The Little Green Book of Chairman Rahma by Brian Herbert Read Free Book Online Page A

working with special Greenpol police who had been assigned to guard him. Constructed of synthetics that simulated human beings in their appearance and motions, each of them contained a small amount of functioning biological components—organs and other body parts that had been salvaged from dead people, often heroes of the Green Revolution. This was one of the Chairman’s ways of honoring their memories. The hubots also had simulated human emotions, as well as humanlike odors and other characteristics that made them hard to discern from the real thing.
    It was to this game reserve in the Rocky Mountain Territory that Rahma initially brought the snow leopard and other endangered species that were rescued, either from missions in which he participated personally or those that were conducted under his orders. The reserve, which he used as his base of government operations, was in a verdant river valley surrounded by slopes of evergreen trees and mountains, north of the Missoula Reservation for Humans.
    A number of yurts encircled a central expanse of grass, buildings that were used for administrative, medical, and other purposes and as barracks for hundreds of his own children who lived on the compound with him, along with some of their mothers, but not all of them. Several had run off; others had been assigned to jobs around the GSA, and two were recycled for criminal activity—one for murdering a rival for the Chairman’s affections, and the other for an egregious environmental crime.
    Rahma always had a stream of new women coming to live with him on the compound, and there were invariably competitions among them, sometimes involving naked exhibitionism to gain his attention. He liked attractive women around him; the more the better. He called those on the compound his “wives,” though there were never any marriage ceremonies involving them.
    Gradually the chanting died down, though the dancing and music continued. One of the hubots stepped forward to hand the Chairman a sheet of recycled paper. His name was Artie. Like others of his kind, except for a slight translucence to his skin that was visible up close, he was almost indistinguishable from a human in appearance. For this reason, hubots were required to wear wide armbands that bore the silver, stylized image of a machine mechanism on it.
    â€œDori asked me to give you your daily schedule,” the hubot announced, in a male voice.
    â€œOh?”
    â€œI fear she’s a bit perturbed with you today, Master.”
    â€œDid she say why?” Looking over at her, Rahma caught her hostile gaze.
    â€œShe did not.”
    Sometimes the Chairman didn’t understand why she was upset with him, or what he might have done wrong in her eyes. No matter, it would pass. Her moods always did, and the two of them would resume their relationship as if nothing had happened. “Thank you,” he said.
    Around the same height as the Chairman, the hubot gazed at him with dark blue eyes that had been salvaged from a dead human and bio-fused into a droid robot. The eyes were reused in this fashion after having been salvaged twenty-two years ago from the body of Glanno Artindale, the iconic hero of the revolution who died after a Corporate attack on peaceful demonstrators. Now Artie was not only a top aide; he was very special to the Chairman, because Glanno had been his closest, most loyal friend. Sometimes when Rahma looked into the eyes of the hubot he saw his fallen comrade again, all the way to his soul. It was like that now, giving him pause. With programming that Rahma had specified, Artie even had mannerisms and expressions that mimicked those of the dead man. The hubot even knew many of their old stories, of times Rahma and Glanno had shared.
    Artie even liked some of the same jokes as Glanno, such as the one about a redneck and a green-neck, and how they differed because the redneck drove a pickup truck with a gun rack, while the green-neck