“0Hi,” Eponine replied. Difficult? she thought. That’s the understatement of the year. How about absolutely impossible? It’s not bad enough that I have some horrible disease that will probably kill me. No. I must also wear an armband so that others can avoid me if they choose.
Max Puckett glanced up from the chessboard and noticed Eponine. “Hello, hello,” he said. “You must be the teacher I’ve heard so much about.”
“That’s Max,” Ellie said, bringing Eponine over in his direction. “He’s a flirt, but he’s harmless. And the older
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man who’s ignoring us is Judge Pyotr Mishkin. . . . Did I say it correctly, Judge?”
“Yes, of course, young lady,” Judge Mishkin replied, his eyes not leaving the chessboard. “Dammit, Puckett, what in the world are you trying to do with that knight? As usual, your play is either stupid or brilliant and I can’t decide which.”
The judge eventually looked up, saw Eponine’s red armband, and scrambled to his feet. “I’m sorry, miss, truly sorry,” he said. “You are forced to endure enough without having to bear slights from this selfish old codger.”
A minute or two before the fireworks began, a large yacht could be seen approaching the picnic area from the western side of the lake. Brightly colored lights and pretty girls decorated its long deck. The name Nakamura was emblazoned on the side of the boat. Above the main deck, Eponine recognized Kimberly Henderson standing beside Toshio Nakamura at the helm.
The party on the yacht waved at the people on the shore. Patrick WakefieM ran excitedly over to the table. “Look, Mother,” he said, “there’s Katie on the boat.”
Nicole put on her glasses for a better look. It was indeed her daughter in a bikini bathing suit, waving from the deck of the yacht. “That’s just what we need,” Nicole mumbled to herself, as the first of the fireworks exploded above them, filling the dark sky with color and light.
“Three years ago today,” Kenji Watanabe began his speech, “a scouting party from the Pinta first set foot in this new world. None of us knew what to expect. All of us wondered, especially during the two long months that we spent eight hours each day in the somnarium, if anything resembling a normal life would ever be possible here in New Eden.
“Our early fears have not materialized. Our alien hosts, whoever they might be, have never once interfered with our lives. It may be true, as Nicole Wakefield and others have suggested, that they are continually observing us, but we do not feel their presence in any way. Outside our colony the Rama spacecraft is rushing toward the star we call Tau Ceti at an unbelievable speed. Inside, our daily
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activities are barely influenced by these remarkable external conditions of our existence.
“Before the days in the somnarium, while we were still voyagers inside the planetary system that revolves around our home star the Sun, many of us thought our ‘observation period’ would be short. We believed that after a few months or so we would be returned to Earth, or maybe even our original destination Mars, and that this third Rama spacecraft would disappear in the distant reaches of space like its two predecessors. As I stand before you today, however, our navigators tell me that we are still moving away from our sun, as we have been for more than two and a half years, at approximately half the speed of light. If, indeed, it will be our good fortune someday to return to our own solar system, that day will be at least several years in the future.
“These factors dictate the primary theme of this, my last Settlement Day address. The theme is simple: Fellow colonists, we must take full responsibility for our own destiny. We cannot expect the awesome powers that created our worldlet in the beginning to save us from our mistakes. We must manage New Eden as if we and our children will be here forever. It is lip to us to ensure the quality of life here, both now and for our future generations.
“At present there are a number of challenges facing the colony. Notice that I call them challenges, not problems. If we work together we can meet these challenges. If we carefully weigh the long-term consequences of our actions, we will make the right decisions. But if we are unable to understand the concepts of ‘delayed gratification’ and ‘for the good of all,’ then the future of New Eden will be bleak.
“Let me take an example to illustrate my point. Richard Wakefield has explained, both on television and in public fora, how the master scheme that controls our weather is based on certain assumptions about the atmospheric conditions inside our habitat. Specifically, our weather control algorithm assumes that both the carbon dioxide levels and the concentration of smoke particles are less than a given magnitude. Without understanding exactly how the mathe-
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matics works, you can appreciate that the computations governing the external inputs to our habitat will not be correct if the underlying assumptions are not accurate.
“It is not my intent today to give a scientific lecture about a very complex subject. What I really want to talk about is policy. Since most of our scientists believe that our unusual weather the last four months is a result of unduly high levels of carbon dioxide and smoke particles in the atmosphere, my government has made specific proposals to deal with these issues. All of our recommendations have been rejected by the Senate.
“And why? Our proposal to impose a gradual ban on fireplaces—which are totally unnecessary in New Eden in the first place—was called a ‘restriction on personal freedom.’ Our carefully detailed recommendation to reconstitute part of the GED network, so that the loss of plant cover resulting from the development of portions of Sherwood Forest and the northern grasslands could be offset, was voted down as well. The reason? The opposition argued that the colony cannot afford the task and, in addition, that the power consumed by the new segments of the GED network would result in painfully stringent electricity conservation measures.
“Ladies and gentlemen, it is ridiculous for us to bury our heads in the sand and hope that these environmental problems will go away. Each time that we postpone taking positive action means greater hardships for the colony in the future. I cannot believe that so many of you accept the opposition’s wishful thinking, that somehow we will be able to figure out how the alien weather algorithms actually work and tune them to perform property under conditions with higher levels of carbon dioxide and smoke particles. What colossal hubris! …”
Nicole and Nai were both watching the reaction to Kenji’s speech very carefully. Several of his supporters had urged Kenji to give a light, optimistic talk, without any discussion of me crucial issues. The governor, however, had been firm in his determination to make a meaningful speech.
“He’s lost them,” Nai leaned over to whisper to Nicole. “He’s being too pedantic.”
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There was definitely a restiveness in the stands, where approximately half the audience was now sitting. The Na-kamura yacht, which had been anchored just offshore during the fireworks, had pointedly departed soon after Governor Watanabe began to speak.
Kenji switched topics from the environment to the retro-virus RV-41. Since this was an issue that aroused strong passions in the colony, the audience’s attention increased markedly. The governor explained how the New Eden medical staff, under the leadership of Dr. Robert Turner, had made heroic strides in understanding the disease but still needed to perform more extensive research to determine how to treat it. He then decried the hysteria that had forced the passage of a bill, even over his veto, requiring all those colonists with RV-41 antibodies in their system to wear red armbands at all times.
“Boo,” shouted a large group of mostly Oriental picnickers on the other side of the stands from Nicole and Nai.
“. . . These poor, unfortunate people face enough anguish. …” Kenji was saying.
“They’re whores and fags,” a man cried from behind the Wakefield-Watanabe party. The people around him laughed and applauded.
“. . . Dr. Turner has repeatedly affirmed that this disease, like most retroviruses, cannot be transmitted except by blood and semen. …”
The crowd was becoming unruly. Nicole hoped that Kenji was paying attention and would cut his comments short. He had intended to discuss also the wisdom (or lack thereof) of expanding the exploration of Rama outside of New Eden, but he could tell that he had lost his audience.
Governor Watanabe paused a second and then issued an earsplitting whistle into the microphone. That temporarily quieted all the listeners. “I have only a few more remarks,” he said, “and they should not offend anyone. . . .
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