Killing Time

CHAPTER 14

Fouché soon emerged from the galley bearing great platters of simply but delicately prepared food: the kind of diet, I immediately realized as I glanced at Tressalian, that would appeal to a man with a severe neurological condition. This impression was confirmed when I observed that he drank no alcohol.

"Excuse me," I said as I studied the man, "but did you say 'global chaos'?"

"Oh, all in a good cause," he rushed to reply. "Well — generally, at any rate. But to understand that cause I'm afraid you'll first have to wrap your mind around the philosophy we've all chosen to share."

"I'm listening."

Tressalian nodded. "Well, then, where to start? Perhaps simple observation would be best. Did you enjoy the sights along the coast?"

I looked up suddenly: Was that why the ship had spent so long in those filthy waters? To make an impression on me, just as Larissa had done when she'd so expertly manned the ship's big rail gun during the battle with our pursuers? "It was fairly depressing," I said carefully.

"And the sea around us now," Tressalian went on. "Does anything appear to be missing?"

"Just the fish," I joked; but the tableful of straight faces that looked back at me indicated how terribly serious my words had actually been. "Jesus," I fumbled. "Have things really gotten that bad?"

"The sights speak for themselves, Doctor," Colonel Slayton said gravely, running a finger along the scar on the side of his face. "The Atlantic seaboard is almost literally a hog sty, and the last of the important fish species, thanks to government lies about enforcing fishing regulations around the world, have been chased into the furthest recesses of the ocean, where they'll be found and, soon enough, slaughtered." He kept gently rubbing that scar, reminding me of how much "government lies" had contributed to his own disastrous experiences during the Taiwan campaign.

"Yes," Tressalian agreed gloomily. "I only wish I could say that such developments were outside the norm of modern human behavior. And yet, according to a generation of rhetoric, our own age should have separated itself from that norm, shouldn't it, Doctor?"

"How do you mean?"

"Well, after all, the dawn of this century did present humanity with an enormous opportunity to improve both its own lot and the condition of the planet. The necessary tools were all at hand." His voice became distinctly ironic. "The age of information had been born."

I was puzzled by his tone. "Yes — thanks in large part to your father."

Tressalian's irony quickly took on a hard edge. "True. Thanks in large part to my father…"

I pushed my plate aside and leaned forward. "You referred to his work earlier as a 'sin'—why?"

"Come now, Doctor," Tressalian answered, toying with a slender silver knife. "I think you know exactly why. And what's more, I suspect that you agree with the assessment."

"I may share some of your opinions," I said, weighing the statement. "But I also may have arrived at them through entirely different reasoning."

He smiled again. "Oh, I doubt that. But let's investigate, shall we?" He struggled to his feet, having eaten only half his food, and began to slowly circle the table. "Yes, Doctor, my father and his colleagues made certain that most of the world was given access to the modern Internet. To what was marketed — quite seductively and, of course, successfully — as 'unrestricted information.' And in an era when capitalism and global free trade had triumphed and were running rampant, such men had little trouble further promoting the belief that by logging on to that Internet, one was tapping in to a vast system of freedom, truth — and power. The mass of mankind withdrew to its terminals and clicked away, and those afflicted with philosophical scruples allowed themselves to be cajoled into believing that they were promoting the democratic cause of a free exchange not only of goods and information but of ideas as well. Convinced, in other words, that they were changing the world, and for the better."

His face turned toward the ocean again, and his manner softened once more. "Yet in the meantime, inexplicably but undeniably, the water and the air grew dirtier than they had ever been. New pandemics appeared, with no medicines to treat them. Poverty, anarchy, and conflict ravaged more and more parts of the world." He sighed once, his brow arching. "And the fish — disappeared…" When he turned to me again, his face radiated a paradoxical and disquieting calm. "How did it happen, Dr. Wolfe? How, in an age when the free flow of information and trade was supposedly creating a benevolent global order, did all this happen?"

Just then the shipwide address system issued another gently throbbing alarm, at which Colonel Slayton announced that there was to be another "system transfer" in two minutes. "We're heading into the stratosphere for a few hours, Dr. Wolfe," Tressalian said. "How would you feel about coffee and dessert at seventy thousand feet?"

I hadn't noticed, but during dinner the ship had inclined its angle of progress, and in just a few seconds the rippling image of the nearly full moon became visible through the surface of the ocean. Maintaining its speed, the vessel rushed up out of the water and into the open air, its superconductive electromagnetic generators propelling it into the heavens at a fantastic rate that did not even rattle the china on the table.

Colonel Slayton moved quietly toward the stairs and headed up to the control level with calm purpose. "There's no need to contact the island, Colonel," Tressalian called after him. "I've already double-checked the apparatus. We're set for dawn."

"Sorry, Malcolm," Slayton answered, continuing his climb. "The military penchant for redundancy dies hard."

Tressalian laughed quietly in my direction. "The Islamic terrorists in Afghanistan," he explained, "have refused to heed our warnings about the American strike, so we'll have to force them to leave. They've got their women and children down in those tunnels with them, and that's not blood I particularly want on my hands."

"But how can you force them to go?" I asked.

"Well — I could tell you, Doctor," Tressalian said as he began to drag his body away from the transparent hull. "But I think it'll be far more effective if you observe."