by Ben Elton
‘As opposed to what we have now,’ interjected Walter, cynically.
‘Listen buster,’ said Chrissy — who had never said buster before in her life. ‘What we have now is a controlled slump, a cycle dip, it just means poor people starve, that’s all, it ain’t anarchy…Now if most of the damn bosses suddenly disappear at once it could be months, maybe years, before new chains of command emerge within their empires. There will be power struggles, court-room battles. For a while at least it will be almost impossible to shift money about, utilize assets, mobilize equipment, make a decision!!…Don’t you see? I understand money, nothing will get done! And it’s those few months that may mean life or death for the earth. We have to stop them leaving and force them to help save the world.’
‘If it ain’t dead already, lady,’ said Zimmerman.
‘OK that’s it, fuck you,’ said Chrissy getting up. ‘I don’t know about you lazy bastards but back in New York City where I come from we like to put up a fight,’ she added, lapsing briefly into parochial xenophobia. ‘You don’t lie down till you’re dead, and even then you bite their damn ankles. I don’t know what I’m going to do, but I’m going to do something. See you, hippies, I’m going to save the world. You Culboons coming, CD?’
CD wasn’t actually listening but the Culboons were about to agree when Walter interjected.
‘Hey hey hey, Lady. You like…well…you certainly know how to hurt a guy, you know?’
‘Yeah,’ added Zimmerman. ‘Just because we’re indulging in a moment’s negative vibe does not mean that we are off the team, it’s just a ying and yang thing, OK, balance, that’s all.’
‘So you’re prepared to try and do something then?’ asked Chrissy rather suspiciously. ‘Of course we are, man,’ said Walter. ‘Hey listen. I have to tell you something. Ego is a bad thing, and pride comes before a fall, but I have to tell you man, that while you have spent your life tapping out shit about bread for the papers, me and Zimm here have saved a couple of two hundred ton whales, right?’
‘And what’s more, it spoke to us,’ added Zimm, ‘and told us of its life beneath the deep, within the whale nation.’
‘Yeah, well, that was Zimm’s interpretation,’ said Walter, ‘and as such it was valid, but some other people on the team thought they were just going eep eep eeeep.’
The brief schism over, discussion recommenced on the problem at hand.
‘OK Chrissy,’ said Walter, ‘like what do you suggest? These cats have had us hiding out and running every time we so much as breathe. Man they chased you all around the world. You’d be dead right now if it wasn’t for crazy Zimm. By the looks of it, they’re fixing to split real soon. What do you suggest we do? How in fuck, man, do we stop them blasting off, so’s we can like use them and their fat cat bread- head corporation to tell the world that it’s dying?’
‘I don’t know,’ said Chrissy quietly.
There was a pause.
212: THE RATS GATHER AROUND THE LIFE BOAT
The count-down had begun. There were no objections. The consensus was that if the foul deed had to be done, then it would be better if it were done quickly. The terminal, global decline was now visibly apparent everywhere. From the alternately parched and steaming earth, to the gloomy haze of pollution that hung high above them; a haze that made the intense heat dirty and sticky, like wearing a filthy old wool blanket in the blazing sun. The Leper Ships floated on the suffocated sea, the dolphins struggled in the nylon nets. The maple forests withered where they stood, the iguanas felt the rumble of the dozers. The sewage slid out of the sludge ships and the salt bubbled up through the ground. Durf’s talk of TT O in the food chain was not really necessary to convince the terrified old men. Each day as their factories belched out poison, they lived in abject fear at the possibility of an avalanche factor developing and scuppering the whole thing. Every day that they hesitated, something could go wrong…
Besides the imminent possibility of Stark being thwarted by a natural phenomenon, the other reason for immediate departure was that with everything now ready, things could only go wrong in human terms. Discovery, government intervention, mass rioting, theft, played heavily upon Durf’s mind. The majority of the security had been laid off along with the construction workers. Obviously Durf had had no desire for there to be a large group of heavily armed men around, at the point at which it became clear what was going on. The prospect of a couple of hundred gun-toting thugs, trying to force their way onto the absolute last train out of the ghost town, did not attract him. However, it had meant that Durf was forced to take the calculated risk that the last few days the Consortium spent on earth would be comparatively unprotected. Even a mob from Bullens Creek would probably be capable of ruining everything.
The news that Tyron had lost the captives and been discovered hours later trussed and bound along with his security chief, had been a shock. Sly had asserted that there was absolutely nothing these people could do in practical terms (except destroy helicopters). None the less, it was most disquieting.
Anyway, all things considered, no one had debated the fact that it was time to move, and the count-down had begun even before Zimm had commandeered the helicopter.
The far-flung and disparate members of the Stark Conspiracy — people who wielded such huge power and influence on their societies — were simply told to get up, take one piece of hand luggage, collect their partners and leave their entire lives for ever.
213: ADAMS AND EVES
Obviously the ‘partner’ business was fraught with indecision and embarrassment. There were those of course, indeed a surprising number, who had decided to take their spouses.
Since the whole project was a self-financed, self help group, rather than some noble scheme to perpetuate the human race, youth and fertility were not required. The object of the exercise was personal preservation, pure and simple, so people could take whom they liked. Anyway, the future had been taken care of in pre-packed and frozen form. Actually some of the crusty old couples, exhausted by a lifetime of hatred, violence and naked greed were rather looking forward to spending their old age peacefully on the moon, bringing up little test-tube space children.
These were the lucky ones, the people who had been able to make their decisions early and hence also their preparations; sharing the whole thing with their wives or boyfriends — eight of the conspirators being gay — and in three cases, husbands. There were only three female Stark conspirators — the upper echelons of international capitalism being still very much a male domain. The richest woman in the world, the Queen of Britain, had not been approached. It had been considered that on the whole she was likely to prefer to go down with the ship, and would probably have blown the gaff. Besides, it was one thing Sly selling off his brewing interests to raise his contribution, but alarm bells really would have started ringing if Balmoral had suddenly appeared on the market.
214: EVE WITH A STAPLE IN HER STOMACH
For the adulterers the process of departure was not so smooth. Ocker Tyron, for instance, had definitely decided not to take Dixie. Unfortunately he had also raised her suspicions. Obviously she did not suspect that he was about to leave her behind on a dying planet to face ecological oblivion alone. But she did suspect that he might be putting together a little illicit rumpy pumpy — which of course he was.
Tyron was playing a very dark hand; lying to his wife, and lying to the rumpy pumpy. He had not told the Playboy centrefold what it was he was taking her to the desert for. He could not trust her discretion. He had merely told her that it was a big adventure and a big surprise. Now she found herself stuck in the middle of a baking desert, with very few amenities indeed, amidst an ever-growing group of people she did not know, most of whom were in late middle-age. Understandably she wanted to know what the big surprise was going to be. But Tyron wasn’t there to tell her, he was back in Perth, about to leave his house for the last time, trying to deal with Dixie.
He was trying to grab a toothbrush whilst she wa
s lying on a machine which wobbled her fat about…‘It’s not right that a girl should have to go so long without her man,’ Dixie whined. ‘What’s going on, Ocker? Come on out with it.’
‘Business,’ said Ocker, ‘now shut your face.’
His mother had followed Ocker into his and Dixie’s private bathroom — something which she felt perfectly at ease in doing. She leapt at the chance to have a shot at Dixie.
‘If you can’t keep a man in the marital home, Dixie,’ she spat, ‘it’s no good complaining to him when he’s gone.’
‘This isn’t a marital home!!’ shouted Dixie wobbling away, ‘it’s a damn old peoples’ home!! Run for the exclusive benefit of one resident!! And this is Ocker’s and my private en suite!’
‘I know that, Dixie dear, but he doesn’t have private things from his mother. Good Lord, I’ve seen a lot more than his bathroom in my time.’
Dixie, thighs flapping away, biting her lip with fury, turned to Ocker for support. But he was gone, they heard the door slam…
‘Ocker!! Ocker!!’ shrieked Dixie, jumping off the wobbler and running to the stairs, ‘don’t you dare just walk out like that…‘ But he was already in the car and could not hear her.
She went downstairs in fury, followed by her mother-inlaw. There was a moment’s silence. Then she noticed a blank space on Ocker’s desk.
‘He’s taken his picture,’ she said slowly, ‘…the picture of his school team, that’s his favourite thing…He doesn’t even let the maid dust it…Why would he pack that in an overnight bag?’
Dixie Tyron and old Mrs Tyron looked at each other, for a moment united in shared fear and suspicion.
‘Ocker!!’ Dixie shrieked, running to the window. But the car was at the end of the drive already. She sank back into her chair.
A picture of her had always stood beside the team picture on Ocker’s desk. ‘I notice he left your picture,’ said Mrs Tyron. Their moment of solidarity shattered.
215: FROZEN FOOD ON A HOT NIGHT
On day minus eight and day minus seven, Sly found himself with plenty to do. The three remaining rockets had to be erected in their silos, and then all six had to be loaded and made ready for blast off.
Time seemed almost as stodgy and untraversable as the weather in those final, baking days. It was almost as if it had to be waded through, like a swamp. As Sly stood watching the rocket-moving transport crawl along at its top speed of three miles an hour, he felt as if the actual moment was destined to never actually arrive and that they would all be locked in the process of last minute preparation for ever.
‘Don’t rush it, it’s nearly a vintage machine, Mr Moorcock,’ Nagasyu had remarked, commenting on the fact that the transporter had been purchased from NASA nearly twenty years earlier and was actually the same rocket-mover that had brought the Apollo moon shot, Saturn V, to its pad. Nagasyu considered this a good omen.
Stark had purchased the thing in the late seventies and held it in storage ever since. They had got it for peanuts because the American love affair with space was over and, with its budgets cut, NASA had no need for such machines. They moved into shuttle research and the concept of a re-usable rocket. Stark, of course, did not have the same problems since they were only taking a one way trip.
216: BREAD AND LASAGNE
On the fifth night before the blast off, Sly visited Rachel. They had not seen each other since shortly after leaving Zimmerman et al in the security complex. Rachel had spent her time walking about the site, making an effort to take it all in, talking to whom she could and trying to understand and come to terms with the enormity of the thing that she was involved in.
Now it was evening and Rachel stood alone in the same room that Sly had first brought her to, watching for the fifth to last time as the hazy red furnace that used to be the sun sank through the sweaty, gaseous quagmire that used to be the sky.
Rachel was, by nature, of a fairly buoyant personality, but standing alone amongst strangers, watching the world die, would depress anyone. When Sly strode in she was pleased to see him.
‘So, shall we have that dinner then?’ he asked.
‘What dinner?’ Rachel replied.
‘The one I asked you to about a century ago.’
Sly was astonished to discover that he was nervous. This was a very new sensation for him. Normally he didn’t care enough for the women he found himself alone with to be ill at ease in their presence. What’s more, their acquiescence was so utterly guaranteed that there was never any question of fear of rejection. This time things were as different as they could be. He did care what Rachel thought of him and he was by no means certain that she desired him in the same way he did her. He had, after all, persuaded her to hang around with him by telling her that she would die a reeking, steaming, panic- stricken death if she didn’t. Many a girl might have responded to a chat-up line like that.
‘Don’t mind. Why not,’ replied Rachel, regarding the dinner. And so Sly prepared it. Peripheral Stark personnel had been cut to a minimum and there were no cooks or serving staff in those last days. Each cabin had a microwave and a huge stock of frozen food…
‘Pretty shithouse tucker, I’m afraid,’ said Sly, bunging a couple of lasagnes in the oven, ‘still guess it’s kind of better than what we can expect for the next few years, until the greenhouses get going and the frozen foetuses turn into lamb chops.’
Actually, as far as Rachel was concerned, the food she had eaten since joining Stark had been superb. Compared to toast and vegamite, which was what she normally had for supper, gourmet frozen lasagne was a pretty good feast. She didn’t say though, Sly liked to talk and Rachel liked to let him.
‘One thing about them,’ he said as the oven went ping, ‘this stuff was packaged a good three years ago, I own the factory actually. No Total Toxic Overload in this. Christ, Durf’s got me so spooked on the food chain business I look at the sell-by date and hope the damn thing’s past it.’
They drank some wine and ate the lasagne, no bread, the last thing you want to risk before embarking on a trip to the moon is food poisoning…
‘I guess the shits would be pretty unpleasant if you’re stuck in a space-suit,’ Sly said, and he laughed.
217: MOULDY OLD DOUGH
It wasn’t that the grain itself was massively toxic, but the intense heat and humidity (caused by the flooding, caused by the deforestation), had created an atmosphere that had been a perfect breeding environment for all sorts of microscopic organisms. Therefore, what crop had grown in that last, famine-struck summer of Stark, was mouldier than the washing up in a student residence. Unfortunately, because it was all that there was, it still got ground into bread and, what’s more, because there was so little of it, the stuff actually doubled in price. Mouldy bread was one of the few healthy items on the stricken stock market…
‘Get into food,’ the arrogant twenty-one-year-olds in bow ties and pink glasses had said to each other. ‘Food is very big right now.’
218: TOO GUILTY TO PARTY
As he attacked his lasagne, Sly pondered the contradictions of life.
‘Funny to think that I own bakeries that are making bread that I’m too scared to eat, and yet the same stuff is turning in a straight 200 per cent profit and curving skywards. Not that major profit strikes are any use to me now. Still, it’s funny,’ he was in a philosophical mood.
‘Please, Silvester,’ said Rachel, ‘try not to be such a ruthless pig. I’m trying to persuade myself that I don’t dislike you.’
‘Well, it is weird,’ he replied defensively. Sly had not realized he was being a ruthless pig, nor had he been spoken to by a woman this cool in years. Not surprisingly he found it exciting. ‘That bakery was my first ever corporate takeover. I only kept the bread bit, sold the rest off and now the bread’s poisoned, and more profitable than it’s ever been. I call that weird. Don’t you call that weird?’
If Rachel was a different experience for Sly, well the opposite was also the case. Rachel had nev
er met a man with so little remorse, so little guilt, he simply did not bother to anguish over the terrible repercussions of his horrible life. This sublime peace of mind was entirely alien to Rachel. Those like her, who aspire to a social conscience, spend their lives consumed with guilt. They can never take full pleasure out of the nice things that come their way because they cannot escape the gnawing conviction that their happiness is unfair.
Sly, on the other hand, knew that life isn’t fair, and what’s more, the bastard didn’t seem to mind. It was a new experience for Rachel, who generally hung around with worried liberals like herself, to be talking to someone who could make a statement like the one Sly had made about the bread, without feeling the need to conclude it by adding, ‘I mean, God I know it’s terrible, but I really don’t know what I can do about it, you know? I mean it’s so difficult.’
It wasn’t that Rachel condoned his callousness, nor did she wish that she could emulate it (not much anyway). It was just strangely refreshing to be talking to a person who had conquered the guilt that oppresses us all. Perhaps this is why rogues are such popular figures of fiction; they have the ability to be bastards and not worry about it — they give us a chance to escape the ever oppressive conscience.
219: THE MOON SHINES BRIGHTER
Anyway, for whatever reason, Rachel decided to go to bed with Sly. He was pretty despicable but also exciting, like a Dirty Harry movie. Rachel had always had a penchant for big, strong men. The perfect combination for her would have been new man politics combined with a macho man body. In this case she was prepared to settle for the latter on its own. It had, after all, been quite a long time for Rachel, she was a pretty choosy girl. Also the condoms she carried in her bag were in danger of slipping past their sell-by date. Going without gets frustrating in the end.