The Seasoning

by Dennis Ingram

  Jake leered at Grace and Joyce as they walked by, Joyce holding on to Grace with an iron grip.

  “In here, please,” Simon said to the women and children, opening the door to one of the food stores. Inside were sacks of potatoes and root vegetables. Strings of onions and garlic hung on one wall and a pile of unused sacks lay in a corner. The only light came from rows of light panels attached to the ceiling.

  In front of Grace, Veronika stopped as she reached Simon, leaning in close. “Sabine is at the clinic. Can you make sure she comes to no harm?”

  Simon nodded.

  Veronika fixed him with a steely gaze. “Promise me.”

  “I promise,” Simon said. “Not on my watch.”

  Veronika nodded and continued walking.

  “You two stand guard outside,” Simon said, looking at Christian and Raoul. “Tobias, with me.”

  After Simon and Tobias had gone, Jake shouted across to Christian and Raoul.

  “Hey! Wanna swap? You can watch these losers, and Roberto and I’ll watch the pussy!”

  Raoul snorted. “I think you two have seen too much of that already.”

  Christian just stood there, mouth downturned, glaring at them.

  Jake laughed. “Whatever. They’ll keep.”

  Edward frowned. “This shouldn’t have happened. We wanted the colonists to cooperate – that’s the first major objective of the plan.”

  Carla shook her head. “The plan, the plan! Something like this had to happen, Edward. They aren’t buying it.”

  Edward rubbed his chin. “I’m not convinced of that.”

  Carla scoffed at him. “The evidence is there if you look. While you stayed here polishing your plans yet again, I went out there,” she swept her arm toward the door, “and observed. I saw your precious team fraternizing with the colonists. Forming little alliances, developing shared interests, breaking down barriers. Another week, and they wouldn’t have listened to a word you said.”

  Edward leaned back in his chair and steepled his fingers, a slight half-smile on his face. “And what do you suggest now, Carla? Now we’ve apprehended our erstwhile allies, how shall we proceed, hmmm?”

  Carla’s face flushed at the insult layered beneath Edward’s words.

  “Do what we should have done from the start. This hodgepodge of passengers and professionals you’ve cobbled together is no way to fight a war. We need to organize these people into a militia, with a hierarchical command structure so we can control them.”

  Edward’s smile mocked her and Carla’s nostrils flared in response. He shook his head. “We have enough security people with us. Six men with guns is enough to control an unarmed population of this size. I have no intention of forcing civilians into a military structure – it wouldn’t work, and it’s unnecessary.”

  He stood up and walked toward the door.

  Carla’s lips parted a little. “Where are you going?

  Edward turned back. “To talk to David Miller. Perhaps we can make some sense of this disaster of yours.”

  Simon and Tobias escorted David into the office where Edward sat waiting behind a desk. He rose to greet David. “David, thank you for coming.”

  David glanced at one of Edward’s minders. “As if I had a choice.”

  Edward gave the slightest of nods. “An unfortunate circumstance I hope we can rectify. Please,” he gestured toward the chair in front of the desk, “do sit down. We have much to discuss.”

  He looked at Simon and Tobias. “Leave us.”

  Simon hesitated a moment then nodded once. “We’ll be outside.”

  The latch on the door clicked, leaving Edward and David alone.

  Blue eyes met gray as they sized each other up. Edward broke the silence first. “I apologize, David, for the unexpected and somewhat clumsy manner in which we’ve handled the situation with you and your families. It’s most unfortunate, and I hope you can all be freed as soon as possible.”

  David said nothing, but inclined his head in an unspoken question.

  Edward’s eyes were a little distant as he gathered his words.

  “There is something I want to share with you. Few people know this, not even Carla, my closest confidant.”

  David pressed his lips into a fine line. “And you want to tell me?”

  Edward nodded. “I can understand your skepticism, but it’s necessary. I need you to work with me. The plan is too important to let our differences block progress.”

  He leaned forward, eyes animated. “Let me start at the beginning. It may take a while, but you need to know the whole story. Only then will you understand why we must follow my plan.”

  David nodded. It would do his cause no harm to listen, but his focus remained on his family and friends. Freeing and protecting them were his only motivators at the moment.

  Edward leaned back and clasped his hands.

  “Tell me, David, what did you know of Earth’s governments?”

  David caught the past tense in his question, and the thought of how surreal this situation had become rushed over him in a wave. Here he sat being interviewed by a man who had taken control of his interstellar colony discussing the people of Earth in the past tense. He shook his head at the whole thing, a gesture that Edward took as a reply to his question.

  “A more honest answer than most would give,” he said. “The truth – and this may come as a surprise – is that Earth was controlled by a few extremely powerful families.”

  David’s eyes widened. Could he be serious?

  “I know what you’re thinking. Earth had several hundred countries, most of them governed by a form of democratic government. True, but the control structures of Earth’s nations had layers like an onion. Underneath the face of government most saw, other layers wielded the real power.”

  He paused, looking at David for a sign of understanding. At a small nod from David, he continued.

  “I am a wealthy man on Earth. In fact, I am the wealthiest man by a considerable margin. I tell you this not to boast, but so you understand there are no practical limits to my power and influence. With that wealth, one can buy anyone and do anything. I’m using the present tense because even though Earth lies in ruins, the assets I hold there make me wealthy by current standards too.”

  He looked into the distance again. “My grandfather was rich. Not on my scale, but successful and wealthy because of it. He founded the modern Harper dynasty. I say ‘modern’ because the Harper family had been rich before, just unable to stay that way.” He smiled. “Accumulating wealth is one thing, one discovers, but preserving that wealth over multiple generations is quite another. My grandfather did achieve this and my father took his wealth and built on it. My father didn’t realize his success would gain him access to an exclusive club – one that had no name, but owed its existence to the collective power of its members. A club whose entry criteria required enormous wealth, demonstrated ability to carry that wealth from one generation to another and a willingness to wield the power that wealth brought with it.”

  David found himself caught up in Edward’s story despite his skepticism. Something about his words rang true to him, although he couldn’t quite put his finger on it.

  “In truth, only two alternatives existed for people that reached the entry threshold,” Edward said. “Either you joined, or your wealth would be taken away from you. The club didn’t tolerate free agents. They controlled everything. Some had been there for centuries. Think about that for a moment. These organizations survived the worst man and nature could throw at them – wars, natural disasters, willful people and disruptive technologies. They knew how to wield power and how to use it to stay in control. Like the great trees of the forest, growing tall and strong, shielding the sunlight so no competitors could grow among them. But now and then, very rarely, they’d grant a place in the sun for someone worthy of inclusion. Someone like my father.”

  He paused to take a sip of water from a tumbler on the desk in front of him.

  “On
ce initiated into the club, my father’s responsibilities included producing and training the next generation of the family to continue the dynasty. That’s where my brother and I came into the picture.” He crooked a half-smile. “His version of the rites of passage included pitting my brother and I against each other to see who would be the worthiest of inheriting his family’s leadership. It turned out to be me, which of course has not endeared me to my brother. The whole process seems rather cold and calculating, even down to selecting my mother.”

  He looked at David with a wistful expression. “My father chose her with fitness to breed in mind, not for love. I’m sure she profited from it – I know she did. I am, I’m afraid, the product of a business transaction rather than a romance.”

  His eyes snapped back to the present. “I digress. The important point to note is that my family belongs to a collection of more or less, depending on circumstance, a hundred families. Together we controlled the course of history on Earth. But layers within layers existed even within this small group. As the newest members, the Harpers wielded the least power. The top five families held the real power, echoed by the twenty-five serving them. The rest of us occupied the third tier, serving the twenty-five. In time the system would allow for one hundred and twenty-five third-tier families – I’m sure you can see how the structure works. But they saw no need to complete the pattern quickly. Remember, these families have worked together for centuries. Even before we invented the technology for people to live longer and, with stasis, extend their influence for millennia, these people learned to play the long game, putting in place systems to prevent individuals subverting the process.”

  David had cocked his head to one side during this monolog.

  Edward smiled. “It sounds like a conspiracy theory, doesn’t it? I assure you, it isn’t. The clues are there to be found. For example, by the end of the twentieth century people railed against multinational corporations and their evil world-domination plans. To a limited extent, they guessed correctly. But they saw only that layer of the structure and thought the corporations tried to subvert political power. But the corporations formed only one strand of the families’ power structure, one that worked hand in glove with their control of the political arm. But without knowing of the families, one couldn’t make the connection.”

  David still looked unconvinced. “I can imagine some countries being controlled like that. I find it impossible to believe it of a superpower like the United States. How could it be?”

  Edward smiled. “It would be fair to say the United States had a special responsibility. We needed someone to play the role of policeman, a nation that other nations would fear. Does that sound familiar? As to controlling the United States, think about your political system for a moment. Do you really think American politicians couldn’t be manipulated?”

  David pressed his lips together and looked away.

  “Exactly. American politicians are among the easiest to buy. As for the people – think about the American way of life. You are born, go to school for fifteen years and learn how to conform to your society’s rules. You leave school, get a job and take on debt to buy a house and a car and the other things one is expected to have. Then you work to support that debt, leaving you too busy to wonder if life could be different. Does that sound familiar too?”

  Edward shook his head. “It’s always been this way. Bread and circuses for the masses – the Romans knew this. Although you would have called them by different names – fast food, television, and football. Oh, and let’s not forget the always-popular opiate of the masses, religion. Of all the political tools, religion is one of the most effective. You’d be surprised what people will do in the name of their God and just how easily one can influence the leaders of these religions. In fact, which tool do you think families liked most of all for starting a war?”

  David remained silent.

  Edward sat back and steepled his fingers. “And so to you, David. Have you ever wondered just why you ended up in Africa fighting a war against nations the United States had little real interest in? Or did you perhaps wonder why the United States seemed to have a penchant for involving itself in these confrontations? I’m sure you’re getting the picture by now.”

  “You can’t be serious.”

  Edward nodded. “Oh, but I am. We controlled everything, David. But believe you me, controlling billions of fractious humans is never easy, even with those tools I’ve just described. It required a certain ruthlessness, including a willingness to start wars when necessary.”

  David’s eyes turned cold and flinty. “Do you have any idea of the suffering that war caused? Are you telling me this mysterious club of families would sit back and watch millions of people die just so they could stay in control?”

  Edward watched him with hooded eyes. “Believe it. You know they would, and they did. You know human nature, what people will do to acquire and keep power. At their level, people like you and I are just assets to be manipulated.”

  “Don’t include me in your world,” David said. “I’m nothing like you. You’re one of them, if they really exist. I’m not.”

  “Oh, they exist,” Edward replied. “If life has survived on Earth, I’m sure they’re there now. You and I are not so different. If you had my advantages, you might sit on this side of the desk.”

  “I doubt that very much.”

  “We’ll see – because now we are getting to the interesting part. The part where you have a choice.”

  David tilted his head to one side, prompting Edward to continue.

  “My father performed his role, content to be one of the third-tier dynasties. But not me. Once I acquired control of his businesses, I executed a plan I had been working on ever since I discovered how things really worked on Earth. I accumulated power and built my businesses. I invested enormous sums into research and development, and I formed a secret political organization that had no other purpose than to study the families. It had a single objective: to take control.”

  David’s eyes widened. Edward’s ambition could only be described as breathtaking.

  “Yes, David,” Edward said. “I really did plot to take over the world.” He smiled with genuine amusement for a moment.

  “At the start, I focused on building strength. I examined the weaknesses of the family that controlled ours and when the right time came, took over their operations. I won’t go into details of how I achieved that, but let’s just say it involved removing them suddenly, root and branch. The other families panicked. I’d caused an unprecedented event – no second-tier family had ever lost control before.”

  He tapped two fingers for a moment, remembering. “A dicey situation there for a while. They feared me, afraid for the first time any of them could remember. If I could take one of them, why not another? Even the first five became uneasy. But I convinced them I had done them a favor, culling weakness from the herd. I reassured the other second-tier families, reminding them of their strength.”

  David felt his curiosity being aroused, despite his situation. If nothing else, no one could accuse Edward Harper of not being a good storyteller.

  “And they believed you?”

  Edward looked at David, holding eye contact for a moment. A slow smile formed at the corners of his mouth, spreading to his eyes. David realized Edward must be telling his story for the first time, and was glad to have someone to tell it to at last.

  “Deep down, I doubt it. But do you know one curious aspect of human behavior?”

  David shook his head. “Tell me.”

  “Sometimes, even powerful people who ought to know better will accept a lie if it fits a truth they want to hear. They wanted to believe they had the strength to be safe.”

  He paused for a moment, then continued, a gleam in his eye. “I was thirty-eight years old. The youngest family head by a considerable margin and the first to displace another family in almost two centuries. The only one to ever supplant a second-tier family. Think about that – the fir
st major upheaval in the world of the families since the nineteenth century. It’s the same for any known human political organization – over time, they become complacent and present opportunities for newcomers with new thinking to succeed.” He leaned forward. “All empires fall, David. I sought to bring down the five families at the heart of this web of power. That’s what caught the second-tier family I removed by surprise, you see. If I’d focused only on them, it could have been a long and bitter fight, with a low chance of success if the other families rallied around. Instead, I executed my plan quickly and encountered little resistance. I focused on the endgame and that second-tier family became a step on the way rather than the destination. I couldn’t afford that step to be anything other than effortless. A good plan made it so.”

  “Then you went after the first five?” David asked.

  Edward nodded. “I planned to. You must understand the difficulty of achieving this. I’d been gathering intelligence and planning my attack for seven years. I forecast I’d need two more years to put everything in place. In the meantime, Harper Industries underwent a massive expansion, to the extent that my family became twice the size of any of the other second-tier families. I could have gone further, but by then I’d already attracted too much attention due to the delicate balance of power within the family network. No family could become too large without attracting unwanted attention from the others. So I had to keep my perceived influence at a level that caused none of the others to react out of fear.”

  “What happened next?”

  Edward spread his hands. “Global nuclear war.”

  “That wasn’t you?”

  Edward’s eyes tightened for a moment, and David saw a flash of anger there.

  “No. Whatever else you may think of me, David, I’m not capable of such an atrocity.”

  “Who then?”

  Edward sighed. “It’s impossible to control everyone. On a planet of ten billion, there is always a feral element, people who can’t be controlled. The families ruled no one, they worked behind the scenes, pulling strings and painting history with broad brushes. Unknown to us, certain key military figures working for the major nuclear powers came up with a way to justify using their nuclear weapons. There’d been treaties – many of them over the years – aimed at reducing their stockpiles of bombs. The people who controlled them felt threatened and saw an opportunity to ‘save the world’ by removing the swarms of people destroying the planet, while keeping control of their weapons. So they hatched a plan to blanket the planet with bombs, except of course their own parts of it, with the aim of removing excess people and triggering a nuclear winter. They thought this would buy them ten years to solve global warming, which threatened all of us.”