Part 13 (2/2)

It was not entirely a new order, however. The multinationals had mostly originated in the wealthy industrial nations, and so in certain senses the transnationals were expressions of these nations- extensions of their power into the rest of the world, in a way that reminded Sax of what little he knew of the imperial and colonial systems that had preceded them. Frank had said something like that: colonialism had never died, he used to declare, it just changed names and hired local cops. We're all colonies of the transnats.

This was Frank's cynicism, Sax decided (wis.h.i.+ng that he had that hard bitter mind on hand to instruct him), because all colonies were not equal. It was true that transnats were so powerful that they had rendered national governments little more than toothless servants. And no transnat had shown any particular loyalty to any given government, or the UN. But they were children of the West- children who no longer cared for their parents, yet still supported them. For the record showed that the industrial nations had prospered under the transnats, while the developing nations had had no recourse but to fight each other for flag-of-convenience status. And thus in 2060 when the transnats had come under fire from desperate poor countries, it had been the Group of Seven and its military might that had come to their defense.

But the proximate cause? Night after night he sifted through vid of the 2040s and '50s, looking for traces of patterns. Eventually he decided that it was the longevity treatment which had pushed things over the edge. Through the 2050s the treatment had spread through the rich countries, ill.u.s.trating the gross economic inequality in the world like a color stain in a microscope sample. And as the treatment spread, the situation had gotten increasingly tense, rising steadily up the steps of Kahn's ladder of crises.

The immediate cause of the explosion of '61, strangely enough, appeared to be a squabble concerning the Martian s.p.a.ce elevator. The elevator had been operated by Praxis, but after it had started operations, in February of 2061 to be precise, it had been taken over by Subaras.h.i.+, in a clearly hostile takeover. Subaras.h.i.+ at that time was a conglomeration of most of the j.a.panese corporations that had not folded into Mitsubis.h.i.+, and it was a rising power, very aggressive and ambitious. Upon acquisition of the elevator- a takeover approved by UNOMA- Subaras.h.i.+ had immediately increased the emigration quotas, causing the situation on Mars to go critical. At the same time on Earth, Subaras.h.i.+'s compet.i.tors had objected to what was effectively an economic conquest of Mars, and though Praxis had confined its objections to legal action at the hapless UN, one of Subaras.h.i.+'s flags of convenience, Malaysia, had been attacked by Singapore, which was a base for Sh.e.l.lalco. By April of 2061 much of south Asia was at war. Most of the fights were long-standing conflicts, such as Cambodia versus Vietnam, or Pakistan versus India; but some were attacks on Subaras.h.i.+ flags, as in Burma and Bangladesh. Events in the region had shot up the escalation ladder with deadly speed as old enmities joined the new transnat conflicts, and by June wars had spread all over Terra, and then to Mars. By October fifty million people had died, and another fifty million were to die in the aftermath, as many basic services had been interrupted or destroyed, and a newly released malaria vector remained without an effective prevention or cure.

That seemed enough to qualify it as a world war to Sax, brevity nonwithstanding. It had been, he concluded, a deadly synergistic combination of fights among the transnats, and revolutions by a wide array of disenfranchised groups against the transnat order. But the chaotic violence had convinced the transnats to resolve their disputes, or at least table them, and all the revolutions had failed, especially after the militaries of the Group of Seven intervened to rescue the transnats from dismemberment in their flags of convenience. All the giant military-industrial nations had ended up on the same side, which had helped to make it a very short world war compared to the first two. Short, but terrible- about as many people had died in 2061 as in the first two world wars together.

Mars had been a minor campaign in this Third World War, a campaign in which certain of the transnats had overreacted to a flamboyant but disorganized revolt. When it was over, Mars had been seized firmly in the grip of the major transnationals, with the blessing of the Group of Seven and the transnats' other clients. And Terra had staggered on, a hundred million people fewer.

But nothing else had changed. None of its problems had been addressed. So it all might happen again. It was perfectly possible. One might even say that it was likely.

Sax continued to sleep poorly. And though he spent his days in the ordinary routines of work and habit, it seemed that he saw things differently than he had before the conference. Another proof, he supposed glumly, of the notion of vision as a paradigm construct. But now it was so obvious the transnationals were everywhere. In terms of authority, there was hardly anything else. Burroughs was a transnat town, and from what Phyllis had said, Sheffield was too. There were none of the national scientific teams that had proliferated in the years before the treaty conference; and with the First Hundred dead or in hiding, the whole tradition of Mars as a research station was extinct. What science there was was devoted to the terraforming project, and he had seen what kind of science that was becoming. No, the research was applied only, these days.

And there were very few other signs of the old nation-states, now that he looked. The news gave the impression that they were mostly bankrupt, even the Group of Seven; and the transnats were holding the debts, if anybody was. Some reports made Sax think that in a sense the transnats were even taking on smaller countries as a kind of capital a.s.set, in a new business/government arrangement that went far beyond the old flag-of-convenience contracts.

An example of this new arrangement in a slightly different form was Mars itself, which seemed effectively in the possession of the big transnats. And now that the elevator was back, the export of metals and the import of people and goods had vastly accelerated. Terran stock markets were ballooning hysterically to mark the action, with no end in sight, despite the fact that Mars could only provide Terra with certain metals in certain quant.i.ties. So the stock market rise was probably some kind of bubble phenomenon, and if it burst it might very well be enough to bring everything down again. Or perhaps not; economics was a bizarre field, and there were senses in which the whole stock market was simply too unreal to have impacts beyond itself. But who knew till it happened? Sax, wandering the streets of Burroughs looking at the stock market displays in the office windows, certainly didn't claim to. People were not rational systems.

This profound truth was reinforced when Desmond showed up one evening at his door. The famous Coyote himself, the stowaway, Big Man's little bro, standing there small and slight in a brightly colored construction worker's jumper, diagonal slashes of aquamarine and royal blue leading the eye down to lime-green walker boots. Many construction workers in Burroughs (and there were a lot of them) wore the new light and flexible walker boots all the time as a kind of fas.h.i.+on statement, and all were brightly colored, but very few achieved the stunning quality of Desmond's fluorescent greens.

He grinned his cracked grin as Sax stared at them. ”Yes, so beautiful aren't they? And very distracting.”

Which was just as well, as his dreadlocks were stuffed into a voluminous red, yellow, and green beret, an unusual sight anywhere on Mars. ”Come on, let's go out for a drink.”

He led Sax down to a cheap ca.n.a.lside bar, built into the side of a ma.s.sive emptied pingo. The construction crowd here was tightly packed around long tables, and sounded mostly Australian. At the ca.n.a.lside itself a particularly rowdy group were throwing ice shot-puts the size of cannonb.a.l.l.s out into the ca.n.a.l, and very occasionally thumping one down on the gra.s.s of the far bank, which caused cheers and often a round of nitrous oxide for the house. Strollers on the far bank were giving that part of the ca.n.a.lside a wide berth.

Desmond got them four shots of tequila and one nitrous inhaler. ”Pretty soon we'll have agave cactus growing on the surface, eh?”

”I think you could do it now.”

They sat at the end of one table, with their elbows b.u.mping and Desmond talking into Sax's ear as they drank. He had a whole wish list of things he wanted Sax to steal from Biotique. Seed stocks, spores, rhizomes, certain growth media, certain hard-to-synthesize chemicals.... ”Hiroko says to tell you she really needs all of it, but especially the seeds.”

”Can't she breed those herself? I don't like taking things.”

”Life is a dangerous game,” Desmond said, toasting the thought with a big whiff of nitrous, followed by a shot of tequila. ”Ahhhhhhhhh,” he said.

”It's not the danger,” Sax said. ”I just don't like doing it. I work with those people.”

Desmond shrugged and did not answer. It occurred to Sax that these scruples might strike Desmond, who had spent most of the twenty-first century living by theft, as a bit overfine.

”You won't be taking it from those people,” Desmond said at last. ”You'll be taking it from the transnat that owns Biotique.”

”But that's a Swiss collective, and Praxis,” Sax said. ”And Praxis doesn't look so bad. It's a very loose egalitarian system, it reminds me of Hiroko's, actually.”

”Except that they're part of a global system that has a fairly small oligarchy running the world. You have to remember the context.”

”Oh believe me, I do,” Sax, said, remembering his sleepless nights. ”But you have to make distinctions as well.”

”Yes, yes. And one distinction is that Hiroko needs these materials and cannot make them, given the necessity to hide from the police hired by your wonderful transnational.”

Sax blinked disgruntledly.

”Besides, theft of materials is one of the few resistance actions left to us these days. Hiroko has agreed with Maya that obvious sabotage is simply an announcement of the underground's existence, and an invitation for reprisal and a shutdown of the demimonde. Better simply to disappear for a while, she says, and make them think that we never existed in any great numbers.”

”It's a good idea,” Sax said. ”But I'm surprised you're doing what Hiroko says.”

”Very funny,” Desmond said with a grimace. ”Anyway, I think it's a good idea too.”

”You do?”

”No. But she talked me into it. It may be for the best. Anyway there's still a lot of materials to be obtained.”

”Won't theft itself tip off the police that we're still out there?”

”No way. It's so widespread that what we do can't be noticed against the background levels. There's a whole lot of inside jobs.”

”Like me.”

”Yes, but you're not doing it for money, are you.”

”I still don't like it.”

Desmond laughed, revealing his stone eyetooth, and the odd asymmetricality of his jaw and his whole lower face. ”It's hostage syndrome. You work with them and you get to know them, and have a sympathy for them. You have to remember what they're doing here. Come on, finish that cactus and I'll show you some things you haven't seen, right here in Burroughs.”

There was a commotion, as an ice shot had hit the other bank and rolled up the gra.s.s and bowled over an old man. People were cheering and lifting the woman who had made the throw onto their shoulders, but the group with the old man was charging down to the nearest bridge. ”This place is getting too noisy,” Desmond said. ”Come on, drink that and let's go.”

Sax knocked back the liquor while Desmond popped the last of the inhaler. Then they left quickly to avoid the developing brouhaha, walking up the ca.n.a.lside path. A half hour's walk took them past the rows of Bareiss columns and up into Princess Park, where they turned right and walked up the steep wide gra.s.sy incline of Thoth Boulevard. Beyond Table Mountain they turned left down a narrower swath of streetgra.s.s, and came to the westernmost part of the tent wall, extending in a big arc around Black Syrtis Mesa. ”Look, they're getting back to the old coffin quarters for workers again,” Desmond pointed out. ”That's Subaras.h.i.+'s standard housing now, but see how these units are set into the mesa. Black Syrtis contained a plutonium processing plant in the early days of Burroughs, when it was well out of town. But now Subaras.h.i.+ has built workers' quarters right next to it, and their jobs are to oversee the processing and the removal of the waste, north to Nili Fossae, where some integral fast reactors will use it. The cleanup operation used to be almost completely robotic, but the robots are hard to keep on-line. They've found it's cheaper to use people for a lot of the jobs.”

”But the radiation,” Sax said, blinking.

”Yes,” Desmond said with his savage grin. ”They take on forty rem a year.”

”You're kidding!”

”I am not kidding. They tell the workers this, and give them hards.h.i.+p pay, and after three years they get a bonus, which is the treatment.”

”Is it withheld from them otherwise?”

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