Voyagers II - The Alien Within (34 page)

“Yes….” The bleeding seemed to have stopped, but Temujin still pressed the heels of his hands against his eyes. Blood caked his cheeks, his clothes.

“And there’s one corporation in particular that’s been especially generous, isn’t there? One corporation that either owns or controls the factories in Czechoslovakia and Japan and the United States. Right?”

“Yes.” Temujin’s voice was a weak, pleading sob.

“Which corporation is that?” Stoner asked.

“He doesn’t have to answer,” Jo said. Stoner turned toward her, as did the others around the table.

“I know which corporation it is,” she said. “It’s Vanguard Industries.”

“It’s Everett,” Jo said. “I didn’t realize how mad he really is until this moment.”

Markov leaned across the table toward her. “Your husband?
He
is the mastermind behind these terrorist movements? But why? Why would he…?”

“He must be insane,” An Linh said.

Baker, still standing between the table and his knocked-over chair, seemed to stir and breathe again like a statue coming to life.

“Nillson can’t be the man behind the World Liberation Movement! He tortured me to get information about…”

Jo gave him a pitying glance. “Don’t you think he’s capable of torturing you to see how loyal a member of the Movement you are? Or just for the sadistic pleasure of it?”

His face went white. An Linh reached up and took Baker’s hand in her own.

“Everett could do it,” Jo said. “He’s crazy enough to use the World Liberation Movement as a counterforce to the Peacekeepers. He’d do anything to keep Vanguard Industries on top. It’s a game to him. A power game.”

“I don’t understand,” said Stoner.

“The Peacekeepers are the first step toward a world government,” Jo said. “An
effective
world government with the power to disarm the individual nations and enforce international law.”

“And impose taxes,” added Markov.

Nodding, Jo agreed, “Taxes, yes, and all sorts of other laws and regulations. Everett is dead set against that. So are most of the other corporate powers around the world.”

“They want to run the world their way,” said Markov.

“They’re already running the world,” Jo said. “And I’ve been one of them. They’re not going to give up their power to anyone—not willingly.”

Stoner asked, “How do we get to Nillson?”

“We must first consider,” said Markov, gesturing at the stone walls around them, “how we can get out of this place.”

Temujin still sat in his chair, hands pressed to his eyes, face and clothes streaked with drying blood. He was crying, chest heaving with deep, racking sobs.

“He’s finished,” Stoner said. “He’ll never have the strength to recover, even if his sight comes back.”

“
If
his sight…” Jo’s question petered out into silence.

Grim-faced, Stoner said, “He’ll spend the rest of his life in a monastery. He’ll make a good monk, doing penance for the lives he’s taken.”

The others stared at him.

Rising to his feet, Stoner said, “Come on, it’s time we left. Cliff, you can stay here with him or come with us. Which will it be?”

Baker shuddered visibly. He swallowed hard, then answered in a choked voice, “I’ll…I’ll come with you.”

“Good,” said Stoner. “Come on.”

Within a few hours they were back in the air, aboard the same Russian swing-wing jet they had come in, flying at supersonic speed toward Moscow. Markov was up on the flight deck, using the radio to call his superiors in the Kremlin. After only a few minutes in the air, Stoner saw a pair of Soviet fighter planes streaking toward them.

Jo saw them, too. “My God, what are they going to do?”

“Relax,” said Stoner calmly. “They’re our escort.”

And the fighters took up stations on either wingtip of their jet. Stoner saw one of the pilots in his bubble canopy wave at them with a gloved hand.

“We’re safe now,” he told Jo. “We’ll get to Moscow all right.”

He swiveled his chair to face An Linh and Baker, sitting behind him.

“How long were you working for the World Liberation Movement, Cliff?” he asked.

The Australian looked uncomfortable. “Since college, really.”

“I thought so.”

He nodded warily. “You haven’t ended the WLM, you know. Even if Temujin is a total loss, you haven’t ended the Movement.”

“You think not?”

“It’ll just split up again into a lot of separate movements, the way it was before. You may have broken up our central organization, but the Movement will go on.”

“I don’t want to end it,” said Stoner. “All I want is to see the Movement turn to a peaceful pursuit of its goals. The fighting’s got to stop, Cliff. The killing’s got to end.”

Baker snorted. “And I suppose the rich nations and the big corporations are going to share their wealth out of the goodness of their hearts, like Father Christmas bringing presents to good little boys and girls.”

An Linh put a hand on his knee. “Cliff, don’t lose your temper.”

He ignored her. “I suppose you”—he jabbed a finger toward Jo—“will sell all your jewels and give the proceeds to the poor, huh?”

“What good would that do?” Jo countered.

Before Baker could reply, Stoner said, “Cliff, there are two ways to help the poor. One is by redistributing the world’s wealth. The other is to generate more wealth, to make a bigger pie so that there can be more slices available for the poor.”

“Don’t give me that eyewash!” Baker snapped. “I’ve been hearing that since school days.”

“It will work, Cliff. You can create enormous new riches….”

“And
she’ll
get fatter while the poor keep on starving!”

“Not if you work together to see that the wealth reaches those who need it most.”

“Work together? Who? Me and her?”

“Why not?”

“I don’t trust her, that’s why.”

Jo gave him a derisive sneer. “What makes you think I trust you?”

“Well, that’s one thing we agree on. The rich and the poor can’t trust each other,” Baker said. “They’re cut from different cloth.”

“Really?” Stoner asked.

“I was poor,” Jo told him. “I was born in Chelsea, Massachusetts. My father was a shoemaker. I went to MIT on a scholarship. I’ve worked hard all my life.”

“And I was born on a sheep ranch in New South Wales and got a scholarship to university to study journalism. I’ve worked hard, too, but I’m never going to have the money you have. Not unless I can take it from you, and you won’t give it up without a fight, will you?”

Stoner asked, “Cliff, do you want to help the poor, or are you just jealous of the rich?”

The Australian opened his mouth to reply, but no words came out.

“Use the calculator function on your wristwatch to do a little long division,” Stoner said. “Divide all the budgets of the multinational corporations and the industrialized nations of the world by the number of people alive today.” He looked over at An Linh and asked, “What’s the world’s population today?”

“More than seven billion,” she guessed.

“I know what you’re driving at,” Baker said. “You’re going to claim that there isn’t enough money in the world to make everybody rich.”

“Almost,” said Stoner. “The thing is, it won’t do any good to make everybody equally poor. We’ve got to find ways of creating new wealth, ways that will allow the poor people to make themselves rich.”

“It’ll never happen.”

“Of course it can happen!” Stoner insisted. Tapping his temple, “Do you think that the energy shield and fusion power are the only things the aliens have to offer? There’s an entire universe of riches out there in space. Wealth beyond your dreams.”

“And you expect me to believe that Vanguard Industries is going to let the poor peoples of the world share in that wealth?”

“No. I expect you to work to
make
Vanguard and the other corporations and rich nations share that wealth. I expect you to work with the poor nations to help them learn how to tap that new wealth. And I expect myself to work alongside you, to see that it gets done.”

Baker fell silent. Stoner could see a lifetime’s worth of bitterness and cynicism struggling with the new hope that he could dimly visualize.

“You’ve tried it your way,” Stoner urged gently. “All your life, terrorists have been killing people, revolutionaries have been fighting wars, all in the name of the poor. And what have they accomplished?”

Baker’s eyes shifted. He seemed uncertain, wavering. Stoner knew he could convince the man of anything—for a while. What he needed to do was to have Baker convince himself, permanently.

“Killing leads to more killing, Cliff, and damned little else. When you take from the rich to give to the poor, you build hatred and violence; you guarantee that the rich are going to fight back.”

“But they’ll never give up what they have voluntarily,” Baker argued back heatedly. “D’you think
she’s
going to sell what she has and give it to the poor? The hell she will!”

Stoner smiled grimly. “Let’s ask her.” He swiveled his chair back toward Jo. “What about it, Jo?”

“What about what?” Jo snapped. “I could give away everything I own and it wouldn’t make a dent the size of a pimple on the world’s poverty.”

“See?” Baker said.

“Wait a minute,” said Stoner. “Jo, would you be willing to give a certain percentage of Vanguard’s profits to an international fund for helping poor nations to develop their economies?”

She said, “We’ve tried that before. The World Bank—”

“Suppose all the multinational corporations were taxed equally,” Stoner suggested, “and the fund was administered by a nonpolitical organization.”

“Would the corporations be represented on the administrating board?” she asked.

Stoner turned toward Baker again. “Would that make sense to you?”

“Not a whole hell of a lot,” he grumbled.

“A tax,” Stoner explained, “that is paid by every multinational corporation. No hiding behind national borders or getting favorable tax deals from a friendly national government. No tax shelters anywhere on Earth.”

“What about space?” An Linh asked. “Couldn’t a corporation move its operations into orbit to escape the tax?”

Stoner grinned at her. “Then we’ll have to extend the reach of the tax law to space—as far as the Moon, I guess. That should do it.”

“Maybe,” Baker admitted.

“Would you sit on the governing board of such an organization, Cliff, to help see that the money raised by this international tax is spent to help the poor nations develop their economies and feed their people?”

He waved his hands in the air. “This is all theoretical! Nothing but hot air!”

“It’s something to aim for,” Stoner insisted. “A way to accomplish the goals you claim you want to reach, without bloodshed.”

“I would sit on that governing board,” Jo said firmly.

“Sure you would,” Baker snapped.

She leaned toward him. “Then why won’t you? Scared?”

“Of what?”

“Of trying to solve the problems that have given you a goal in your life. Of trying to build something new and good, instead of tearing down what you don’t like and leaving nothing but rubble.”

“You’d have a chance to make something of yourself, Cliff,” An Linh said.

Stoner added, “It’s always tougher to create than to destroy. But you’ve got to try, Cliff. You, and all the others who’ve spent their lives in destruction. You’ve got to turn your energies to creating a new society.”

Baker looked at each of them in turn: An Linh, Jo, and finally Stoner. His face was a strange mixture of emotions: hope and uncertainty, fear and longing.

“You all think you’re pretty smart, don’t you? This is nothing but talk! What good will it do?”

“For you personally, Cliff,” said Stoner, “it will be a way of changing your life. You’re rushing toward death now. Work for life! Try to build instead of destroy, because it’s your own life that’s either growing or withering away. Choose life over death.”

“By becoming an international bureaucrat.” Baker snorted derisively.

“You could help to change the world,” An Linh said.

“I’ll work for such a system,” Stoner repeated, “if you will.”

“And I will, too,” Jo said.

“You?”

She grinned at Baker. “You don’t think I’m going to let you radicals set up an international tax system by yourselves, do you? I don’t trust you enough to let you do that.”

A small grin played across his face. “I see. Well, if you’re going to meet with your fellow plutocrats to set up an international tax system, I sure don’t trust
you
enough to let you do it by yourselves.”

“You’re in, then?” Stoner asked.

Baker eyed him for a moment, his old cynical smile returning. “This is a lot of hot air, y’know. But—for what it’s worth—yeah, I’m in.”

“Good!” An Linh clapped her hands together.

Stoner got up from his chair. “I’ll get Markov. We shouldn’t let the Socialist nations get away from paying their fair share.”

Hours later, as the plane flew on through the darkening evening, Jo leaned across the aisle separating their two seats and asked Stoner:

“Did you mean what you said to him?” She cocked her head slightly toward Baker, sitting behind them, talking with An Linh.

“Yes, of course. Didn’t you?”

“Do you think we could really do it? Do you have any idea of how much resistance…”

“Are you willing to try?” Stoner asked.

She thought for a moment, then nodded. “Yes. Sure. Why not? If it can be made to work.”

“Can you bring Vanguard into the scheme?”

“Everett will never agree.”

“Can you take the corporation away from him?”

She shook her head. “No way. As long as he’s alive, he’s got the power and I’m just a figurehead.”

“As long as he’s alive.”

Jo stared at Stoner.

“Where is he now, do you know?”

“I can find out,” she said, getting up swiftly from her seat as if anxious to get away from Stoner.

He watched her go forward to the door of the flight deck. It opened, and he could see Markov standing, hunched over, between the two pilots. Jo squeezed into the compartment and closed the door behind her.

Stoner leaned back in his chair and thought over the situation. Can we really turn the World Liberation Movement away from violence? Can we bring the multinational corporations into a global tax system that will provide the funds to attack the problems of world poverty and hunger?

We? he asked himself. Who are we? The president of a corporation. An undercover agent for terrorists. A Russian academician. An orphaned victim of war. A scientist—and an alien intelligence living inside his brain, like an interstellar parasite.

Parasite? He sensed a waspish reaction, an almost angry denial of the term. Symbiote, thought Stoner. Maybe that’s a better name for our relationship. The mind of an alien who’s been dead for millennia, combined with the living body of a man of Earth. By combining, by working together in symbiosis, each is more than he could be by himself.