2
Animals are not lower life-forms than humans.
They are in fact superior to us.
Count the ways.
—Chairman Rahma, The Little Green Book
THE MAN CROUCHED low as he peered over a snowbank at the bleak white landscape sloping up to the ridgeline. A cold gray fog was beginning to settle over the mountain, though some patches of sunlight remained. Moments earlier, he’d seen movement at a higher elevation by the body of a freshly killed ibex, a blur of motion. Now, nothing. Looking in that direction through binoculars, the gray-bearded man didn’t even see prints in the snow where the cat had been, feeding on its prey. The creature seemed to float over the surface, moving entirely in another realm.
There were countless legends about the magical powers of snow leopards, but legends were one thing and reality quite another. Because of the animals’ reclusive, solitary nature, attacks on humans were rare. Even so, the man’s heart beat rapidly. These rare animals were powerful and fast—and if this one decided to turn on him at any moment instead of avoiding him, he might not have a chance. So far the creature was keeping its distance, while remaining close enough to watch over the bloody body of the horned ibex, preventing other predators from taking it away.
With a start the man remembered he was in EVR—enhanced virtual reality—and wasn’t actually on that faraway slope, except as a three-dimensional, projected avatar. Such magnificent technology, and so realistic that if persons really in that remote mountain region saw his projection they would think he was actually there, too. In addition, if his avatar was near any other people there, he could see them, hear them, and speak to them, and they could do the same with him. Animals could see and hear avatars as well, and had even been known to go after them, though they usually relied on scent, and that was one thing the Chairman’s EVR figure did not have. Now he reimmersed himself into the action on the snowy mountain—a speck on the white snowfield watching the predator and its ibex.
A snow leopard was not able to consume a kill of this size in one feeding. For that reason it often lingered nearby for days, going back repeatedly and eating from the carcass, while watching warily in all directions.
It was the Achilles’ heel of their species, a weakness that a hunter could use to advantage—and he’d seen evidence of hunters in the area. But Chairman Rahma Popal was not like other human beings around there. Snow leopards were an endangered species, with only a small number of them known to exist on Earth. He needed to capture this one alive, which he could do even in EVR, with the aid of two men and a woman collaborating with him on the ground—GSA operatives who had taken great physical risks to slip into the enemy state of Panasia, far across the globe from the GSA. Rahma had sent operatives into enemy territory before on such ventures, as well as on spying missions, and he’d gone there as an avatar, too—aided by clever technology that the SciOs had surreptitiously inserted into one of the Panasian satellites, secretly compromising the orbiter so that some of their transmissions were put to GSA use.
The three others were arrayed on the slope near him, in their sealed survival suits. For these brave citizens, this special assignment was much more dangerous than any threat from bad weather or from a predatory animal. Because of the hostile nature of the Panasian government and its cavalier attitude toward animal protection, the rescue squad had to get in and out as quickly as possible.
Anger filled the Chairman now. The Panasians—ruling over Asia, Australia, and most of the Pacific islands—allowed their people to hunt and kill these beautiful animals for organs and other body parts, using them for traditional medicine, talismans, and trophies. How could anyone be so ignorant and short-sighted? What did they intend to do when there were no more snow leopards left to harvest?
Eco-criminals on a huge scale, the Panasian government did not care a whit about the welfare of endangered species, and their polluting industries were the worst in the world, no matter the propaganda they issued to the contrary. The Eurikans weren’t much better, ruling over the continents of Europe and Africa. They just put on a better public persona, posturing and acting as if they were environmentalists, when in fact they were not. To a large extent the Eurikan leaders were blue-blooded aristocrats, tracing their roots to noble lineages and old money, and taking political and economic steps to protect their own interests.
Breathing hard in the simulated atmosphere of his EVR survival suit, the Chairman glanced at a holo-screen that hovered in the air by him, showing a satellite zoom of the snow leopard. It was a barely discernible mound of fur perhaps a couple of hundred meters above him on the slope, a tight ball of gold, black, and white. He saw the other team members, and himself, on the satellite image as well, and knew that the cat could close the distance to the nearest operative in a matter of seconds.
Since the fall of the Corporates, there had been increasing tensions between the Panasians and the Green States. The two governments had been sponsoring terrorist attacks against each other, using surrogates that could not be traced easily to either side. Rahma knew he had a technological advantage over his enemies—his alliance with the SciOs. But it was a tenuous advantage, because of the secrets that the arrogant SciO leader Arch Ondex and his cronies kept to themselves. The Chairman sometimes suspected—but could not prove—that Ondex was playing both sides. And yet no matter how much he disliked the patrician man, he didn’t want to believe that could possibly be true.
Rahma scanned his instruments. The outside air temperature was dropping quickly as the fog continued to settle. Visibility was worsening, and his people would need to get off the mountain sooner than anticipated.
The avatar stepped onto an air platform near him and powered it up, a virtual-reality craft. A control bar rose in front of him, and he gripped it in simulation. The three other team members did the same for real, on separate craft.
The four of them rose into the air on triangular wedges of technology. A slight wind from the valley floor below buffeted the craft, but the units compensated and sped smoothly toward the snow leopard. From his remote position of safety the Chairman watched the altimeter reading on his control bar. Over 4,300 meters now, more than 14,000 feet. He felt the simulated oxygen level increase inside his suit.
The animal held its ground for several seconds, then bolted away upslope. This time the Chairman saw the tracks it made in the snow, confirming that the creature was not anything supernatural. Quickly, the cat moved out of deep snow onto rocky surfaces, leaping great distances from one ledge to the next, rising ever upward in elevation, heading for a jagged line of ice caves.
The pursuers had anticipated this; the satellite report had told them the path the snow leopard would probably take, toward one of those icy habitats where it lived. But they needed to divert the animal, keeping it from reaching the safety of an area that might be honeycombed with escape routes.
Pressing a lever on the control bar to accelerate, Rahma Popal caused the platform to surge past the animal. He then turned in the air and headed back toward the snow leopard, diverting the cat and causing it to take a lateral course along a ridgeline, with the two male team members flying close behind. They were too close, and the Chairman signaled for them to fall back a little. They needed to be careful. The leopard appeared to be panicking, and he didn’t want to kill it.
He motioned for the female operative, Agent Trumbull, to come alongside his craft. At his further command, she touched a button on a transmitter, firing a shaft of emerald light at the snow leopard, a lasso beam that slowed it down. For a moment the animal became the color of the light, a running, struggling blur. Trumbull fired a ray of bright red light now, a powerful sedative. The leopard went limp, only a short distance from the edge of a precipice, where it might have gone off.
Accompanied by his team, the Chairman hovered over the leopard, a few meters above it. He watched as Trumbull unsnapped the transmitter from the handlebar and made it a hand-held unit. Then, leaning down and using the electro
nic lasso to lift the animal into a cradle that tightened on contact, she made it snug against the undercarriage of the air platform. A screen on his own control bar showed Rahma the vital signs of the sedated animal, a male. The readings were good, but he did not breath a sigh of relief yet. He still needed to get the large cat out of the country.
Now Rahma fell in behind the others, flying downslope, speeding toward a wooded area where a stealth transport craft awaited them. Presently, when the rescued animal was loaded aboard, along with the passengers and equipment, the Chairman switched off the EVR transmission and found himself back in the welcome, green reality of his own game reserve in the Rocky Mountain Territory.
He slipped out of his survival suit, tossed it to one of his many administrative assistants, a robot who stood nearby, anticipating his master’s “return.” Zeebik stood as tall as a man, with a flat-screen face that bore the image of a stern human officer with narrow little eyes and dark, overhanging brows, a countenance Rahma had chosen from historical military archives. The image was locked in place; once the selection was made, he could not alter it.
“Holo-net report just came in,” Zeebik said, in a resonant voice the Chairman had also chosen from historical records. “The Black Shirts recycled four hundred twenty-seven eco-criminals this morning—polluters, tree cutters, animal poachers—the usual.” The robot was referring to black-uniformed anarchists by a common term they liked to use in describing themselves, harking back to the legendary days of the revolution when the violent Black Shirts were an important part of the victory. Following the defeat of the Corporates, these anarchists were formally organized into an army division known as the Revolutionary Guard—front-line defenders of the revolution.
For a couple of minutes, Rahma scanned little holo-images of the executions, death sentences that were primarily carried out by anarchists with Splitter rifles, turning the victims into macabre heaps of goo. Two of the criminals received a special brand of punishment, befitting the severity of their crimes. A husband and wife, they had been trusted members of the government who had forsaken their vows and turned over state secrets to the Panasians. (Even that was considered an “eco-crime” under one definition, because it threatened the Green States of America.) He watched as black-uniformed anarchists strapped them to posts in the middle of a beautiful, flower-covered field, and then opened wounds on their bodies, so that they bled profusely. The victims writhed and tried to shout, but their mouths were gagged.
Moments later, the pair was swarmed by powerful carrion birds—vultures, owls, and eagles that had been trained for this purpose. A vulture ripped the gag loose from the female, and Rahma heard her high-pitched screams of terror. Sharp talons and beaks gouged out her eyes, and she slumped at the post, bleeding from the orifices. Beside her, the traitorous husband’s face was already gone, a bloody pulp of torn flesh, and soon hers was as well. The birds kept attacking, tearing at flesh and feeding, finally leaving the ripped-apart bodies and flying off, their bellies full.
The Chairman rubbed his gray beard, nodded somberly. He had ordered the mass executions before going on the EVR rescue mission, and the decision had made his heart heavy. But it had been necessary, one of many he’d made—for the sake of the planet, he could not afford to be lenient. He hated having to kill people, but it was either that or let them kill the planet, which he could not allow.
His gaze lingered on the gory scene, and he reminded himself of what his followers often said about him, that he was a good and kind man. However, no matter the justification, he didn’t feel that way at the moment.
Sadly, he switched off the viewer.
3
The Green States of America is protected by the NDS, the Nonhuman Defense System. Operated entirely by robots that analyze data and make judgments, the network has control over an array of small but powerful defensive and offensive missiles. Our revered Chairman Rahma Popal, may he live in eternal greenness, does not trust human beings with this critical assignment, fearing they might make pre-emptive strikes for emotional, illogical reasons—strikes that could result in retaliatory measures that would destroy much of the important environmental work he has done.
—Ticker History, a continuous data feed to schools
FOR MOST OF a week, the crew of Janus Machine No. 129 reverted industrial sites in the New England Conservancy, working sixteen-hour days. It was a grueling schedule, but Joss Stuart knew that he and his companions were taking the necessary steps to correct a terrible historical wrong, the grievous wounding of the planet by polluting Corporate interests.
As a human being it was his duty, his sworn responsibility, to rectify what people had done. And beyond that, Joss was a dedicated eco-tech, more zealous than anyone he knew. He considered his work equivalent to blazing new green pathways into the heart and soul of the Earth, removing blighted areas from human control and returning them to the domain of Mother Nature, who had her own timeless priorities and goals, her own sacred sentience.
Like other assignments he had been on, these past days had involved a seemingly endless series of work shifts at site after site, splitting and greenforming so many factory scars in succession that everything began to run together in his fatigued brain.
It was sunset when the long armored truck pulled into a military base on the outskirts of the Bostoner Reservation for Humans, with the tall, gleaming buildings of the densely populated urban center visible beyond a red-glowing security perimeter. This reservation was one of ninety-seven that Chairman Rahma Popal had set up on both continents of the green nation so far—confining more than a billion people to set-aside areas and prohibiting the vast majority of them from ever going outside. Joss’s team would spend the night in Bostoner and depart by maglev train the following morning, bound for their homes on the west coast.
Despite the rigors and demands of his career, Joss was proud to be one of the people allowed to go off reservation and embrace the beauty of nature, while actually doing something to enhance it. Truly, he was a fortunate citizen of the Green States of America! To some extent his privilege had to do with his Uncle Trig Stuart, who had fought valiantly in the Corporate War, and had been awarded a chest full of medals by the Army of the Environment. That legacy of his uncle (who raised Joss) had opened the door for the young man, but he had kept it open himself; he had earned his own success.
The truck squeaked to a stop at a security station, and in the red glow the driver stepped out to complete the necessary documents. Inside the passenger dome of the vehicle, Kupi grumbled and paced around. “I need a juana stick,” she said, “but I’m all out. You sure you don’t have any on you?”
Joss shook his head. “Sorry, but you know I don’t toke while I’m on duty.”
“We’re off duty now.”
“Not quite, not until we get clearance to step off the rig. But I still didn’t bring any with me.”
“Not smoking weed is anti-patriotic,” she said with a scowl.
“I smoke.”
“Not nearly enough.”
Joss glared at her, then looked away, toward the reconstituted forest lands they had just driven through. He was too tired to argue with his lover now, but she smoked too many of the powerful cigarettes, and was always moody when she ran out of them. Her assertion about patriotism was true, but she didn’t understand the concept of moderation. Just because marijuana and virtually all other recreational drugs were legal did not mean they should be abused.
Kupi waved a hand, sending a signal from her ring that caused the dome to darken, so that no one could see in from outside. She sent a second command, and Joss heard the hatch click, locking it. He knew what was next; they often made love in here during breaks. But now—at a guard station—did not seem like an appropriate opportunity to him.
She went to his side, nuzzled against his neck and nibbled at his earlobe. “I think we should make up,” she said.
Joss pushed her away.
As she sputtered in protest, Joss heard a loud
explosion, followed by a second one, even louder. He lightened the dome, enabling him to see a brilliant flash of light in the sky to the west, then heard another explosion. Sirens went off, followed by three black aircraft speeding overhead, looking like great birds of prey. The attack craft were very fast and maneuverable, their guns blazing. A rocket shot from the undercarriage of one of them, exploding into a barracks building and setting it afire.
“What the hell?” Kupi shouted. “The security perimeter has been breached!”
She snapped on her black owl helmet, grabbed an automatic rifle, and ran out onto the turret platform with Joss right behind her, carrying his own weapon, pressing buttons on it to prepare the energy chamber. Because of the danger of attack from disgruntled Corporate elements, every Janus Machine crew had trained for defensive operations. The Splitter barrel could even be used as a cannon, a newer and more powerful version of weapons that had been employed by the Army of the Environment during the war.
Red lights flickered on and off around them, suggesting something was wrong with the security perimeter. In the distance, Joss saw the three aircraft circling around, coming back. Ground artillery guns opened fire on them, but the wide-wing craft released electronic flak beneath them, deflecting any shots. In order to penetrate the shield, the forces on the ground needed to scan that flak and find the right combination of electronics.
Kupi jumped into the bucket seat of Black Thunder, tapped keys on the instrument panel. The platform rose to its highest level as she telescoped the barrel out. Joss crouched by her, ready to operate the machine if she was injured. She aimed the long black barrel and waited for just the right moment.…
Joss gripped the handle of his energy rifle tighter, took a deep breath as precious seconds ticked by. The fast-approaching aircraft were studded with advanced weapon systems, proof that the disaffected Corporates had substantial resources. The Janus Machine was armored, and its crew had activated its own electronic veiling system, but had the enemy already seen them? The aircraft were getting closer, but did not seem to be flying on a direct line toward the machine. Still protected by their flak screens, the attackers opened fire on the center of the military compound, and Joss saw heavy equipment go up in flames. Moments later, defenders managed to penetrate the electronic veils of two of the aircraft, detonating them and sending them plunging into the nearby woods. Alone now, the third craft banked overhead.
The Little Green Book of Chairman Rahma Page 2
