The Fisherman nodded.
Linda sighed deeply. "And they're so scared, William. My people. They're so scared. Holding on for dear life. You should see them in the shelters we built. So scared. Not just for themselves and their children, but because they know. They don't know that they know, but they know! They're scared for everything. For the end of everything."
"And so they see demons everywhere, punishing them," said William softly. "The aliens. The elite. The whites. The blacks. The government. The atheists. The Jews. The next-door neighbors. Even themselves."
"They saw me as a devil, William! You should've heard the things they said!"
"I did, Madam," said William.
"Right," said Linda with a frown. She took a couple of deep breaths. "So the aliens are angels, then?"
William smiled. "They would scoff at the idea, but they are offering to free us from the old worldview in which we've become mired. Those of us who are ready."
"But it's all so coldly Darwinian, William. You know? All this talk of competition and winners and losers. Haven't scientists found all sorts of new evidence for cooperation and symbiosis and things like that? Does it have to be so harsh?"
The Fisherman nodded. "They did indeed, Madam. Nature turns out to be nowhere near so 'red in tooth and claw' as civilized humans like to think. However, all that really does is change the unit of selection. Instead of nature selecting for individuals who win the competition, it selects for symbiotic clusterings, or cooperative communities, or entire ecosystems. Whether it's dominance or cooperation, things are still getting selected for and against by changing circumstances. Notice that, no matter how cooperative and symbiotic life on Earth might be, it is estimated that 99.9% of all species that have ever lived are now extinct. Cooperation does not stop the cold process of selection in the long term, Madam, no matter how nice that might sound."
"I think what strikes me as cold, William, is the blame I hear in your words. You go on and on about the freedom to choose, yet I'm not sure all these people really have that freedom. The ones that have ceased to matter, William. That's who I'm talking about."
William closed his eyes and took a couple of long breaths. He opened his eyes. "You are correct to point out my coldness, Madam. I thank you. The old Family training still trips me up from time to time."
Linda nodded, her eyes angry. "Yeah. It's like what Spud said to me in that dream I had. After... everything happened. He acted the same way. Tossed out that old quote about repeating the past if we don't learn from it. And that 'there are none so blind as those who will not see' quote. As if it was a simple matter of will. It really pissed me off."
The Fisherman nodded. "Again," he said, "we find ourselves in Rumi's Field. Is the choice to break free from the confines of culture and paradigm a matter of ability or will? Are Kübler-Ross's 'beautiful people' born or made? If they're made, were they able to 'find their way out of the depths' because of something they were born with? Or is it always a bit of both?"
"It's tempting to call it a matter of will, when you see so much blaming in the world," said Linda.
"Yes," said William. "But in truth, I find that I agree with the statement that people are at all times 'doing the best they can with what they have.' If I tend to hold people as totally responsible for their choices, that allows me to feel angry with them, which is easier than feeling helpless or sad at the realization of how unable most people are these days."
"And yet people are making choices all the time, William," said Linda. "Even with the Grid in the sky, there were still people who judged me as crazy for saying that there were aliens visiting the Earth."
William started to laugh heartily. "So it goes in Rumi's Field, Madam. We begin to argue for the other's point of view!"
Linda joined in the laughter.
"So it's always both, Madam," said William, still grinning. "Both and more and all of the above. Choice and circumstance, ability and will, doing our best and ignoring what we already know, choosing openness and healing and freedom, choosing to stay in the unlocked prison cells of story and belief, each of us walking our individual path through the Mind of God. We get to do that, Madam! We get to choose to choose, and to choose not to choose! That's what makes the Prime Directive so important, Madam. And that's why we in the Element, and the aliens themselves, have tried always to open up more choices rather than shut them down. And that's why I have spent these past days with you: to open up for you a choice you would not otherwise have."
The Fisherman sat forward in his chair. His voice grew lower. "But here's the thing, Madam: in the end, this matter of choice, whether it be ability or will or both, ceases to matter in the physical realm. It does not matter to evolution. And it does not matter to the medics doing triage. In this time of the Great Unraveling, whether we blame the One True God, the many gods, the aliens, or the cold, hard laws of nature, there will be selections made. Whether you make good grades because of inborn talents or hard work or smart choices, your final numbers are what will win you that valedictory speech. Whether you do not see, cannot see, or choose to ignore the traffic light ahead of you, if you run that stop light and pull out in front of cross-traffic, you will be hit by a car. Such is life in this physical band. If we need to blame someone, Madam, we can blame the creator of this cold, hard, sharp-edge reality."
"Who created this place, William?" asked Linda. "God?"
"Why no, Madam," said William, blinking his eyes in surprise. "We did."
Linda sat forward to match the Fisherman's posture and tone. "So is that why you want me to kill off the human race?"
14.16
Cole sat on the edge of his bed, elbows on his knees, face buried in his hands. His dream, his "hop," had been so strange that he could hardly hold it in his mind, and yet it felt important that he try to do so. He'd been standing before some sort of council or tribunal or something. Half a dozen beings, all those little Gray type of aliens they called the Life. And he was one of them! He wasn't in his body; he was in one of theirs! And they were talking about something. About Cole going somewhere. Going back for the last time. To someplace he might fail.
And then he was a baby. A human baby. The baby Cole, with his mother and father and his older brother, Carl. And he was standing in a thing... a playpen or something... and his mother was ironing and the television was playing some soap opera and Cole, baby Cole, a year or two old, knew, in that moment, that he was alone here, and that he had to hide who he really was. And so he did.
Then Cole woke up, with the feelings of that small gray body still clinging to him, a head full of words he did not know, and images he had never seen, and thoughts he could not comprehend. Thankfully, they receded quickly into the dark closet full of half-remembered dreams. He was glad of that. He'd remembered enough. More than he wanted to, important or not.
He lifted his face and looked out the window. The wind was battering the panes and there were fat drops of rain in it now, splatting on the glass like bugs on a windshield. There was enough pre-dawn light to show the choppy surface of the bay and the churning mass of clouds overhead. It was going to be a hell of a storm. Cole could feel it. Its ferocity felt like disgust and contempt.
The day would bring the full force of this storm. That much he could predict. Beyond that, he had no idea what to expect. Linda was still out there on that island. He and Stan and Sten and these Church of the Stranger folks were still all here, trying to figure out how to get to her. They had a boat. People. A couple of hand guns. Determination. Grit. The folly of youth. The experience of age. And they had the strange light that came from Cole's hands.
What they would do with all of that Cole did not know. Was that him in that dream? Him in some other life? Some other reality? Was the church right, that he wasn't human at all, but one of them? One of these Life things? Had he really been here many times before, on some mission that had lasted for centuries, maybe? And... Jesus... was his mission really to stop his own wife from doing something awf
ul? The thought of that filled him with cold fear. He had no idea anymore who or what he could trust. He was on his own. That was truly terrifying.
14. 17
William closed his eyes and sat still and silent for a very long time. When he reopened his eyes, he smiled gently. "I was going to just push away from your question, Madam. Defend myself. Tell you that you are wrong, that it's not me who's responsible for this, that you shouldn't judge me. But it occurs to me that your question just takes us where we now need to go. You are right: It is time to finally get back to our central question, having put so much of the foundation in place." The Fisherman glanced up into the sky, toward the approaching Martian dawn. "Many pieces are falling into place back on Earth. Our time together must soon come to an end."
"I'll believe that when I see it, William," said Linda.
"Right," said William. "So the way I put it to you was carefully thought out beforehand and precisely worded. Do you remember what I said?"
"You said you had a way to kill off humanity so that the planet could recover, and that you were putting the decision on me," said Linda.
The Fisherman smiled. "Not quite, Madam," he said. "What I said was that it's possible to dramatically decrease the number of humans on the Earth quickly and painlessly, an action which might allow some small portion of humanity to survive on Earth, and which might give the remaining life on Earth a chance to recover. The choice to do so I put to you. And I said that my mission was to prepare you to make that choice, and that when you were prepared you would be returned home. Do you remember now?"
"I guess."
"Do you see the difference?"
"You only want to kill off ninety-five percent instead of everybody?" said Linda.
"I would say that the percentages remain unknown, Madam. Surely a large segment, but the method is unlikely to cause the death of everyone. Human extinction on Earth would remain a distinct possibility, but would result from other forces coming into play. Do you notice anything else?"
"I notice that I don't get out of here until you say I'm ready, William. That doesn't exactly feel like a free choice to me."
William smiled. "Yet surely you can see that a choice remains. Not liking the choice that circumstances have put to you is not the same as not having a choice."
"And you are the circumstances," said Linda.
"Indeed," said William. "Anything else?"
"Stop with the guessing games, Mr. Circumstances. Just make your damn point."
The Fisherman nodded. "I notice two things, Madam. First, that you want to insist that I am killing people, and, second, that the 'quickly and painlessly' part seems not to register with you. In other words, Madam, you seem angry. Appalled, even. And I find that a bit odd."
Linda started to laugh. "Only you would think that odd, William," she said. "Where I come from, mass murderers tend to raise an eyebrow or two."
William stopped and thought for a moment, then nodded. "During your predecessor's term, there was an Ebola outbreak. I know you remember it, as you were serving as Governor of Michigan at the time and there was a case in Flint."
"I remember," said Linda.
"So tell me," said William, "why is it that the best and brightest of you, the environmentally aware, the ones who could most clearly see the need for human population reduction, were so universally appalled when Ebola came to town? I mean, here you are, population far above the Earth's carrying capacity, knowing that something like Ebola could easily arise to correct that overshoot, as has happened so often in the history of life on Earth, and you were appalled? Angry, even? As if what you could think about in purely abstract terms became unthinkable when it manifested in your actual lives. Is that not fascinating to you, Madam?"
"Wouldn't it have been even more odd and fascinating, William, had people just calmly accepted an Ebola pandemic as the right thing to allow to happen for the rest of the life on the planet?"
William nodded, closed his eyes. "Of course," he said. "Of course. I know that. So maybe 'odd' and 'fascinating' are not the right words." He inhaled deeply. Exhaled loudly. He opened his eyes. "I don't know the right word."
Linda smiled gently. "Perhaps you just feel really lonely, William. Maybe you think or feel or know or can see things that very few others do. Maybe you're just tired of being alone with that."
William bowed his head and sighed. "Maybe," he said.
"It may also be, William," said Linda cautiously, "that you and your people are particularly insulated from such things. I mean, you can jump on a spaceship and skip town if the virus gets near, not unlike the kings and queens of old England. Perhaps you would find it less fascinating were you and your loved ones actually at risk of being swept up in a pandemic, whether it benefits the Earth or not."
William nodded heavily. "You may be right, Madam."
Linda let him think for a moment, then spoke. "So were you guys involved in the Ebola thing?"
William looked up and shook his head. "Usually we get wind of such things early on. But we in the Element were caught by surprise with that one. It had been... encouraged, shall we say... by a group called Nature's Way, a rather deeply hidden organization of whom I'd never even heard. When it became clear that normal public responses were not adequate to the task, The Families put their resources behind the containment efforts, finally bringing the outbreak to a halt by the end of the next year."
Linda nodded. "By which time eighty-thousand people had died."
"Indeed," agreed the Fisherman. "A rather inconsequential number in terms of the total human population, and in terms of other diseases which routinely take more lives than that every year, and yet the number felt huge and frightening to most people."
Linda frowned. "So, I don't get that, William. Why stop that global pandemic, only to come to me a few years later with a plan to achieve the same thing that Ebola would have? It doesn't make sense."
William smiled grimly. "Because, Madam, it was not yet time, and Ebola was far too nasty a tool for the job.
14.18
Colonel McAfee sat up with a start. Must've been lightning, he thought, as he watched the raindrops smash against the sliding glass door. There was a touch of dawn in the sky, for which he was thankful. He hated storms when it was dark. He wanted to be able to see what was coming.
Staying up on the surface might be a bad idea, however, this time around. This storm might be strong enough to wash this little island cabin right into the sea. Much better to hunker down in the lower levels with the bulk of his forces, leaving only a skeleton crew to maintain security. Who'd come calling in this mess, anyways? Surely not the First Gentleman and his merry men, who'd been sent packing with their tails between their legs three times now. Nobody in his or her right mind would be out on the water today.
Ah well. There was no way he was going to sleep any longer. The Colonel rose and went into the bathroom, flicking on the light before remembering that the power was out. Deciding not to flush - who knew what the water pressure situation was? - he headed out to the kitchen, wanting coffee. But that was a nonstarter as well, with no way to grind the beans. He grabbed a canned cola from the cool but warming fridge and went to get dressed.
He'd find his aide. That Sparks fellow. Danny, was it? Get a report and all that. See if anybody needed anything. These guys were a crack team. Chosen by the General. They knew far more about operations here, and this island compound, than McAfee ever had. He was sure they would be on top of things.
14.19
"So you're hoping for a kinder, gentler genocide, then, are you?" asked Linda.
"Would you prefer the zombie apocalypse, Madam?" replied the Fisherman.
"Are those my only two choices?"
"What if they are?" asked William.
"I would find that unacceptable," said Linda.
"Spoken like a true 'ruler of the Earth,' Madam," said William.
"Says the man who wishes to kill off the bulk of humanity," said Linda.
"Sa
ys the man who has spent a great deal of time doing triage with the medics," said William.
Linda opened her mouth to retort, then stopped herself. She closed her eyes and breathed.
The Fisherman pushed forward and rested his elbows on his knees. "Let's see if we can tease apart this 'killing off' of humanity, Madam."
Linda opened her eyes. "That would probably be more useful than bickering," she said with a nod.
William glanced at the brightening sky for a moment, then returned his gaze to the President. "I can think of a number of different ways in which we might view the action I am proposing," he said. "The first is the one we've been discussing so far: we're talking about mass murder and genocide. This would, of course, be the default, culturally-approved way of viewing such an act. I certainly take no offense at your reactions, as I understand where they come from. But again, reaction is less than the free choice I wish for you to make."
"The truth is," William continued, "there are ways in which your anger and abhorrence are right on the mark, Madam. Those in the various layers of control and governance have instigated or allowed all sorts of horror over the years, including mass murders and genocides. They did it in the service of wealth and power, and with ever-increasing levels of contempt and disgust. In fact, even now, were some faction of The Families to unleash a pandemic designed to reduce the human population, they would do so with relish, Madam. Really, for those who have been paying attention, the real surprise is that some hidden elite group has not already created a pandemic to wipe out humanity."
"And the real real surprise is that some group has done that, but you Element guys stopped them," said Linda.
"Exactly, Madam," said William. "The group that deployed the latest Ebola virus was not the first to have tried such a thing. I believe there have been a dozen serious attempts made over the years. The Element has successfully put a stop to them all. And always for the same reason: if this were to be done, there was no need for it to be horribly painful. No one needs to be punished, as far as we can see. Evolution does not make its selections based on contempt and disgust. Neither do medics."
Rumi's Field (None So Blind Book 2) Page 50