He did have misgivings about traveling between the welcoming spots but was sure they'd be in a secure vehicle equipped with defensive armament. "Which I hope we never have to use," he thought. The prospect of an extended trip with Maeve was exciting enough by itself and the idea that they'd be embarked on a mutual project made it more so. He thought of it as a wedding trip on which they would demonstrate to each other their individual abilities and their level of cooperativeness.
He moved his pallet so the bowl of the sky was fully visible and lay on his back looking upward. At his altitude the stars glittered sharply and the moon, just over the horizon, loomed large. Staring overhead he felt a kinship with the earliest humans to populate these mountains who looked at the same stars and moon in wonder and awe. He knew he felt less wonder but equal amounts of awe.
I can't wait to get started, he thought before falling asleep.
Chapter Thirty-Four
Helene was sitting up in bed blinking her way through the list of news stories projected on the wall from her contact lens computer while Harrison finished his ablutions.
"I don't know how you can be optimistic about people. The news is all about war, accidents that kill and maim people, murder, corruption, and child abuse. We're a race of shits and we'll kill ourselves off eventually. And good riddance."
"You know the old saying, 'If it bleeds it leads?' The news sensationalizes everything, otherwise it's not news, right?"
"They don't have to sensationalize. Did you see the story about the war over Tierra del Fuego? Nobody lives there anymore but the two armies are indiscriminately killing each other."
"Yes, but..."
"And the extremists who blew up part of the cube in Ankara? How many people died there? You'd think they would have settled some of these issues after five hundred years."
"Yes, but..."
"And I'm sick of the child abuse stories. Just sick of them."
Harrison took a deep breath and waited for Helene to calm down a bit. "The thing is," he said, "historically speaking we're living in the most peaceful era ever. We can't hope to totally eliminate conflict, murder, abuse and criminal behavior, but most people in the world are living mostly normal lives, at least what passes for normal nowadays. Food production is stable and education is widespread globally and there are fewer disgruntled groups with power than ever."
"Not so few that wholesale destruction doesn't keep happening," said Helene in a calmer voice.
"No, not as few as that, but by comparison to even a hundred years ago far fewer than it used to be."
"It can always get worse."
"Yes it can, and it probably will one day, and Gaia could provide some balance when it does."
"I think you could be right," she said. "The Pope is still around after twenty-two hundred years, why shouldn't the High Priestess be?"
"Exactly. All we need is a salesman like Paul of Tarsus and the Ten or so Commandments of Gaia."
"Do we have those?"
"Not in official form yet," said Harrison. "That's one of the things Moms wants me to help with.
"Oh, great."
Helene reached archly across the bed to retrieve the love potion from the bedside table and to show her body provocatively to Harrison.
"Want some?" she asked, holding out the bottle.
"I certainly do," said Harrison, ignoring the potion and reaching for her.
Afterward they lay back and entwined their legs and held hands. "I am so grateful for this happening to us," said Harrison. "I was really starting to get lonely and you're better as a lover and companion than I even knew to wish for."
"Mmm," said Helene, snuggling closer.
"What do you think the first commandment ought to be?" she asked.
Harrison chuckled. "I wax romantic and poetic and you turn practical. Is that how it's going to be?"
"Probably. Do you object?"
"No, no. No objections. I have no objections to anything about you."
"Good. So what do you think the first commandment ought to be?"
"Thou shalt love thy Helene with all thy soul and all thy might."
Helene chuckled. "I guess that will do," she said and pulled him down over her.
Meanwhile Lucas was preparing for his possible trip into the wildlands by reading everything he could find on them. There were very few first hand accounts, which made him suspicious, and many accounts which were obviously cribbed from only a few primary sources. The third time he read the phrase "completely divorced from the modern world" he tossed the story aside as being bogus. There were a couple of carefully worded stories about the Buffalo Nomads, a "tribe" made up of disparate and unrelated individuals who had taken up an ancient way of life following the buffalo herd and living off them.
There were descriptions of their buffalo hide dwellings, the horses they used for transport and drayage and their care to educate their children electronically. Tucked into the last paragraph of the account was the phrase "many of their children choose to adopt urban life as soon as they reach adulthood." Not a great advertisement for that way of life.
He also found a recent article titled "Life Among The Swamp Folk" which recounted a month spent with an extended family in the Mississippi delta. A series of hurricanes and floods had finally proved too much for the levees that once protected New Orleans and all the ground had been abandoned. The city existed as a vestige of itself which had retreated to high ground and the river had reclaimed its natural home and rhythm.
The Swamp Folk lived on houseboats deep in the marshes and got around in canoes. They lived by fishing and hunting and once a month brought hides and meat and shellfish to the city to sell. With their earnings they bought supplies and partied for a weekend before returning home.
"What about mosquitoes?" thought Lucas. "If we get invited to visit them we have to bring repellant."
He knew there were tiny groups of people scattered throughout the wildlands but could find little about who or where they were. "It will be the new discovery of America," he thought. "Maeve and I among the savages." The idea made him smile.
In thinking through the preparations he would have to make Lucas decided to hack his ex-employer's administration site to check on the state of his credit balance. To his surprise he saw it was still open and that his regular payroll deposits continued to be made. This both startled and perplexed him.
Why would they keep paying me? he wondered. Okay, one or two deposits, but this looks like there's been no change in my status.
This development furrowed his brow and raised his suspicions again. Am I a pawn? Am I being used? If so, whose pawn am I?
He lay staring at the night sky searching for a clue to his dilemma until he fell asleep.
Chapter Thirty-Five
Moms spent the morning with her Director of Public Relations, a stunningly beautiful woman of Chinese descent named Mai Ling. They had combed through the requests for personal appearances and media interviews trying to order them so that she could accommodate as many as possible. They also reviewed responses to the social media outreach they conducted and sought to sharpen their message.
Mai Ling was highly intelligent, earned a doctorate by the age of twenty-four and was acutely self aware. She had learned how to use her beauty, how to tone it down when appropriate and how to ramp it up when necessary. Usually she was able to get what she wanted merely by sitting quietly after making a request while the reactions to her appearance set in. Like the possession of wealth, the possession of beauty made most people want to be helpful, to win her approval and perhaps be favored with a smile.
Even as a child she was aware that people treated her differently than her peers but it wasn't until she began to blossom as a young woman that the full force of her power was revealed. Her mother, a great beauty herself and sophisticated in the ways of the world, made sure that Mai was accompanied by a bodyguard most of the time and personally instructed her daughter in deportment. At college Mai honed her abilities by p
racticing on fellow students, TA's and the occasional professor.
Moms felt a little guilty about using her colleague's beauty as shamelessly as she did but Mai Ling continued to assure her that she didn't mind at all.
"What good is having a super power if I can't use it in the service of something that's so important to me?" she asked.
Moms nodded and acquiesced.
Afterward she opened her notes to work on "The Commandments of Gaia." She felt that it was of vital importance to get them right. If, as she hoped, they would become tenets of action for billions of people they would have to be simple, direct, understandable to all and carry the message powerfully.
On the screen before her she read, "The Commandments of Gaia: Gaia is the Mother and Nurturer of us all. Treat her as you would your own mother."
She read that over and frowned. Was it pithy enough? Did it command the love of Gaia that she meant it to? Was there too much ambiguity in the dictum to "treat her as you would your own mother?" After all, not everyone had good relations with their own mothers.
"I'm going to need help with this," she thought and sent a missive to Harrison detailing her desires. "It needs to be short, but not curt, pithy but not treacly and couched in the form of a directive. Try to have some ideas when you get here."
A strange beep from her communicator startled Moms and crinkled her brow in an effort to remember its meaning. When it dawned on her she flicked a switch that locked her doors and then answered the incoming call. The image on the screen before her was a well known one.
"Hello, Roger. This is a surprise."
"Hello Miriam. How are you?"
"You didn't call to check on the state of my health, did you?"
"Not entirely, no, but I am interested and it's only polite to ask before we get down to business."
"I'm fine. What do you want?"
"I would like some of your operatives to visit a couple of sites for me and turn in a report on the people living there. The sites are..."
"Never mind what the sites are, what makes you think I'll send any operatives to do anything you want?"
"Just as a favor."
"Roger, what are you trying to get at?"
"Well, there's the business of Lucas."
"What about Lucas?"
"I could have him picked up and arrested and sent away for a long time and comb through your whole operation to see what we could find. After all, you're concealing a fugitive."
Moms leaned back in her chair and stared at the screen. Her mind was testing various hypotheses in an effort to understand Roger's motivation but couldn't come up with a satisfactory explanation. She finally decided to go on the offense as a way of discovering what he wanted.
"I don't think you'll do that, Roger. For five years you've gleaned a great deal of useful information from my operation and I know you want to continue that relationship. Gaia needs to be truly free of government interference for our reputation as a neutral participant to remain intact and for you to continue to be privy to some of the intelligence we gather."
"Yes, but.."
"I'm not done," Moms interjected, coldly. "Another reason you won't do anything is this: you don't want a highly trained operative to be set loose outside the country knowing what he does about your spy shop and able to offer that knowledge on the open market. And believe me Roger, Lucas will be out of your clutches long before you can reach for him."
"Don't get upset, I just wanted to..."
"Yes?"
"To ask you something about him."
"Who?"
"Lucas."
"What?"
It was Roger's turn to go silent and thoughtful. Lucas' boss, Moms long ago lover, was caught between his desire for personal information and his position as government official. At last he cleared his throat and said, "Who is Lucas' father?"
"My son Robert."
"And who is Robert's father?"
"Ahh, I see." Moms' face cleared with the answer to her questions about motivation. "You don't believe the explanation of Robert's adoption. Who do you think Robert's father is?"
"You know who I think it is. When you left me you were out of sight for a year. When you showed up again you had a baby boy with you. Naturally I've always thought I'm his father."
"And therefore Lucas' grandfather," said Moms.
"Yes."
"No. You are not the father." Moms fiddled at her keyboard. "You've got Lucas' DNA on file. Compare it with your own. You'll find he is not related to you but you can have the role of Fairy Godfather if you like and make sure that nothing happens to him."
Roger was visibly nonplussed. "I was sure..."
"And that's why you've been harassing us with drones and agents?'
"Well..."
"Very unprofessional, Roger."
"You're sure I'm not Robert's father?"
"Quite sure."
"Then I'll apologize and go on about my business, sadder but wiser."
"Not so fast. It's a mistake to try and blackmail or bully me, Roger. I thought you knew that. I, however, am perfectly capable of blackmailing you."
"With what?"
"With the twenty years of compromising information I have on you including your organization's ongoing spying on Congress, particularly on the Chairman of the Appropriations Committee."
Roger blanched slightly, visible through the screen. "What do you want?"
"I want to be left alone. I want Lucas working for me but still on your payroll. I want to maintain Gaia's position as an advocate for the environment without interference from the government. And I will add that you could have been Robert's father, I wanted you to be, but I couldn't conceive. No fault of yours."
Roger's face had softened with the kindness implied in Moms' words. "Okay. We'll go back to before. Sorry about being so heavy handed but it meant a lot to me. I really wanted the connection."
"I'm sorry as well, but there's no going back to before and we both know it. You moved on me and I countered and I won and neither of us can forget it. Especially you."
Roger looked rueful. "I got it. Well, goodbye and good luck."
The connection was broken and Moms unlocked her doors and sat back to think over what had just happened. Roger had always been a reliable ally but now she thought she'd have to pay attention to making her threat real. I'll have to put Sam on this, she thought, or maybe, Lucas. She smiled at the idea.
Harrison got the message about the Commandments of Gaia and showed it to Helene.
"Where will you begin?" she asked.
"I'm not sure," he said. "The Ten Commandments are a template but they haven't produced the desired results, have they?"
"It sounds as though Moms expects this civilization to collapse sometime," mused Helene.
"She has good reason, given the history of humanity."
"Do you?"
"Do I what?"
"Expect the civilization to collapse?"
Harrison leaned back in his chair, visibly assuming a professorial attitude and Helene smiled at the image he presented. "A scholar through and through," she thought.
"Actually, I don't."
The look on his face revealed a desire to elaborate and Helene was in a mood to encourage him. He thought of his work as important, at least for those who would follow him into academia, and she wanted to share his thoughts. Also, as a bonus, whenever she let him expound his mood lifted and in the end he became playful and sexy.
Small price to pay for good loving, she thought and so said, "Really?"
"Really," he said. "I truly believe our species has crossed an important boundary with the development of the scientific method, a boundary that only allows one way passage."
Helene fixed drinks for them and settled comfortably into an armchair. "How so?" she prodded.
"The scientific method is too powerful. The answers it gives are answers that work in the real world, answers that don't depend on belief systems. Science is at the root of everything we do now,
how we live our lives, the length and quality of the lives we lead, how we make our livings, grow our food, travel, entertainment, everything."
"Including war."
"Certainly, but war, while terrible, can't kill us all, and the survivors will continue a culture based on science. You know about the Dark Ages, don't you? Burn down one library and plunge the world into lives run by superstition. I don't think that can happen anymore. Knowledge is stored in too many places and accessible to too many people for the entire world to ever lose it."
"That sounds optimistic."
"I guess it is, sort of. I believe it but I also believe there's no end to depravity in our species and that it can always come to the fore. It's just going to be very hard to export local depravity around the world."
"So why do you think we need Gaia?"
"Because of the possibilities of depravity, and the eventual probability of cataclysm."
"Like an asteroid."
"Yes, or a microbe. Humans are currently conducting a vast experiment using humans as subjects. All over the world there are labs working with DNA and trying to produce "ideal" human beings. Longer lives, smarter, more youthful longer, resistant to disease. All these avenues are being followed and the consequences are yet to be determined."
"But aren't those good goals?"
"Perhaps. We'll see, or more properly our great grandchildren will see. Self directed evolution is a new thing under the sun. How it will come out is still speculation."
"And you think Gaia is an answer?"
"I think Gaia is insurance. We can only survive as long as our environment supports us."
"What about the settlers on Mars?"
"They live underground and if new settlers didn't keep emigrating they'll die out. This is humanity's home. We are inextricably enmeshed in it. We need the air and the water and the living beings that nourish us. No amount of terra-forming will ever replace the Earth."
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