It was hot in Washington, and muggy, as usual. Why did the air conditioning have to break down today, of all days?
It did not matter. With a last deep breath—and a brief, hacking cough—Max nodded to the Secret Service agent.
The agent opened the door, and Max stepped swiftly through the crowded rows and rows of seats. He paused as he came to the podium, to look once more at the Presidential Seal affixed to the lectern. Will I ever get over the awe of looking at these symbols of power? he wondered. He smiled, grimly. No: if I haven't gotten over them yet, I never will. Determination renewed, he climbed the two short steps and turned to survey his audience.
One of the camera crews was waving frantically to tell him to wait. He nodded to them. His eye wandered over his prepared notes. They were pointless, of course. He had spent the night dreaming of the words he would say today; over and over they haunted him. He shuffled the papers, putting them aside on the lectern, except for one. The important one.
He gazed at it, and was pleased that his hand held it steadily. I must convey a sense of importance and destiny as no man before, he realized again. For the message I give must ring in their ears for decades.
It will be, he realized again, my last, my greatest, act—of betrayal.
He made no excuses for it in his own mind; he would betray millions of people today, as he had already betrayed everyone whose life had ever come too close to his. His wife, his son, his mother, his father, his best friend, his only hero—he had betrayed them all, sooner or later. They were gone now except, perhaps, for their ghosts.
Yes, he could feel their ghosts there now, looking over his shoulder at the paper, watching him watch the crowd…
* * * * *
"You've got to be crazy to keep on going back to school every year," Max's younger cousin said. She seemed quite childlike to Max; Max, after all, was already 25.
Max shrugged, lying on the couch, deep in the middle of a well-worn spy novel. "There are worse things in the world than going to grad school."
"Oh yeah?"
"Sure. Getting a job, for example."
The squeaking from his father's room subsided. A loud "Whew" sounded from the same direction.
"He's done with his exercise bicycle," Janet mumbled ominously.
The sound of an elephant stampede thundered down the hall and broke into the living room. "I just went three miles farther than ever before," Max's father bellowed triumphantly.
"Um-hm," Max replied.
Max caught a glimpse of a falling object, and he heard a loud thump as his father slipped suddenly and fell down. Max looked up from his book with a slight smirk. "You all right?"
His father was spread-eagled on the floor, gasping, sputtering, and gulping air. His eyes bulged.
"Dad?" It took Max and Janet several seconds to realize that something was really wrong. Max reacted first. "Dad!" He jumped to his father's side. Janet screamed.
Max knelt over his father. Still he gasped for air, yet his face was turning blue at the same time. "What's wrong?"
His father didn't respond.
Janet yelled again. "What's wrong?"
Max didn't look up. "Call the ambulance."
The gasping was dying down. Max brought his hands up, moved them toward his father's chest; he had had CPR training two years before, he had learned what to do.
But that CPR had been two years ago. He had forgotten what to do. His hands were shaking; he couldn't believe this was really happening; his blood was pounding in his head, screaming Do something! Do something!
He put his hands on his father's chest—but he couldn't remember what to do.
The bluish tinge in his father's face deepened, turning grayish.
He died as Max knelt there, trying to remember how to save his life.
A few days later, an old friend called him; an old friend who was now a psychologist.
"…It's really not too surprising that I couldn't remember what to do," Max explained. "I just didn't expect it, for one thing, right out of the blue like that. And CPR training only lasts a year—you've got to take a refresher every year to stay qualified."
"But still you blame yourself." Joe was probably a terrific psychologist, Max realized. He was so calm and steady as he directed the therapy: that was what Joe had called to give him, though Max was sure Joe would never admit it.
Max considered the matter for a moment: did he blame himself for his father's death? His first instinct was to just deny any guilt feelings because he didn't believe in feeling guilty. But he realized that he wouldn't be kidding anybody, not even himself. "Yes, I blame myself."
"But surely you see that there's no reason to blame yourself."
"You're right, Joe. But…" and his voice started to tremble. "Joe, I was so close. I almost could have saved his life." He shrugged, though Joe could not see. "Don't worry, Joe. I'm not suicidal or obsessed by it. I'm just guilt-ridden. I probably always will be."
* * * * *
Yes, the ghosts were there, looking over his shoulder at the millions and billions of lives that Max held in the paper in his hands. Max was so close to saving their lives. But he didn't dare.
The cameraman nodded to him.
Dry as his throat had been, now it was drier still. He smiled nevertheless. Dry throat? Tough. This speech is gonna get a lot harder before it gets easier. He breathed deeply.
"People of America," his voice rang with pride. "People of the World," he said more softly. Max hadn't been sure whether he should include them or not, but finally he decided he had to. After all, they listened today, too; they knew his decision had profound consequences for them as well as for America.
It was so important, that today even Tina would be watching. Even Steve.
* * * * *
It was dry, sunny, and not too hot for once, standing on the edge of the lake. No doubt the coolness was caused by the breeze that now blew sand in his face. Max turned away from the glare and the sand. Steve strolled toward him, holding hands with a skinny girl in white shorts and a red halter. Steve waved at him; Max waved back.
Steve released her hand. "Tina, this is the guy who's been my roommate for the last six years, Maxwell Palmer. Max, this is Tina, the most beautiful woman in the world."
Max shook her hand. Close up, she no longer looked skinny, and her eyes were bright emerald green. Max was mesmerized. "The most beautiful girl in the world," he muttered. "I can well believe it," he said more clearly, with a touch of envy.
Tina frowned, smiled, blushed, and shook her head. "Not hardly. You're both crazy."
"Yeah," Steve said, "that's one of our problems. We're too much alike." Steve's eyes met Max's, and they shared a silent chuckle. "Where's Holly?" he asked Max.
Max sighed. "I dunno. Looks like she stood me up again." It hurt, inside, but it wasn't the first time. Max could stand it.
"Oh, well." Steve shook his head. "Crud. Another one of my problems is that I can't remember a damn thing. Lunch is still in the car." He trotted back the way they'd come. "Be back in a flash," he yelled.
Max looked over at Tina, looked down at his feet, looked at Tina again. "Steve's a great guy."
"Yeah." After a long pause, Tina said, "So you're the other half of the grad student team that's gonna change the world."
Max laughed. "At least we're gonna try. You can't change it if you don't make the attempt, can you?"
Tina shrugged. "I guess not." For the first time, they looked each other in the eye. Both looked away.
Tina brushed back her hair nervously; it fell limply around her shoulders. "What's your family constellation?"
"My what?" Max asked.
"Your family constellation. I just read a book about that. You know, are you the oldest, youngest, or middle child in your family, things like that."
"Oh. Am I oldest or youngest? The answer is yes." So much for being infatuated with Steve's new girl friend. She was beautiful, but if she believed in dumb stuff like that…It was just as well that she wasn't too perfect. Steve's and Max's tastes in women ran too close together most of the time, anyway. "I am the oldest, and the youngest, and the middle."
"What?" She frowned, not understanding the joke. "Oh—you're an only child. That's a shame. You'll have a lot of trouble when you get married, then."
Max snorted.
"No, it's true."
"Even the claims like that that are true are only statistically true, though. I'll bet they say eldest children shouldn't marry each other, right?"
"Right. They'll both try to dominate the marriage."
"Aha. But my mother and father were both eldest children, and their marriage worked perfectly."
"I see." She'd caught the use of the past tense, but misinterpreted it. "Worked perfectly?"
Max looked away. "They died."
"Oh. I'm sorry." She blushed, then hurried on. "Goodness. An only child reared by two eldest children. Tell me, do you feel, uh, parental feelings a lot? A need to help people?" Max looked puzzled, and Tina continued. "You grew up as the focus of a lot of intense caring, right?"
Max nodded. "I suppose so." He gave a short, loud laugh. "Actually, it was even worse than that. My father's father ran out when Dad was 17, so Dad had been surrogate father for his brothers before getting married. And my mother's mother died when Mom was 18, so Mom was surrogate mother for her sister. I suppose I'm the quintessence of Parenthood, the distillation of a super-mother and a super-father."
"Yes." Tina raised her eyebrow. "If you're really the quintessence of Parenthood, then who is your Child?"
Max thought about it, and was disturbed to see the whole silly constellation business making sense. His voice held just a hint of awe. He quoted from a sign in his office, " 'The human race is a child, who must be protected until he is old enough not to hurt himself.' "
"What?"
"That's a sign on my office wall. It's one of my pet phrases, when I'm talking about war, and bombs, and starvation, and such. I've always been at least half-serious when I said it, too. I guess Mankind is my child."
"I see." Her words held deep understanding. At least Tina seemed to be trying to suggest that they held deep understanding.
Their eyes met, and held.
"Hey, would one of you statues help me with this stuff?" Steve Felman yelled across the sand.
* * * * *
"As you know, we are here to discuss life—and death." Max frowned slightly; his timing was a bit off in the delivery. Jason would have done it better. "As you know, our researchers have made a breakthrough in the integration of microprocessor technology and microbiology. A breakthrough that would permit us to cure all disease—not only the common cold, but cancer also—not only the common cancers, but the mutant II cancers as well." He looked confidently across the reporters and congressmen in his audience.
"No one ever need die of disease again." He knew it was true, with a certainty that few presidents ever feel. He knew it was true despite the screams of hoax by some grant-hungry researchers.
The cure was sure and clean. Maxwell Palmer knew it was good. Maxwell Palmer, after all, had conceived it.
* * * * *
Max tossed himself into the beanbag chair. "Barkeep, I need another drink." He waved his arm in the air at Steve Felman, his new roommate. Well, relatively new; they'd been sharing an apartment for two months now, and it was the best friendship Max had ever had, better than he'd ever thought possible. They could sense each other's mood without a word; sometimes Steve would come into the room while Max was stretched on the floor in deep depression, and put on an old record—and it was exactly the one song that Max needed to hear to shake the sorrow. Could he ever find a woman who understood his needs so perfectly? He suspected not.
Steve chuckled. "So you need another drink, huh? Man, those robotics majors are real lushes."
"Ha! A biochemistry major should talk about lush. Who is it that consumes the most pure alcohol in the world? The biochemists. Not the robots, buster."
"Of course. Robots don't consume mass alcohol. Robots, like robotics majors, are much too prissy and sterile for that kind of thing."
"Ha! At least robots work for a living. What do biochemistry majors do? Collect unemployment and Social Security." Max coughed.
"Sounds to me like you need a biochem major right now, joker, to cure your flu."
"Ha! You guys can't even cure the common cold. What can we expect from you with real diseases?"
"Maybe I can't cure the common cold yet. But no robot ever will."
"Hold on there." Max thought about it for a minute. "You know, I'll bet we could use robots to cure the cold."
"Oh no. You've already had too much to drink."
"Wait a minute." Max sat up in the beanbag, not too successfully. "I can see it now: a robot the size of a germ, gobbling up viruses as fast as it can move."
"Great idea. Did you bring a few robots like that home with you?" Steve walked away from the bar, jumped headlong onto the couch.
"I'm serious."
Steve believed him. He rubbed his nose, staring at the ceiling. "How's the robot gonna recognize the viruses? You might, one of these centuries, make a robot the size of a germ, but where are you gonna put the brain power inside it to make it smart enough to recognize invaders?"
"We could datalink them to a big computer on the outside, let the number-cruncher do the thinking."
"I see. Okay, then, how're you gonna make enough of these things to make a difference? I mean, you're gonna have to have enough in your bloodstream so that you can destroy the viruses faster than they can reproduce, unless you're gonna make the robots reproduce too."
Max frowned. "That is a problem, I guess. You can't really make a robot reproduce inside your body. Not enough silicon."
"Among other things."
Max shrugged. "So, it'll be expensive." Steve looked at him with big, doubtful eyes. "Okay, it'll be very expensive. That's no sweat here in America, right? And we're the only ones likely to develop a robot that's that tiny anyway, anytime this century."
Steve rolled over and sat up. "Finally, smarty, even if your computer had the brains to figure out which were the good cells and which were bad, where would it get the education?"
Max snapped his fingers. "No sweat, man. That's where you come in. You biochem types teach it what it needs to know."
"I see. So there's a use for us biochem types after all." Steve mellowed at that admission. "Hmmmm. And haaaa. You know, that's not such a bad half-baked idea."
Max stood up; he was starting to get excited about the whole thing. "You know, I'll bet we could do it. The two of us." As he thought about it, his confidence grew. "They couldn't stop us!"
Steve stood up too. "You might be right. We could do this after we get our bachelor's degrees, when we go to grad school. It could be sort of a combined dissertation for robotics and biochemistry." He nodded his head. "I like it. You know, we could cure more than just the common cold."
"That's right. Nobody'd ever have to get sick again. From anything."
Steve walked over to the bar. "We might even be able to cure old age—I don't know how, maybe by having the robots clean up the free radicals or something. It might be worth investigating, anyway."
Max coughed again. "Right. After we cure the common cold."
Steve poured two short glasses of Glen Livet. "Are we gonna do this half-baked thing?"
"Yes."
"Swear to it?"
"Yes."
They solemnly shook hands on the pact. "A toast, then," Steve said, taking a glass.
Max raised the other glass. "To our dissertation!"
"To our dissertation!"
* * * * *
"What you may not know is that only American technology and American financing can bring the cure from a laboratory experiment to a product that saves lives."
He raised the piece of paper that Congress had put through the legislative process in just three short weeks, desperately rushing to complete the bill before the Congress recessed today. It had been an extraordinary effort, a master thrust, for they knew that this was the only chance they would ever have of getting it past the president who had fought it for so long.
Max waved the paper for the cameras. "I hold here the largest single procurement bill in the history of Man. I hold the key to the creation of paradise, the salvation of millions of people." He brought the piece of paper down between clenched fists. "I hold here the slaughter of billions of innocent victims, and the extinction of life on Earth." His hands trembled briefly; he was committed now.
"Have you ever seen someone die of cancer? I have. It is not a pretty thing, to die slowly, painfully."
* * * * *
Max walked very softly into the room, the sound of his steps masked by the moaning and occasional thrashing of the gaunt woman lying on the bed. "Mom?" he started.
She moaned and turned his way. She opened her sleepless eyes, that lay sunken in pits of shadow. "Max." She held out her hand—and screamed. "Sorry," she whimpered.
The cancer was eating her alive. For a time the pain killers had been quite effective, and she lived a normal life, at least as normal a life as one could live in a hospital bed.
But now the cancer had invaded her spinal cord, slowly working its way to her brain. It was no longer the pain sensors in her body that screamed in dying agony, but rather the central nerves themselves. The pain killers could no longer kill the pain; dosages strong enough to kill the pain would kill her, too. Though perhaps that wasn't a bad idea.
He talked to her. He told her about his summer job, and his preparations to start college in the fall. She listened, and moaned, and changed positions, and screamed. She screamed when she lay still, and she screamed when she moved, no matter where she moved, for the cancer followed her to each new position.
Finally it was time to go. Max stood up uncertainly. "I'll be seeing ya, Mom." He started automatically to say "Keep smiling"—it was Max's way of saying farewell—but he choked it off.
His mother smiled at him—it was a hideous caricature of a smile, for the lines of pain stamped her face with indelible creases—but it was her best effort nevertheless. "Keep smiling," she said.
Max stood there in agony, seeing her pain. "You too," he blurted as he hurried out of the room.
He never told anyone to keep smiling again.
* * * * *
"Cancer is a hideous disease, more terrible than any other disease we have ever known." He looked down, then looked up again. His voice turned soft, and terrifying in its gentle pressure. "Have you ever seen a city die of radiation poisoning? It is not a pretty thing, to die slowly, painfully."
Max felt flustered as he considered the number of times he had tried to make people see that these two, death by disease and death by radiation, were related. God, how he wished he were Jason! His voice rose involuntarily; he couldn't control it.
"Can't you see what's wrong with saving millions of lives? Billions may die! Can't you see that we have too many people already trying to share this planet?"
* * * * *
"Politicians!" Max exploded. "What disgusting kinds of creatures. You say this guy is a friend of yours?"
"Come on." Tina tugged him down the sidewalk until they were by the gate of a low stone wall. Behind the wall elms drooped in the summer heat, though it was cooler now that the sun was sinking. "He's a neat person despite his occupation." Her eyes twinkled. "And he's sharp, too. I'll bet that before the evening's over, you'll have a different opinion."
"About a politician? Not hardly."
"You'll have a different opinion about something. I don't know what, but Jason always…People are always just a little bit different after talking to him."
"No doubt he uses mind drugs."
"What an excellent idea!" a voice from somewhere among the elms cried. "Mind drugs! Tell me, do you have any recommendations? I've always believed in softening people up first, particularly if they hate—" and now the voice changed to mimic Max's—"politicians."
Max peered into the shadows, and saw nothing until somebody tapped him on the shoulder. He jumped around.
"Hi. I'm Jason. Jay to my friends, except when they're angry at me." A small, pale man with dark eyes and black hair offered his hand.
"I'm Max." They shook hands.
"Hi, Jay." Tina hugged him, and Max felt a twinge of jealously. Not that he had any right to be jealous. Tina was Steve's girl; at least she had been when Steve left for the summer. Though now, Max wasn't so sure. Whom did she love: Steve? Or Max? Max was uncomfortable with the question; he knew he wanted her himself, desperately; but Steve had met her first. In Max's code of ethics, she belonged to Steve.
Tina had him by the arm again. "Come on, dopey. Didn't you hear what he said?"
Max blinked.
"If we don't get inside soon, the bugs will climb out of the trees and eat us alive." She pulled him along.
They sat down at the kitchen table: a long, beautifully carved table steeped in the smells of food and the echoes of loud laughter and deep discussions. It was a place of home.
Max sat at the corner, with Jason at the head of the table next to him, leaning forward, his dark eyes alive with energy, somehow not conflicting with his soft smile. "So you don't like politicians."
"Well," Max suppressed a blush, then decided he might as well be honest, "not really. Not at all."
"Why?" His tone was sharp, though friendly.
Max shrugged. "Look at all the stupid things they do." He sat forward himself. "Like wars, and arms races, and burglary—"
"Burglary?"
"Yeah, stealing money from one person to give it to another—usually to give it to another bureaucrat."
"Like in the social safety net system."
"Yeah."
Jason nodded. "It's not an easy problem. Surely you can see that it's hard for a politician to fight Social Security—there are a lot of people who want it kept alive, no matter how much it costs, because it's benefitting them. And every year there are more people it benefits, and more voters who would hang anybody who tried to stop it."
"And there's fewer people to pay for it." Max had been furious that summer when he got his first pay check, to find that almost half his pay had been taken out before he even got it. "Everybody knows it'll destroy us eventually. Even the politicians. And they know that the longer they wait the harder it'll be to stop. If they were any good, they'd risk their jobs now, before it's too late."
Jason stroked his chin. "Ah. What you want isn't a politician. What you want is a statesman."
Max stared at him blankly.
"A politician is a man who can get voted into office. A statesman is somebody who, once into office, can make wise decisions. The two have very little in common."
"Then which one are you?" Max smiled wickedly.
Jason looked away from Max's face. "I'm not quite sure. Right now I'm running for the House. I suppose I'm a politician." He looked back at Max, and his smile returned. "Of course, I plan to be a statesman once I get there."
"Ha! Not a chance." Max loved to be cynical, particularly when he was justified.
"That is unjustified cynicism," Jason countered, as if he were a mind reader. "Being expedient from time to time doesn't prove you're completely immoral all the time. Haven't you ever done something you knew was stupid, just to please your advisor, in effect buying his vote?"
"Well…" Dammit! Of course he had. But—
"Besides, there have been some who became statesmen, you know—or do you think Thomas Jefferson and Abe Lincoln were men without principles, the way you seem to think all politicians are?" He raised an eyebrow. "Actually, there's no way you can tell whether I can do it until I've actually been tested. Or don't you believe in the experimental method?"
Max almost choked. "Of course I believe in it."
"Then how can you make such silly claims?" Jason's smile broadened. "Better yet, what are you are doing that is so much more meaningful and worthwhile than what I'm doing?" His eyes picked up the laughter in his smile. "I hear you're supposed to be protecting the human race while it's growing up."
Max ran his hands down the arms of the chair. "Oh, not quite." His voice turned a bit smug. "I am working on saving millions of lives, which is almost as good. We might even achieve immortality."
"Oh, really? Are you sure that saving lives and making them immortal is the right thing to do for humanity right now?"
Max stared blankly at Jason yet again. "What do you mean?"
Jason seemed surprised by Max's incomprehension. "Isn't it obvious? There are eight billion people crowded together here already. You're talking about increasing the number of people, increasing the burden on the planet's resources, reducing the amount of resources per person." He slapped his hand palm up on the table. "Man, some of the people you'll be saving are going to burn gasoline that you could have burned, put smog in the air you'll have to breathe, and increase the price of the food you buy. For some people, it'll make the difference between buying enough, and not enough."
"Wait a minute."
"In fact, the group you'll have the most impact on is the older, more disease-prone part of the population—the ones using the safety net—the ones you were just moaning about. What'll it do to your taxes if they keep on living?" Jason shrugged his shoulders. "Course, you'll be rich and famous, after inventing the cure. It won't be a problem for you—you'll be a member of the rich, protected class. It'll just be a problem for people like me, who're trying to stop the problem."
Max found his jaw hanging open; slowly he closed it.
There was a science magazine lying to one side; Jason stretched for it, couldn't reach it. "Tina, could you get that for me?"
Tina retrieved the magazine for him.
"Thank you, my dear," Jason said. Again Max felt groundless jealously.
Jason flicked rapidly through the pages. "What about the new cancers they just isolated—or rather, the ones they just recognized as being different?"
"We'll be able to cure those, too, I'm pretty sure." Max was still dizzy from the rate at which the topic changed.
Jason stopped on a page. "There it is. 'Though they have the same symptoms as the usual cancers, like lung cancer and melanoma, these mutant II cancers have three distinctive features: they are much more prevalent in the post-industrial societies, even considering lifespan biases; they have a peculiar binodal distribution, striking primarily young adults ages 18 to 25, and people just past the midlife crisis, ages 45 to 55; and they have a 99.9% mortality rate, being virtually immune to traditional therapies." Jason looked up at Max. "This disease just might save the world."
"What?" Max felt dizzy. Where'd this guy come from? Where was his mind going?
"Don't you see? By wiping out people when they hit retirement age, we can reduce the strain on our society caused by retirement. Better yet, by killing off the ones just getting out of high school and college, when they're entering their best breeding years, we can reduce the overall population."
"We don't have to reduce the population. The population is going down anyway."
Jason waved the objection away breezily. "Just a temporary fad, with this new-woman identity. In five years the population will start zooming up again. I just hope it doesn't grow so fast that it makes up for all the slow-growth years instantly."
"You can't be serious."
"Sure I can. Don't you see the danger? As the population grows, so does the probability that someone will pull the trigger on a nuclear holocaust. To go around curing all the diseases—to say nothing of passing out immortality like candy—would be crazy. It's a simple case of suicide."
"You're not serious." Max just couldn't believe him.
Jason leaned forward, looking Max steadily in the eye, still smiling. "Am I? Does it make a difference whether I'm serious or not?"
Did it make a difference? If his arguments were correct, shouldn't Max take them seriously, regardless of whether Jason took them seriously?
Tina pressed his hand. "I told you Jason would change your opinions."
Jason looked over at her. "And you, Tina, what have you been doing lately that you shouldn't have?"
The three of them argued long into the night, about many things. Somehow, Jason seemed invincible. Max had never seen anything like it; Max or Tina would box him into a corner with his newest, crazy opinion. But then he'd rush them with a flurry of new ideas, new points of view, and suddenly they were the ones caught in a corner.
Max still didn't know whether to take him seriously or not. But he started reading the papers, looking for proofs and justifications for his conviction that saving lives was still an honorable enterprise.
Unfortunately, hideously, he found that Jason had been wrong: it wouldn't take five years for the trend of falling population to reverse itself. By the end of the summer, the census takers were giving the sociologists shocking information that destroyed all the pet theories.
The population was rising again. The only things growing as fast as the population were poverty and mutant II cancers.
* * * * *
"And we Americans 'share,' " he lingered over the euphemism with careful but heavy sarcasm, "more of this planet than most other people put together—a single American consumes as many resources as hundreds of people in Norafrica.
"And everyone in the world knows it! How many more cities like San Diego must we lose? How many more notable Americans must be stalked by terrorists before we see the connection?"
* * * * *
"My God. Have you told Tina yet?" Max sat motionless in the chair."
"No, Mr. President."
Max squirmed; he wasn't used to the title, though he had borne it for a year now.
"We left it for you to tell her."
"Of course." Max turned in his chair, then looked back at the Secret Service agent. "I would like to speak to the wives of the four men who died, Bill," he said to the Secret Service agent.
"Very well, Mr. President." The Secret Service agent bowed and left.
Max held his head in his hands and screamed softly. His son—their son—had been kidnapped in a bloody struggle. Why did people do these inhuman things?
The story was already breaking in the newspapers; it was hard to stop a leak when half the people in Washington heard or saw the fighting. Max didn't want to tell Tina until he found out why it had happened.
He didn't have to wait too long.
Within the hour they received a package at the White House. And the package contained…He went to tell Tina.
He held her and he told her; she was rigid as a statue. "It's a normal list of demands: two million dollars cash, the release of the five SALO prisoners we took in September, a planeful of guns and ammunition."
"Can't we give it to them?" She pleaded, but she knew the answer.
"If we do, they'll never let an American president alone again. Hideous as this is, it'll only get worse if we don't stop them now. You know that, don't you?"
Tina sobbed; her whole body shook. "Do we know these are really the people who kidnapped him—the same ones who blew up San Diego?"
Max's stomach rose in his throat. "Oh God. Yes, we know it's them, Tina." He couldn't open his mouth, much less talk, but he had to tell her. He had to tell her. "They included proof in the package. They…they sent back…Mike's right index finger."
Her eyes bulged; she screamed; Max held her as tightly as he could.
"I can't help him, Tina." He was crying. "But we'll kill them for it, if I have to do it myself. I'll resign when it's over, we'll get a house in the Rockies. I'm sorry."
Max tried to keep his promise; he did keep the first part. He gave the terrorists their five comrades, and their money, and a planeful of ammunition, and the SALO terrorists took Mike on board and headed for Bolivia, and Max signed the strike orders that sent three Firechargers to intercept, and they obliterated the plane and burned the money and killed the five freed prisoners and the twelve terrorists.
And killed Mike. At least, that was a possibility; no one knew for sure whether Mike was still alive by then.
Max did not keep the second half of his promise. He did not resign. In fact, the incident gave him a power in international politics unmatched in modern times: only a madman would order his own son killed. Oddly enough, the world respected madmen.
Max read the note Tina had left for the hundredth time.
Dear Max,
I know you believe you did the right thing. Perhaps I do too. I don't know. But…I just can't bear to live with the man who killed our son. I'm sorry. I love you.
He couldn't blame her. He couldn't live with the man who had killed their son either, but he had less choice.
Had he killed their son? Part of his psyche railed against the notion: it was the SALO terrorists who were responsible, dammit!
What does it mean to be responsible for something? Max could remember Jay asking. Max remembered his conclusion on the matter after Jason had forced him to think deeply about it years ago. Responsibility is shared by all those who have the knowledge and the power to prevent an event, but who let it—or make it—happen anyway. The SALO terrorists were responsible, even more responsible than he was, because it would have been easier for them to make decisions that saved his son's life. But Max was responsible, too. He accepted it.
He found he could not resign, to leave the world to forge its own solutions to its problems; he was responsible for that, too, now. He accepted it.
* * * * *
"We, the people of America, are consuming this planet!" He was starting to shake; he slowly straightened his shoulders, as Jason had taught him. He stepped back to the lectern (he had stepped away toward the audience at some point in his speech) and was calm. "Each day there are incidents that could lead to the holocaust. Each month we escape Final Confrontation by even narrower margins."
* * * * *
"Mr. President, they're heading for Vladivostok. We won't be able to reach them in time. They're only minutes from Russian waters, and it looks like half the Soviet Air Force is loitering around the area, just in case they need help."
"Very well, General. Keep me posted."
Max leaned back in his chair and shuddered. It was just another ordinary crisis. Another ordinary chance for the world to end.
He could order a GHOL strike now. The enemy commandoes would be dead, and the world would once again receive notice that murder of the innocent leads to murder of the murderers as well.
But it would set a new and terrible precedent, the precedent Max had fought against setting since his first inauguration. He couldn't use the GHOL, the Ground-attack Heavy Orbital gamma ray Laser, to settle ordinary crises. Otherwise it would be used each time a crisis arose, each time with a little bit less circumspection, until…
He knew what he had to do. His stomach flip-flopped as he thought about it, but he knew he had to do it.
He turned to the hot line. He called Kiril Perstev.
The premier appeared on the visiphone. "Good day, Mr. President," he said in perfect English. He smiled. "I presume you think you have a problem."
Max's heart pounded in fear. Kiril was too good; he was the closest match to Jason he had ever met, fluent in many languages, with many points of view that he could shift into and out of with lightning speed. He was for Russia what Jason should have been for America.
But Kiril's motivations were different. God, how Max wished he understood what motivated Kiril Perstev. "I don't have a problem, Premier. You do."
Kiril raised an eyebrow.
"Three hours ago, terrorists attacked Japan's two largest ocean harvesters. The terrorists slaughtered the crews and raced for safety. We, of course, have interceptors in hot pursuit."
"In what way is this a problem for me, Mr. President? To be sure, the Soviet Union regrets the loss of life, but we support the liberation movements throughout the world as well."
"These pirates seem to be heading for Vladivostok. It's as if they expected to find safe harbor there. Naturally, if they make it, it will be more difficult to punish them. We would probably have to use the GHOL to saturate the entire city with lethal radiation levels, to make sure that justice was served."
Kiril studied Max through the visiphone. "That would, of course, lead to the holocaust."
Of course it would. Though Kiril was currently the strongest member of the ruling troika, many issues had not yet been settled. For Kiril, a show of weakness, particularly because of a mistake, would be fatal. Kiril's only alternative would be massive retaliation.
Max clenched his fist under the table. The fear tasted bitter in his mouth. Yet he stared coolly back at Kiril. "Premier, the pirates are dead men. How many others shall die with them?"
Kiril leaned back, bringing his fingers together in a steeple. "You would not do it. It is not in your nature. You are philosophically incapable of ending the world." He smiled wolfishly. "In fact, I believe that if I pressed the buttons and destroyed the United States, you would decide not to retaliate, in order to protect the human race."
Max's heart leaped in his throat; still he smiled back at Kiril. "You have an interesting point. I concede. It is against my philosophy to destroy you, or to destroy humanity." He leaned forward, and whispered into the visiphone. "But Kiril, it is also against my philosophy to bluff. I'm not the kind of person who would bluff—someone might call it, and I would lose." His looked hardened further. "No, Kiril, I would not bluff. You face a contradiction: my philosophy permits me neither to threaten nor to carry out the threat. Yet I have threatened. Where have you erred in your reasoning, Kiril? Don't guess wrong here, Kiril: for if you guess wrong, you will lose everything."
Kiril laughed, a loud belly laugh; but as the laughter faded, and Max remained immobile, Kiril's smile went away. For a moment doubt flickered in his eyes, before his mask returned. "Any pirates who attempt to use our territorial waters as a sanctuary will naturally be disappointed. Such an incursion into our security would be dealt with instantly by our Navy and air forces: such pirates would have their ships destroyed, and survivors would be executed," he said tonelessly as he broke the connection.
Max sank back in his chair, completely drained. How many more times will I get away with it, he wondered.
His bluff had worked.
* * * * *
"Don't you see how dangerous it would be to let our population grow untempered?" A ghost whispered in Max's ear. "It would be a simple case of suicide."
Max shook his head, and for a moment he felt the burden he had carried so long dragging him down. "Lord knows I have tried to make the world ready for this cancer cure."
* * * * *
"You're wrong, Jason. There is a way mankind can survive!"
"Goodness, you certainly are certain of yourself. For a change," Jason responded with a smile. "Would you care to sit down before you destroy all my most cherished pessimistic theories?" Since becoming a member of Congress, Jason had mellowed just a bit. Actually, Max wasn't sure "mellowed" was the right word: Jason just didn't talk as fast as he once had. That might be put down to weariness. But Jay's eyes still held a feverish brightness: perhaps the slowing of his verbal attacks was a part of converting himself from a politician to a statesman.
Once he had Max seated at the kitchen table, Jason leaned forward in the old style, and his words speeded up. "So tell me about the solution to all our woes. How are we going to prevent the holocaust?"
"By reducing the population."
"Sounds wonderful, but not very implementable. Or do you come equipped with a mechanism for performing this miracle as well?"
"Sure. We'll start a birthright lottery, conducted by the UN. Every country will get so many 'places' in the lottery, and the particular couples who get to bear children will be chosen at random."
"A beautiful idea that has absolutely no chance of success. Right off the bat, I can see a problem—naturally, the leaders of all the countries will want preferential treatment. They want children too, after all, and they have the power." He stared at Max, puzzled. "Besides, why would any country be interested in paying attention to a lottery, anyway?"
"You mean, what carrot would I hold out to them?"
"Exactly."
"We'd offer medical assistance, education, and food to the countries that went along with it."
"Um. What incentive could we give Americans? The safety net already gives them those things."
Max felt exasperated; why was Jason always against ideas, never for them? "Actually, I was hoping you would supply some of the ideas for making this thing work yourself."
Jason shook his head. "No matter how neat or clever a solution may be, Max, no matter how effective the idea might be if it could be put into action, you have to remember that a workable solution to a problem not only has to function within the physical laws of the universe, it also has to function within the social laws of dealing with people. Any kind of a birthright lottery will have to get everyone to agree to it. That just won't happen. What would we do with people who had illegal babies—what would we do with the illegal babies themselves? Do you figure on shooting them?" Jason waved his hand. "To be implementable, you have to have a solution that requires as few people as possible, and to make the people you want to use exchangeable, so that if the particular person you want to help you won't, you can go find somebody else to fulfill his part in the project."
Max took a deep breath. "Yeah, I knew all that, sort of. I just hoped that you might be able to fill in some of the gaps."
"I wish I could, Max." Jay shrugged. "But I don't know how. I'm not a superman." He smiled. "Not yet, anyway."
"Well, I have another idea." It still left a bad taste in his mouth, but the second idea would work. "We could start up a few conventional wars, and commit enough atrocities and slaughter enough people to bring the population back down again."
"Now that sounds more promising—you don't need anywhere near as many people to help you start a war as you need to end one. There is, of course, a problem—how do you guarantee the conventional war won't escalate into a holocaust?"
"By neutralizing the missiles. We'll build an ABM system."
Jason coughed politely. "I can't help thinking somebody's already working on that."
"I'm sure they are. But I wonder if they're aware of all the new stuff going on with lasers and molecular computers these days." He described the new generation of x-ray lasers being used in the labs, what they were used for, and how they might be used for other purposes. "Anyway, if we could put a few megawatt x-ray lasers—with the kind of precision we're getting in the labs—in the sky, we ought to be able to make nuclear attack pretty unlikely to succeed, don't you think?"
Jason looked at him strangely. "Perhaps you're right. They could very well have overlooked this possibility. I'll investigate it." He sat back in his chair and clasped his hands. For a moment the fever subsided from his expression; he was strictly serious. "You know, I'm currently holding discussions with the members of the House and the Senate on putting together a new group to…well, a group to be a think tank, more or less, but with no party biases, with only the congress to be loyal to. I know that that probably sounds as un-implementable as anything else we've discussed here, but I think I can do it." He nodded to himself, as if finally reaching a decision. "How would you like to be the boss?"
"Me?"
"Is there anyone else in the room? I'm going to need all the good people I can get."
"But my work—"
"Your medical research is more dangerous to humanity's survival than any other work in the world today. All those weapon makers out there aren't anywhere near as dangerous as you and Steve are. We already have the weapons we need to destroy ourselves. It's people like you who'll create a reason for us to use them."
He lurched forward to the edge of his chair; his intensity was greater than ever before. "Come with me, Max, and help me make a world that will be ready for your cancer cure when it's finished. I'll warn you right now—I don't think we can do it. But I know for sure that it can't be done at all if nobody tries. I want us to try."
Max shook his head slowly. "I don't know. I'll think about it." He smiled. "Maybe, if you promise to try to make the birthright lottery idea work."
Jason smiled back. "I don't know. I'll think about it. Maybe, if you promise to come to work for me."
* * * * *
CLASSIFICATION: TOP SECRET
AUTHORIZATION KEY: SILENT CAMPER
ACCESS SUBKEY: STEEPLE
NOTE TO GENERAL MAVERY ON THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE HIGH-ENERGY X-RAY PLATFORM (HEX-PLAT)
Work is progressing swiftly toward launch of a prototype platform. Current estimates suggest we will be able to identify, acquire, and kill individual missiles with 95% confidence at a rate of five targets per second per platform.
This is equivalent to wiping out the entire Soviet ballistic force in three minutes with two HEXPLAT platforms.
* * * * *
"I have known for many years that this day would come, when the cure for mutant II cancers would be uncovered." Yes, he had known it would come, for he had known
* * * * *
Steve would bring it, even without Max's help.
"We have to tell him, Max," Tina chided. "He's a good man; he can take it."
Max squeezed her hand. "I know he can. But, God, how I hate to do this to him. His whole world will be wiped out."
They came at last to the door of Max and Steve's apartment. They entered. Steve sat upon the couch, a guitar in his hands, softly singing melancholy songs. He glanced up as they opened the door. "Howdy," he said, interrupting himself.
"Hi, Steve." Max cleared his throat.
Steve looked back and forth between the two of them. "Is something wrong?"
Tina started forward, unlocking her hand from Max's; somehow, it was uncomfortable to hold hands in Steve's presence. "We've got a couple of announcements, Steve."
"I see." He put the guitar aside, and sat up, cross-legged. "So?"
Max took a deep breath. "First off, I'm moving out of the apartment." He took Tina in his arms. "We're getting married."
Steve turned away. "I see," he choked out. He turned back, blinking his eyes. "Well, I sorta knew this was coming anyway. It would be sorta hard to miss it, wouldn't it?"
Max didn't say anything. Sure, Steve had known, academically, that Max had won the girl they both loved, but only now did Steve feel it in his gut. I almost wish it were the other way around, Max thought. I'd rather suffer myself than to have you, my best friend, suffer.
"Well, at least I'll still see you every day on the project," Steve said, making a half-hearted effort at a joke. But both Max and Tina turned away when he said it. Steve's voice turned panicky. "We will still see each other on the project, won't we?"
Max covered his face with his hands. "No," he mumbled.
Steve stood up. "What did you say, Max?"
"I said…we won't see you on the project." He forced himself to speak clearly. "Steve, Jason offered me a job, a while ago. I—"
"Jason! That creep!" Steve stomped across the room. "You're not letting him tell you how to run your life, are you? Did you let his goddam willies infect you, about mankind's survival and all that bilge?" He held up his hands. "Not that we aren't in a lot of trouble, don't get me wrong. But Jason's so sure he knows exactly what the problems are and exactly what to do to solve them, and he's full of it! You see that, don't you?"
Max started to step back, then held his ground. "He's not full of it, and you know it."
"So you're just gonna walk out on six years of our lives, all the plans we made, all the promises we made?"
Max stared stonily into the distance.
"I'm sorry, Steve. Yes. I'm just going to walk out."
Steve stepped back, too shocked to be angry. But the anger came back, a burning anger that flushed his whole complexion. "Then get out," he spat. "You think our project is dead, just because you're a traitor, but it's not. I don't care what you and Jason think of it. Our idea is a good one. I'll complete the work we started. I'll show you." He walked to the door. "I wish you'd never met Jason." He sobbed. "I wish I'd never introduced you to Tina."
* * * * *
"But people have shouted down every effort to make the world safer. The whole world ranted against the birthright lottery. All of America turned its back on the space program." Max choked with rage. "And the space program was the only program in the world that might have put people safely beyond the reach of the GHOL. But we destroyed it in the name of the safety net—never admitting that mankind's only true safety net is continued progress."
* * * * *
"Surely you can see that, over the long haul, the space program is the only thing that can save us." Max wanted to make it a plea, but he dared not show weakness in front of Senator Kelvane; that would be fatal.
Though it might to be fatal just to have to talk to the senator; Kelvane knew that he had won, if Max asked to see him personally.
Kelvane snorted. "You fellahs an' your long hauls," he said with the Southern drawl he was so proud of. "I've got enough trouble with today an' tomorrow." He jabbed a slim finger at Max; Max couldn't help thinking it ought to be a fat cigar with smoke pouring off, to match the classical image of a politician.
But it wasn't. Kelvane was a classical politician—not a statesman—but he was smooth, like fine bourbon.
"Y'all have a long haul of time to pay for your long-haul solutions. Now my constituency needs things they can see in their lifetimes."
"Senator, the space program budget is so trivial compared to the Social Security budget—destroying the space program will have absolutely no impact on the current budgetary problems."
Kelvane just shook his head. "Boy, it don't matter one bit whether it helps or not. It's the signal it makes that's important. Cutting off all the silly games lets the people see that we are making all the sacrifices we can to correct the problems."
Max had already lost; he let his fury take control. "You're killing the whole human race for the sake of a few voters!"
The senator smiled; it was still a smooth smile, but it was ugly. "Why, no, son. I'm killing you for the sake of me. Big difference there." The senator rose to go. "If you were Jason Masino, things might be different." Kelvane's eyes filled with a strange combination of feelings: a bit of fear, a deep awe, and a profound, even compassionate, concern. Somewhere, sometime, Jason had touched him.
But the touch was too long ago; the look faded, and the senator went for the throat. "But you aren't him. Not by a long shot."
Max hated him for a time, but that feeling faded, too; there were so many others like him it wasn't worth wasting the energy.
Eventually, of course, the future became the present, more swiftly for Senator Kelvane than for many. Kelvane was in San Diego when the SALO completed their crude, hand-made nuclear device. They lit it off in the hotel adjacent to the auditorium where Kelvane was speaking to the assembled governors. Kelvane's last moments were spent a hundred meters from ground zero of a twenty-four-kiloton explosion.
* * * * *
"The world is not yet ready for American medical technology; not even America is ready for the banishment of disease.
"But some day we will be ready. Some day we will have a defense against the GHOL. When it's impossible for us to kill ourselves on impulse, we will be able to save lives impulsively. But until then we must discipline ourselves, and hold the technology of even longer life in abeyance." Was that concept too sophisticated to be pitched to the American public—the idea that sometimes one technology dare not be brought to life until after some other technology arrived to solve the problems of the first? He prayed it was not; but he heard Jason's ghost laughing nevertheless.
* * * * *
Jason sipped a cup of coffee; as Jason said, coffee was his only vice, except for sugar cookies. "Tell me, Max, is there anything you would not do, anything you would not sacrifice, to guarantee Man's survival?"
Max finished buttering his toast and glanced at Jason. He knew he should think carefully before answering, but he thought he already had thought carefully. "I don't think so."
"I see. I asked, because we have a new problem."
Max's stomach tightened.
"They're building a new weapon, Max, that's impervious to the HEX-PLAT."
"Who? How?"
Jason shook his head. "I don't know, Max. But somebody is."
"How do you know?"
"Because that's the way people are. There are millions of men employed in the world for the purpose of finding better ways to kill people. One of them will succeed."
Jason had fallen off the deep end this time. Max threw up his hands in exasperation. "So what are we supposed to do about it? We'll have to deal with it when the time comes."
"Can we afford to wait until the time comes, Max? How likely is it that Steve will complete his research?"
Max swelled with pride. "He'll do it, Jason. Just a few more years: he's licked all the hard problems. The work he won the Nobel Prize for answered most of our toughest biological questions. There are still difficulties, technology-wise, but he'll beat them all."
"That reminds me, Max. Have you talked to Steve lately?"
Max looked away. "No. I wrote him a letter, congratulating him on his Nobel, but…" He choked.
Jason returned to the main topic. "Let me propose a hypothetical dilemma." Jason put his empty cup to one side. "Suppose someone were working on an invention that was wonderful and would help people a great deal, but that was sure to start a war as soon as the invention was completed. The war would naturally be a bad thing, but the invention would benefit people more than hurt them, over all." He banged his finger on the table. "But now suppose you also knew that other people were developing weapons that guaranteed that, if such a war started, it would end all civilization."
"I would arrange for the quiet executions of all the people who were developing weapons," Max interrupted.
"Suppose you didn't know who they were, or that there were so many of them you couldn't hope to kill them all before they found out what you were doing and killed you instead."
This hypothetical dilemma wasn't hypothetical enough for Max's taste. He had a terrible feeling he knew where Jason was heading.
Jason continued. "What would you propose that we do, in such a situation?"
Max ran his hand threw his thinning hair, desperate for a better idea than the one Jason was sure to propose. "I don't know. I suppose we could start a war immediately, while we had the chance, before the new weapons were developed." Max spoke in a light, jesting tone.
"We could do that easily enough. Even a minority party leader like myself, just by whispering the wrong words in the right ears, could start a fire in any of a dozen countries that would spread to a world-encompassing conflagration. The planet is ready for it." Jason wasn't jesting at all, it seemed. "We could slaughter enough people to make enough room for all the survivors for centuries. Even an immortality drug would pose no threat." He stared into the coffee cup. "But that would involve the murder of billions. I have an alternative suggestion."
"What?"
"Let us further hypothesize that the war-starting invention is being developed by one individual who is unlikely to be replaced, an individual we know." Jason raised his hands helplessly. "Why sacrifice billions when sacrificing one will do the task?"
Max felt cold. "What do you mean?"
"In these times of scarce resources, high prices, and few jobs, it would be easy to find someone who would, for modest remuneration, eliminate a single troublesome individual."
"You mean kill Steve?" Max couldn't believe his ears.
"Why not?"
"Because…" Why not indeed? "Because Steve is a good person. He's dedicated his life to saving lives."
"Are there not people like that among the billions you'd rather slaughter?"
Of course there were.
Jason continued. "Shall I start the war?"
"No."
"Why not?"
"Because…because people like Steve are the reason why Man is worth saving. If, in order to save Man we have to kill the people like Steve, then Man isn't worth saving; what we would have salvaged with his murder would no longer be Man, but something less wonderful, something hideous."
"I was wondering," Jason said reflectively, "if you would ever come to that conclusion."
* * * * *
CLASSIFICATION: TOP SECRET
AUTHORIZATION KEY: LAND SPIRIT
ACCESS KEY: BARBARA
NOTE TO GENERAL STOEHRMAN ON DEVELOPMENT OF THE GROUND-ATTACK HEAVY ORBITAL LASER (GHOL):
There are considerable technical problems that arise in upgrading a HEXPLAT for attacking ground sites, but we believe these problems can be resolved. For one thing, the emission frequency must be lifted into the gamma ray range for effective penetration of shielded targets.
But the long-term outlook looks fabulous. Current estimates suggest that we will be able to focus the beam narrowly enough to destroy individual ships and aircraft, though perhaps not individual trucks and tanks. At the same time, between the direct effects of the ray and the residual radiation consequences, we should be able to "shotgun" and deposit 90% lethality levels against lightly protected targets in a 5,000-square kilometer area in six seconds. This is equivalent to incinerating all of Germany in three minutes with only two GHOL platforms.
* * * * *
"Some will not believe me when I say that we stand daily on the edge of the holocaust. What has saved us, they ask. And why won't it continue in the future, they demand." Max looked around the room at some of the prime offenders.
* * * * *
"Humanity is doomed because its vision is impaired." Jason started another diatribe.
"Do you really believe that, Jay?" Max really wasn't up to a battle this early in the morning. He looked at Jason: was even Jason really up to it? His smile was the same, the feverish energy still shone in his eyes. But he had become more pale in his three years as a senator. He was thinner. And the darkness that circled his eyes was deeper now, heavier with sorrow.
"Yes, Max, I really believe it."
Max was stunned; for the first time, Jason answered that question without frivolity. This was serious. Max spoke softly. "What's wrong with humanity's vision, Jay?"
"We have a planetful of people, many of whom are individually capable of planning carefully for twenty- and thirty-year periods—at least long enough to pay off a house mortgage—yet when they act as a group they can't plan for consequences just one year away. It's a classic case of two heads being half as good as one." He slapped his hand on the table, got up and paced back and forth across the kitchen. It was a different kitchen from the kitchen at which they first argued so many years ago. The table was less elegant, and the atmosphere was less homey; but it was home here in Washington nonetheless. It was gray outside, and the grayness leaked in through the window.
Max cleared his throat. "Is there some way we can beat that, to make people as smart collectively as they are individually?"
"I don't know!" For the first time, Jason seemed afraid and without an answer. "Our species is no better than the evolutionary forces that made it. Evolution too is shortsighted: every step that evolution takes must be an immediate improvement, standing on its own. Neither Man nor evolution could compete against even a mediocre chess player: neither Man nor evolution could make a bishop sacrifice, even if they knew, beforehand, that the sacrifice led to mate in two moves."
"As in the safety net program."
"Exactly." Jason shook his head. "Investment in new research is down to one ten-thousandth of a percent of gross national product. There were fewer new patents issued this year than any year since the nineteenth century. Ask any individual, and he'll tell you that without investment in new and better ways, our growing population will live deteriorating lives until, in desperate grabs for each other's wealth, someone starts the war that leads to the Final Confrontation. Any individual will tell you that there's no money for investment because ninety percent of all wealth goes into the maintenance programs of the social safety net." He threw his hands in the air. "But when that man goes to vote, he says, 'Yeah, but I want to get my share of the safety net before you get rid of it.' " Jason shook his head.
Max leaned forward. "But the Final Confrontation may not be too final, if we can hold off until we can get to the other planets. If we can spread mankind far enough, someone will survive."
Jason sat down on the edge of the seat. "Will they, Max? I've been thinking about this lately. It's so much harder to create than it is to destroy. That's the basic law of nature, you know: entropy. The total quantity of disorder in the universe always rises, any time you do anything. Entropy always sides with the man who wants to destroy beautiful things, as long as he doesn't try to put anything in its place. It's always easier to destroy; and as technology advances, the technology of destruction will continue to advance faster than the technology of creation, because entropy will help the destruction. Any technology powerful enough to transport a man to a safe place can produce weapons powerful enough to destroy him after he's arrived." He hit the table even as Max opened his mouth to contradict him. "Sure, sometimes there've been time lags, but the weapons always caught up, and as time goes by the speed with which they catch up will speed up. We can't outrun our own technology, Max."
"If we can hold out long enough, eventually we're bound to find a way to prevent war: a sociological solution. Then it won't make any difference how powerful our weapons are."
"But how long will it take us to get there, Max? Where are we going to get the time to wait?" Jason's hand slapped the table. "How do we persuade a society to take near-term action to solve long-term problems? That is our short-term problem."
* * * * *
CLASSIFICATION: TOP SECRET
AUTHORIZATION KEY: TAR BELL
ACCESS KEY: SERENDIPITY
MEMORANDUM TO GENERAL BRADLEY ON DEVELOPMENT OF THE GRAVSHIELD ANTI-LASER DEFENSE
Though theoretically feasible, the practicality of gravshield defenses for cities against GHOL platforms is nil. Several technological revolutions will be required to permit a shield generator to cope with the concentration of energy that a GHOL can achieve. We continue to investigate; the technology will certainly evolve, but it will probably be decades in development.
* * * * *
In his mind, Max answered the laughing ghost, who knew that this roomful of people could never make a decision to save tomorrow.
Jason, I know the answer. I know how to make people find a solution that will take years and years to implement. But God, Jason, it's hideous. Isn't there a better way?
The ghost did not answer.
"We have survived, sometimes because of skill, and sometimes because of luck. But more importantly, we have survived because some people have given their lives to guarantee our survival."
* * * * *
Jason's campaign speech ended. They hustled Jason off the platform toward the waiting helicopter, leaving Max to field the endless questions.
"Then tell us, Mr. Palmer, do you really think Jason Masino has a chance at the presidency?"
The questions came at Max from all sides of the throng that was mostly reporters. Max turned in the general direction of the question and chuckled. "Does he have a chance?! I pity his competition! And I urge them not to trap themselves into a debate with Jay on TV. If they do, Jason will rip them to shreds."
"Can we quote you?"
Max shrugged. That statement probably wasn't the most politic thing he had ever said, but one of the wonders of watching Jay run for president was that you didn't have to worry about every little word. Jason was the first candidate in decades who was, clearly, better than his opponents. "Go ahead and quote me. Why not?"
A different voice rose above the din from a different direction. "Mr. Palmer, as Jason Masino's foremost advisor, what role would you expect to play in the executive branch? Do you see yourself in a cabinet position?"
Of course, you still had to be a little politic, in any democracy. "That is entirely Jason's decision. I am an advisor only; I certainly wouldn't presume to second-guess his future decisions."
Max could see the helicopter's rotors whirling to takeoff speed; Jason was safely aboard. Max excused himself and headed for the landing platform, where another helicopter would arrive shortly to pick him up.
As he progressed through the crowd, his eyes were drawn to a large, curiously dressed young man, with a great overcoat too long even for him, the overcoat whipping in the wind. As Max watched, the man reached into his coat and pulled forth a short rocket launcher.
"No!" Max screamed, tossing people out of his way to reach the man.
The man calmly adjusted the sights, and Max could see him muttering to himself as he squinted to track the helicopter.
Didn't anybody else see what was happening? Where were the Secret Service people? Was this real?
The man nodded, leaning back a little deeper in preparation for the launch. "Stop!" Max yelled hysterically.
The man opened his other eye, startled, but as Max leaped for him he squeezed the trigger.
With a snarl Max chopped the man in the throat. As the man gurgled for breath, Max brought a rigid index finger up into the man's eyeball, thrusting his finger as deep as he could reach. The man thrashed raggedly, hanging from Max's finger. He fell away.
Max looked up to see a trail of whistling smoke reach the helicopter. A bright jet of fuel burst from its side. The helicopter lurched, then spun end over end until it reached the ground. A brighter jet of exploding pieces burst from the wreckage. Max ran toward it.
Some newspaper reporter, much too swift on his feet, ran up to parallel Max's running. "What if Jason Masino is dead, Mr. Palmer?" the man yelled. "What will you do?"
"I don't know," Max yelled back. "He can't be dead."
"But if he is…"
Max struck the man in the face and continued toward the wreckage.
What could he do? What could he do? The question pounded in his brain. The world: it was dying. Jason had seen it in all its details. Jason had understood the dangers as no other man ever had, and Jason had been afraid. Jason had been afraid that even he, Jason, would fail to save mankind. If even Jason had been afraid of failure, what other man could possibly succeed?
Yet somebody had to. And to have any chance at all of succeeding, somebody had to try.
Max held a press conference one week later. "There has never been a man as great or dedicated as Jason Masino, and perhaps there never will be again." He paused to get control of his voice, which still got away from him at times. "But the greatness of Jason Masino should not be allowed to perish just because the man himself is gone. It was his spirit that held his greatness, and that cannot be killed. His dreams, his hopes, his visions are ours now. We can still build a future as great as his greatest imaginings." He looked around the audience with a slow, determined gaze that would one day be famous. "Therefore, I hereby announce my candidacy for president. I can never be Jason Masino, but I can, with your help, be the implementor of his dream."
* * * * *
"But do we dare depend on skill and luck, and the sacrifices of a few rare men, forever?"
* * * * *
FROM: CARL STROUD, CHIEF OF SIMULATIONS, GLOBAL RESOURCE ANALYSIS CENTER
Dear Max, Max read in the memorandum the day before he was to present his speech on the cancer cure. I've been running scenarios frantically for the last three weeks. I guess you'd guess that.
As you predicted, we cannot create a scenario for survival that includes a cure for mutant II cancers. Of course, you'd guessed that too.
But in an effort to retune the simulation, hoping to find a technical flaw in our approach, I ran scenarios across the last decade, using real-world history as my input. Max, in fifty simulation runs, Man never survived our most recent ten years!
So I cursed and fumed, because of course we did survive (we did, didn't we? Sometimes I wonder) and I made debug dumps.
The simulation is good, Max. I knew that there had to be something wrong in the data. So I tweaked and calibrated.
I only found one adjustment that let mankind survive consistently: I inserted a leader-actor for America who was superhuman. It worked. The outputs stabilized on what the world's last ten years of history actually look like.
Max—that leader-actor was you!
We can survive, with you as president! Please, Max, sign that bill!
Max's eyes watered. I wish I could, Carl.
Perhaps Jason could have done it. Max could imagine Jason repealing the two-term presidency constitutional amendment. Max could imagine an immortal Jason, using the next generation of viral robotoids to keep himself young, successfully balancing, checking, and countering all the forces that tried to destroy Earth, for years without end.
But Jason wasn't available. And Max was running short on tools to use in the fight. Someday, he knew, Kiril would call Max's bluff—even if Max could retain power, which he could not. In two years his second term would end.
Who would be the next president? Max knew the leading contenders, perhaps better than they knew themselves. Most of them were honest, sincere men; but none of them met the requirements for world-savior.
Even Jason might have failed; even Jason never found a solution to the general problem: how do you make a society make a sacrifice today, when the benefit won't be seen for decades?
But Max had been given the answer—a gift of the gods, Max thought with near reverence, though he had long since lost faith in gods. But it was a gift so perfectly timed, it almost had to be supernatural. Jason, did you somehow reach out of the tomb to give me this answer?
Certainly not. Jason would have rejected an answer like this; it was a hideous answer. If the answer really had been designed at all, it must have been designed by darker powers. It was so hideous Max feared it even more than he feared the Final Confrontation.
* * * * *
"Are we such fools that we are willing to play games with the survival of the whole human race?!"
Max could give the foolish, impetuous, men-children of the world a message that even Jason couldn't deliver. Max could give them a message that would last decades; not because of his indisputable logic, or his silver words, but because of the last tool he had left with which to touch them, because of the last gift he could give them. It was a rare gift, that which he could give them, perhaps unique among gifts in being respected everywhere among the peoples of Man.
He could give them a martyr.
Max looked out at the throng of congressmen, now utterly silent, and looked out at the cameras, and the people all over the world, and raised the procurement bill once again into the spotlight. He ripped it to tiny, tiny pieces, there in the burning brilliance. "You have a great task to do, Men of Earth." For a moment Max felt the ghosts gather round him—to augment his strength this time, not steal it. "You have many problems to solve. You must build a defense against the current generation of hideous weapons, for weapons are dangerous as long as the unsane may obtain power. You must begin the birthright lottery in earnest, so that the unsane will find few followers unsane enough to follow. You must destroy the social safety net that has given you the security it promised, but has taken away the growth that was the original promise of America and the only true security available for Man. You must rebuild the space program, and its ships, and you must establish people in places of safety." He lifted his hands, and the shreds of paper scattered from the podium. "And you must never, never, think of saving lives today, when tomorrow is so far away." He bowed his head. "I thank you."
There was clapping, but it was perfunctory: the audience, the congress, was stunned into rare speechlessness. Max saw that even his fiercest enemies now looked at him with respect, transfixed as Jason might have transfixed them.
Max smiled bravely, shaking hands with a few as he proceeded to the door. Still his weakness didn't show. He climbed into the presidential limousine surrounded by well-wishers and flash-popping cameras. He pulled the curtains fully. as the car swung into motion.
The trembling began. No, no, he moaned, curling into a fetal position, all alone with the ghosts. "No!" He coughed, the same hacking cough that had sent him to the doctor just three short weeks ago.
* * * * *
"What's the verdict, Dr. McFarley? Will I survive my cough? Max asked playfully. He rebuttoned his shirt. It was cold in the doctor's office; but then, it's always cold in a doctor's office.
Dr. MacFarley looked back at Max grimly.
The chill in the room deepened. "Is it bad?" Max asked, no longer playfully.
Dr. McFarley sat down next to him. "It's lung cancer, Max. Mutant II lung cancer.
Max s heart skipped, skipped, skipped. "It can't be!"
There was a long pause. The doctor cleared his throat. "You have nine months, maybe a year." The doctor looked away. After a moment of meticulous study of his fingernails, he continued, not looking at Max. "Only Steve Felman can help you now. I'm sorry."
A tear squeezed from his closed eyes. "I want to live! Please, let me live!"
The ghosts had no answer save silence.