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"Let's not bring it up. I meant should we talk about Peter's findings; our
findings."
"No reason not to. It'll be common knowledge tomorrow."
I stacked an uneven pile of cheese on a slab of dark bread and passed it to
her on a napkin. "Rather talk about that than me."
"People will know. Marty, for sure."
"I'll talk to Marty. If I have a chance."
"I think maybe the end of the universe might upstage you, anyhow."
"It does put things into perspective."
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The half-mile walk to the Saturday Night Special was hot and dusty, even with
the sun setting; a chalky kind of dust. We were glad to step into the
air-conditioning. Marty and Belda were there, sharing a plate of appetizers.
"Julian. How are you?" Marty said with careful neutrality.
"All right now. Talk about it later?" He nodded. Belda said nothing,
concentrating on dissecting a shrimp. "Anything new on the project with Ray?
The empathy thing."
"Quite a bit of new data, actually, though Ray's more up to date on it. That
terrible thing with the children, Iberia?"
"Liberia," I said.
"Three of the people we were studying witnessed that. It was hard on them."
"Hard on everybody. The children, especially."
"Monsters," Belda said, looking up. "You know I'm not political, and I'm not
maternal, either. But what could have been in their minds, to think that
something so terrible could help their cause?"
"It's not just a warrior mentality," Amelia said. "Doing that to your own
people."
"Most of the Ngumi thinks we did it," Marty said, "and just manipulated things
to make it look like they did... as you say, no one would do that to their own
people. That's proof enough right there."
"You think it was all a cynical plan?" Amelia said. "I can't imagine."
"No, the word we have this is confidential and unsupported is that it was one
lunatic officer and a few followers. They're all disposed of now, and Ngumi
Psychops, such as they are, are doing a lot of smoke and mirrors, proving that
for some reason we would want to destroy a school full of innocent children,
to make a point. To show how ruthless the Ngumi are, when of course everyone
knows they're the army of and for the people."
"And they're buying it?" I asked.
"A lot of Central and South America is. You haven't been watching the news?"
"Off and on. What was the thing with Amnesty International?"
"Oh, the army let one of their lawyers jack into any string he wanted, on
condition of confidentiality. He could testify that everyone was genuinely
surprised by the atrocity, most people horrified. That's pretty much gotten us
off the hook in Europe, and even Africa and Asia. Didn't make the news down
south."
Asher and Reza came in together. "Hey, welcome back, you two. Run off and get
married?"
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"Ran off," Amelia said quickly, "but to work. We've been up in Washington."
"Government business?" Asher said.
"No. But it will be, after the weekend."
"Can we wheedle it out of you? Or is it too technical?"
"Not technical, not the most important part." She turned to Marty. "Is Ray
coming?"
"No; he had a family thing."
"Okay. Let's get our drinks. Julian and I have a story to tell."
Once the waiter had delivered the wine and coffee and whiskey and disappeared,
Amelia started the tale, the threat of absolute intergalactic doom. I added a
few details here and there. Nobody interrupted.
Then there was a long pause. There had probably not been that many consecutive
seconds of silence in all the years this group had been getting together.
Asher cleared his throat. "Of course the jury's not in yet. Literally."
"That's true," Amelia said. "But the fact that Julian and Peter got the same
results down to eight significant figures! using two different starting points
and two independent methods ... well, I'm not worried about the jury. I'm just
worried about the politics of shutting down such a huge project. And a little
worried about where I'll be working next year. Next week."
"Ah," Belda said. "You've done a good job with the trees. Surely you've
thought about the forest as well."
"That it's a weapon?" I said, and Belda nodded slowly. "Yes. It's the ultimate
doomsday weapon. It has to be dismantled."
"But the forest is bigger than that," Belda said, and sipped her coffee. '
'Suppose you don't just dismantle it you destroy it without a trace. You go
through the literature and erase every line that relates to the
Jupiter Project. And then you have government goons go out and kill everyone
who's ever heard of it.
What happens then?"
"You tell me," I said. "You're going to."
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Dobre pomysły nie mają przeszłości, mają tylko przyszłość. Robert Mallet
De minimis - o najmniejszych rzeczach.
Dobroć jest ważniejsza niż mądrość, a uznanie tej prawdy to pierwszy krok do mądrości. Theodore Isaac Rubin
Dobro to tylko to, co szlachetne, zło to tylko to, co haniebne.
Dla człowieka nie tylko świat otaczający jest zagadką; jest on nią sam dla siebie. I z obu tajemnic bardziej dręczącą wydaje się ta druga. Antoni Kępiński (1918-1972)
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