Wicked Messenger by Edward Drobinski - HTML preview
Download the book in PDF, ePub, Kindle for a complete version.
Chapter 16
With some reservations about inadequate planning, largely fostered by the “We Need More Information” campaign, the Elis saw little choice but to continue their mass Exodus and bitch.
The journeys were without incident, however upon arrival in America they landed in remote areas and remained small, so as not to be detected. Their diminished stature invited non-human predators. Birds swooped, raccoons lunged and insects investigated. Military men equipped with “silver bullets”
labored full time to keep the huddled masses from becoming a lower end of the Earthly food chain. In some agricultural areas dog disappearances became prime local conversation, but the farmers were of the opinion that their patrollers had fallen prey to transient dognappers, who had previously been known to temporarily infest their territories to roundup and sell the dogs to unscrupulous food distributors.
After waiting to determine that no glitches occurred with the flights Cronos zoomed to America on the fifth day of flights. His transport landed in upstate New York and his first objectives were to return to full size, rent a car and drive to Manhattan.
Joshua was surprised to hear a knock on his midtown hotel door and was immediately fearful that it might be an anti-Eli assassination squad. He thought of the operations of the Peace
Page 181
Corps back home and considered the only difference was that on Earth the “peacekeepers” were not officially sanctioned. He carried his “silver bullet” to the door and peered through the eyelet. He saw Cronos and dismissed any assassination attempt, no matter what they had learned of him, as “The Law” was above personally doing the dirty work. He pocketed his weapon, keeping it within easy reach, just in case, took a deep breath and without any doubt thought it best to be affable.
He opened the door, quickly scanned the hallway and said;
“Cronos! What a pleasant surprise. Come on in.”
Cronos smiled and nodded, walked directly to an exposed box-framed chair and made himself at home. He said; “Certainly is a lot to be seen in Manhattan. Driving here I passed through a wide street with “women” wearing almost no clothes. They approached cars and asked if the driver wanted a date.”
“Otherwise you would have been here earlier.”
“THEY WERE GUYS! ”
Joshua knew and cared nothing of “The Law’s” sexual proclivities, and was amazed that he seemed to be registering such a value judgmental opinion. However, before he made any self-revealing response he considered the possibility that Cronos may be testing him because of his unusual call for peace and mental instability. He flatly said; “I guess you came by way of Ninth Avenue.”
Page 182
“I really didn’t notice the signs. Did you ever go with one of them?”
“No.”
“Not in your repertoire?”
“I haven’t had any sex with anything of flesh and blood since they got better at making the dolls. How about you?”
“Same. Listen, before I forget, let me take a look at your rocket.”
“Why?”
“Because I’m your boss and I say so. No, I’ve been in consultation with the Completions concerning possible manufacturing problems. Yours was the first and somewhat experimental.”
“Thanks for telling me now.”
“Well, everything is experimental in a broad sense.
Otherwise we wouldn’t have “New Improved Borax” and New Improved products of all sorts.”
“I always thought that was the work of Marketing.”
Cronos smirked and continued on his track, saying; “They told me a number of things to look for that could have had something to do with your memory loss. It might provide useful information for future reference. In terms of politics, at home three committee members have launched a “We Need More Information” campaign.” He waved his hand dismissively.
Page 183
Joshua handed him the rocket. Cronos got up, went to the small kitchen area and put it on the tiled floor. He proceeded to shrink while his right hand was in his pocket holding onto his “silver bullet.” He went straight to the control panel and found three transmitters. He was certain that this was Ares rocket; that Joshua had killed him, and that Joshua was lying to him. The only remaining questions were the extent of the lying, the purpose of it and whether Joshua had Ares “silver bullet.”
The answers to the first two questions were largely irrelevant to him, despite what the “We Need More Information” proponents would say in the same situation. Sure, it would be interesting to know; but far from essential. The “silver bullet’s” location was all; war or peace. He knew that he could not trust anything Joshua had said. However, he would like to have known whether or not Joshua had Ares’ “silver bullet.” If yes, the Elis could kill Earthlings with impunity. If no, the risks were staggering.
He applied logic and easily concluded that Joshua must have the
“silver bullet.” Where else could it have gone? It could have been destroyed in Joshua’s blast. It was highly unlikely that anyone else witnessed the event and took it, without using it.
But, if his most likely scenario was accurate, why did Joshua suddenly become a peace-monger? He concluded; “Brain damage and broken controller.” He realized that he was again on a meaningless tangent. All that remained to be necessarily
Page 184
determined was to find out where Ares’ “silver bullet” is.
Beyond that, it was essential to act as quickly as possible, as even if the Earthlings did not currently have the advanced technology, the more time which elapsed the more likely it was that they’d get it. He exited the rocket and grew back to full size.
Joshua smirked when he said; “How’s the air down there?”
Cronos was not accustomed to Joshua displaying open disdain for him and he thought that remark bordered on it. There was something different about his fair haired boy, which re-enforced his logic. He stared into Joshua’s eyes knowingly and with an air of amusement. He said; “Hazy, but my eyes are still 20-20.”
“Find anything?”
In a hope to see Joshua’s gut reaction, Cronos blurted;
“What did you do with Ares’ ‘silver bullet?’”
Joshua knew the game. He now was certain that his boss mistrusted him. While his stomach felt as if it had suddenly become a vacuum, without inflection he said; “I gave it to a little girl.”
The two stared at each other, each at a loss for further words and hoping the other would get anxious. Cronos broke the ice with; “What kind of answer is that?”
“I make it a policy to answer stupid questions with stupid answers.”
Page 185
They again stared at each other, this time each attempting to read the other’s mind. When Joshua thought he saw Cronos lips quiver, he broke into a smile and soon had company. He effetely and sarcastically said; “My benefactor has qualms about my veracity?”
Cronos paused for another eye inspection. He patted Joshua’s cheek and said; “That’s why you’re my favorite.
............ Just don’t ever make the mistake of coming after me. I’ll kill ‘ya.”
They both grinned. Cronos turned and went toward the door.
They both had new thoughts to ponder. Joshua said; “Hey, chief.”
When Cronos turned Joshua added; “Look for the TV they call Rabbit. Great head shots.”
Rather than pursuing any artificial entertainment, upon leaving Cronos called Zeus and requested a council meeting.
Zeus sounded bored and irritated when he responded; “This is getting to be a habit.”
“A necessary one; like neutrality addiction.”
“So you say. So you say, maestro. What, pray tell, is the purpose of this one?”
“’War and Peace.’ You may have perused it.”
Zeus was less than happy with the response, but suspected Cronos’ next call would be to the up and coming “We Need More
Page 186
Informationers.” He tersely said; “My room; 2PM; tomorrow,” and hung up. His thoughts were of himself and he planned an intricately precise daily routine; in which he could minimize exposure to zealot Earthlings; which in his estimation meant all of them.
The following day Cronos was anxious and well prepared for his presentation to the Committee. He had written out his plan, which he intended to read to them. He didn’t bring any new information, such as the strong likelihood that his man, Joshua had killed Marshall’s man, Ares, but he thought he had an inside edge on the logic of the situation. Of most significance, he thought that if he was right and he likely was, he would someday have a good shot at Zeus’ job.
He stood and said; “Reflection has made it obvious to me that when we considered the possibility of killing the predatory Earthlings we made a fundamental error. In previous discussions of this matter, perhaps without realizing it, we spoke of attacking or not attacking; one might say cogitating the possibility of only black or white. I’m here today to suggest that in the great tradition of Eli philosophical thought we take a gray approach.” He paused and scanned five faces, trying to determine if they thought he was speaking unpatriotic sarcasm.
Four heads with wrinkled brows looked down at the desk,
Page 187
displaying either a contemplative seriousness, a lack of interest, an impatience for Cronos to get to the point or dissatisfaction with what reflected back at them from the glass topped table.
The exception was Marshall Ordnance, who confidently leaned back on his chair, made a smile which showed twenty of his teeth, and used the pause to interject with derision; “You’re advocating a LIMITED war.”
When the other four turned their eyes to him, Cronos was thankful he had taken the time to write everything down. Rather than directly responding to his terse critic, he read on; “It should be readily obvious to all of us that the risk of Earthlings having equal or superior weaponry is a position at the least likely end of the probability spectrum. In the spirit of “We Need More Information,” I propose a test. I suggest that we obliterate something of medium consequence to Earthlings; the Pentagon comes to mind, but I am not adamant about it; and see what response they make. If none is forthcoming we up the ante and take out say; Cleveland. If there is still no response, at that point we can be assured that they have no capability for one and proceed with our original plan, and the world will quickly be ours.”
Cronos paused and again scanned his audience. Seth, Brigitte and Prometheus looked to each other with raised
Page 188
eyebrows. Each thought that if enacted, this plan would render their “We Need More Information” (WNMI) promotion moot, but since Cronos’ plan was somewhat in sync with “WNMI,” they were at a momentary loss as they didn’t want to risk being publicly critical.
Zeus growled; “Isn’t this contrary to what your man advocated? And which you previously supported?”
Cronos merely said; “Yes. I humbly stand corrected,” seeing no play in going further.
Zeus said; “I was always under the impression that you highly valued the recommendations of Joshua Foucalt.”
Cronos said; “I did and continue to do so. However, the complexity of this particular issue merits it being viewed as a special case.”
“Then you still retain full faith and confidence in Foucalt?”
“Yes.”
Zeus appeared puzzled, scratched at his beard and said; “I must be missing something. I don’t understand. You and your main man disagree on the biggest issue. Yet, you say you retain full faith and confidence. Isn’t this sort of thing usually the time to split up?”
Cronos was prepared, saying; “We only have a tiny area of disagreement on the issues at hand, but total disagreement on
Page 189
the drawn conclusion. However, those issues are right at the margin where judgment steps in. If one could put numbers on these things I could say that while Joshua believes that Earth has a 15% probability of having comparable weapons and that risk is not worth endangering the lives of all Elis, I say that there is an 8% chance, and given subsequent, poor Eli experience on Earth, I think that risk is worth taking, not in an all-out war, but in testing situation, that I’ll suggest will not lead to an all-out war, under any circumstances, if there is any degree of rationality employed on Earth. This is the only way the great people of Eli can return to their heritage of full peace.”
Zeus questioned; “Have you run these ideas past Joshua?”
Cronos replied; “No. I saw no reason to. He is not on the voting body.”
Zeus shrugged, engaged his portable computer, and proceeded to punch some numbers into his math program, the bulk of which were probably irrelevant.
Marshall Ordnance inwardly resented Cronos’ attempt to usurp the hawk’s wings, but remained outwardly amused and said;
“The space man has promoted himself to militarist.” He chuckled and added; “Do you have any knowledge of the results of limited warfare?”
Page 190
“I don’t consider this to be a proposal of limited war in the context of its historical meaning. In fact I never used the word ‘limited.’ You did. I said ‘test.’”
“I reserve the right to later debate the semantics.
However, there seems to be an error in your logic. You say that the object is to attain full peace, yet your plan makes that more difficult to attain than it is now.”
Cronos said; “Please enlighten me. I don’t follow at all.”
Marshall said; “It’s very simple for a military man. If we perform this ‘test’ on the Pentagon, there are only two possibilities. The first is that Earth does have comparable weaponry and they use it against us. The second is that they don’t have comparable weaponry, in which case we have given them advanced notice, this so-called test, of our intentions, giving them the opportunity to plan a guerilla war against us, using whatever weaponry they do have and they know the terrain better than we do. NO. I say that if and when we attack, we surprise them with a massive effort aimed at the destruction of all major weaponry and kill as many as possible. Put them back in the Stone Age before they have a chance to think about it.”
Cronos thought he would call what he thought was his opponent’s bluff, as he didn’t believe that Earth had the weaponry. He said; “I see the possible advantages of your proposal. I could vote for that.”
Page 191
Marshall chastised; “I did not propose war. I only said that if we were to have one it would not be wise to do it on a limited or test basis. I still am convinced that we should only attack if we can fully determine that Earth has nothing comparable. I have to tell you something, Cronos. In my studies of warfare, I have seen that a good leader is one who gets his side into winnable battles. People do not tolerate being put in losing situations very long, without rebelling.”
Cronos hoped that the embarrassed flush he felt was less evident in appearance. He saw the nodding heads of the Committee members and knew that he had lost, both logically and by popular opinion. He decided to take one parting shot and said to Marshall; “I see you have joined the ranks of the ‘We Need More Information’ contingent.”
His only response was from Zeus, who bellowed; “Cronos Titanby. Do not call for another meeting of this body unless you have something worthwhile. And if you think that you do, run it by Joshua Foucalt before you bring it here. Meeting adjourned.”
Page 192