114 The Last Supper (1/2)
By the time voting had ended, Brock had drank the contents of his silver flask and was quite drunk. Full of goodwill and bonhomie, he intercepted Troll and Caron as they were leaving the general assembly chamber, and invited them to his suite for dinner.
As a result, at seven o'clock that evening his suite was invaded by both invited and uninvited guests. The indomitable Panatella quickly organized extra settings and extra rations. Brock's private stock of beef and black bean MREs - the best-tasting of all MREs, hands down - was seriously depleted. Brock consoled himself with bourbon - he'd felt obliged to bring out a fresh bottle for his guests, and the least he could do was make sure he drank as much of it himself as he possibly could.
It didn't work well this time; it made him sulky. He was ominously silent when everyone sat down to eat. His mood wasn't improved when Panatella put a couple of bottles of red wine on the table. She asked him first if she could, of course, but the way she put it he had no choice but to tell her to go ahead.
Brock's guests were the cream of the select group of people who were deciding what the world - both worlds - would be like. Olaf Troll sat at the other end of the table. To his right, Brock had the vampiric Molito. He hadn't invited her; Troll did. He'd thought that when Brock told him he could bring someone with him, he really could do so.
Luckily, Lea Panatella was seated next to Molito. Brock knew she would intervene fearlessly if Molito said something that didn't sit well with Brock. Panatella's presence was also valuable because of her enormous tits. Everyone was intimidated by them, including Molito.
Odongo and Caron, possibly the two most important men in both worlds - after Brock himself, of course - were seated on his left. They were visibly thrown off balance by being seated across from Panatella and Molito. It was like watching soft porn and a horror movie simultaneously on a split screen.
Ofongo hadn't been invited either; Brock had had his fill of Odongo earlier in the day. But once again, he'd told Caron he could bring someone if he wanted to. It was just a social reflex, totally meaningless, and in normal times it would have been interpreted as such. But these were times when an invitation to eat attracted extra guests the way honey attracts wasps.
There wasn't much conversation to begin with: Brock didn't initiate any, and his guests were only too glad to be able to devote their undivided attention to the food. Red wine was also consumed, but uncharacteristically it did not make people talkative.
The cause behind the silence was expertly identified by Molito. When she'd finished eating, she said:
”You seem to be quite angry about something, governor Brock. Perhaps you'd like to get it off your chest?”
”Yes, you look worried, Carlton,” chimed in Caron. He grinned and added:
Brock glared at him, and said:
”No, you didn't. And I'm not angry, just tired,” he added, turning to Molito. ”I spent the whole day yesterday with my state governors. Making sure they'll do what they're supposed to do.”
”Will they?”
”We'll see. If they won't, it's their ass. I am giving each of them a year to shape up. That's ten years in the New World.”
”That's very generous of you,” observed Caron.
”It's not generous. It's realistic. Hell, most of them won't be home on the first. They're travelling by train. It will be at least a month before they settle into the job. It will be another three months before they get things running properly.”
”What I don't understand,” said Molito, ”Is why you're insisting on March the first as the starting date. It's obvious, even to me, that everyone's unprepared.”
”What isn't obvious to you,” snarled Brock, ”Is that no one is ever going to be one hundred percent prepared for what we're going to do. This whole premise, that you can be fully prepared for something totally new, is just pure bullshit. If something's new, there are going to be surprises.”
”I fully agree,” chimed in Odongo. ”Besides, professor, there's a very real threat of civil wars breaking out everywhere if we sit tight. The only reason they didn't break out immediately after the catastrophe was the total breakdown in communications. Rebels need good communications even more than a government does.”
”Yes, I understand that,” said Molito. ”A government has established procedures for everything. That's exactly my point. You don't seem to have a set of established procedures for the New World.”
”Of course we don't,” snapped Brock. ”It's the New World. New, do you understand that word, professor?”
”Many things can be predicted with great accuracy even when we're dealing with completely new circumstances,” said Molito.
”Be my guest, professor,” sneered Brock. ”Please go ahead. I am sure everyone is greatly interested to hear your predictions. How well do you know the New World, professor?”
”I have the general idea,” said Molito patiently. It was obvious she'd put in many hours dealing with crazies of all sorts. ”But regardless of what the New World is like, it's only half the equation. The smaller half. Maybe as little as a third.”
”And the other two thirds?”
”Human nature,” said Molito. ”And that's something we're all familiar with. And very predictable.”
”I fully agree,” said Brock, surprising everyone. ”That's exactly why we have to move fast. Because if we don't give all these frustrated fuckers something to do and dream about, the world is going to explode. We're going to have a famine in a couple of months, professor. A worldwide famine. Not one of those somewhere-in-Sudan-or-Somalia famines no one really cares about. The real thing.”
”A lot of people will die,” Odongo said solemnly. ”We need to give the ones that survive hope, professor. Plenty of hope. The New World is that hope.”
”Not to mention that they'll be able to send food back home,” said Caron. ”In my opinion, that is the most important factor.”
”If you don't give people something to do, they do themselves in,” said Olaf Troll, surprising everyone. He had been silent until now, following the conversation with the bemused smile of an adult listening to children talk nonsense.
It was four against one, but Molito handled it with ease. In her career, she'd dealt with many multiple-personality disorders. Quite often, a single patient would spring half a dozen different personalities at her in the space of a single hour. She said:
”I hope you know that most of your brave colonists will die. And most of these will die twice: in the New World, then here.”
”I have plenty of experience dealing with situations where people die of deprivation,” said Odongo. ”And I can assure you most of those situations are self-inflicted. That's the sad reality behind the sad reality.”