"So what were you?” asked one of the few friendly wardens as we were finally led away.
"I was a climatologist,” I replied.
"A climate change denialist?” she gasped, as if I had just admitted to being the devil himself.
"No, I was actually one of the first to warn about climate change, back in the 1980s."
She thought about this for a moment, then shook her head.
"Why would a climatologist get audited?” she asked.
"Every tipper gets audited,” I replied.
This was the flaw that underlaid the World Audit. Was any tipper innocent? Up to a point the answer was easy. Everyone who had squandered resources for recreation or greed was guilty, but what about those who burned fossil fuels for a living? Not quite so clear, because these included cab drivers, airline pilots, and the like. Such cases were adjourned, but the backlog of marginal offenders was becoming quite a burden worldwide. Just what did make a tipper a climate criminal? A standard was needed.
"What was your line?” I asked the warden.
"Name's Olivia, wanna do some climatically correct recreational sex?"
I put a hand to my face and shook my head.
"I meant your job before you became a warden."
"Computers, systems administration. Then I got audited."
She lifted her kilt to show the brand on one thigh: “S” for squandering.
"It hurt like hell, but I deserved it."
I noticed Chaz staring at her thigh with as much admiration as someone in his seventies could manage.
"To me that's squandering a mighty fine leg,” he said, and the three of us laughed.
Sometimes survival was who you knew, and Chaz went out of his way to be liked by the right people.
"Not many tippers beat the audit,” I said.
"I was born in 2001, so I'm not a tipper,” she explained.
"Ah, a victim."
"Yeah. We get leniency for climate crimes."
"What did you do?"
"I was two-sixty pounds back in 2023, can you believe it?"
"And you got squandering, not gluttony?"
"I wasn't greedy, just a slog living on Coke, turkey stuffing, and fries. Now I'm under one-thirty pounds. That's why I got just branded second class. I was lucky. The Retributor wanted service, first class."
* * * *
That night I lay on my back, looking at the stars and thinking about how rapidly the world had changed. The victim riots had caught the authorities by surprise, but trends could grow exponentially thanks to the Internet. Going lateral was another movement that began on the Internet. The lateralists worked out that they could actually live way better by detaching themselves from the economic systems of derivatives, leverage, optionality and toxic assets. In just months the lateralists ranks swelled from thousands, to millions, to hundreds of millions. This generated a crisis in confidence that triggered the biggest financial collapse in history, and very soon the people who had formerly worked at generating meaningless wealth were out looking for real jobs. By then it was too late because the climate was severely screwed, there were famines in Western democracies, the trillions of dollars based on derivatives and options were fast becoming meaningless, and economic growth was considered about as healthy as cancer.
Democracies did particularly badly against lateralism, because their politicians were working to very short agendas. They did nothing decisive to save the ecosphere, as everything had to be balanced to appease competing interests. Lateralism ignored wealth. Soon there were only guards, goods, and obscenely rich people left in conventional economies. Dictatorships did not last long when entire populations became lateralist terrorists. What did citizens have to lose? They were starving and the world seemed to be ending anyway. As the surviving nobles of Europe found out when the Black Death swept across their estates in the fourteenth century, however, you need peons as the foundation of any economy.
"You summoned me?” asked a familiar voice.
"I never summon you,” I muttered.
"Of course you do. Enjoying the night sky?"
"The end of the world is close, the sky is all that's worth looking at."
"Not the end of the world, but your world,” said my visitor. “The world will go on, but your world has been unsustainable for a long time."
"Funny, I thought the police and armies would hold things together for longer,” I admitted.
"The World Audit promised order and organization, so the police and soldiers signed up very quickly. They annihilated the armed urban gangs and survivalist warlords. That earned a lot of support, almost as much as auditing and executing the rich."
"So, Death is an auditor?"
"No, but an auditor is Death."
"That makes no sense."
"It will, soon."
The most annoying thing about Death was that I kept catching myself agreeing with him. We seemed to have a lot in common. Did he want to be friends? I drifted into a proper sleep.
* * * *
Our audit consisted of eight auditors and an Auditor General. They sat on a bench, each shaded by an umbrella held by a borderline. The Retributor, Advocate, and Wardens all wore top hats. This was highly symbolic. The indulgence generations had gloried in being casual and individual. Now was the age of formality, unity, and sacrifice. Black robes and black cloaks were the uniform. Black hats were for the important people, and black cowls for the really important. The latter were the auditors. Just three decades ago it would have looked ludicrous, but three decades ago the Earth was three degrees cooler. The black robes were uncomfortable to wear in the merciless heat, and symbolized the suffering that had been caused by the tippers who had burned too much fossil carbon.
We tippers sat exposed to the sun, whose effect we had enhanced so much. There were nine circles of tippers. Nine circles of hell. Nine degrees of warming that were predicted by 2100. We had been heating the world during a natural cooling cycle. When the next warming cycle kicked in, things went straight to hell in every sense.
The audits began as the sun's disk rose clear of the horizon. We were meant to suffer.
"Audit of Jason Hall, climatologist,” the Clerk of the Audit announced.
There was a quota of audits for each day, so no more than minutes could be given to any one. For most, it was the work of less than a minute to confirm guilt and pass sentence. I was escorted to the dais by a warden as the Retributor climbed the three steps to the lectern. Without using notes he began.
"Worthy victims, I have records, confirmed by the defendant while wired to a veritor, proving that he squandered the resources of the Earth to acquire a second doctorate. I maintain that he did this for sheer vanity, and so is guilty of display and squandering."
"Defendant?” asked the Auditor General.
"I did my second doctorate in history to get credibility. It was not display or squandering,” I responded.
"Credibility for what?” the Retributor asked with smug confidence.
"I was studying links between the Little Ice Age and witch burnings from the fifteenth to the eighteenth centuries."
The Retributor opened his mouth to scoff, failed to find suitable words, and closed it again. He had been caught unprepared. A buzz of speculation rippled through the circles of tippers and borderlines, and even the auditors whispered among themselves.
"Ridiculous,” said the Retributor, resorting to bluster. “The topic is frivolous."
"Not so: my research showed close parallels with the World Audit before—"
"Moving on to your use of motorcycles—"
"Objection!” called the Advocate. “My honorable colleague has made a statement, but not allowed the defendant to refute it."
"Objection sustained,” said the Auditor General. “The honorable Retributor must either withdraw his statement or allow the defendant to address it."
That was the first objection that had been decided in favor of a tipper within anyone's memory. Anger clouded the Retr
ibutor's face for a moment, then it cleared.
"I stand at your honor's pleasure,” he said.
"Defendant, you will continue,” said the Auditor General.
I now had the undivided attention of everyone. This was not just some boring accusation of SUV rallies or ten-kilowatt Christmas light displays.
"During the fifteenth century, around the time that the climatic event known as the Little Ice Age became really severe in Europe, the number of witch trials and burnings suddenly increased. Witches were said to call up storms, cause frosts, and induce other meteorological disasters."
"Point of clarification,” said the Auditor General. “Are you suggesting that witches caused the Little Ice Age?"
"Absolutely not, but records show that people believed them to be responsible."
"Point taken. Proceed."
"As bad weather became more frequent and severe, people began to look for someone to blame. Supposed witches were plausible and vulnerable targets."
"Are you suggesting that audits such as yours, here, today, are witch trials?” asked the Auditor General.
"No, your honor."
For a moment my life seemed to hang by a thread as she paused to discomfort me.
"Proceed."
"When I began my second Ph.D. in 1997, I wanted to get credibility as an historian. As an expert in both history and climatology I thought my warnings would be taken more seriously."
"Warnings?"
"Warnings to polluters and squanderers that when human-induced climate change gripped the Earth, their descendants might want revenge. There would be whole generations of old tippers to provide guilty and vulnerable targets."
"Surely the Christian church initiated the medieval witch trials, not the general population?"
"Actually, most witch trials were secular, and at the village level."
"Interesting. That is how the World Audit operates."
"True."
"Then what are you suggesting?"
"I am only relating history, your honor. My Ph.D. was about instances of popular anger in response to severe weather. In the fifteenth century, anger was foolishly directed against witches. Popular anger has now revived, this time due to induced climate change. I make no judgment about whether it is just or unjust."
"Enough, enough,” said the Auditor General. “You have demonstrated to my satisfaction that your second doctorate was in defense of the ecosphere. Retributor, do you have any further accusations?"
"Oh yes, multiple accusations of squandering."
"Then I declare this audit of Jason Hall, climatologist, adjourned. Clerk of the Audit, what is the next audit?"
"Audit of Kieran Harley, who owned and operated a jet ski."
"For recreation?"
"Yes."
"Guilty as charged. Death, second class. Those in favor? Against? Confirmed. Next audit?"
My audit had been adjourned! I was borderline. I would join the ranks of those considered guilty, but too difficult to waste time on. After all, millions of undeniably guilty tippers could be audited and executed easily.
* * * *
Religious services were not as popular with the tippers and borderlines as one might have expected. Religion had not seriously challenged the World Audit, just as in the mid-twentieth century the major religions had made no effective protests when American and Soviet politicians had threatened the world with thermonuclear annihilation. The World Audit promised action and revenge for what had been done to the planet. Unlike religions, it delivered.
Thus there were services to prepare people for death at the camp, but not much more. There was no shortage of entertainment, however.
Among the borderlines there were tippers who had memorized their favorite movies and television shows, word for word. Over my two weeks in the adjourned backlog I sat in the audience while episodes of Cheers, Star Trek, Buffy, and Seinfeld were acted out in the dusk and moonlight. The performances were a little stiff and arthritic, the props were minimal, and the theme music had to be hummed and whistled by an aged orchestra, but the dialogue seemed accurate.
On my second night there was an extravaganza performance, in the form of The Rocky Horror Picture Show. At the center of the stage space were the actors, along with those playing the parts of chairs, tables, doors, and a bed. Flanking them was a chorus of singers to the right and an orchestra of hummers to the left. Surrounding all this was the participating audience, who sang, danced, and called responses at the actors. The rest of us merely watched, although some tippers born after 1990 seemed a bit bewildered. The wardens looked on, impassive.
Apparently a suicide wave had been not only planned, but coordinated with the wardens. At the end of the show the audience participators charged the wardens, shouting lines from the show, hurling rocks, and waving walking sticks. Everyone else dropped and flattened themselves against the sand as the wardens’ assault rifles chattered into life and bullets whined overhead.
"Don't move,” said the man beside me.
"Who's moving?"
"They're tippers facing greenhouse or mines. A bullet is way better than that."
The firing died down to the occasional sharp bark of a pistol shot.
"That's the Inspector of Wardens,” said my companion. “He's finishing them off with a Smith and Wesson 1006. Beautiful gun, real classic."
A gun fancier. He was sure to be up for squandering, display, and possibly greed.
"Now, those wardens, do you see what they got?"
The wardens were carrying guns with curved magazines. They were very good at killing people, and that was about as much as I understood.
"Assault rifles?"
"Yeah, and they may be made in China, but they're still AK-47s."
"Er, that's Russian,” I said, recalling television news items about terrorists and guerrillas from a lifetime ago.
"That's right, developed in the forties but perfected in nineteen-fifty-nine. The M16, now that was a better gun, the old AK couldn't shoot as fast or far. Mind, AKs could take way worse treatment and keep firing, and were cheap as chicken feed to make."
He kept talking, but my thoughts had already wandered. The AK-47 design was ninety years old, yet it still did the job. It also needed little maintenance and was cheap to build. That symbolized the modern world. Everything was merely good enough, rather than optimized to have a slight edge. All things being equal, a slightly better range or rate of fire at twice the cost was no advantage because all things were never equal. The victims had new values, and better was seldom desirable. Good enough meant a softer ecological touch. The Chinese-made assault rifles designed in Russia were good enough, so good enough was perfect.
"All stand!"
The inspector's command meant that everyone was dead who was meant to be dead. I was put on a stretcher team, carrying away dead, bullet-riddled men and women painted with fishnet stockings and suspenders.
* * * *
Hours later I awoke beneath a sky that blazed coldly with stars. For someone who had spent so much of his life studying the atmosphere, I knew surprisingly little about the constellations above it. In desert skies the stars are so numerous and intense that even the most familiar patterns are almost overwhelmed. I sat up and looked around.
Wardens patrolled the perimeter of the camp, no more than deeper shadows in the shadows and moonlight. The snores and wheezes from those nearby had stopped; in fact, all sounds had ceased.
Suddenly he was before me, a figure now in the black robes of a climate penitent. None of the wardens reacted to him; perhaps he had no warmth for their thermal imagers to detect. I thought that I should be visible, but nobody paid me attention either. Perhaps I was not alive when he came to see me.
"Don't try to say I summoned you,” I snapped.
"Still, it's true."
"So now what?"
"Come along."
His voice was cold and remote, but free of malice. I fell in beside him as he glided along through the darkness. T
he audit space was just a long bench for the auditors, a lectern for the speaker, a dais for the accused, and a desk for the clerk. Everyone else sat in the sand, in the nine great circles.
"When does the audit begin?” I asked.
"This is not an audit."
"Then why bring me here?"
"You summoned me."
"I did not!"
"Everyone summons me, eventually."
"Everyone? Then you really are Death?"
"Close, but not quite."
"You keep denying it, but who else could you be?"
"That is for you to discover. Yesterday, how would you have audited James Harrington?"
"He was just a fool who never looked at his carbon footprint."
"But how you would have audited him—as an auditor?"
"Death, second class. He chose to ignore the plight of the wilderness he loved. He was like a doctor fondling a woman's breast, yet not telling her she has breast cancer."
"How would you audit him, this time as Jason Hall?"
"Service, second class, in wilderness restoration."
"What of Ellen Farmer, the woman who followed him onto the tipping gallows?"
"She built a fourteen-room house just to impress her friends, and vacationed on cruise ships three months out of twelve. Guilty, for aggravated display and squandering."
"How would you sentence her—as Jason Hall?"
"Service, first class. Half a lifetime of healing the ecosphere in return for half a lifetime of screwing it."
And so it went. Two hundred people had faced the audit that day and the day before, but only a dozen cases had been adjourned. Mine was one. The specter knew every name, and so did I. I have a very good memory.
"Craig Brand?"
"He built supertuned engines for street racers and was a paid-up Climate Denier. Guilty, death second class."
"Jason Hall?"
"Innocent."
"There is no such verdict. Pardoned is the most lenient."
"Then pardoned."
"You are less severe than the Retributor. Only three deaths in two hundred sentences. Do you feel compassion for them?"
"Yes."
"Why?"
FSF, July-August 2010 Page 27
