7

There are certain controls necessary to maintain our green economy and its allied political underpinnings, to keep the Green States of America from being undermined. Among the most important: absolute sovereignty over the holo-net communication system, restricting it to our nation and monitoring every user. This electronic surveillance and control program was initiated by pro-green hackers who once specialized in eavesdropping on Corporate and U.S. government interests, and were instrumental in disrupting their use of the Internet during the revolution. After the formation of the GSA, the hackers used their talents to protect the radical new government. Thus, in a supreme historical irony, they focused on accomplishing the exact opposite of what they did before. They became part of the new establishment.

—Advisory Committee to the Chairman, among its key findings

SETTING ASIDE HIS worries for the moment, Rahma Popal joined one of the circles of dancers for a few spins to a modern version of “Strawberry Fields Forever.” He held hands with a buxom redhead on one side and a tall, long-haired man on the other. The woman, in her early twenties, had pretty, dark green eyes that sparkled mischievously. Her hair was waist-length and straight, except for one braided section.

She smiled at him and squeezed his hand hard, holding on momentarily when he decided to pull away and leave the circle. In another group of dancers, he saw Dori Longet watching him again.

“Your Eminence,” the redhead said, with a smile, when she finally let go. “I’m Jade Ridell. You’d like to spend time with me this evening?” He recognized the code words; they were not difficult to interpret.

“Of course.” So many girls called themselves Jade, Olivia, Emeralda, Ivy, Fern, or some other variation of (or suggestion of) green, sometimes forsaking their birth names. This pleased him very much, but their compliance also amused him. When it came to women who he liked to spend extended periods of time with, he preferred the ones who were able to think more for themselves. Dori was like that, and so was Valerie Tatanka (a Native American doctor who ran the medical clinic on the game reserve), but both of them had their share of irksome traits. As he left Jade, he saw Dori walking toward her purposefully.

The Chairman smiled at Jade, then watched as his hubot assistant, Artie, crossed the grass to the administration building, a much larger yurt with seven floors and upper-level patios for viewing antelope, bison, moose, white-tailed deer, grizzlies, wapiti, and other wildlife.

But Artie was not going upstairs. He had other matters to attend to in the underground levels, matters in the Extinct Animals Laboratory that the Chairman considered of doubtful utility. And yet it was something his long-lost friend Glanno Artindale had wanted, so out of respect for the dead man’s wishes, Rahma had allowed the program to continue.

It certainly was altruistic, tending to dodo birds and other resurrected, formerly extinct species, but of what use were such animals in modern habitats, and what potential harm could “the newcomers” inflict as invasive species? It all seemed—well, he hated to use the phrase—but it all seemed as if the program should be as dead as the proverbial dodo bird.

*   *   *

SOUTH OF THE game reserve, in the Missoula Reservation for Humans, a man stood in line in a large room, waiting to speak with a clerk. This was the JAO, the Job Assignment Office of the government, and he was reporting as ordered for reassignment. The walls were adorned with murals of trees, mountains, and rivers, except for one wall that featured a towering artist’s rendition of Chairman Rahma Popal, surrounded by martyrs of the revolution—those who had given their lives so valiantly in the formation of the green nation. It was warm in the room, with the faint odors of juana smoke and body odors in the air. Doug Ridell hardly noticed such smells at all, since they were so commonplace.

With all of the automation available to the GSA, he didn’t understand why his job reassignment couldn’t be handled in some more efficient manner, so that he didn’t have to appear in person. It seemed like a waste of time and energy. Still, he would say nothing of this, for fear of being considered a social nonconformist, which could result in having him put under observation by the authorities—or worse.

Taller than most of the people around him, Ridell had a neatly trimmed brown beard and wore his best green-and-orange paisley suit (with bell-bottom trousers), along with a patterned tie and sandals with dark socks. Other men were similarly attired, so he knew he didn’t stand out from them; but then again, he didn’t want to be different, at least not in any bad way. Still, he did hope for a good assignment.

While in line he thought about his wife, Hana, who worked for the reservation’s parks department on one of the numerous gardening crews. He wished the two of them had better jobs, and that they had a larger apartment, and more privileges. At breakfast that morning their eleven-year-old daughter, Willow, had asked what her older sister, Jade, was doing in her job for Chairman Rahma. No one had given the child details before this, though they were well known to the parents. Jade was a member of the great man’s harem now, selected for her beauty and intelligence to join him on the game reserve where he lived.

“Something to do with caring for the animals,” Hana had replied, as she exchanged a knowing glance with her husband.

A human animal, Doug had thought, and he’d said, “We don’t know what her job assignment is yet.”

Ridell hoped his beautiful older daughter did well. It was important to the entire family.…

When his turn came he handed the female clerk a small electronic device called a précis, which contained a summary of his life, including details of his education and family, where he had worked, and (in a code that he could not read) information on his personality—whether he took orders well, learned quickly, and the like. The hand-held device had an illuminated amber screen. She touched one of the control pads on it.

“I was a machine-repair technician before,” he said, “in a factory on the outskirts of the reservation.”

She said something, in a low tone that he could not hear. The woman had short black hair that glistened with a gel that made it stand out in little spikes.

“Excuse me, but what did you say?” he asked.

Her dark eyes flashed. “I can see where you worked.” She pointed at the screen on the hand-held device. “It’s all right here.” The précis screen, which previously had been amber, now glowed pale orange.

“Of course, I’m sorry. My previous job was noisy, and I have some hearing loss from it.”

“I see.” She asked him a number of questions, details of his experience. Repeatedly he had to ask her to speak louder, which she did.

The woman made entries in the hand-held device, then connected it to a computer at her desk, which took a moment to process the new data. Finally the screen on the connected précis turned pale green. She removed it and handed it back to him.

“This is your new assignment,” she said. “Report tomorrow at seven a.m.”

The screen showed that he was going to be working for one of the government’s robotics servicing units. An address was provided on the south side of the reservation, and the name of a contact person.

Out on the street Ridell passed a greengrocer, a drug-injection booth, and a family guidance center (an abortion clinic), then waited for bicyclists to pass before crossing the wide street. On the other side he stepped onto a sidewalk that had sensors embedded in the surface, to collect the energy of his footsteps. The buildings on this side of the street had terraced vegetable gardens running up their outside walls, and he knew the accumulated energy of the sidewalks was used to pump water up to the gardens.

He turned onto a street that sloped upward gradually, toward the apartment building where he lived with his family. Ahead in the street, he saw a produce truck slowing for bicyclists going uphill ahead of it, who showed no inclination to get out of the way. They were even swarming over the oncoming lane, going in the wrong direction, so that the driver could not pass them. Since bicycles always had the right of way against motorized vehicles, he waited patiently, going slowly behind the pack.

Seeing something out of the corner of his eye, Ridell turned to his left, just as another bicyclist raced past him, went around the car, and approached the rear of the group of bicyclists.

A pedestrian, an elderly woman near Ridell, shouted, “He has a gun!”

He saw her pointing at the bicyclist, but couldn’t see any weapon. The rider caught up with the group, and now Ridell heard him shouting, and saw him waving a handgun, causing the other bicyclists to scatter. To Ridell’s horror he fired at a woman several times, causing her to crash and fall to the pavement.

The attacker darted down a side alley and disappeared from view. The woman didn’t move; blood pooled around her head. Hesitantly, a man and a woman approached her, in an apparent attempt to give aid. To Ridell, however, she looked dead. Maybe it was a lover’s crime of passion, a relationship that had gone terribly wrong.

Police sirens were already whining.

To avoid getting involved, Ridell turned and hurried down another street, taking an alternate route home. Surveillance cameras would identify and track the killer as he fled. Undoubtedly the man was already being monitored—and he must have known he would be caught quickly by the efficient, high-tech methods of the police. But his hatred of the victim must have run so deep that he didn’t care. There would be no trial. The cops would kill him on the spot, the moment he was apprehended.

Reaching another street, with the siren noise a couple of blocks away, Doug Ridell thought he might like his new job better than the old one. The factory noise had been driving him crazy, and he was happy to get away from it. Still, he was eager for Jade to advance in her own career, so that she and the entire Ridell family could move up to a higher social rung, with a larger apartment and all of the perks that went with it.

He wondered if his daughter was having sex with Chairman Rahma at that very moment.…

*   *   *

ARTIE WENT THROUGH an open doorway and took an elevator to one of the lower levels, where he boarded a slidewalk that transported him through a long tunnel. After rounding a corner, the hubot sent an electronic signal from his AI core, causing thick double doors to slide open ahead of him, doors that were carved with raised images of extinct animals. Disembarking from the slidewalk, he walked inside, where he felt a slight change in air pressure.

There were separate forest, arid bush, jungle, and other environments here, with vegetation stretching far into the distance. It was a network of complex subterranean habitats, with sunlight passing through the techplex ceiling overhead to warm the irrigated, nutrient-fed interiors. In the sky visible through the ceiling, he saw the sun peeking around puffy clouds.

At the front of the enclosure, he paused to examine an array of settings on a control panel, specifying the humidity for various zones of the underground facility, zones that were separated by electronic barriers that flickered and waved slightly from delicate disturbances in the air.

Two robot technicians worked the controls, part of a larger team of automatons that were linked electronically to Artie and transmitted a constant stream of valuable data to him.

The hubot saw a red gazelle run by, darting through the bush section and vanishing into the distance, then heard the warbling call of a thrush—both among the once-extinct creatures that had been resurrected with a combination of cellular material, historical information from observers, habitat information, and other data, forming what the inventor of the system, Glanno Artindale, called “genetic blueprints.”

Many animal species went extinct in the past five hundred years because they were hunted by humans, or because they were killed by predators such as rats, snakes, monkeys, or owls that were brought in by humans who had no understanding of the consequences of their actions. Often the habitats were destroyed by humans or by other related conditions—and to a very large extent the unfortunate creatures went extinct on islands, where their numbers were limited and where conditions changed enough to wipe them out. On those islands, they were sometimes visited by the crews of sailing ships, careless men who had no concern for what they were doing to endangered species.

In order to resurrect a particular species, the laboratory technicians entered all of the known data into the Artindale Computer System, including descriptions of the creatures made by centuries-past sailors (often Portuguese and Dutch) and other observers, along with the data from scientific papers and even the wildest of conjectural writings. This included genetic, hair, and other cellular information that had been assembled, as well as known facts about the habitats in which these creatures lived, including what they probably ate as well as data on other creatures that competed with them for resources or preyed on them—and which creatures the extinct species might have, in turn, preyed upon themselves. The tiniest, seemingly most innocuous observations were included, and the computer system then filtered out the most improbable data, focusing instead on characteristics that the creature most likely had.

Artindale also came up with a variety of chemical solutions in which to nourish and grow the cells, and developed charts of various ingredients to add or subtract, depending upon cellular reactions. In some cases there were inadequate cellular samples with which to begin the process, so Artindale developed what he called “educated assumptions,” which were used to generate artificial cellular materials, and to build creatures that he said would “closely approximate” extinct life-forms, matching all but an infinitesimal percentage of characteristics and traits. This was something Artie knew, having gleaned it from the technical electronic files left by his mentor, but it was not anything Rahma would be pleased to know—because it suggested a certain lack of genetic authenticity and purity.

All of the thirty-seven resurrected species, some involving adult pairs with offspring, and some individual adults, were comparatively recent extinctions from a historical standpoint, having come to the terminus of their genetic lineage between 1582 and 2036. He had decided to focus on this time period because, as a general rule, there was more data on comparatively recent species that had gone extinct. Glanno Artindale, and in turn Artie, could have gone back further if they wished, but the more recent species they’d brought back were more than enough to keep Artie and his team busy. On occasion, the hubot found evidence of likely candidates for resurrection that were much more ancient (but only if a wealth of intriguing information was available), yet he always set them aside for future research teams to work on.

This time Artie tinkered in the laboratory for around half an hour, supervising the assistants, answering their questions, making his own settings on the controls. He was about to enter the complex of habitats and walk around inside when he heard a familiar voice behind him.

“Oh, there you are,” Rahma said, as he came up beside the hubot. “Are you about finished here? I have important things for you to do.”

“Somehow that doesn’t surprise me,” Artie said, with a smile.

Just then, a large gray-and-white bird emerged from the jungle section and strutted slowly around the mango and papaya trees, pausing to eat fruit that had fallen to the ground.

“The dodo bird!” Rahma exclaimed.

“Our one and only,” Artie said. “The legendary flightless pigeon.” It was far and away the most popular of the creatures in his menagerie.

The legendary bird’s wings were quite small in relation to the size of its body, preventing it from flying. Rahma knew this was one of the reasons it had gone extinct on the island in the Indian Ocean where it lived, because over generations it became accustomed to a comfortable existence foraging on the ground, where food was plentiful. Until the arrival of humans and other predators (brought by humans) that hunted the dodo birds down with ease, and made them extinct.

The fat male bird stared at them for several long moments, showing no fear or aggression. It made a clucking sound, then waddled back into the thick undergrowth.

“We’re growing a girlfriend for him in the laboratory,” Artie said, “and hopefully they’ll like each other.”

“You have more than thirty species here, right?” Rahma said, “but only two have successfully bred with their own kind so far? The Labrador ducks and a species of mouse?”

“That’s still the case, sir. The two species you mentioned are doing well; others are not, and I’m afraid they can only be grown in the laboratory. For those that have not bred yet, we’ve been adjusting breeding conditions, and in a few cases we’re growing more of them in the lab in the hope that they will eventually breed.”

“And if they won’t?”

“Then they’re doomed to eventual extinction.” He paused. “They’ll go extinct for a second time.”

“How sad,” Rahma said.

“It is that, sir. As you know, this is a potentially huge-scale project, and very time-consuming, so I’ve backed off on generating new species in order to keep the operation small enough to manage.”

“Wise decision. I was wondering if you were going to blow out of this habitat, and start asking for funds to expand.”

“My department can always use additional funds, Chairman. Oh, remember a few weeks ago when I mentioned a new species?”

“Yes, you said you had a small marsupial, a juvenile.”

“That’s right,” Artie said. “It is growing faster than anticipated, and is already half of what we think its adult size will be.” He walked to a window and pointed into an enclosure that was physically walled off from the other habitat sections, with clearplex partition walls.

Rahma moved to his side, looked in. His eyes widened. “What the hell is that?”

Artie took several moments before replying. The enclosure was forested with kentia pines, palms, a variety of eucalyptus, and a dense undergrowth of shrubs and ferns. On the lower branch of a eucalyptus tree, the marsupial lay on its nest of twigs and leaves. Around the size of a small dog, it stared at Rahma with pale yellow eyes, its batlike wings folded over its body like a tent. The snout was long and pointed, and the thin lips separated slightly, showing large, razor-sharp incisors and canine teeth. The animal had reddish brown fur and a white streak down the center of its face.

“A marsupial wolf,” Artie said. “A female.”

“It can fly? It sure looks like it.”

“It’s more of a glider. After scampering up trees she launches herself from high points like a flying squirrel or fox. She can also catch currents of wind and lift off from the ground. I call her a glidewolf.”

“She’s also a marsupial, with a pouch?’

“That she is. You’re looking at a rather complex creature that went extinct around the year 1700 on Lord Howe Island, a crescent-shaped volcanic isle halfway between Australia and New Zealand—at least that’s where the skeletal remains were found, buried under lava. The trouble is, since the creature glides, it could have come from a different island, or even from the Australian mainland. It’s small now but is still growing, so in its adult form it might glide for great distances, riding air currents and perhaps even setting down on the water until the wind picks up again, then taking off by lifting its wings to the wind. It’s semi-nocturnal, doing most of its feeding at night. But it doesn’t sleep all day, like fully nocturnal creatures. Instead, it has a great deal of sustained energy, and is often quite active during daylight hours.”

Artie watched as the Chairman considered this information. The hubot had omitted certain details in describing the production of this creature to him, such as the amount of educated guesswork he’d had to do to produce it—conjecture that amounted to a quarter of one percent of the genetic mix—information that would trouble Rahma, and which he didn’t need to know. Even Artie’s assistants didn’t know about this genetic impurity (despite their electronic linkage with him), because he had the ability to conceal information from them, connecting with them only when he wanted to do so, and then transmitting only limited data.

“Do the wings flap?” Rahma asked.

“Only a little, which seem more like adjustments for gliding. When the creature is airborne and its wings are extended, the tail lifts and becomes a rudder for steering. It’s quite an interesting life-form, very unique.”

Obviously intrigued, Rahma asked, “Can I go inside for a closer look? It’s not dangerous, is it?”

Opening the door, Artie said, “The glidewolf is not carnivorous, that we know for certain. But we’re experimenting with her diet, putting various plants inside for her to eat. She seems to have a preference for the leaves, bark, and branches of eucalyptus trees, rather than anything from palms or other plants that are native to Lord Howe Island. Perhaps eucalyptus trees once grew there in abundance and then died off from a blight of some sort, and the creature lost the food it preferred. One thing in its favor, though—this one doesn’t seem to be a fussy eater, a trait that has led to the demise of other species. The glidewolf seems to be highly adaptable, which bodes well for its survival.”

“But it still went extinct.”

“That it did.” Artie led the way inside, walking over a groundcover littered with leaves and sticks, crunching the debris underfoot. Rahma followed. When they reached the branch on which the marsupial lay, the creature hardly moved. It stared at the hubot, an inquisitive gleam in its pale eyes. Artie heard a low hum coming from the animal, and a series of barely audible clicks. His lab assistants had been studying the intriguing vocalizations, but had not yet established clear patterns.

The marsupial’s wings were thin and tentlike, with lines of thick cartilage where they folded. In recent days Artie had been noticing that the creature shifted its wings around depending not only upon when it intended to glide, but upon its moods. Now the glidewolf was doing something it had done with him previously—leaning toward Rahma and extending a wing over him, using the appendage to draw the Chairman closer.

“She likes you,” Artie said, watching as Rahma nuzzled nervously and uncomfortably against the breast of the glidewolf, and the outside of its marsupial pouch.

“It does seem that way. I … I think I feel its heartbeat. Yes, I’m certain I do.” Finally the Chairman pulled free and stood a distance away, looking at the animal with a bemused expression on his bearded face.

“Master, I’d like your permission to release her into the wild for experiments, to see what else she might want to eat. She’s not carnivorous, so there’d be no danger to other animal species—and I’m confident she could elude any predators out there, or match them in a fight. Look at those claws and teeth.”

“You want to release her onto the game reserve?”

The hubot nodded. “With an electronic tracker attached, of course, and a videocam to record everything she does.”

“And if she causes trouble with the ecosystem?”

“One creature? How could she? If we see anything we don’t like, we just follow the tracking device, sedate the animal, and bring her back.”

“You make it sound so simple.”

“We need to do scientific research, and I get the feeling that the glidewolf requires a larger territory than we can provide down here.”

“I didn’t notice any eucalyptus trees growing out there.”

“Such trees prefer lower elevations, and coastal regions. But the creature seems to be adaptable, as I said. Maybe she will find something else to eat.”

“All right. In the name of science.” The Chairman moved toward the doorway. “Now, in case it slipped your mind, we have a visitor due in a few minutes.”

“I didn’t forget,” Artie said. “I have an internal clock, remember?”

“Right. You’re all machine, except for your eyes and your simulated programs.”

*   *   *

AT THE MAIN level of the administration building, Rahma and the hubot strode up a spiral ramp to the third floor. Women in long flower-print dresses and peace-symbol necklaces greeted the Chairman as he made his way past the cubicles and bamboo desks of the outer offices.

In the waiting area outside Rahma’s office, a tall man in an elegant white robe rose from a chair and bowed slightly. “Your Eminence,” he said. His bushy lamb-chop sideburns made his face look wider than it really was.

Chairman Rahma glanced at him coolly, then strode toward the office without saying anything.

Arch Ondex, the Director of Science for the Green States of America, was second in command behind the Chairman, but by some measures he held the most power of the two men, because he led the SciOs and controlled their secret, essential technology. A member of the Berkeley Eight revolutionary committee, Ondex’s scientific contributions had been crucial in defeating the powerful Corporate armies, while Rahma Popal had been the inspirational leader, the one who envisioned the best path to follow and led the raging mobs to victory.

The Chairman entered his office, with Ondex right behind him. Pompous and overbearing, the Director came from a wealthy Bay Area family that had been allowed to keep its fortune after the Corporate War because of its longtime record of endowments for the environment and for poor people. Unfortunately, Ondex and the Chairman only tolerated each other, and just barely, sometimes seeming to come close to blows. They had an uneasy alliance of common interests, knowing that one of them could not exist without the other.

As Artie remained outside and closed the office door, Ondex slipped into a deep-cushion visitor’s chair, beneath a sign on the wall that read “All for Green and Green for All.”

Intentionally ignoring the man for the moment, Rahma Popal walked to a large window of his office and gazed out on the remarkable, calming beauty of the greensward, with its arrangement of wetlands and irrigated grazing lands. In the foreground he saw wranglers working with small, energetic dogs to keep a herd of elk away from the unfenced compound of buildings. In the distance buffalo grazed on the grass, a timeless scene of pastoral serenity. Above them a platform floated low in the air without touching the fragile habitats or disturbing the birds or animals, with a crew onboard collecting information on the wildlife.

“You think to drive me a little mad, eh?” Ondex said, “with your attitude and outright disrespect?”

“My contempt for you does not go beyond this office,” said the Chairman, still keeping his back to him.

“It’s too bad you feel that way toward me, because I’ve never felt that way about you, Rahma. Perhaps it is my manner that irritates you more than anything else? But I can’t help how I speak or carry myself. Woe is me, I was born into great wealth, and these things were ingrained in me from an early age.”

Rahma turned to face him. “Is that an apology for your rude, condescending demeanor?”

Ondex smiled tightly. “Only an explanation. Might I suggest that we set aside our personal discomforts for the good of the nation, for the critical matters that we must handle with efficiency?”

The Chairman nodded somberly and exchanged the sign of the sacred tree with him—each man saluting with spread, bent fingers that represented tree roots. (It was an exchange that the Berkeley Eight had developed during the Green Revolution.) Then Rahma asked, “Well, what is it this time?”

“You heard about the most recent guerrilla attack, just outside the Bostoner Preserve? The Corporates are at it again.”

“Yes, yes, most of the attackers were killed, and of the two that were captured, one died in interrogation and the other slipped into a coma from his injuries, both without revealing anything. AOE special agents are doing what they can to find out what happened.”

“But how do you plan to prevent future attacks?”

“I don’t have the intelligence reports back yet, but you SciOs provide science to the government, including some military technology. Why don’t you put your researchers on the task?”

“We are a scientific organization, not a military one. This is a national defense matter.”

“Then why are you here?”

Ondex bristled. “You are supposed to be the inspirational and strategic leader of the GSA. In contrast, I lead a group of scientists, nerdy technicians who provide environmental and law-enforcement technology. It is your responsibility to use the J-Macs to improve the environment, and to protect our nation with conventional and nuclear military forces. And need I remind you, the GSA Charter lays out our lines of authority quite clearly.”

“But I have one hand tied behind my back because of your paranoid secrecy and the self-destruct, non-tamper mechanisms on SciO equipment. You have secret information that you won’t share with me. Maybe your laboratories could find evidence of who’s behind the guerrilla attacks and prevent them from doing it again.”

Ondex shook his head. “National security is your responsibility. Don’t try to twist things and make it mine.”

“You SciOs are so very clever. Surely, some device in your bag of tricks can ferret out these bad guys, these terrorists.”

“Our bag of tricks, as you call it, saved you and your hippie army from annihilation, when we used Splitter Cannons to tear through enemy forces.”

“That was only part of the reason we won. Your Splitter Cannons were only short-range, and we didn’t have nuclear weapons then, while the Corporates and their captive governments did. But we had numbers on our side, tens of millions of common people hitting the streets in mob armies on two continents, bolstered by many more who left the Corporate militias and government forces and joined us. It was a grassroots movement, a groundswell that would not have been possible without my leadership.”

“And the rest of us on the revolutionary council, we did nothing?”

“I didn’t say that. It was a team effort, I’ll admit that. But don’t try to overstate your contribution.”

“That goes both ways, Comrade Chairman. Now we have nuclear weapons to defend our nation, but they are of no use against the Corporate guerrillas. You understand, don’t you, that the guerrilla attacks are probes designed to test our defenses and responses?”

“That is but one option. There are others. Intelligence reports indicate that there are different Corporate groups operating in the GSA without strong overseas sponsors. They are not one cohesive unit, and have no unified plan.”

“But environmental sabotages seem to go hand in hand with military attacks, the way our enemies also spread eco-cancers through the areas we have greenformed—nasty blights and viruses that cause plants and animals to die, not to mention the forest fires they keep setting.”

“Only minor inconveniences. We can greenform faster than they can sabotage. There are countermeasures to eco-cancers, and ways to put out the forest fires quickly. Besides,” the Chairman added with a smile, “those problems keep our people working, and keep us unified against the terrorists.”

“Just as long as the opposition forces don’t get too strong.”

“You worry too much. Since you insist on secrecy, you must leave the countermeasures to me. You take care of your area of responsibility under the Charter, and I’ll handle the rest.”

“Somehow, I don’t feel assured,” Ondex said. He stood abruptly, and left.