"Looks like all those nutrition experts were right. What you eat can kill you."

"If you don"t eat, that will kill you too," said Small. He added:

"I wonder who Brock will appoint in his place. Old Charlie was an all right guy. A little slow on the uptake, but nice. And the other guy from Illinois is a total a.s.shole."

"Old Charlie, yes, yes... I seem to have forgotten his last name."

"O"Connor."

"That"s right! I remembered that he was Irish. I can"t for the life of me recall who is the other senator from Illinois. You"re saying he"s an a.s.shole?"

"Through and through. Hey, it looks like Brock"s about to say something. He doesn"t look happy."

It was true. Carlton Brock was standing at the head of the table, glowering at the governors that weren"t seated. They"d formed a group in which intense compet.i.tion raged as to who could deliver the most beautiful laudation for the recently deceased governor. Charles O"Connor had been a living saint! What a loss! The world would never be the same.

Kirk shared Brock"s feelings; he too watched, and listened to the false praise with growing disgust and contempt. This was such a waste of time; there was no press around, no newsmen to capture those outpourings on camera and show them on TV screens. He wished the lamenting governors would shut the f.u.c.k up and sit down. He wanted this whole thing to be over fast so that he could nip into his room, and and have a go at the spaghetti MRE. His toy breakfast had whetted his appet.i.te.

"Silence please! Return to your seats!" bellowed Brock. He got his wish: the stunned silence that followed was broken only by the noise made by chairs as the governors sat down. Brock glowered at them for a couple more seconds; then he said:

"We must not let this, uh, tragic occurrence prevent us from doing our work. By the time we wrap up today, every single problem on our agenda must be solved. Not discussed or otherwise f.u.c.ked around with, but SOLVED. So now we shall have a moment of silence for, uh, governor senator Charles O"Connor."

It seemed to Kirk that barely a few seconds had pa.s.sed before Brock said:

"Okay. Professors Katz and Molito will now give you the background that will help us make the right decisions. When they are done, I"ll give you an outline of what"s what. Is everyone fine with that, good. Professor."

Brock bent down and whispered into Katz"s ear:

"Make it brief. We"ve already lost half an hour. And stand the f.u.c.k up when you"re speaking. People want to see you."

"Staying seated together with the others promotes an atmosphere of equal partic.i.p.ation and invites discussion," Chester Katz whispered back.

"I don"t want a f.u.c.king discussion. I want to get things done. Stand up or I"ll f.u.c.king kill you. I know! Take my place. Stand right at the top of the table. Move."

Brock tugged at Katz"s arm. Reluctantly, Katz stood up and was maneuvered by Brock to the top of the table. Kirk noted that Brock made for the door as soon as he"d manhandled Katz into place. Lea Panatella, who"d been hovering by the doorway throughout, followed Brock outside. Kirk wondered what that was about, and came to the conclusion that a frantic search for a new governor of Illinois was about to begin.

"I, aaah, will try to be brief," said Katz. He had a high, reedy voice and he sounded as if his forthcoming attempt at brevity was doomed to failure. Kirk sighed, and took out his pocket notepad and pen. He always took a notepad and a pen to meetings, even back in the old times when electronic equipment worked and everything was recorded anyway.

In Kirk"s experience, 90% of the time spent in meetings was time wasted. A pen and a notepad prevented death from boredom. A pen and notepad offered plenty of possibilities: doodling, drawing caricatures of the other partic.i.p.ants, even composing poetry! When the catastrophe struck, Kirk was enjoying what he called his haiku period. One of the verses he had written left him truly awed by his own genius:

Leaves are falling and so is my head, heavy with sleep

Everyone is talking

No one"s actually saying anything

Katz said:

"First of all, I would like to impress on everyone here that what we, what you will deal with represents a sociological revolution. Nothing like that had ever taken place before, not in recorded history. You will be pioneers."

"Pioneers? Pioneers? Did he say something about pioneers?" said Looseberry. A couple of angry hisses shushed him down.

"Society as we know it has ended," Katz said dramatically. "It has been split into two coexisting societies. One here on Earth - and another one in the New World. What is absolutely extraordinary is that both societies are composed of the same people. They are, they will be simultaneously inhabiting two very different realities. Well, maybe not everyone on Earth will opt to become a colonist. But you, as colonial governors, will be dealing with people that do."

Kirk leaned towards Ron Small, and whispered:

"That guy has obviously never been married. You get married, you find out what"s it like to inhabit two different realities."

"Maybe he did a lot of drugs instead," Small whispered back. "He sounds like he did."

Kirk tried hard to focus on what Katz was saying, but he found it difficult. Katz"s high, reedy voice was just too irritating. After a few minutes of thought, he composed a new haiku:

New life is about to begin

But everything you hear

Is same old, same old

He was proud of it, and spent a couple of minutes trying to decide whether to show it to Small. Could Small use it to blackmail him later? Anything was possible, given a special set of circ.u.mstances.

He was jerked back to attention when Katz said:

"You must be especially aware of one thing. Two parallel societies composed of the same people just cannot exist. It"s not possible, not in the longer run. Therefore, they will merge into one, one society. A society that will be guided by new principles, new norms, new beliefs. A mix of the New World and the new Old World. Because make no mistake, what we have here on Earth is a new deal."

Small groaned, and whispered:

"Why don"t you just f.u.c.k off."

Katz did, after re-introducing the vampiric Molito. She proved to be very refreshing. She had a deep, rich voice that properly belonged to an overweight opera singer. She said:

"You all remember what was happening last year. And the year before that. And the year before that. People were becoming more and more immersed in their own fantasy worlds, starting so young that their fantasies played a dominant part in forming their superego - the set of internalized principles guiding both beliefs and behavior. I want to stress that a fully developed superego is what characterizes an adult person.

"Everyone has fantasies. Most don"t work well in reality. But right before we were struck by the disaster, we were at a point where most individuals chose not to confront their fantasies with reality. For example, s.e.xually active individuals preferred to m.a.s.t.u.r.b.a.t.e to images on a screen instead of engaging in s.e.xual intercourse. And everyone got offended and hurt by anything that didn"t coincide with their own worldview. Which was largely shaped by their private fantasies, not actual reality."

Molito broke off to stare down someone who had started to giggle at the far end of the table. The giggling stopped instantly. She said:

"Laugh while you can. Because as colonial governors you will be dealing with dreamers suddenly confronted by a new, hard reality. They"ll all be convinced that the New World is a dream come true. They"ll all find out it"s a nightmare come true. They will have to work very hard to survive. Most of them won"t. Every colonial administrative center will be besieged by hordes of failing colonists begging for handouts. It"s in everyone"s best interest that you do not give them any.

"I understand that all governors, regardless of their standing, will be essentially independent contractors given total freedom in decision making. Regardless of the decisions you choose to make, I strongly advise all of you to develop a strong standing military force. Thank you."

Kirk heard some clapping as Molito vacated her position at the top of the table. Well, it was to be expected. There were a lot of people who reacted to the words "a strong military force" the same way Pavlov"s dogs reacted to the ring of a bell: they started to salivate.

He turned to Small, and said:

"Didn"t expect so much sense from that broad, did you? What a pleasant surprise."

"Oh, I"m not surprised. Vampires usually hate humans."

"What?"

"Didn"t you hear? She just advised us not to help any starving people. And to keep lots of soldiers ready to kill anyone who gets violent."

"No, no. I clearly understood that as a suggestion to keep law and order despite all the loonies disappointed one has to work hard in the New World."

"Put it however you like," said Small. "It"s going to have the same end effect. A lot of people are going to get killed."

"I didn"t realize you were such a humanitarian, Ron."

"I"m not," said Small. "I"m a realist. That rules out being humanitarian. But I"m kinda sentimental about seeing people suffer."

"That"s a crock of bulls.h.i.t, Ron. You"ve made quite a few suffer."

Small shrugged.

"I had no other choice," he said. "Sometimes, it"s let someone suffer or suffer yourself."

"Some people choose to suffer instead of making others suffer."

"Some people are mad," Small said. "And many others are liars. Would you choose to suffer for someone else, Kirk?"

"I"m not mad, and I"m not a liar," said Kirk.

"Good. Hey, Brock is back! He looks angry."

Kirk turned away from Small and saw that indeed, Brock had just re-entered the room. He did look angry. His face was flushed and he strode to his spot at the top of the table in a very decisive manner. He looked at all the waiting faces and said:

"All right. My turn now. The, uh, experts have given you an idea that basically, we will be managing a bunch of f.u.c.kups. That is not true. There will be many colonizers who will manage things well and these are the people I want everyone to focus on.

"But before I go any further with this, I"m going to brief you on something else. We"ve made small changes to the colonial administrative system, indeed to the the governor system. And sadly, I have to inform you..."

Brock trailed off, looked down as if to inspect his own soul, looked up as if to gain blessings from above, looked at the waiting governors and said:

"You"re not going to like everything you hear."

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