Part 18 (1/2)
Eight whole minutes to decide some kind of future, one she didn't entirely understand.
Her right eye was the only one without extra images running across her line of sight. She concentrated on the equipment, the screens on the surfaces showing dozens of trains catapulting toward Wells. Dozens, on tracks not built to hold that many.
How unfortunate that this crisis had started in Sahara Dome, where so many of the train lines originated. Sahara Dome, the stop before Wells.
”Seven minutes,” the train station head said. She hadn't been able to think of any of these men by name ever since she arrived here. That was one piece of information too many.
”How long can we keep the trains stopped outside the Dome?” she asked.
”And keep all the pa.s.sengers alive? A few days, maybe,” one of the engineers said.
”If they don't jump out,” said the other. He claimed Disty who couldn't board the trains in Sahara Dome clung to the trains' exteriors as the trains hurtled out of the city, dying when the trains got outside the Dome.
”A few days,” Gennefort repeated.
She was trying to accommodate the Disty inside her city, she really was. But she had no idea what she was facing- what caused the outflow, why the Disty here were so uncommunicative, and what would happen to her if she made the wrong decision.
Oddly, she was less afraid of the Disty than she was of the Alliance. She was a lesser official. She wasn't supposed to make decisions about Disty lives. The Disty ruled here; she didn't.
She could only think of one solution that accommodated the Disty and allowed the trains to continue moving south. ”How long to build a track around Wells?”
”A track? You're kidding, right?” the station head said.
”No,” she said.
”Even if we had the workers, which we don't-we have to import laborers and robots and supervisors-even if we had them, it would take a month minimum. The terrain out there is difficult. Add the dust storms and the rocks, and the fragility of this dome, and we're probably talking six months, maybe more.”
Six months.
Her choices had narrowed. Do nothing and let this unfold as it may. Stop the trains between cities and let someone else handle the problem. Or let the trains through.
”Can these trains go through Wells without stopping?” She knew it hadn't been done in her lifetime. Wells had fought for the position of permanent stop on the bullet train route. Sometimes, she believed, that permanent stop order was the only thing that kept the city alive.
”They can,” the station head said, ”but it's not done.”
”Why?” Gennefort asked.
”If something goes wrong, we'll have a major catastrophe on our hands.”
”We already do,” she said. ”We can't accommodate any more Disty in this Dome. We can barely handle our own population. And once one train stops, they'll all want to. How many Disty are there in Sahara Dome, anyway?”
”None, according to some news reports,” one of the engineers said. ”At least none that aren't trying to leave.”
”A lot more than we have here. Maybe ten times our Disty population,” said the other engineer.
”My G.o.d,” she said. Why weren't the local Disty handling this? Why had they left it to her?
She sent another urgent message through her links, only to get the same automated reply she'd been getting since the crisis began. The Disty were in a meeting and could not be disturbed.
”You have five minutes,” the station head said. ”Maybe less.”
She gave him a look that she knew was filled with fear. Then she took a deep breath. One decision was better than no decision.
”Let the trains through,” she said. ”Don't let them stop.”
”If they pile up . . .” the station head started.
”We'll have fewer deaths than we would if we strand the trains outside the Dome,” Gennefort said.
”I don't see how you figure,” the station head said.
”These trains aren't programmed for that kind of backlog. We have no idea how many more are coming, and from what I can tell, the Disty aren't acting rationally. Accidents outside the Dome will automatically kill those involved. They at least have a chance of surviving inside the Dome.”
The nearest engineer shook his head.
”Besides,” Gennefort said, ”the safest action is to let the Disty through. Maybe by the time the trains reach Bakhuysen, the Disty there will have made a decision to stop this crisis, whatever it is.”
”I hope so,” the station head said. Then he looked at the engineers. ”I'll send the messages to the floor, but you open the dome portals. Let the trains through and make sure none of them stop.”
”Make sure none of them hit each other,” one of the engineers muttered.
”Like that'll happen,” another said.
”Give me a better idea,” Gennefort snapped. ”One that'll save lives.”
No one answered her.
She folded her hands together and took a deep breath. ”Let's do this thing.”
28.
About two hours after ordering his second coffee and sandwich, Flint moved to another table with a different screen and started using a different stolen identification. The law school cafeteria was filling up with students, most of whom seemed very intent on getting their food and finis.h.i.+ng whatever project they were working on. A group of humans sat two tables over, arguing about the origins of the Multicultural Tribunals. Flint tried to tune out the argument, but at least two of the students were witty; he found himself smiling more than he thought possible when doing this kind of grunt work.
And grunt work this was. Corporate records, corporate finances, corporate regulations made his eyes cross. He was about to give up and move to a different line of research when he finally found what he was looking for.
A company that subcontracted to one of the subcorporations of Gale Research and Development had a single employee, a woman named Mary Sue Jrgen Meister. On most of the corporate records, she was listed as M. S. J. Meister, but on one he found her full name.
It hadn't shown up in his initial search because the company was so small that it was buried in the records. Still, Mary Sue Jrgen Meister made Gale Research and Development two hundred thousand credits in the s.p.a.ce of a month.
She had acquired water rights for a small tributary in an Outlying Colony. She sold those rights to a subsidiary of Gale Research and Development, who then sold those rights to Gale, who then transferred the rights to BiMela. Who then resold those rights to another corporation (not affiliated) for two hundred thousand more than Gale had originally paid for them.
Flint followed the lead all the way down to the tributary itself, which, it turned out, didn't exist. The tributary had dried up decades before, shortly after that nation in the Outlying Colonies settled a city upriver, but for some reason, mapmakers kept the tributary on the map. The owners of the land didn't mind selling the water rights for cheap, even though there was currently no water. They a.s.sumed that water would come back at some point, ignoring the dams that had been installed farther upstream.
But the hydropower corporation that had bought the rights from BiMela claimed fraud. BiMela claimed ignorance, and went all the way back down the chain, suing the company that M. S. J. Meister had founded. A company that had disbanded in the years it took the hydropower corporation to realize it had bought the rights to a nonexistent stream.