Nicole tried to console her daughter with a hug. In her mind’s eye Nicole again saw a highlight montage of the night’s incredible activities, including the fleeting glimpse in which she believed she had seen an unknown human woman in an octospider mural. And what was that about, old woman? she asked herself. Was it really there, that face, or did your tired and imaginative brain create it to confuse you?
8
I ax finished shaving and washed the rest of the approximation of shaving cream off his face. Moments later he pulled the plug and the water disappeared from the stone basin. After wiping his face thoroughly with a small towel, Max turned to Eponine, who was sitting on the bed behind him nursing Marius.
“Well, Frenchie,” he said with a laugh, “I must admit I’m damn nervous. I’ve never met a Chief Optimizer before.” He walked over beside her. “Once, when I was in Little Rock for a farmers’ convention, I sat next to the governor of Arkansas during a banquet. I was a little nervous then too.”
Eponine smiled. “It’s hard for me to imagine you being nervous,” she said.
Max stood silently for several seconds, watching his wife and infant son. The baby made soft cooing sounds as he ate. “You really enjoy this nursing business, don’t you?”
Eponine nodded. “It’s a pleasure unlike any I have ever
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experienced. The sense of … I don’t know the exact word—maybe ‘communion’ would be close—is indescribable.”
Max shook his head. “Ours is an amazing existence, isn’t it? Last night, when I was changing Marius, I thought of how similar we probably were to millions of other human couples, doting on our first child … yet just outside that door is an alien city run by a species . . .” He did not finish his thought.
“Ellie has been different since last week,” Eponine said. “She’s lost her spark and talks about Robert more.”
“She was horrified by the execution,” Max commented. “I wonder if women are naturally more sensitive to violence. I remember after Clyde and Winona got married, when he brought her back to the farm, the first time she watched us slaughter a couple of pigs, her face became white as a ghost. She didn’t say anything, but she never came to watch again.”
“Elite won’t talk much about that night,” Eponine said, switching Marius over to the other breast. “And that’s not like her at all.”
“Richard asked Archie about the incident yesterday, when he requested the components to build translators for the rest of us. According to Richard, the damn octo was real foxy and did not give many straight answers. Archie would not even confirm what Dr. Blue told Nicole about their basic termination policy.”
“It’s pretty scary, isn’t it?” she said. Eponine grimaced before continuing. “Nicole insisted that she made Dr. Blue repeat the policy to her several times, and she even tried several different versions in English, in Dr. Blue’s presence, to make certain that she had understood it correctly.”
“It’s simple enough,” Max said with a forced grin, “even for a fanner. ‘Any adult octospider whose total contribution to the colony over a defined period of time is not at least equal in worth to the resources necessary to sustain that individual will be entered onto the termination list. If the negative account is not corrected in a prescribed amount of time, the octospider will then be terminated.'”
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“According to Dr. Blue,” Eponine said after a short silence, “it’s the optimizers who interpret the policies. They are the ones who decide what everything is worth.”
“I know,” Max said, reaching down and caressing his baby son’s back, “and I think that’s one of the reasons Nicole and Richard are anxious about today. Nobody has said anything explicit, but we have been using a lot of resources for a long time—and it’s pretty damn hard to see what we’ve been contributing.”
“Are you ready, Max?” Nicole stuck her head in the door. “Everyone else is out here by the fountain.”
Max bent down to kiss Eponine. “Will you and Patrick be able to handle Benjy and the children?” he asked.
“Certainly,” Eponine replied. “Benjy’s no effort, and Patrick has been spending so much time with the children that he’s become a child care specialist.”
“I love you, Frenchie,” Max said, waving good-bye.
There were five chairs for them outside the Chief Optimizer’s operating area. Even when Nicole explained the word “office” to Archie and Dr. Blue a second time, their two octospider colleagues still insisted that “operating area” was a better translation into English for the place where the Chief Optimizer worked.
“The Chief Optimizer is sometimes a little late,” Archie said apologetically. “Unexpected events in the colony can force her to deviate from the planned schedule.”
‘There must be something really unusual going on,” Richard said to Max. “Punctuality is one of the hallmarks of the octospider species.”
The five humans waited silently for their meeting, each engrossed in his or her own thoughts. Nai’s heart was pounding rapidly. She was both apprehensive and excited. She remembered having had a similar feeling as a schoolgirl when she was waiting for her audience with the king of Thailand’s daughter, the Princess Suri, after Nai had won a top prize in a nationwide academic competition. fc
A few minutes later an octospider bade them enter the next room, where they were informed they would be joined
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in a moment by the Chief Optimizer and a few of her advisers. The new room had transparent windows. They could see activity all around them. Where they were sitting reminded Richard of a control area for a nuclear power plant, or perhaps for a manned space flight. Octospider computers and visual monitors were everywhere, as were octospider technicians. Richard asked a question about something happening in a distant area, but before Archie could answer, three octospiders entered the room.
All five humans rose in a reflex action. Archie introduced the Chief Optimizer, the Deputy Chief Optimizer for the Emerald City, and the Optimizer Security Chief. The three octos each extended a tentacle to the humans and handshakes were exchanged. Archie motioned for the humans to sit down and the Chief Optimizer began speaking immediately.
“We are aware,” she said, “that you have requested, through our representative, that you be allowed to return to New Eden to rejoin the other members of your species in Rama. We were not completely surprised by this request because our historical data indicate that most intelligent species with strong emotions, after a period of time living in an alien community, develop a sense of disconnection and yearn to return to a more familiar world. What we would like to do this morning is provide some additional information to you that could influence your request that we permit you to return to New Eden.”
Archie asked all the humans to follow the Chief Optimizer. The group passed through a room similar to the two in which they had been sitting and then entered a rectangular area with a dozen wall screens spread around the sides at octospider eye level.
“We have been monitoring closely the developments in your habitat,” the Chief Optimizer said when they were all together, “ever since long before your escape. This morning we want to share with you some of the events that we have recently observed.”
An instant later all the wall screens switched on. Each contained a motion picture segment from the daily life
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among the humans remaining in New Eden. The quality of the videos was not perfect and no segment was continuous for longer than a few nillets, but mere was no mistaking what was being presented on the screens.
For several seconds the humans were all speechless. They stood transfixed, glued to the images on the wall. On one of the screens Nakamura, dressed as a Japanese shogun, was making a speech to a large crowd in the square in Central City. He was holding up a large hand-drawn picture of an octospider. Although the videos were silent, it was apparent from his gestures and the pictures of the crowd that Nakamura was exhorting everyone to action against the octospiders.
“Well, I’ll be goddamned,” Max said, his eyes moving from one screen to another.
“Look over here,” Nicole said. “It’s El Mercado in San Miguel.”
In the poorest of the four villages of New Eden, a dozen white and yellow toughs with karate bands around their heads were beating up four black and brown youths in full view of a pair of New Eden policemen and a sorrowful crowd of perhaps twenty villagers. Tiasso and Lincoln biots picked up die broken, bloodied bodies after the beatings and placed them in a large tricycle carriage.
On another screen a segment showed a well-dressed crowd, mostly white and Oriental, arriving for a party or a festival in Nakamura’s Vegas. Bright lights beckoned them to the casino, over which a huge sign proclaimed CITIZEN APPRECIATION DAY and announced that every partygoer would receive a dozen free lottery tickets to celebrate the occasion. Two large posters of Nakamura, chest shots showing him smiling and wearing a white shirt and tie, flanked the sign.