by Niko Perren
“What’s their motivation?” asked Ruth. “Didn’t you say it’s worthless desert?”
“Yeah, it’s weird.”
“Could I see the documents?” asked Ruth. “I’m good at figuring out puzzles.”
“Be my guest,” said Tania. “I’ll send them when we get back in town.”
They lay, listening to the stove’s hiss, watching the flame dance. Burning carbon. Although Tania had bought biofuel, she still felt a twinge of guilt, like when she put an aluminum can in the airport garbage because she couldn’t find a recycler.
Ruth eyed the bubbling pot hungrily.
“So Ruth, what’s your role in Green Army?” Like she’ll tell me.
But Ruth surprised her.
“I started as a consultant,” she said. “I joined the inner circle three years ago. I run messaging. That’s why I was in New York. We want to keep the environment in the public eye as something we still have control over. I wasn’t expecting the protest to get so rough though.”
Images of violence mixed together: black-clad policemen shocking protesters in the New York rain. Army boots kicking Tania in the Ethiopian sand. She pulled the sleeping bag tighter. “Why the brutality?”
“The government doesn’t like competition,” said Ruth. “Political power is swapped between elites. It’s a closed game. Outsiders aren’t welcome.”
“You don’t think it’s because you’re terrorists?” Shit. That’s a bit blunter than I intended.
Ruth laughed. “The term is monkey-wrenching, not terrorism. You should try it some time. Blowing up a coal plant is incredibly cathartic. I don’t have your faith in the political system.”
“You overestimate my faith in the political system.”
“Then why are you blindly following its rules?” asked Ruth. “Are you still making a difference?”
Tania evaded the question by scooping dinner into two bowls. For a few minutes the tent was filled with the sound of chewing and blowing on spoons.
Ruth dug around in her pack and pulled out a plastic bottle of almond liqueur and two small glasses. “Bedtime entertainment?”
“Oh, yes!”
Ruth filled a glass, but held it just out of Tania’s reach. “You haven’t answered my question yet. Are you still making a difference?”
Tania thought about it. “No,” she admitted. “We need a shield plan. And if I’m not working on it, nobody is.”
“Then you need to figure out a way to pay for the research. And fuck the rules.”
They sat in silence for a long while. Then Ruth handed Tania the glass. “To friends.”
“To friends.” Tania drank, and the cold, sweet liquid burned its way down.
Ruth unzipped the vestibule, exposing tall pines swaying black against the starry sky. Patches of snow made white ghosts on the towering cliffs, and a cool breeze flowed into the valley, rippling the waters of the lake, flapping the tent’s plastic.
“Brrrr,” said Ruth. She wiggled next to Tania, so that they were shoulder to shoulder, holding the heat between them, nearly spooned.
“Look,” said Tania. “The moon.”
Chapter 23
‹CAREFUL,› JIE WARNED. ‹I can fork your rook and king with my knight.›
Cheng’s groan arrived moments later. ‹This game’s stupid. The queen’s the only fun unit. And only the pawns are upgradeable.›
‹Chess is ancient,› said Jie. ‹I know you’d rather play a video game. But with the time delay, we’re stuck with turntaking.›
‹I’m going to do homework,› pouted Cheng. ‹I’ll talk to you tomorrow.› He signed off.
Jie sighed. ‹I guess I should have let him win.›
Sally looked up from the bench where she was sorting through the seed packets from Earth. ‹You tried,› she said. ‹It’s tough to amuse a kid over a video link.›
‹Tell me about it,› said Jie. “Earthcon, how long before I needed again?”
“The engineers say two hours.”
Two hours? I’m on the moon trying to save the planet, and the biggest danger is that I die of boredom.
‹You could help clean the greenhouse,› offered Sally.
‹Oh, please, yes,› said Jie. ‹My brain is eating itself. And Sharon seems to think that I’m not doing enough to help.›
‹She and Rajit are pulling ten hour surface days preparing the mass driver ramp,› said Sally. ‹And she’s still upset about Isabel. It’s not surprising she’s a bit cranky.›
***
The greenhouse occupied the crew dome’s entire top floor. Jie followed Sally up the ladder in the back of the hive, into a tiny vestibule. Gardening gloves, sunglasses and five widebrimmed floral hats hung on the wall. Could those ever have been in style? Perhaps somebody had brought them as a joke.
Sally handed him a pair of sunglasses. ‹Wear these or you’ll cook your eyeballs,› she warned. ‹We use mirrors and lenses to concentrate surface light. It’s bright in there.›
They stepped inside. Sunlight poured out of hundreds of holes in the ceiling, so powerful that it gave a foglike solidity to the air. Jie could feel sweat beading on his forehead, and even with the sunglasses he recoiled at the searing light. Desiccated organic material tangled around plastic trellises, and dead leaves choked everything. It smelled dry and earthy, like a forest before the first snowfall.
‹Plants must grow like mad,› said Jie, blinking as his eyes adjusted.
‹Seed to kitchen in three weeks,› Sally confirmed. ‹Only fifty hours of darkness a month.› She unlatched a storage cabinet and tipped the old seeds into the organics recycler. ‹The new biotech helps, too. We’ve got prerelease seeds for all the latest crops. Wait until you taste the 2051 tomatoes!›
She suddenly turned, yelling at the ceiling. “Hey Earthcon, can we get some opera?” She laughed as she saw Jie jump. ‹Sorry. Didn’t mean to startle you. There are only two mics up here, so Earthcon’s hard of hearing.›
Moments later Italian singing wafted through the air. Neat. Earthcon is a DJ! I’d have gone the entire trip without thinking to ask for music. Sally smiled at him, a simple smile, like you’d give a friend, and Jie felt a thrill of pleasure.
‹How can I help?› asked Jie. ‹My houseplants are plastic. And I’ve never used the community garden on my building.›
‹Start cleaning,› said Sally. She demonstrated by grabbing a handful of dried leaves. Jie stripped away dead vegetation while Sally prepared new seed trays.
‹How did you learn to garden, Sally?›
‹My mom worked at a factory in Chongching. I was left in the countryside with my grandmother. Just us kids and a bunch of old people. We’d chase the ducks and chickens, pick the vegetables.› She shuddered. ‹I don’t like the landscape here, even though it’s beautiful. And not just because of what happened to Isabel. The stillness is getting to me. Every time I leave these walls. It’s not even dead there. Dead is the far side of life. This place is in another direction entirely. It has never been alive.›
‹You’re not making me want to go back out,› said Jie.
He tried to sweep up the crumbled debris on the floor, but it billowed into a choking cloud, forcing them to fall back into the vestibule. Jie felt like a toddler again, experiencing everything for the first time; even the simplest tasks were changed in unexpected ways by the low gravity. Sally leaned against him, hand on his chest, coughing and laughing.
‹Let’s hose off the rest of the floor,› she suggested. ‹It’ll raise less dust. Just keep the water heading towards the drain and make sure it doesn’t clog. The floor’s water resistant, but this place is not a swimming pool. Sharon will be pissed if we flood the hive.›
‹Wouldn’t it make more sense to have the greenhouse in the cargo dome?› asked Jie. ‹Seems like this is asking for trouble.›
‹The greenhouse was supposed to be in its own dome,› said Sally. ‹But when Mars was cancelled everything got scaled back.› She shook her head. ‹Best not to think abou
t all the design flaws. It’ll only make you paranoid.›
Chapter 24
TANIA SLIPPED INTO a hot bath as soon as she got home from camping. She even added scented oil, from a yellow glass bottle that had survived three previous moves unopened. Am I still making a difference? She inhaled the citrus steam.
And if not, why am I still following the rules?
Ruth’s question had pulled the scab off Tania’s disagreement with Khan Tengri. She could nuance it. Argue that she’d already made a difference. But the world needed a longterm climate plan. A plan nobody was creating.
I’m just doing damage control now. Freezing what’s left of nature for future generations.
Tania closed her eyes, sinking into the water. She and Ruth had talked late in the tent. “When your enemies write the rules,” Ruth had said, “you have no choice but to cheat.” But this? Surely there’s an alternative.
Tania could think of none.
She dressed, and brought up the UNBio personnel files. “Address, Tom Lane, former Accounting Head.” She crosschecked real estate sales to make sure Tom hadn’t moved, then hopped onto her bike. The elderly woman next door was up to her hips in the alpine bananas she’d planted a few weeks earlier. She waved as Tania rode past. “Lovely day isn’t it?”
“I suppose it is,” said Tania. Any storm clouds were her own.
Tania peddled along treed paths to Tom Lane’s house, a brick and sandstone affair on a slice of urban forest. Tania looked both ways to make sure nobody was watching, then locked her bike to the iron fence. I feel dirty just being here. She walked past bright plastic children’s toys, up the wooden steps, to a covered porch with a single chair on it.
The doorbell triggered a complex sequence of notes. Inside, a child started shouting, a repetitive drone: “Door, door, door, door, door, door.” Footsteps. “Door, door, door, door.”
“Yes, honey. The door.” The door opened.
“Afternoon,” Tom Lane smiled out at Tania, a mountain of fat. “What can I…?” his jowls twisted in anger. “What the fuck do you want?”
“Door, door, door,” droned the child.
“I’ve kept my promises,” said Tania, holding her face neutral. “No investigation. I’m here with a business proposition.”
“Door.” Crash. “Door.” Crash.
“God Almighty!” Tom waddled away at impressive speed for a man his size, leaving Tania on the step. Moments later he returned, leading a boy of six by one hand. The boy plopped onto the floor, staring at the hardwood, ignoring Tania. “Uhhhhhhh. Uhhhhh.”
“Autism,” said Tom. “One of the untreatable kinds. I’ve been raising him since his mother died.” He glared at Tania. “Of course, none of that mattered when you fired me, did it? You high and mighty bitch.” He sneered. “A business proposition. As if.”
But his door’s still open. “It’s lucrative,” said Tania. “And you’ll work from home”
“You’re setting me up,” Tom wheezed.
“Oh, puh-lease,” said Tania. “Look at this house. On a UNBio salary? If I wanted to cause you problems, I could do it with an email to any ambitious journalist.”
“Door. Door.”
“Daddy’s busy, little man.” Tom stepped back to allow Tania in, the floor creaking under his weight. The rich wood paneling contrasted with the vibrant historical wall colors. “Convince me,” said Tom. He didn’t move past the entry. His son traced the grooves in the hardwood flooring.
“A consulting project,” said Tania. “Good money. And a chance to do something worthwhile, if that matters to you.”
“The job?” Some of the hostility had faded, replaced by grudging curiosity.
“I’m creating a longterm plan for managing the shield,” said Tania. “I want to hire top environmental and human development specialists from around the world. Fifty people total. I need to figure out how to pay for it.”
“Why isn’t the UN funding this?” asked Tom. He squinted his porcine eyes. “Ahhh, because they haven’t asked you. And without a formal request from the Climate Council or General Assembly, it’s outside your mandate.”
“Which is why I need to keep this off the books,” said Tania.
Tom’s mouth dropped wide open. And then he broke into laughter. “Fifty people. Plus travel expenses. Plus office space. Plus all the computer time they’re going to use? Off the books?” He slapped his leg. “Are you kidding me? It’s not possible.”
“You juggled numbers for Wong. You’ve got talent.” Tania admired the crystal chandelier in the hallway. “It seems to have served you well.”
“It was all Wong’s idea. How did he put it? ‘If we’re fucked, we might as well be rich and fucked.’ I went with the flow. Had to keep my job you know. Though it was an interesting accounting challenge.”
Poor Tom. Just trying to keep his job. Tania unclenched her fist so that she wouldn’t be tempted to punch him. “Are you smart enough to figure out my interesting accounting challenge?”
“Let’s sit.” Tom deposited himself, amoeba-like, into a brocade couch, leaving Tania the armchair. “How can we trust each other?” A hand slipped into his pocket.
“We can’t,” said Tania. “I’m not giving you live data access. And you… well… you’re recording me in case you need blackmail material.”
“You noticed huh?” Tom took out his omni and placed it on the table, still on. “Doctor Tania Black of UNBio: what will your fifty new hires do?”
“I want conservation and human development experts from around the world. They’ll create longterm plans to take pressure off wilderness by improving the lives of the people in conflict with it. The shield will be one of their tools.”
“Remote staff. Good.” Tom unrolled a scroll and tapped out a note. “Any new audit rules I need to work around?”
“We’ve moved to ISO2050,” said Tania.
“And who’d you find to replace me?”
“Viktor Corby.”
“Fuck,” said Tom. “You’re not making this easy. Would you consider firing Viktor?”
“Not for a second,” said Tania.
For the next half hour Tania answered Tom’s questions. Finally, Tom put his scroll on the table and oozed back into the couch.
“It can’t be done,” he announced. “You’ll involve too many honest people. And Viktor’s too sharp. When I juggled money for James Wong, it was a team effort. But you got rid of anybody who might be on our team.”
Tania fought back a shiver of revulsion. I debased myself for nothing. “Sorry to have bothered you.”
Tom held up a pudgy hand. “However – I can make it work until the audits in November. If you’re willing to face the punishment. I won’t be implicated, of course.”
November. Does that give me enough time? The little boy rocked back and forth, back and forth, in the vestibule. It must be comforting, to rock like that. Just shut out the world.
Tom smiled, as if savoring the idea of Tania serving jail time.
“How do we proceed?” asked Tania.
“Kickbacks through shells,” he said.
“Meaning?” asked Tania. “Explain it to me as if I don’t typically steal from my employers.”
Tom wagged a sausage finger at her. “Be nice. I don’t have to do this.”
Tania imagined her hands around his throat. How can Tengri deal with people like this? Does he compartmentalize? Like the Great Burger of the People executives who market the nutritional equivalent of cigarettes to toddlers and then volunteer at food banks.
“Sorry,” she said, “please continue.”
Tom smiled again. “We’ll hire your new staff through dummy companies. Then we’ll hire preserve-audit consultants at inflated rates, on the condition that they buy bogus services from those dummy companies. The kickbacks pay the salaries.”
“Fuck,” said Tania. “So I have to corrupt my preserve audit consultants?”
“Believe me,” said Tom. “Any company that takes government con
tracts knows how this works.”
***
Tania met Ruth at their regular biking spot, just out of sight of the James Barker religious protesters who still sometimes plagued the UNBio campus gates.
“Hello stranger,” said Ruth. “It’s been two weeks. Was the camping trip that bad? Or did you get eaten by some sort of paperwork dragon?”
“I’ve had some crazy stuff going on,” said Tania. “Thanks for coming. I need to clear my head.”
“Let’s ride the long loop then,” said Ruth. “There’s no problem that doesn’t improve when you take it outdoors.”
They sped off, racing up familiar trails until half an hour of breathless panting left them on a high ridge. They pulled their bikes into the grass and scrambled up onto the slabby gray rocks. Below them, Boulder’s solar-roofed houses washed into the prairies like a silver sea. Ruth took a green square of fabric out of her saddlebags, unfolding it on the ground. She lined up three plastic trays in the center of the cloth.
“Mexican Sushi Fusion,” she said. “From the new place on Pearl Street. I hear it’s better than you’d expect.”
“If you bought, I’m not fussy,” said Tania. It has to be better than the dog penis I had in China. She almost gagged at the memory: the crowded bar, her hosts cheering her on over shots of rice liquor. God, the hangover.
Ruth handed Tania a roll, and Tania bit it hesitantly. “Ohhh. Yuck. Jalapeño Wasabi?”
“You don’t like it?”
Tania puffed, trying to cool her mouth. “I think… it’s opening… my third nostril.”
Ruth doubled over laughing. “Happy belated April, Fool’s!”
“Belated April Fool’s?” Tania sucked air. “It’s not good to skip your antipsychotics Ruth.”
“I distracted you from your problems, didn’t I?” Ruth handed Tania a can of Coke and a box of normal sushi. The fizzy cola dampened the flames on Tania’s tongue.
She ate a piece of Tofuna sashimi. “So, Ruth. What’s new in your world? Any luck with the Ethiopia documents I sent you?”