Counting Heads (12 page)

The helmet repeated its message several times and would go on repeating it until she acknowledged it, but she couldn’t. Her sweaty hands were slipping, and the arrestant was pulling her down against the cincture which, in turn, was strangling her. She was being stretched like a rubber band, and when her grip slipped completely, she felt her vertebrae wrench all up and down her spine. Not that her spine mattered much at this point.

Help I’m choking! she tried to say. Release release! she tried to say, but her throat was squeezed shut against the collar.

Ellen, your vital signs are degrading. What’s happening in there? Speak to me
.

Desperately, she wiped her hands on the front of her jumpsuit and grabbed the helmet again. She pulled until she could breathe, but her hands were already slipping.

That’s better, Ellen. Hold on
.

Her larynx was bruised; her voice cracked, “How long?”

Another sixty seconds from the surface
.

An eternity, she thought. “Foam?”

Top level jets won’t deploy
.

That was bad news. She needed either the harness or a podule completely filled with arrestant to hope to survive a crash landing over land. “Fix it.”

Attempting
.

“Don’t attempt—
do!
” Her words stopped her. It was another one of her mother’s pet phrases.

Incoming
, said Wee Hunk.

Incoming? Ellen thought, just as a large, soft object hit her chest and rolled away, nearly dislodging her hold on the helmet. “Eleanor?”

Yes
, said Wee Hunk,
it was Eleanor
.

“Mother!” she cried and let go of the helmet to reach out with both hands, but Eleanor was gone.

Cabinet says that Eleanor sends you her fondest greetings
.

At that moment, the erstwhile yacht hit Earth’s surface with such force that Ellen’s body was ripped from her head. So sudden and so stunning was this sensation that she heard neither the discharge of the helmet’s cryonics coils nor the crunch of bone as its collar flange irised shut, neatly nipping off her ragged stump of throat.

Fifteen minutes later, a dead-man switch inside a meter-long section of rain channel below the rooftop ledge of a gigatower in Indianapolis timed out and closed a circuit. This high up, there were no windows overlooking the ledge, or fixed cameras, or bees or slugs on patrol. The ceramic rain channel began to evaporate like a slab of dry ice. Before long, a miniature launch node lay exposed in the newly formed gap in the ledge. Twenty-seven miniature insectlike mechs were parked on it in a triple row. They perched, checking systems, while their multiple sets of foil wings were buffeted by updrafts of warm air.

One mech, a dazzling bee with a blue gemstone body, revved its wings and lifted off. It was followed by two sleek blue wasps sporting twin laser stingers fore and aft. With the bee in the lead, the team of three spiraled high above the gigatower in a furious whine of wings.

One by one, the other bees rose—a red one, a yellow one, an orange, and a white one. A pair of wasps joined each bee, and the little teams fanned out in separate directions.

Finally, four beetles with bulging carapaces lifted off from the ledge. They labored into the air and wallowed in the currents, waiting for their wasp escorts. When all of the mechs were successfully launched, the node itself began to melt and drip down the side of the building.

“DNA analysis,” Acting Chair Trina Warbeloo reported to the reconvened Garden Earth board, “confirms Eleanor’s remains at the scene, including, I am reluctant to add, incinerated remains of brain matter. Her daughter’s DNA has also been positively identified, but no brain matter. A deployed safety helmet, believed to contain the daughter’s head, has been retrieved and is being rushed to one of Byron’s clinics.” She nodded to board member Byron Fagan, who acknowledged the statement with a physician’s fey smile. “Let us wish her our best.

“Now,” Warbeloo continued, “I suggest we elect an interim chair until our next regular election. Do I hear a motion?”

“What? Just like that?” Merrill Meewee said. He was the only one still in the boardroom in realbody. The other members attended by holopresence from their various offices and homes. Zoranna was en route to San Francisco and attended from her private Slipstream car deep in the continental grid.

“Sorry, Merrill,” Warbeloo said. “Would you care to offer a few words of remembrance?”

“That’s not what I meant. I think it’s only fitting that we adjourn now and meet after the funeral.”

“Is that a motion?” Warbeloo said.

“Yes,” Meewee replied. “I move we adjourn till after the funeral.”

“Is there a second?”

No one seconded him, and the motion failed. Meewee said, “In that case, I
will
say a few words.”

He stood up, but Saul Jaspersen said, “Think you can keep it down to three minutes, your holiness?”

Meewee bowed his head and chose to ignore the jibe. “Friends,” he intoned and felt the falseness of the word, “today we have lost a great leader. Twelve years ago, when I was an archbishop for Birthplace International—”

“Amen,” Jaspersen said, cutting him off. “I move we hold an election for interim chair.”

“I second,” said Jerry Chapwoman.

“I was
speaking
!” Meewee said, but no one paid him any attention, and he sat back down.

There was only one nomination—Saul Jaspersen.

“Any other nominations?” Warbeloo said. “If not—”

Zoranna, nominate me
, Meewee pleaded. Zoranna sat across the table from him, strapped into her plush Slipstream seat, hurtling under the Rockies at one thousand kph. She frowned and said, “I nominate Merrill.”

The board voted, and Meewee lost; not even Zoranna voted for him.

Jaspersen’s holo flickered out and reappeared a moment later at the head of the table. “And now to new business,” he said. A scape opened above the large board table in which a dozen Oships were docked together like a roll of candy. Their huge hab drums, emblazoned with Chinese characters, rotated alternately clockwise and counter.

Meewee sputtered. “But, but this isn’t new business! This is the Chinas offer. We rejected it last year!”

“Not exactly accurate,” Jaspersen said. “
We
favored it, but
Eleanor
vetoed it, as was her prerogative as senior member. But that was then, and this is now.” He grinned at his own cleverness. “And what was old business is new again.”

“But I’m still here, and I represent Starke Enterprises’ interests,” Meewee said.

“Puh-leez,” Jaspersen said. “You were never more than an honorary member of this board.”

“I have a vote!”

“And we’ll hear your vote. Is there a motion?”

“Yes,” said Chapwoman, “I move we send the five China republics an RFP concerning the sale of GEP Oships.”

“I second,” said Fagan.

Jaspersen said, “Any discussion? Seeing none, all in favor—”

“Wait!” said Meewee. “
I
have discussion. I have plenty of discussion.”

Jaspersen grit his teeth. “All right, your grace. Say your piece, but keep it brief.”

Meewee looked around the table at the arrogant faces. The problem was that he wasn’t like these people at all, and he didn’t know what they thought or how to persuade them. That had always been Eleanor’s great talent. She had recruited him for his ability to talk to poor people, not to the affs. His credibility lay with Earth’s down-trodden and exploited—in other words, with the project’s prospective colonists and passengers—not with its owners.

“The Chinas only want to park our ships in Near Earth Orbit,” he said at last, “for moving their surplus population off-planet.”

“That’s right”—Chapwoman chuckled—“six million of ’em at a pop.”

“But what good does it do Earth to populate the inner solar system?” Meewee went on reasonably. “Their numbers on Earth would be replenished in two or three generations, and meanwhile, we’d only be helping to establish aggressive new competitors for solar system resources. It goes contrary to our mission.”

“Aggressive consumers, you mean,” Trina Warbeloo said. “It seems to me that the flaw in the Garden Earth mission, as you call it, lay in the fact that if we send all these ‘colonists’ off to Ursus Major, how can we trade with them? There’s no market, and where’s the profit in that?”

“The profit in that”—Meewee all but shouted—profit-making was offensive to him—“the profit in that is the land we acquire in exchange for their passage. At this very moment, we have a quarter million colonists cryogenically suspended in our cold storage facilities in the Ukraine prepped for transport up to the
Garden Kiev
. The moment that that Oship launches, title to a quarter million acres of Eurasia passes to
us. That’s
our profit.”

The board members stared at him blankly. If they weren’t interested in the fundamental goals of the Garden Earth Project, what hope was there? “What are you planning to do?” he bellowed. “Defrost them and say, sorry, we changed our minds?”

They didn’t even blink. He couldn’t believe it. He gaped at them in bewilderment: Chapwoman, whose company supplied the Oships with heavy extruders and particle target electronics; Jaspersen, whose Borealis Botanicals stocked them with zoological and botanical libraries; Fagan’s automated hospitals and rejuvenation tech; Adam Gest’s shipyards at Trailing Earth; and on and on. They all had a piece of the Oship pie, even Zoranna, his only ally, who owned Applied People, which provided the clone labor and security.

“Seeing no further discussion,” Jaspersen said, “all in favor?”

Meewee buried his head in his hands. A dozen years of ceaseless struggle for nothing. His bitterness knew no bounds, but then a voice spoke to him,
Call a point of order
.

Arrow?
he said, looking up. It didn’t sound like his mentar. It sounded like Zoranna’s mentar.
Nick?

Yes, it’s me, Merrill Call a point of order quickly before the vote is taken
.

“Point of order! Point of order!” Meewee said.

“What is it now, your grace?” Jaspersen said with exasperation.

Meewee waited several long moments for Nicholas or Arrow or someone to prompt him. When no one spoke up, he took a stab at it himself. “When this issue came up the first time, Eleanor vetoed it. Eleanor is no longer with us, and I don’t presume to possess a fraction of her persuasive talent.” Meewee paused, treading water, while the members’ expressions glazed over. Several of them were obviously conducting other business through their mentars while this meeting dragged on.

“What exactly is your point of order?” said Jaspersen.

“I’m coming to that,” Meewee said and added,
Nick?

Chapwoman’s motion is disallowed under the GEP mission statement
.

“Chapwoman’s motion is disallowed under the Garden Earth Project Consortium Mission Statement,” Meewee said and went on to quote the mission statement from memory: “The Garden Earth Project shall resettle humans outside Sol System in exchange for enforceable title and user rights to real estate on Earth.”

Jaspersen said, “And how does the mere issuance of an RFP contradict that?”

Meewee didn’t have a clue, but he tried to bluster his point across, “Do I have to spell it out for you, Myr Chair? Why don’t we skip the sparring and cut to the chase?”

Jaspersen looked bewildered. “I’m not sure I know what chase you mean, Meewee, but go ahead and cut to it if that’s what you want.”

But Nicholas remained silent until Meewee pleaded,
Please?

Bylaw 13, paragraph 3
.

“Bylaw 13, paragraph 3,” Meewee said.

Also bylaw 13, paragraph 26
.

“Also bylaw 13, paragraph 26!” Meewee said defiantly. The discussion stalled while the members’ mentars glossed them the relevant passages. Meewee waited for a gloss, himself.
Nick? Arrow?

“Bylaw 13, paragraph 26?” Jaspersen said. “Are you sure? We
have
a super quorum. We’re
all
here. How can you get any more quorum than that?”

Trina Warbeloo said, “I’m afraid he’s right, Saul, and I’m embarrassed to say I missed it. To take any action, even issuing an RFP, for activities not covered by our mission statement requires a super quorum, which requires ten of us to be in the same physical location in
realbody
.”

“In realbody? Who ever set up a stupid rule like that?”

“Eleanor did, and by extension, so did we.”

“Fine, fine,” Jaspersen said. “I’ll table the Chinas motion—for now. And I’m calling a mandatory realbody meeting for this Thursday, here at the Starke Enterprises’ headquarters, to begin at 9:00
AM
sharp local time.”

There were loud objections around the table.

“You’ve got to be kidding,” said Chapwoman.

“This is not a good time to travel,” Andie Tiekel said.

“I would never have voted for you if I thought you were going to pull a stupid stunt like that,” said Warbeloo.

“Nonsense,” said Jaspersen. “It’s safe, and I’ll be traveling as far as anyone here.”

“Please tell me,” Adam Gest said, “how you’re traveling as far as me. I’m at
Trailing Earth
. Isn’t this what holopresence was invented for?”

“Fine, fine,” Jaspersen said. “In the interest of members’ personal security, I am setting the realbody meeting date to four weeks from today. That’ll give us time for things to settle down. Any objections? Seeing none, I send it to the calendar. Does anyone have agenda items for that meeting? I’ll go ahead and place the first one, namely: Let’s revisit our mission statement that Meewee is so fond of quoting.”

Meewee felt the words like a slap across the face. They had decided they no longer needed a goodwill ambassador, which meant that when they met again in four weeks they would vote him off the board and gut the project entirely.

The other members were mollified, and the meeting began to wind down. Suddenly, there was a frisson in the room, and Jaspersen’s buoyant expression fell.

“It has come to my attention,” he said, none too happily, “that Cabinet has passed probate and wishes to join us. Any objections?”

Cabinet? Meewee looked around the room. “Cabinet’s through probate?”