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.I act for the good of all the world’s peoples.Not for profit.” “Sure,” said Dan.“And rain makes applesauce.If you actually believe that, you’re the worst kind of fool.There’s only one sin in the world: poverty.And there’s only one crime: believing your own propaganda.”THIRTEEN“DON’T YOU SEE?” Dan pleaded with Jane.“All he’s after is power! He’s using this cataclysm as an excuse to grab total world power.” They were walking glumly along the beach as the sunset turned the cloud-streaked sky into flaming reds and oranges.“Dan, you’re not being fair to Vasily.” “Like hell I’m not.” “I don’t like what he wants to do, but I’ve got to agree with him.I don’t see how we can accomplish what needs to be done without the authority of the law behind us.We need the GEC’s control over the situation.Otherwise.” Her voice trailed off into silence.Ignoring the beauty of the fading day, Dan urged her, “He wants to be dictator of the world.He’ll be using economic power instead of military, but by the time the shit hits the fan he’ll be a world-class Napoleon.Or worse yet, a Stalin.” “He’s not like that,” she insisted.“He’s really concerned.He sees this course of action as the only one that has a chance of working.” “And if it does work, he’ll be sitting on a throne for the rest of his life.” “If it doesn’t work, he’ll take the blame.” Dan grunted.“Yeah, maybe.If he hasn’t taken total control of the world’s media by then.” “Be fair!” “Fair? He knew! The sonofabitch knew all about the greenhouse cliff for a frigging year and he didn’t tell anybody about it.He didn’t even tell you or the rest of the Council.” “Yes, I know.He was afraid that the news would leak out prematurely.Can you imagine what effects it will have on people when we do start to tell them? The panic?” “The stock market,” Dan muttered.Jane stopped walking and turned to face Dan.Standing there on the beach, the dying sun behind her, the sky flaming with color, she looked to him like a tall, strong, beautiful goddess just come out °f the sea.“Dan,” she said, “we’ve got to work with Vasily, not against him.There’s no other way.” “I don’t have to do a damned thing.He’s arranged it that way, hasn’t he?” “He knew you’d fight against him.” Dan nodded.“He’s right.” “But if you’d promise to cooperate-” “Cooperate? While his paper-pushing desk jockeys try to run my company? It’ll take those drones ten years just to rework the organization charts!” She sighed heavily and started back toward the huts of the hotel.“I’ll be leaving tomorrow morning, you know.I have an enormous amount of work ahead of me.” “And I’m supposed to stay here.How long?” She shrugged.Striding alongside her, he reached for her hand.“Well, at least we’ve got tonight together.” He could not tell in the dying light, but he almost thought he saw tears in her eyes.“Oh Dan,” she said, “it’s like everything in the whole blessed world stands between us.Has always stood between us.” “There’s nothing in the world between us now,” he replied gently.“Tonight there’s only the two of us on this beautiful island.The past is dead and gone and tomorrow doesn’t exist yet.But we have tonight.” “Yes,” she murmured.“We have tonight.” Dan awoke when his wristwatch’s silent alarm sent its pulsed tingling signal up his left arm.It was still dark.Jane lay sleeping soundly next to him, a thin sheet pulled halfway up her alabaster body.For long minutes he sat in bed gazing down at her in the dim light of the digital clock on the dresser across the room.God but you’re beautiful, he told her silently.To think of all the years we’ve spent apart.What a waste.What a cosmically tragic waste.Slowly, softly, he slipped out of the bed, not wanting to awaken her.He grabbed a swimsuit and T-shirt from the pile in the corner of the hut and padded out naked into the starlit predawn.Grinning to himself, he took his pick of the empty huts, taking one as far from his own as he could.There he urinated and showered, patted his graying hair into some semblance of order, pulled on the trunks and T-shirt, and then marched determinedly to the hotel’s office.No one was at the registration desk.The kitchen looked dark and empty.Dan knew that the staff slept in the long hut behind the office building, but the manager and his wife had a private suite in the building itself.It was a small cottage, the only building on the islet that had solid walls instead of bamboo screens.There was no lock on the building’s front door.Why bother? Where would a thief go on this atoll? All the islets put together barely added up to a few square kilometers.You could see a man standing on the pig farm from all the way across the lagoon; with binoculars you could make out his face.Dan let himself in.The entire ground floor of the little cottage was a single room: the hotel’s business office.The overhead lights went on automatically as the wall sensor reacted to his body heat.Dan saw a desk with a computer and phone console on it, two rattan chairs with gaudy flowered cushions, and a small bookcase that seemed to hold brochures advertising the hotel and nothing else [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]