Worlds Enough and Time by Joe Haldeman Read Free Book Online

normally appear to her.
    Berrigan is seated, wearing a formal dark blue suit. Her hair is long, so the holo must have been recorded more than two months ago.
     
I MAGE :
Hello, Marianne.
O’H ARA :
Hello. Do you have logic capabilities?
I MAGE :
I can respond to simple queries, though my memory is limited. My main function is to deliver a message, and then erase myself when you turn off the machine.
O’H ARA :
I was told to physically destroy the slide as well.
I MAGE :
Yes.
O’H ARA :
I can’t imagine being party to anything so top secret.
I MAGE :
I cannot assess your ability to imagine. Shall I begin?
O’H ARA :
Go ahead.
I MAGE :
(Blurs momentarily, then relaxes) Sorry for this format, Marianne, (smiles) I guess I didn’t see any way to bring this up safely face-to-face. Not while you are who you are now, and I am who I am. (Fingers the Coordinator “C” figured into her lapel.)
What
I am.
I wanted Harry to keep an eye on you, and give this to you when he thought the time was right. At least ten years. He hasn’t seen it … nobody has … but he knows what it’s about.
I must ask your word that you will never discuss this with anyone but Harry, for the time being. And never with anyone who isn’t in the Cabinet or Coordinator pool.
O’H ARA :
What if I feel I can’t do that?
I MAGE :
(blurs) I will have to erase myself.
O’H ARA :
May I have some time to think over the responsibility? A hint as to what it’s about?
I MAGE:
No.
O’H ARA :
Well … all right. You have my word.
I MAGE :
(blurs) This will be short and not sweet, Marianne. The government you’re participating in is not a democracy by anyone’s definition. The weekly referendum is a total hoax; the results are arrived at before the voting; and I doubt that one out of three decisions follows the will of the people.
O’Hara is staring openmouthed.
You’re now a member of a hand-picked meritocracy. Part of the psychological testing that we all have to put up with is to ensure that we will be able to participate in a benign conspiracy, before getting on the socalled ballot.
This goes beyond
realpolitik
, and it’s not a rejection of democracy as a principle. But there are situations when democracy doesn’t work unmodified, and you’re in the middle of one of them.
O’H ARA :
Ten thousand people sealed up together in a small pressure vessel.
I MAGE :
You may remember that we considered the possibility of instituting a quasi-military kind of social structure in
Newhome
—captain, officers, crew.
O’H ARA :
In the Start-up discussion group.
I MAGE :
It was rejected because our people have lived under democracy, or at least its illusion, for too long. We would never have found ten thousand volunteers if they thought they were giving up their citizenship.
O’H ARA :
Has this been going on from the beginning?
I MAGE :
(blurs) You mean since New New’s original charter?
O’H ARA :
Whatever. How long?
I MAGE :
I have no historical data beyond Sandra Berrigan’s actual experience. The degree of interference increased dramatically after the war, but the principle was firmly in place before she took office.
You should ask Harry Purcell.
     
    The image is flickering because of some sort of overload phenomenon; you can only pack so much logic into ten nanograms of circuitry. It steadies when it goes back to Berrigan’s prepared speech.
     
I MAGE :
The decision to manufacture and distribute the anti-plague drug to Earth, for instance. Only thirty percent of the electorate were in favor of that. The prevailing sentiment was obviously that the groundhogs had gotten what they deserved; let them go ahead and die out.
But the chances are they wouldn’t perish; the plague would run its course. Even if the Earth’s population were reduced to a million gibbering savages, they were still sitting on a resource base a trillion times the size of ours. And a lot of the survivors thought that we were responsible for the war.
This was the unanimous decision