“No predators will molest you while you’re here today. I’m taking the liberty of conjuring food and shade.” A few pavilions with food-laden tables materialized. “You can relieve yourself in the bushes; I am not going to construct fucking toilets for you.” He smirked. “In fact, you might as well become accustomed to doing it old school, without toilet paper.” He smirked some more, then gave a short bow to Aratta and vanished.
For a minute or so, all was quiet but for the fluttering of leaves in a nearby grove.
Some Terraneans slumped down where they stood; some broke out into small groups; and some wandered off by themselves, brooding or in a state of stupor.
There was a sense of finality: no appeals possible, no returns accepted. It was all in the hands of the seven-member commission and the formal Earth delegation that was to be assembled. The fate of their world and life as they knew it hung in the balance. For some, though, it appeared the balance had already been tipped, a bleak verdict of deportation a foregone conclusion.
Susan sat on the ground, leaning against a rock.
She looked up when she heard approaching footsteps. Aratta.
Susan waved him over. “Help me up,” she told him. “I’m starting to feel my age.” Her voice held palpable bitterness. “Unlike you, in a few decades, I’ll be dead, Aratta.” She could feel the rage drowning out the panic and desperation that warred deep within her.
Aratta helped her to her feet, and she dusted herself off.
It took everything Susan had to pulled herself together.
Her eyes finally met his. She felt a bit calmer. Clear-headed. “Penal colony, huh?”
“It will provide you with unlimited food and land, no strings attached,” he told her. “No imperative to get a job and no colossal bureaucracy that governs your life. Those are the basics. The rest is up to you.” Once you survive the initial wave of raids, that is.
Susan took a deep, shuddering breath. “How would you do it?” she asked.
“We are going to open up one million gateways throughout Earth to decontamination and screening halls and from there, the Reservation.”
She was quiet for a minute. “You don’t actually think anyone will volunteer to go to this penal colony of yours. People will fight, Aratta. To the death, if needed.”
Aratta was clearly amused. “The Khmer Rouge in Cambodia ordered all the citizens of their country to leave the cities and walk out to the middle of nowhere. And millions of people…old, sick, and otherwise did just that. They marched dutifully off when teenagers with megaphones and guns told them to, Susan. I don’t see why people will fight any harder going off to a new world.” He picked up a pebble, threw it up in the air, then caught it when it came down. “I don’t think it is going to be as dramatic as you imagine.”
Susan laughed. “So that’s the great plan of evacuating everyone from Earth?”
Aratta shrugged. “It works.”
“There has to be more to it.”
He studied the impossible stretches of land as they dissolved in the haze hundreds of miles away. Finally, he returned his gaze to her. “Once, and if an expulsion order comes down, an engineered microbe will be released worldwide and spread throughout via spores, winds, and ocean currents. A metal-eating microbe.” Susan stiffened visibly at this. “It will self-terminate after seven days. By that time, weapons, telephone lines, cars, power generators will all look like Swiss cheese imitations. Your entire civilization will collapse on its collective metallic ear, and it will be all over.” His voice lost its lightness. “People will have just enough time to leave the cities before the girders topple down their heads. Food supply chains will go defunct. Shock coupled with hunger is a powerful drive.” As he was talking, the color gradually drained from her face.
“So, what was all the talk about allowing us to bring some metal artifacts here?” Her voice lost its strength.
“The relocation will be announced two days before the metal-eating microbe goes active. This is the carrot, and many will avail themselves to whatever they can grab and rush to the gateways before the stick comes down.”
She averted her eyes. “Why are you telling me this? I can warn people and have them protect weapons and metal-based essentials.”
“You’d be surprised what this microbe can dig through to get to metals. Regardless, giving people hope is worse than useless; you will be killing them.”
“Some may prefer to die,” she whispered.
“And they would be given the option. You see, anyone who successfully evades the evacuation will die—as a matter of certainty.”
She stared at him in disbelief.
“In the middle of World War I, a safety valve was set in place.”
“World War I,” Susan repeated, trying to latch onto a thought.
“An engineered virus spread throughout the world. Within a few years, the DNA code of every Earth person was ever so subtly…modified. It has passed down from one generation to the next and does nothing much on its own.” He gestured almost apologetically. “If you are made to go, we’ll introduce another engineered virus, which exploits the genetic vulnerability we introduced among the Earth people. Within three weeks, all of you should have made it through the portals. By week four, any Terranean still on Earth will be dead. No one should die unless they choose to. But understand that nursing back to health the planetary ecosystem is the point of this exercise. Your evacuation is a distant second.”
Bile rose hot in her throat. “Once we enter the gateways, will this virus be somehow neutralized?”
“Essentially, yes. It will go dormant the moment people relocate to—how did you call it?—the penal colony. For the microbe to be active, it requires a concentration of argon gas in the air that Earth has. A very certain, different concentration of argon in the atmosphere, which happens to occur here, will keep it inert.”
He was not telling her everything. In the last two years, all weapons of mass destruction had been tracked. In the case of deportation, a special force would neutralize them. This would be the first thing they would do, even before word on the ruling goes public. They were concerned with the destructive power of these weapons, and what the Terraneans may do to the remaining pockets of the natural world—if they resolve to depart Earth with a fuck-you-too parting present. “But you’re right, Susan; I shouldn’t be telling you all of this.” He met her gaze and held it. In a modified, strange voice he said, “You will forget all the things I’ve just told you.”
“I will forget what you’ve just told me,” she repeated mechanically, eyes glazed.
“Attagirl,” he said in his normal, softer voice, and her eyes focused again, eyeing him curiously.
Aratta brushed some dirt from her sleeve. “For what it’s worth,” he said, “remember this: when you are the cancer cells, relocation beats chemotherapy.”
He made to go but then stopped and turned. “Your civilization never worked,” he said in a low voice. He hesitated as if about to say more. “Over seven billion people,” he eventually just said and shook his head in dismay, then walked off.
“I was born here,” said Rafirre as he sat down beside Gary on the stone ledge. “In fact, my people have been here for a few centuries. Some groups have been here a lot longer.” He waited, but Gary just kept staring at some point far-off, seemingly in a daze.
Rafirre leaned back on his elbows. “Weather is nice, warm, and constant. The land is for the taking. And you never have to file in triplicate an insurance claim or be concerned with paying off your credit card. It ain’t so bad once you get used to it.”
Gary kicked some dirt and dust with his shoe. “What was this talk about us being one year ride away?” he heard himself ask.
“So that’s the thing. Food is nourishing, but at times people are hungry for real meat if you know what I mean. It’s why raids are the main pastime here. The word is out, and
hundreds of millions will soon saddle up. That’s what the Barber referred to when he mentioned the marauders who’ll sweep through your territory. He was telling you guys the truth.” He just left it to me to fill you in on the details, thought Rafirre with a flash of glee. “In six-month time, you’ll be able to detect the dust clouds of the approaching riders with a simple telescope.”
“Marauders, you say?” Gary said in a wooden voice. “Who are they?”
“Well, my people, as a matter of fact. They’ll be the nearest. We will take the first cut, as it is called. Our brightest people had trained to be on the survey group all their lives. And after decades of intensive study, we spent the last two years in the field, on Earth, researching and making the case. So the Barber let our people have first cut. It was to be our turn, anyway.
“But for you, it’s all the same, one raiding horde or another, right?” He winked and jabbed Gary. “Other hordes may sweep through later. Yet, the first cut is really where all the action is. One day, your people’s turn will come, and you’ll be on the other end of things. You’ll catch on.”
He scooted a bit closer, and his gray eyes glinted. “They’re coming for your girls, and they’re going to do more than pose for photos with’em topless.” He chortled and jabbed Gary in the shoulder. “They’re also coming after your fit men. And they’re coming for your stuff, the good stuff you’ll be bringing over from Earth: silk, compound bows, hiking boots, and all the rest. Now, listen to me,” he lowered his voice. “Don’t get caught in the raids or let your sweetheart get snagged. Your captive women will be passed around but mostly made into second-wives or third-wives and labor their asses off. If you know about the plight of captive women abducted by Pueblo Indians back in the day, you know what I’m talking about. So, hey,” he suddenly added, “don’t ‘identify’ yourself as a woman.” He laughed uproariously at that last.
“The captive men will have a raw deal, too,” Rafirre admitted, sober now. “They will be castrated and guard settlements from encroaching grissloirds and panarenians. Decades later, those captives that survive and, in the natural order of things, grow worn and old, will be fattened up and served.”
Rafirre pulled back and was content to sit and bask in the warm rays of the sun, the only sun he had known or seen until two years prior. His legs swung lazily. “In recent generations on Earth, single women can crow they don’t need men, while the taxes of many middle-aged men subsidize the infrastructure and public services that makes for many of them single-mother lifestyle possible.” Rafirre clucked with disapproval.
“In the Res, normalcy will return,” he said pensively. “Without washing machines and fridges, sperm banks and contraceptives, Botox and push-up bras, emergency services, baby formula, or the ability to kill the unborn at will, your females will settle down real quick. You’ll have to trust me on this.”
“What is all this talk?” said Gary in a distant voice. “My name is Gary Pruitt, and I am an online sales manager for cooling equipment of mainframes. Here, you see?”—He dug up in one back pocket, then the other, and finally pulled out with a trembling hand the business card—“See? Says so right here. We have a big sales meeting in Frankfurt in a month that I’m flying to. Already made a hotel reservation and told my boss. I cannot skip it.”
“You got nervous feet, but don’t worry about it. Like the rest of us, you have a respectable, long tradition; you’re out of practice, is all.” Rafirre jabbed him in the shoulder again. “You’ll shake off all the sissy stuff and grow a pair in no time, I’m telling you. You people got the backbone for it. You’ll do fine.”
Gary shook his head, trying to clear it. “Got some misunderstanding here. You don’t understand; I am working for a big corporation. Got an important meeting a month time from now.”
Rafirre narrowed his eyes. “Hey, stay here with me. I am giving you some good, valuable information about the raids. Forget about Frankfurt. What good are Frankfurt and cooling equipment going to do for you now?”
Gary was shaking his head and saying over and over some unintelligible things.
Rafirre jumped off the ledge. “Anyway, remember the tips I gave you.” He squeezed the other man’s shoulder and strode off, leaving Gary to stare intently at the jets of dirt he was spraying with the tip of his shoes.
Chapter 45
The Earth people spread about the grassland. After an hour or so, only a few people conversed. And those that did, murmured in low voices, which the ever-present breeze drowned out.
Aratta spotted Brandon lounging in a small grove of trees and walked over. The young man glanced up and grinned feebly.
“You don’t seem to be overly shaken,” commented Aratta.
Brandon absently drew with his finger in the sand. “I figure we had it coming. It’s like the musical chairs game. You keep moving, but you always know the music is going to stop at some point. My generation just happened to be the one left standing without a chair when the music stopped—a few minutes ago.”
“May I?” asked Aratta.
“Sure. Sit down,” said Brandon. He flashed an inscrutable smile. “Things are going to be very different on the Res, won’t they?”
“No one said you’re going. No verdict has been reached. What’s more, you people are yet to make your case in front of the commission.”
But Brandon shook his head. “We’re going all right; I don’t want to fool myself.” He looked at Aratta with irony. “You know, till now, I haven’t even been outside the United States. Hell, I haven’t even been outside the amniotic sac that academia is. I finished my undergrad studies and immediately signed up for a two-year graduate program. Yup, that’s me.” He glanced at Aratta. “The truth is, I’m afraid of this new world.” He gestured. “I don’t know how to hunt, and I don’t know how to protect.” He screwed up his face in disgust. “I don’t know how to be a man.”
Aratta regarded him. “Well,” he said but then fell silent, not quite sure what to say. He sighed. “At the end of the day, you are a man. Simply need to let it out, or rather, get in touch with it. I have little doubt you people will rise to the occasion if your prediction comes true and you’re all relocated here. Things will sort themselves out.”
Aratta took his pipe from his suit pocket, filled it with cinnamon, and soon was puffing away.
He eyed Brandon. “I suppose there are some things you could be reminded of,” he finally said, “things that may put some hair on your chest in preparation for the challenging times ahead. Truths that had mainly been edited out in your brave new gynocentric world, repleted with housebroken males and self-congratulatory females.”
Both men leaned against a massive tree. In the great distance, through the haze, they could make out dark figures of some large animals moving.
“It is safe to say that no matter what the verdict will be, the time for the petty, the delusional, and the self-indulgent is at an end. As people, you may be adolescent, but there is nothing for it but to grow up in a hurry.”
After a moment, Brandon gestured Aratta to continue.
“The attributes of females and males broadly overlap. Obviously,” said Aratta. “Yet, much of the action is at the very extreme edges of the distribution curve. On both ends. As it turns out, men have a greater variability: more morons and more geniuses, more imbeciles and more trailblazers.
“Men do some stupid things. They are the drunkards and the raving mumbling vagrants in the large cities. They are also the murderers and armed burglars. Men are overwhelmingly represented in all of those categories.
“And then there is the other end of it. It is overwhelmingly men who have been on the forefront, unlocking the mysteries of the universe. On your world, Albert Einstein fathomed the nature of gravity; Werner Heisenberg, Max Planck, Paul Dirac, Erwin Schrödinger ushered quantum mechanics; Sepp Holzer, Bill Mollison, Allen Savory have pioneered regenerative, complex food cul
tivation ecosystems.
“In the arts and entertainment, it is overwhelmingly men who have been trailblazing new frontiers. Georges Méliès and later Alfred Hitchcock, Woody Allen, and Steven Spielberg have pushed the cinematic bounds, and Walt Disney brought into being an entire array of cinematic sensibilities. Richard Garfield and Gary Gygax originated new game categories. Pablo Picasso transformed the visual arts. Bob Dylan changed songwriting. And Charlie Parker invented a new music genre.
“All the major technological revolutions have been dreamt up and accomplished by men, who developed, constructed, and improved on ways to transform the material world into a realm where people can do more than dig potatoes with a stick: the printing press, the engine, the mechanized transport via air, sea, and land. Thomas Edison pioneered a collaborative innovation think tank and brought systematic trial and error to new heights; Oliver Evans envisioned and fabricated the first integrated automated factory; Johann Reis, Alexander Bell, and Tivadar Puskás trailblazed the telephone and its related infrastructure; Charles Babbage gave birth to a mechanical general-purpose computer, and Ed Roberts, Gary Kildall, and Steve Wozniak brought about the personal computer. Vint Cerf originated what became the Internet, and Tim Berners-Lee brought into existence the World Wide Web. Of course, this is a simplistic account—as those individuals are but the more prominent members of an innovation-driven ecosystem. All the same, my point holds true just the same.
“Then there is Leonhard Euler. Euler pioneered topology and analytic number theory. Euler also pushed the frontiers of infinitesimal calculus, graph theory, and algebra. He also expanded upon geometry, trigonometry, and number theory. He also made discoveries in mechanics and in fluid dynamics and in optics and in astronomy and in acoustics. In all, he wrote about twenty-five thousand pages of notes. There has never been a female counterpart to Euler. There isn’t, and there haven’t been a female Isaac Newton, a female Aristotle, a female Leonardo da Vinci, a female Wolfgang von Goethe, a female Galileo Galilei, or a female Nikola Tesla. There isn’t and there hasn’t been a female Fridtjof Nansen, or a female Ludwig van Beethoven, or a female Lee Chang-ho, or a female Witold Pilecki, or female Wright brothers. And for that matter, a female Võ Nguyên Giáp or George S. Patton.
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