The Little Green Book of Chairman Rahma

by Brian Herbert

Joss led the way to the Janus Machine, where the SciO technicians were finishing up. He talked with the white-bearded foreman, who informed him that everything was in readiness with the exception of specialized cartridges of micro-organisms for the Seed Cannon, which were being prepared now at the Recharge Facility.

  “Toxic wastes are leaching into the soil,” the foreman said, “so it’s advisable for you to split the area as soon as possible. Then you can take the machine over to ReFac and get your seed cartridges loaded.”

  “Right,” Joss said.

  The SciOs departed, and he ordered his own crew to board the unit. Moments later, as Joss and Kupi stood on the turret platform, the gates opened, revealing a large, irregular area littered with building debris and toxic waste barrels, some of which were broken open. At least two historic buildings had been destroyed in the quake.

  The Janus Machine rumbled over a short bridge that crossed a trench. Joss had already explained to his crew that the entire affected area was surrounded by new protective trenches, and he saw red flags fluttering around the perimeter, just inside the fencing. The gates closed behind them, to keep out prying eyes.

  He and Kupi secured their owl-design helmets and dark goggles. She swung up onto the chair behind the black cannon barrel, and ran through test sequences on the control panel.

  “Let’s get this over with,” she said, shaking her head in dismay. “It’s one of the most raggedy-looking J-Macs I’ve seen, but we have to assume the SciOs have checked it out.” She glanced back at him. “Any concerns, Commander?”

  “Your sequences all check out?”

  “They do. A little slow, but it’s older technology. I think it’s all right.”

  “Get on with it, then,” Joss said.

  He ordered the other crewmen to their stations, then stood behind Kupi while she tapped keys on the instrument console. The turret swung around noisily, so that the glistening black barrel was pointing at the farthest perimeter of the toxic waste site, where inspectors had placed a line of red flags. All of the on-site personnel hurried to safety zones behind clearplex blast barriers, and animals were cleared away with sonic devices. Then a special warning siren sounded to clear the area of human beings.

  Joss and Kupi had discussed the tactics for this project, and agreed that she would seal that edge of the site with focal Splitter blasts to prevent further damage to the old campus beyond it, and then she would hit the site itself with a more powerful blast, preparing it for the infinitesimally tiny, customized greenforming micro-organisms that were being prepared now in ReFac.

  “Black Thunder time,” Kupi said, over the comm-radio.

  Joss secured the noise-dampening system inside his helmet, but still heard a low, gathering roar. Seconds ticked by, more than customary with the newer machines. Finally the black barrel spewed forth with waves of black particles, a fine pelting around the far edge of the site. Kupi turned the turret and did the same around all of the other edges. Then she fired larger blasts into the center, digging down and disintegrating all of the toxins and melting away every bit of debris, preparing the site for Joss.

  “My turn next,” Joss said, across the communication system. He waited while the crew prepared to move the machine to the Recharge Facility.…

  18

  For humankind, hope often seems like a flickering, dying ember.

  —Chairman Rahma, before the strange transformation of Joss Stuart

  WHILE SCIO SECRECY was essentially impenetrable, there were small concessions, unnoticed by some people but important to others. Reportedly, Chairman Rahma had negotiated a number of compromises with the Director of Science, Arch Ondex, during the push and pull in the formative days of the Green States of America. One was a procedure that enabled GSA eco-techs such as Joss and Kupi to inspect the loading of new seeding and splitting cartridges in their cannons at SciO-operated Recharge Facilities, if the techs wished to do so. In the alternative, Science Overseers would load the cartridges without them. Other Janus Machine crew members were excluded.

  Being very conscientious and particular about his work, Joss always accepted this option. Kupi, on the other hand, did what she usually did, and took a pot break with the rest of the crew.

  Joss stood alone on the turret platform, holding on to a railing while the twin barrels of the machine retracted. He nodded down to his crew, who stood nearby, smoking their juana sticks and watching while the big rig went into remote-control mode and rolled toward the seed-shaped ReFac building.

  SciOs inside the structure were operating the J-Mac by remote control now; as Joss neared the facility, he saw the armorplex windows of the control room in the bulbous section on top, and white-robed men inside. He’d always thought these buildings were quite pleasing in appearance, with their aerodynamic elm-seed shapes that enabled them to soar upon the wind when they were being transported. He always found the beauty of nature stunning, and respected the fact that SciOs had been inspired by this when they designed their Recharge Facilities.

  A huge door on the front of the ReFac building irised open, and the Janus Machine rolled inside, with the door closing behind it. In a sense, Joss felt as if he were inside an alien world now (despite the natural-looking exterior), or in an exotic barn for animals other than horses. His machine rolled forward noisily, slowly passing between windows on either side where white-robed Science Overseers worked in laboratories, formulating different types of cartridges.

  Another Janus Machine was already inside the building on the other end, a newer model that was having its black Splitter barrel loaded by men with a long black hose, who used sealed fittings. Joss noticed a very fine dust floating in the air between the machines, more than usual, and he sneezed. No telling what sorts of pollens might be floating around in here.

  He’d seen dusty facilities before, and had asked his managers about the integrity of the seed cartridges that were assembled in such places and the safety of loading explosive projectiles into Splitter barrels there. In response, he was always assured that cartridges and projectiles were prepared and sealed under strictly controlled conditions, and that any dust out on the floor of the loading areas was brought in from outside by Janus Machines. There was nothing to worry about, he’d always been told.

  The old J-Mac truck came to a stop, and as Joss stood on the turret platform he felt it turn, so that the glistening, retracted barrel of the Seed Cannon was facing a metal deck beneath one of the side windows. Two SciOs stood on that deck, operating a mechanical arm with a large metal hand on it that held four new seed cartridges. Joss had seen this done many times before.

  “Swing the cartridges over here so I can take a look,” he shouted to them. This was part of the concession that Chairman Rahma had obtained, enabling an eco-tech to examine each cartridge before it was loaded. For greenformers such as himself, it was a matter of making certain the ingredients were correct and suitable for particular environments. For Splitters like Kupi, it was more a matter of safety. If anything went wrong with her cartridges, it could blow up the Janus Machine in the field and kill the crew. As her superior, knowledgeable in all aspects of J-Mac operation, Joss always inspected her cartridges as well as his own.

  “Okay,” one of the SciOs shouted back, “but you know the rules. Don’t touch.” This man had a long bald spot running down the center of black, shaggy hair. His robe was smeared with green and brown.

  Joss nodded, and held on to the railing as the mechanical arm swung over to him, and the metal hand opened to display the cartridges on its palm. He checked code numbers on the cartridges and compared them with his own notes, confirming that these were the mixtures he had specified for the eco-tech assignment at hand.

  “Now run spectrals,” Joss said, “to be extra sure these have been filled correctly.”

  “We’ve already done that,” the SciO said.

  “I want you to do it again. I’m within my rights as a G-One eco-tech to demand this.”

  “Well, aren’t you the fussy o
ne!”

  Grumbling to himself, the SciO brought the seed cartridges back to himself, and ran a spectrometer over each of them. Joss heard four beeps, saw green lights on the device as the mixtures were confirmed. He was not permitted to see the actual readings, had to presume they were accurate.

  “All right,” Joss said. “Go ahead and load.”

  With a tight smile, the SciO said, “Well, thank you very much.”

  While still holding all four cartridges, the mechanical hand loaded one at a time, waiting for each to snick into place in the Seed Cannon’s holding chamber.

  When they were finished and the onboard greenforming equipment was properly sealed, the operators performed a ritual on the deck that always seemed quasi-religious to Joss, though the scientists were said to be secular—like every other citizen in good standing. Facing the Janus Machine, they knelt and raised their hands in the air, with the fingers splayed. A long moment passed as they murmured something that sounded like an incantation, as if they were performing sorcery, not science.

  Then they stood and operated hand-held electronic devices to swing the turret platform around to the other side, where two other SciOs were prepared to load the Splitter barrel. These men held a thick black hose containing the explosive projectiles that were fired by Splitters.

  “That’s not necessary,” Joss said to them. “We already did the splitting portion of the job, and I’m only here to get the special seed preparations, because they weren’t ready when we arrived. Just send me back out now, without any delay. This is a sensitive environmental cleanup site.”

  “Aren’t they all,” one of the SciOs said. He was stocky, with a scruffy red beard. “You oughta know, buddy, we’re not supposed to send out half-loaded J-Macs.”

  “Well, you did earlier,” Joss said, “because when I got here the machine only had the Splitter barrel ready to go.”

  “We didn’t prepare this machine that way,” the man said. “Must have been an earlier crew. No matter, they made a mistake, shouldn’t have sent the rig out like that. Don’t expect us to do the same thing. We have regulations to follow, you know.”

  “Oh, for—” Joss caught a curse in his throat. “All right, but I want to inspect everything before it’s loaded.”

  Joss ran through the inspection process, checking each black cartridge that they planned to load, noting the seals, the quality-control codes, and other details.

  “Everything OK?” the red-bearded SciO asked, as Joss checked his notes, and added to them.

  “Right,” Joss said. “Go ahead.”

  “It will only take a few minutes.” Then the man shouted back to another SciO, “Hey, Tokko, get me another adapter for this thing. It’s one of the old rigs.”

  Joss shook his head in dismay, watched while they fitted another adapter onto the end of the hose, and then connected it to the rear of the Janus Machine’s black barrel. Moments passed as both SciOs held the hose in place. This looked peculiar, because it was supposed to fit and hold on its own, but maybe this was the way they did it on the old machines. He heard a suction noise as the equipment made a connection and began loading the sealed explosive charges. Like everything else on Janus Machines, they were designed to detonate if anyone tampered with them. To further protect their monopoly, the SciOs also had surveillance cameras mounted on the J-Mac trucks, with live relays, to make doubly certain that no one tried to steal any of their technology and attempt to duplicate it.

  As Joss waited he felt increasingly uneasy, and finally reached back to an instrument console, where he called up readings about the truck’s functions. A screen showed that two splitting projectiles had been successfully loaded, with two more to go.

  He took a deep breath, watched the technicians at the other Janus Machine. They appeared to be finishing up, preparing to send the rig on its way. Yes, he was certain of it, because the SciOs were going through another quasi-religious ritual, standing reverently on the decks at each side of the machine, with their hands raised in the air to signify that the unit was fully loaded, sealed, and ready to go.

  The exit door on that end of the ReFac building was still closed. Joss noticed a lot more dust between the two machines than he’d seen before, swirling high in the air now, and he heard something hissing—an unfamiliar sound that caused his pulse to race. He smelled fumes, a peculiar odor of strange gas.

  Something is not right! he thought.

  The hissing was coming from the fitting on the black barrel of his own machine, he realized, and the smell must be coming from there as well. Some kind of leak in the fitting? That couldn’t be good.

  The SciOs were trying to adjust the connection. Someone shouted to shut off the loader. But it was too late.

  Joss was consumed by a blinding flash, and a deafening noise. Moments passed, in which time and reality seemed to stand on end. He felt as if he were an outside observer, watching as waves of pulsing blackness assailed him, disintegrating his cells, tissues, and organs into their most basic elements. For a moment it all hovered in the air in the shape of a human being, a ghostlike apparition. Then green-and-black particles sprinkled over the form like a warm, gentle rain from the heavens, and he saw an aura remaining where his body had been, an empty, glowing husk.

  Whether it was a dream, a nightmare, or a burst of consciousness at the finish of his life, he couldn’t tell—but the abnormal experience continued over the course of what may have only been milliseconds, though it seemed like much longer. He heard a faint susurration, a whispering and murmuring as the empty husk of his body was filled with the cellular DNA, chloroplast, amino acids, and proteins of green plants, along with a flow of reconstituted elements and cellular material from his human body … and something more, from the stygian, primal violence that the SciOs had harnessed for their Splitter technology.

  Dark Energy, he realized.

  The result was an amalgamation, a humanoid creature resembling Joss but with a light carbon cast to his skin, and forest green, keloid scars (or veins) that wound around his arms, legs, and torso like vines. He felt imbued with strange powers, and saw himself standing outside the ReFac building, lifting his arms in triumph as the structure exploded behind him.

  But it must have been a dying dream, requiring only an instant to occur. Abruptly, everything blacked out around him.

  19

  Unknowns are a fact of life. A person has but to consider this for a few moments to realize the universality of the concept. That field of grass and flowers, for example, holds secrets, and so does the person standing in the meadow. Now look in all directions as far as the eye can see, and you will be astonished at what you do not know. Look at the countless mysteries of our planet and the infinite details of space, beyond anything you can even begin to imagine.

  —Joss Stuart, remembered thoughts from his boyhood

  CHAIRMAN RAHMA POPAL felt like a schoolboy as he walked through the aviaries with Jade, holding her hand while exotic, endangered birds flew overhead and cried out to one another in their cacophony of sounds. Afternoon sunlight filtered through the net-and-fabric ceiling, splaying across the colorful bodies and wings of the birds and brightening the green leaves of the trees and plants. It was moist in here, and a little humid because of the connected greenhouses and the retractable, atmospheric-control roofs over the aviaries that were closed now.

  Only twenty-three, Jade made him feel young again, but even more than that, he genuinely liked her. She had her failings, her little immaturities, but she was innately intelligent and knowledgeable for her age. The young woman was always trying to improve herself, always trying to please him, and he liked that. She was also outspoken, and had interesting things to say, insightful observations about people and the animals of the game reserve. Now she had her pretty red hair clasped in a wood hair band, because he’d told her once that he liked it that way.

  Oftentimes Rahma felt as if he was getting old. He would be sixty on his next birthday, reaching one of those decade markers tha
t reminded him so cruelly and unavoidably of his mortality. In his lowest moments he felt the inexorable decline seeping in around his life, the unseen, insidious malady that decayed his physical and mental capabilities; eventually he would wind down entirely, return to the soil of the planet in a process of entropy, and be recycled naturally. It was part of the great circle of life and death, but he was far from ready to be taken away from his conscious relationship with this earth that he loved so much. He still had important work to do.

  He thought he might be losing his virility, because he had not fathered a child in more than four years, though he was as active sexually as ever. Maybe Jade would bear a child for him; they had not been using any birth control methods or other protection. He wouldn’t mind if she did join the long list of women who had given birth to his children, and if she did, he thought he might keep this one around and take part in raising it—unlike most of the others, who were scattered all across the GSA, and perhaps the world, for all he knew. Still, Jade had said nothing to him about being pregnant, and she certainly didn’t look it.

  She smiled when he looked at her.

  Just then, a rare blue-and-gold finch landed on her head, and with the bird perched in her hair and her eyes trying to look up at it, she looked so comical that he couldn’t help laughing.

  “Take a picture of me,” she urged, her voice even softer than usual. He could tell she was trying not to disturb the tiny creature.

  Mentally, he activated the neuro-optic connection of his implanted camera, which worked through his own eyes, and he gave the silent command to capture the image. He took several, and then said, “Those are great. We’ll transfer them to the backup system later and I’ll print you copies.”

  The energetic little bird landed on her open hand, then hopped over to Rahma’s hand. He recognized the signs of a budding relationship. He and Jade were building memories together.

  * * *