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

drove an electric car with a bicycle rack. Rahma could still hear Glanno’s great, boisterous laugh resonating whenever he told a funny story, or heard one.
    Glanno had been more than a comrade, and more than a friend. During an extended marijuana binge the two men had even become intimate, but that had ended when Glanno sobered up and realized that Rahma would never give up his numerous female lovers, not even for him, not even because of the closeness of their relationship. After their brief affair they continued to be friends, but it was never the same between them, and Rahma always felt a certain tension that never seemed to go away.
    Then Glanno died, on that awful day in Atlanta.
    Now, after a moment to regain his composure, Rahma Popal scanned his schedule. Later this morning he would meet with his children, to give them lectures on ecology and on treating animals properly. And before that, he had a meeting with a government official, a little over an hour from now.
    Through hazel eyes he gazed thoughtfully toward the slopes of the tree-covered foothills, and up to the snowy mountains beyond, where the male Panasian snow leopard had been released, after fitting it with an electronic tracking device. The beautiful animal would require special attention; there were not many of them left on the planet, and Rahma had only three others up there with him, one of which was female. He sighed as sadness enveloped him. Ultimately it might not be possible to save this remarkable species, but he would make every effort.
    Beneath his feet there were underground GSA offices and data banks, laboratories, genetic libraries, and artificial habitats where other endangered animals were bred in captivity, for eventual release into the wild. The snow leopard was not sent down there, however, because it needed to roam in cold climes and develop its territory, or it would have a markedly higher likelihood of dying. In the subterranean labs, sick or injured animals were also treated, and viruses were carefully segregated to prevent them from spreading.
    There were other animals kept underground as well, a small menagerie of previously extinct creatures that had been brought back to life—strange animals from long ago, kept inside habitat enclosures that were under the direction of Artie. There were dodo birds down there, as well as great auks, various other birds, thylacines, wolves, foxes, and rodents, all resurrected through a process of computerized genetic reconstruction that Glanno Artindale developed, and which Artie now understood better than anyone. One day Rahma and Artie hoped to release the creatures into the wild, but first a great deal of research and experimentation was needed, in order to make certain they could survive on their own, and to avoid setting off chain reactions of detrimental ecological consequences.
    It deeply saddened Rahma Popal that more than 99 percent of the animal species that had ever lived on the Earth were now extinct, and a quarter of the living species were endangered. Some of the die-offs had occurred as a result of natural disasters, but too often the disasters were unnatural and man-made—owing to industrialization, sprawling human settlements, and clear-cutting of trees that destroyed wildlife habitats, along with millennia of endless, terrible wars. The ecological blights caused by man and his greedy, selfish ways seemed endless. Most human beings had not been living in harmony with their environment since the Age of Agriculture ended long ago, when man embarked hell-bent on a course of wreaking havoc on the Earth for the sake of his own selfish creature comforts.
    As just two examples, the dodo bird and the thylacine had been decimated by humans who hunted them: the dodos for food on the island of Mauritius in the Indian Ocean, and the thylacines on Tasmania because they were preying on ranchers’ sheep. In his heart, Rahma liked Glanno Artindale’s “Resurrection