. Controlling himself, Reen knelt and picked up the nametag.

  “Tali puts his untoward thoughts away for the night, as a good Cousin should,” the Sleep Master said. “You might learn that from him. But perhaps you are too mired in strangers’ lives to learn anything.”

  Reen rose to his feet, studying his finger. A bead of dark brown blood welled from the wound. “If you are displeased with me, take your displeasure to the Community.”

  “I have.”

  For a moment Reen fought to breathe.

  “The Community is tearing itself apart very quietly, Reen-ja. I will not permit it. Perhaps one day you will wish to enter the chambers, and I will turn you away–you and Thural and the others who care too much for strangers. Then you can make your own Community where you can sleep and share non-Cousin things.”

  Who had the Sleep Master spoken with? Reen wondered as he pinned the nametag unsteadily to his chest. And who had agreed with him? “Tell me if you decide this,” he said with careful, artificial calm. “But let me know ahead of time so arrangements can be made.”

  He dared not look at the Sleep Master as he hurried from the room. Instead he looked at his own chest. His nametag was crooked.

  WHAT HE had learned in the baths so disturbed Reen that he hoped his Brother wouldn’t accompany him to the White House; but accompany him Tali did. He sat with Reen in the lounge. Instead of preaching more Communal law, he kept silent; and Reen was too angry to ask him what he had told the Sleep Master. Normally silence between Cousins was comfortable. This was torment.

  When they sailed over the tanks gathered at the fence and landed at the side of the West Wing, the trio of Cousins followed Reen to the Oval Office. As soon as they entered, Natalie started reading nametags. “Oh. The whole group, huh? Hi, Thural. Welcome back, Sidam. The job training couldn’t scare you off yesterday? Listen, Reen. Governor Hassenbein’s been calling every five minutes. What’s going on?”

  Reen opened his mouth to answer, but Tali snapped, “Go back to your work immediately. There is nothing here you need to concern yourself with.”

  Natalie’s face shut down. Her eyes scanned Tali’s nameless chest as though wondering who he was and if he had the power to address her so curtly.

  “It’s about the firing yesterday,” Reen said, hoping to defuse a showdown.

  Luckily the buzz of the phone drew her attention. “Chief of staff’s office,” she said, picking up the receiver. There was a pause. “Just a minute, Governor. I’ll check.” With one red fingernail she hit the HOLD button. “It’s Hassenbein. You in?” she asked Reen.

  Tali, who had not yet learned the wisdom of silence, said nastily, “Of course he is in. Are you blind or merely stupid? Do you not see him standing in front of you?”

  Thural and Sidam exchanged winces.

  “Look, mister whatever the hell your name is,” she told Tali, tapping a fingertip against the desk for emphasis. “Unless you sign my paychecks–”

  “Thank you, Natalie. Tell him I’m here,” Reen said hurriedly. “I’ll take it inside.”

  At his desk Reen engaged his speakerphone. Natalie put the call through. He could hear the rumble and whine of the supersonic’s engines. “Governor?”

  Hassenbein shouted over the plane’s noise: “Reen? I received a most interesting fax last night.”

  “Ye–”

  “And it causes me to wonder, ja? So many tons of peas to Gerber Foods in Michigan, so few bottles of strained peas on the shelves. Production of bottled peas, of bottled peas, you understand, has dropped from one and a half million per day to merely seven hundred thousand over the last three fiscal years, yet the production of product, that is to say, the strained peas themselves, has remained the same. I was hoping you could clear up this discrepancy.”

  Reen waited a long time to answer. As he waited he cast a worried glance at his Brother who, head cocked, was listening intently to the conversation.

  “What do you suppose this means?” Reen finally asked.

  At the other end he could hear chimes and a garbled announcement from the plane’s loudspeakers. The Lufthansa flight was descending, and the passengers were being called to their seats. “It must mean something, yes? For Dr. Krupner to fax me the information.”

  “We were having a few problems with Krupner. Emotional problems.”

  “Ah, of course. But still it is an interesting development. Where do these strained peas go? We land in an hour. Perhaps you can find out by the time you pick me up at the airport. I would prefer to be picked up in the White House Mercedes. Your ships sometimes cause me to be ... indisposed.”

  Reen looked at Tali. His Cousin Brother was standing rigidly, as Cousin custom dictated, his expression carefully blank. “This Gerber question, Governor Hassenbein. Are you using it to lure my attention away from your plans to invade China?”

  A cough. “As much as the deregulation has hurt our manufacturing base, we have no plans to invade China.”

  “But–”

  “Who told you that? The CIA? I have it on good report that your CIA cannot be trusted. And after this Gerber development, I must now be suspicious of you as well.”

  “I don’t understand why developments at Gerber would trouble anyone but an employee of Gerber. Do you see it otherwise?”

  He said, “I think maybe I do.”

  With a click the line went dead. Reen leaned back in his chair and sighed.

  “You see what I am talking about, Cousin Reen-ja?” Thural said. “They apparently have discovered something. I fear they have found the component, and if so–”

  Reen’s intercom beeped. “The CEO
of Gerber Foods is here, sir,” Natalie said with a huff. “I tried to explain to him that without an appointment–”

  “Send him in.”

  Before Reen could reach the door, Oomal was already entering, one hand burdened by an attaché case, the other outstretched in welcome.

  Instantly Reen recoiled. “Oops,” Oomal murmured and slipped the offending hand behind his back. “Good to see you, First Brother.”

  Reen shut the door. “I think the Germans have caught on to what is happening,” he said, not bothering to keep accusation from his voice. “They talk about discrepancies with production, but–”

  “Oh, that. That’s no surprise. It’s like trying to hide an elephant in the middle of a party, you know? The humans were bound to catch on sooner or later.”

  At this bombshell the other Cousins froze.

  Oomal looked around the room. “Why don’t we all sit down? I’ve been running around the home factory all morning.”

  Tali turned to the two aides. “You will not be needed in this discussion, so it is best that you go to the ship.”

  Thural was astonished. Sidam, though, simply turned and left the room. After a hesitation Thural followed him.

  “So, Brother,” Oomal said to Tali when the two aides had left. “How are you doing? And where’s your nametag?”

  “You wished to sit,” Tali said. “So we will sit.”

  “Fine with me.” Oomal threw a questioning glance at Reen.

  Reen sat down in his swivel chair; Oomal slumped into the Louis XV antique and regarded the standing Tali.

  “You know, if you hate keeping up with that nametag, Tali, you ought to have this done.” Oomal ran a finger lovingly across the gold-embroidered Oomal above his left chest. “A little place up in Chicago sews these for me. Here.” He pulled a wallet out of his pocket. Under a corporate Visa Oomal found what he was looking for: a blue-embossed card. “They ship UPS.”

  Tali reluctantly took the card and scowled at Oomal’s diamond pinkie ring. “Reen-ja is right to accuse you, Third Brother.” He took a chair a few feet to Reen’s left and regarded both Brothers with poorly concealed contempt. “He believes you have been left too long to your own devices and that you have failed our trust. He is sure this has put the entire Community in danger.”

  Reen winced. He hadn’t meant to accuse Oomal at all. Polite inquiry would have been enough. But the Brother Conscience was giving him no way out. Tali wanted to see Oomal’s blood on the floor, and he expected Reen to inflict the wound. Reen linked his hands and sat back, trying to decide what to do.

  Oomal tapped his claw against the chair’s cherrywood frame. Tick-tick went the claw. Tick-tick. “Failed? What makes you think that?”

  Oomal was sprawled, legs apart. Tali’s back was straight, several inches away from the human comfort of the cushion. Reen studied their different postures for a moment, until he became aware of his own. He was leaning back in his leather chair, rocking slightly. He stopped rocking and sat up.

  “We now have a ninety-eight and a half percent birthless rate among women under the age of twenty-four,” Oomal went on. “And human science and technology are pretty much at a standstill. You must have seen the reports.”

  “The Firstborn agrees with me on all Community matters, and he wishes me to warn you: This new generation of humans may be incapable of reproduction and may be partly under our control, but they understand what is happening to them,” Tali said. “That is the danger.”

  A tense silence was broken only by the tick-tick of Oomal’s claw. Reen studied the body language, the tiny annoyed gestures, the candid disdain on Oomal’s face. Confronted by the censure of both First and Second, a Third Brother should have been humbled. Oomal wasn’t. Reen was surprised how human Oomal had become during his years in Michigan. And confused to find that he admired him for it.

  Tick-tick. “They don’t understand, Brother Conscience. They don’t understand anything. They see their engineering is fifty years stale, and they see the drop in the birthrate, sure. Only we make certain they can’t think about it very long. We stopped the statisticians’ reports at an eighteen percent decline. As far as any humans know, that’s bottom line, okay? Listen. Humans under the age of twenty-four used to breed like rabbits, so I have to juggle catastrophic drop-offs in the use of hospital maternity wards and soothe pediatricians and ob-gyn people. It’s hard. And nobody’s screamed yet. So, Cousin Brother, don’t give me this ‘they understand’ crap. The truth is, you can only hide an elephant so long at a party. You can see that, can’t you, Reen-ja?” Oomal turned to his First Brother for help.

  “What was Hans Krupner doing at Gerber?” Reen asked mildly.

  “A report on preschool nutrition. He came up to Michigan and went over our home office facilities for about a month.”

  “And you let him?” Tali asked.

  “Why not? We’re proud of our quality control. Besides, it’s not as if we have problems at Gerber with corporate espionage. It would have looked suspicious if we refused.”

  Reen asked, “What is all this talk about the strained peas?”

  “We buy more raw material than we need, and the excess production is sent via orbital mass driver into the sun. At Gerber,” Oomal said solemnly, “we’re environmentally correct.”

  Oomal, noticing Tali’s disapproval, went on: “Look. You have to see the big picture.” He leaned back and described an arc in the air with his hands, as though painting a rainbow. The diamond on his finger flashed. “We have a responsibility to the consumer, and we have to be careful the ingredient won’t show up in FDA tests. Compassion Comes First, remember? Remember that ad campaign?–Those warm, fuzzy commercials showing us donating product because Cousins hated to see little babies starve? God! Was that high concept or what?” Oomal saw Reen cringe, and his delight floundered into embarrassment. “Well. So. We’re not completely insensitive. The birthrate might have plummeted, but the infant mortality rate did, too.”

  “About the peas,” Reen prompted.

  “I’m getting to that, First Brother.” Oomal set what looked like an attaché case on the desk and popped the snaps. It was not a briefcase, Reen saw, but a laptop computer.

  Oomal was pleased by Reen’s interest. “Nice, isn’t it? My employees gave it to me for Christmas last year, along with a Roach Motel as a gag gift. They’re a lot of fun, my employees.” The Toshiba laptop beeped as it automatically booted its program.

  “I fail to see the humor in a Roach Motel,” Tali said.

  Oomal gave him a long, steady look. “Well, Cousin Brother Conscience, I guess you would.” Hitting a key, he brought up a bar graph. Reen’s interest wandered to Oomal’s Piaget: the soothing pattern of diamonds around the bezel, the distressing clutter of the nugget band.

  “Production,” Oomal said, turning the screen so Reen could see it and pointing to the tallest bar. “Profits.” He pointed to the smallest. “We’re going to need more price supports, Reen-ja.”

  “You should simply close the factory,” Tali said.

  “What?” Oomal turned to Reen in horror. “Reen-ja! You’re not thinking of closing Gerber!”

  Tali said, “The Brother Firstborn sees the problem as clearly as I do. It is illogical to continue throwing money into a dying company.”

  Oomal made an exasperated hand motion. “Look. Neither of you knows anything about economics, but let me see if I can put it in terms you can understand. First of all, Gerber’s not a dying company. In the third quarter of the fiscal year, when the bottom literally dropped out of baby foods, we diversified into frozen tartlets aimed at the adult consumer. The peach and apple were hits, although I’ll admit the strained pea frozen tartlets and the strained carrot surprise didn’t move well. But we’re doing a brisk business with our strained veal and chicken pate, which comes prepackaged with a cracker assortment.”

  Reen saw, n
ext to Oomal’s keyboard and Forbes magazine, a half-finished Snickers bar. The tough cartilage that served the Cousins for teeth was adequate to chew most foods, but Reen found himself wondering what Oomal did with the peanuts.

  “Second, Cousin Brother Reen,” Oomal said, “Gerber has a Japanese-style management. The employees think of the company as their home. We do not, as a corporate rule, lay off. I have a hundred thousand employees, sixty-eight plants. If I close them, I put family farmers all over the world out of business.” He pulled his wallet out again and shoved pictures across the desk: Oomal in a hard hat smiling amid grinning humans with hard hats; Oomal shaking hands with a pudgy, balding man. “That’s Harry Bell, salesman of the year. Harry’s a great guy, a real company man. Old Harry could sell diets in a famine. He has three kids and a mortgage. Look at that face, just look at it. How could you put that man out of a job?”

  Reen studied the photo: the human hand grasping Oomal’s own; the broad grins on both faces. His Third Brother seemed to have overcome the Cousin aversion to touching. Handing the picture back, he asked, “But what can be done?”

  “It’s simple, Cousin First Brother. We all know the free market economy will eventually go belly-up, and I’ve done a feasibility study in which I outline the problem we’ll have when the zero birthrate hits home. I believe I’ve found the answer.” Oomal gave Reen an unCousinly smirk.

  Reen leaned his elbows on his desk. “And what is that, Brother Economist?”

  “Bring back communism,” Oomal said. “The object of capitalism is to capture market share, anyway. The Cousins will simply become the ultimate multinational corporation.”

  “And the goods?”

  Oomal shrugged. He returned his wallet to his pocket. “We sell what we can and discard the rest. The worst part of the waste will peak inside another fifty years. At that point we can retire the few workers left, give them lake cabins and motorboats, and allow them to enjoy the remainder of their lives.”