Chapter 49
When Louise Berker learned about Fowler’s recent meetings, she immediately booked the next available flight for an unscheduled confrontation with the billionaire. Aboard the plane, Berker’s mind drifted to her earliest killings—still vivid years later. After these, the Baron had given her some advice. As she drifted to sleep in her seat, Berker thought it over.
“Louise,” the Baron had said, “you are too valuable an asset to waste on a revenge killing. From now on, think like an administrator. Assassins are expendable.” But Berker had added a mental codicil to the Baron’s advice at the time, one that had served her well. Some tasks cannot be delegated.
——
The next evening, Knight Fowler looked up from his desk, startled to see Louise Berker standing there.
He tried not to show surprise. “My, you are a quiet one, Louise. What a pleasure to see you. As you can see, I am working late.” He glanced at his watch. “I did lose track of the time.” He paused, frowning slightly. “I didn’t think you had a key.”
“Please don’t get up on my account, Mr. Fowler. I was just stopping by before returning to Seattle. I wanted personally to tell you just how grateful I am for all you have done for the cause over the last years. It’s really a monumental accomplishment… a genuine legacy.”
Legacy?
Berker was sitting on the edge of Fowler’s desk. She reached across the space between them with the quick grace of a cobra. She stroked his cheek, leaving a thin red scratch.
“Ouch,” he said. “What did you just do, Louise?”
“Sorry. Must have been my ring. Knight, I just wanted you to know that your funding support and political contacts have been of great value to the movement,” she said.
“Have been?” he said, rubbing his cheek where she had scratched it.
“The recruitment of key executives, the political influence, that magnificent advertising campaign… When the history of this era is written, we will be sure…” Fowler was staring fixedly ahead, his eyes vacant. “We will be sure to include your accomplishments.”
Berker walked around the desk and stood at the man’s side. “You are losing cognitive function as I speak, Knight,” she whispered. “Did you dream for a second that you could stand up to Gaia herself?” She experimentally flicked a finger at Fowler’s ear. There was no reaction. “Don’t be alarmed. You’re just having a massive stroke. Of course, the stroke will be totally disabling. You see, I can’t afford to let you die.” She smiled. “No. That might cause an autopsy to be performed. This way, one of your physician friends will see you long after anything can be done to reverse the damage. By tomorrow morning, all your blood work will be completely consistent with a naturally occurring catastrophic cerebral ischemia.”
Berker did a little pirouette. “You get the picture.” She chuckled. “Or perhaps not.” She was smiling like a child with a new toy. “Oh, what a cute name by the way. ‘Panda Cascade.’ I wish we’d thought of that. You thought we didn’t know about the possibility of eventual human non-viability? It was our goal all along.”
Berker stopped at the doorway. “Of course, someone will have to control the assets of the Fowler Foundation. Now that you are so tragically disabled…” She placed her hands together and curtseyed. “Thank you, Mr. Fowler, for your foresight in naming my organization. Bye, bye.”
She gently closed the door and left by the freight elevator.
Chapter 50
Several months later, inside an auditorium in upstate New York, Fred Loud Owl was looking down on another graduating class. My new spiritual warriors, he thought.
Snowfeather was standing at the back of the room as her mentor began. She was slightly distracted because she would be meeting up with Roberto Kahn in a few minutes; and she had just heard his terrible news.
This was Fred Loud Owl’s “The Great Spirit-as-Raccoon” speech, a warning about Gaia as the latest ploy of the Trickster.
Loud Owl smiled. “One fine morning the Great Spirit came to me in the form of a raccoon. ‘I am the Great Spirit,’ she said. Human vocalization is a real challenge for a raccoon, so I had to listen very carefully.”
“‘Did you just say you are the Great Spirit?’ I asked.”
“‘Fred, you are kidding, right? When is the last time a raccoon talked to you?’” The students laughed.
“‘Okay, I just had to ask.’”
“‘Yes I am the Great Spirit,’ she said, ‘but you already know my voice. This is the last time I will repeat myself.’”
“‘Sorry,’ I said. ‘I am listening.’”
“‘I am the distributed voice of Creation. Your people used to see and hear my voice everywhere. Now they are deaf.’”
“‘I suppose many of my people are,’ I said, ‘along with most modern people. May I ask a question?’”
“‘You want to ask me about Gaia.’”
“‘Yes.’”
“‘There is no Gaia, separate and apart from nature. Gaia is a system. I, the Great Spirit am Person, Creator: the One with many voices but One Being. The apostles of Gaia are following a false deity. Witting or witless, they are the enemies of life and creation. They are my enemies. And yours.’”
Snowfeather quietly slipped out of the building.
A handful of the deciduous trees on campus had begun to show color, stray red leaves among the oaks, and a few glittering gold spots among the birches, but the grass was lush and the sun warm in her hair. Snowfeather winced in the brilliant light; then she saw Roberto Kahn near the sidewalk, waiting for her.
Roberto was standing alone, a solemn figure in black.
“Oh, Roberto,” Snowfeather said softly, “I got your message. I am so sorry.” She hugged him. There was nothing else to do. Roberto motioned to the park across the street. They walked for a moment while Snowfeather held her silence. It was Roberto’s story to tell.
“That call from Columbia stopped my life,” he said, staring ahead. “‘Your son, Isaac, is gravely ill.’ I could hardly hear the next words. Something about TB 6 and the short supply of antibiotics.” He stopped at the edge of the park. “I don’t even remember the flights. I got to his room at three in the morning.” Roberto choked, and began sobbing. “I was too late. Isaac never woke up…”
He pounded a fist against a large tree trunk. “How can a father say the Kaddish for his own son?” He looked away, his chest heaving silently.
Snowfeather put her hand on Roberto’s shoulder. She tried to say something but the words stopped in her throat. Roberto turned, tears burning down his lined face. “It’s the wrong order, you know. It’s the perverse sequence. Isaac was supposed to bury me.”
Snowfeather hugged him again for a long time, his face hanging over her shoulder, eyes closed, forehead creased in pain.
“Roberto. I should have been there.”
“Not practical,” Roberto said, gently breaking the hug.
——
Fred Owl was continuing his speech inside the auditorium. “‘Gaia is part of nature’ the raccoon’s voice said to me. ‘But no part of nature is my real voice.’”
“‘Excuse me,’ I said. ‘Aren’t you part of nature?’ The raccoon stood on her hind legs and looked directly at me. It was very disconcerting. ‘Loud Owl, now that was a silly question. Nature is part of me. And you know that raccoons don’t talk. Didn’t you recognize my voice?’ Suddenly, the raccoon’s animal-self was released; the intelligence left her eyes and she left to join her mate at the creek. Point taken.
“As you can imagine, I’ve thought about this encounter many times. I think that God, the Great Spirit in my old tradition, is vastly more comprehensive than any earth deity and far more subtle that we humans first thought. But this subtlety is coupled with persistence so powerful that the rise and fall of an entire universe is a bump on the trail. The idea of Gaia as deity is a fraud.
“Last semester, one of my students asked me if I could prove this.
“I said that this part is slow. We
must wait and watch. Proof is as subtle as the track of a deer over moraine.
“He challenged me: ‘You just wait and watch?’
“‘Yes,’ I said. ‘After all, waiting and watching is the game of the hunter.’”
——
Outside the auditorium, Roberto took a deep breath. “Actually, I came to see you for a different reason.” They sat down on the park bench. “In your last letter you said you are impatient.”
“I just want to help people. I don’t need to be a priest or a deacon or a shaman or anything like that.”
Roberto’s face suddenly changed. “I have something to show you.” He reached into his coat pocket. “Isaac wrote it for me when he first got sick. Here.” He fought back the tears again as he fished out the worn envelope. “It was in his room, after…” He handed it to Snowfeather and she regarded the wrinkled paper with the shaky handwriting.
Dad. I will miss our talks.
Is this the next Shoah?
Fight them for me.
I love you,
your proud son,
Isaac
“Oh, Roberto!” she said.
“He knew I’d find it.” Robert began crying again; then he fought his way back to control. “I am so raw, Snowfeather. I know this Gaia attack on all our medical defenses is the next holocaust. Unless we—”
“We? Do we have a plan?”
“The Human Conspiracy has a program.”
“Yes, Fred Loud Owl told me to wait…”
“The waiting time is up. They’ve just recruited me. Now they want you.”
“Me?”
“You. I’m to meet an underground Catholic Bishop in New York.”
“Sure you are.”
“I am. Bishop Gardiner evidently launders all the Conspiracy money from secret benefactors like John Owen.”
Snowfeather sighed. “What’s next?”
“We are to meet Fred this afternoon for a sendoff, if you are in. And then you are to come with me to meet Bishop Gardiner Saturday. We’re expected to make trouble. Are you in?”
Snowfeather smiled. “All the way.”
Chapter 51
In downtown Seattle, on an autumn afternoon…
Rex Longworthy and Louise Berker were sitting in the conference room of Longworthy’s old Seattle law firm.
“Thank you for meeting on such short notice, Rex. I know how busy you are,” Berker said. “I just couldn’t wait to tell you in person, Rex.” Berker seemed very pleased with herself.
“Some good news, I take it?”
Berker affected a frown. “No, no. Sorry, if I gave you that impression, Rex. It is about Knight Fowler.”
“Oh?” Dread poured through Longworthy like embalming fluid.
“Several weeks ago, it seems he suffered a stroke.”
“My God!”
“They have tried everything. But Knight Fowler is totally debilitated.”
“Where?”
“He is in a rehabilitation unit in Boston, a virtual vegetable. The event took place when he was working late in his Boston office, poor man. He has done so much for the cause.”
“Why was I not told?”
“We had to be sure, and we did not want to disrupt your work, of course. As it happens, I had just seen him. He seemed a bit agitated at the time. Some gibberish about the ‘Panda Effect.’ Poor fellow. I thought he was losing his mind. Probably a mini-stroke, a precursor event.”
Rex felt a cold band across his chest. “Were you with him?”
“When it happened? Oh, no. I had already left the office. Had a plane to catch. He collapsed right at his desk, apparently, sometime that night. He’s still in an irreversible coma. Fortunately…” she paused for effect, “…Knight executed a power of attorney.”
“Really.” Rex blanched.
“Yes. It seems that control of all his finances shifts to the Directorate.”
“The Directorate controls the entire Fowler fortune?”
“G-O-D wins. Naturally, there will be a court battle. But I expect we will win. You are an excellent lawyer, Rex. Don’t you agree?”
——
An hour later Berker met with Cynthia Thomas in the secure room. They were alone. “How did he take it?” Cynthia asked.
“Rex is a coward. We will make him heel. If not…everyone is disposable.”
“Eventually,” Cynthia said.
“Some much sooner.” Berker smiled. “And we fully control the Fowler fortune.”
Gloris laughed. “Tan, something has puzzled me for a long time. May I ask something…delicate?”
“Yes.”
“The Panda Effect. How fully do we expect it to succeed?”
“Totally.”
“Even to the native peoples? I mean, not just the technologically advanced?”
“All will die. Gaia claims all.” There was a long silence as Cynthia seemed to digest this information. She avoided Berker’s sharp gaze. “Surely,” Berker said harshly, “after all this time, you have not developed bourgeois sentimentality about the Indians?” Gloris seemed to flinch at the suggestion. Berker shook her head in amazement.
Cynthia held her ground. “They honored Gaia. It puzzles me why Gaia would…”
“Oh, Gloris,” Berker said, leaning cross the table. She held her arm and peered into her Sister’s eyes.
“Those aboriginal peoples have already died. Their remnants live in trailers and drink themselves to sleep.”
“I see,” Gloris said hesitantly.
Berker fiercely squeezed her subordinate’s arm. “Don’t be fooled by the romantic myths. The surviving aboriginals are museum people. Degraded predators. Nothing more. Just part of the infection.”
“Part of the infection? Nothing more?”
“And we are the cure.”
“We are the cure.”
“There,” Berker said, releasing her grip. “You had me worried for a moment.”
The next month in Oakland, California
Sun had just broken through the late morning Bay fog, and a damp wind stirred the American and Gaia Directorate flags that stood over the plaza. A crowd of ten thousand people had gathered in the Jack London dock area for the noon cable cutting ceremonies. The crowd slowly parted as the Commissioner arrived in a black Gaia sedan that slowly rolled to a stop below the raised speaker’s platform. Two body guards escorted Longworthy to the podium, where he joined San Francisco Mayor Chung. Because Longworthy, the Commissioner in Chief for Greater America also served as Chief Deputy of the Gaia Operations Directorate, he was often referred to as G-O-D’s Deputy by those politicians who craved the Directorate’s approval.
O’Shea Chung, Mayor of San Francisco, had arrived a half hour earlier by ferry, leaving her car discreetly parked at the terminal. Mayor G. B. Ortley of Berkeley had made a point of arriving five minutes late by bicycle. Both politicians craved the approval of the Directorate, because only the Directorate could grant exemptions to Commission orders. Ortley, a short, stocky woman in her fifties, waved delicately at the crowd as she ascended the steps. “Rex,” she gushed at Rex, “so good to see you again. So how is life as Deputy?”
“Ah, Mayor,” Longworthy said, taking her hand briefly, “so good to see you.” Then he continued to stare forward into the sea of upturned faces.
John Shanks, mayor of Oakland, was a large, athletic black man with closely cropped white hair. Shanks had deliberately arrived ten minutes late; he drove up in fully restored Cadillac. He made no attempt to hide his contempt for Rex Longworthy. He had also parked just below the speakers’ platform, his huge vehicle dwarfing the smaller Gaia Directorate sedan. Shanks gave a jaunty thumbs-up to the crowd, getting a few audible cheers. He turned and made a clenched fist salute, getting even more cheers. “Rex,” he said gruffly, as he took his seat, “let’s get this stupid-assed business over with.”
Commissioner Rex Longworthy had tried to rise above his last meeting with Berker by rising to address the crowd. “Today,” he began
, “we honor the beginning of a new era, a simpler, more organic period of our history. Today, we sever the fiber-optic cables that have chained the San Francisco Bay area to the barons of a decadent technology. Today, you liberate yourselves from the tyranny of the information net, from the unhealthy influence of—”
“Economic suicide,” Shanks growled.
“Toxic ideas and, we begin the courageous and historic—”
“Slide to oblivion,” Shanks added.
“Hush,” Ortley said, loud enough to be heard by the Commissioner.
“Path to a harmonious life of true peace.”
A total of twenty-seven data trunk-line cables were being cut more or less simultaneously by Commission Agents all over the greater Bay Area. For purposes of this ceremony, a major fiber op backbone had been lifted from the bay and pulled to the edge of the nearby ferry dock where it was suspended by a crane on a small barge. Most of the crowd watched on television monitors while a grizzled worker in fashionable denim with a neat beard and gray ponytail decorated with flowers wielded a bolt cutter. The reaction from the crowd was mixed. Then, leaning out over the water, the man snapped the cable in two and all the monitors went blank, and a troubled silence descended.
The ceremonial severing of the last fiber-optic cable that had once linked the Bay cities, the former University of California, the now outlawed enterprises of Silicon Valley with the remaining business and intellectual centers of the world had been accomplished. On the opposite side of San Francisco Bay, other cables were being clipped with considerably less ceremony. In ten minutes, the high speed web was down over all of northern California.
Mayor Ortley had lingered following the Deputy’s speech. “Rex,” she began. “You know that the community of Berkeley has been among the most progressive in the world in wholeheartedly supporting the Gaia Directorate’s goals.”
“And you are to be warmly congratulated,” Rex said.
She added: “We passed a complete ban on motorized transport anywhere within the city limits this month.”
“Yes,” Longworthy said impatiently, “I have briefed the Gaia Directorate fully. You remain an excellent example of cooperation. And we are particularly grateful for your leadership, Mayor.”
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