“I don’t know,” I admitted. “The Prussians weren’t able to.”
“It would just depend on whether or not IBM could see a profit in
it. So far as I know, IBM doesn’t own any guerrillas; she may not even have agents saboteurs. She might have to buy the bombs and missiles. But she could shop around and take her own sweet time getting set because Russia isn’t going anywhere. It will still be there, a big fat target, a week from now or a year. But Interworld Transport just showed what the outcome would be. This war is all over. Mexico bet that Interworld wouldn’t risk public condemnation by destroying a Mexican city. But those old-style politicians forgot that corporate nations aren’t nearly as interested in public opinion as territorial nations have to be. The war’s over.”
“Oh, I hope so! Acapulco is-was-a beautiful place.”
“Yes, and it would still be a beautiful place if the Montezuma’s
Revolutionary Council wasn’t rooted somewhere back in the twentieth century. But now there will be face-saving. Interworld will apologize and pay an indemnity, then, with no fanfare, the Montezuma will cede the land and the extraterritoriality for the new spaceport to a new corporation with a Mexicano name and a DF home office . . . and the public won’t be told that the new corporation is owned sixty percent by Interworld and forty percent by the very politicians who stalled just a little too long and let Acapulco be destroyed.” Captain Tormey looked sour and I suddenly saw that he was older than I had first guessed.
I said, “Ian, isn’t ANZAC a subsidiary of Interworld?”
“Perhaps that’s why I sound so cynical.” He stood up. “Your shuttle is locking into the gate. Let me have your bag.”
VI
Christchurch is the loveliest city on this globe.
Make that “anywhere,” as there is not yet a truly lovely city off Earth. Luna City is underground, Eli-Five looks like a junkyard from outside and has only one arc that looks good from inside. Martian cities are mere hives and most Earthside cities suffer from a misguided attempt to look like Los Angeles.
Christchurch does not have the magnificence of Paris or the setting of San Francisco or the harbor of Rio. Instead it has things that make a city lovable rather than stunning: The gentle Avon winding through our downtown streets. The mellow beauty of Cathedral Square. The Ferrier fountain in front of Town Hall. The lush beauty of our world-famous botanic gardens smack in the middle of downtown.
“The Greeks praise Athens.” But I am not a native of Christchurch (if “native” could mean anything for my sort). I am not even an Ennzedd. I met Douglas in Ecuador (this was before the Quito Skyhook catastrophe), was delighted by a frantic love affair compounded of equal parts of pisco sours and sweaty sheets, then was frightened by his proposal, calmed down when he made me understand that he was not then proposing vows in front of some official but a trial visit to his S-group-find out if they liked me, find out if I liked them.
That was different. I zipped back to the Imperium and reported, and told Boss that I was taking some accumulated leave-or would
he rather have my resignation? He growled something about go ahead and get my gonads cooled off, then report in when I was fit to work. So I rushed back to Quito and Douglas was still in bed.
At that time there really wasn’t any way to get from Ecuador to New Zealand . . . so we tubed to Lima and took an SB right over the South Pole to West Australia Port at Perth (with the oddest 5shaped track because of Coriolis)-tube to Sydney, bounce to Auckland, float to Christchurch, taking nearly twenty-four hours and the wildest of tracks just to cross the Pacific. Winnipeg and Quito are almost the same distance from Auckland-don’t be fooled by a flat map; ask your computer-Winnipeg is only one-eighth farther.
Forty minutes versus twenty-four hours. But I had not minded the longer trip; I was with Douglas and dizzy in love.
In another twenty-four hours I was dizzy in love with his family.