“Mmph. That’s the most disturbing part of it, Shade,” Otis replied. “The Wags have taken to circumventing the environmental planning process entirely. They design projects without even bothering to do an impact study, then just walk them over to council and get them shouted through. This is not the first time—it’s just the biggest, and the first to have a high probability of major cascade effects. See the tower over there?”
Otis pointed across the crater to where Southern Settlement’s arcology emerged from the center of a perfect circle of agricultural land. A blue needle-like spire had been built at its southwestern corner, disrupting the structure’s symmetry.
“They built that in only seven days. They already had the materials they needed stockpiled before they went to council with the plans. By the time I finished my first analysis of its impact, it was already complete. Fortunately, there was nothing to worry about. It’s part of an established human residence area, it interferes with no migratory or precipitation patterns. It’s ugly, but if the settlers want it, who am I to object? But this trend of the Wags, of not submitting their plans for study by us—that is where things started to go wrong.
“I know I should have put my foot down sooner, with that tower, in fact. It’s not that I would have wanted it stopped. I just shouldn’t have let the precedent be set. They did it nine times, and I did nothing. That tower; one like it in Northern Settlement; some light industrial developments which the settlers really like, also in Northern Settlement; and a childrens’ educational facility down there in Southern. Good projects all, with no significant environmental impact. I wouldn’t have objected. But they end-ran them around me… said I would only delay things. Said council could make up its own mind. Called me ‘an obstacle to progress’ and other untruthful things…
“And now they are going to do it to Soyinka Patera! I am sorry Shade, I ought to have acted sooner. I didn’t think the Wags would go so far so fast with so little thought behind it.”
“You say they had materials stockpiled before they made the proposal?” I asked rhetorically. Otis might be mystified by Sharawaggi’s behavior, but for me it was starting to make sense.
“Yes. They didn’t even announce they were bringing anything special in—just added it all on to their regular shipments of maintenance supplies…”
“Otis,” I interrupted him, “it sounds to me as though the Wags have coopted at least some members of the council. They wouldn’t have dropped hardware down this gravity well if they hadn’t already known they’d be getting the necessary OKs.”
Otis thought about this.
“Those first nine projects were pretty unobtrusive,” he finally said. “If they already knew the impact on the environment would be minimal, then it wouldn’t take a genius to see that the settlers and their council would look upon them favorably. They might just have gambled and won.”
“The first couple of times maybe,” I said. “But I’ll bet next quarter’s entire dividend that this all fits together as part of a single plan. And I’m not sure even the VR complex is the end of it. They’re pushing the limits on their freedom of action with something big in mind. The fate of your mosquitoes is going to be insignificant by the time this is over.”
“It’s a lot more than just the anopheles, Shade! You know that! We could lose…”
“Money, Otis. This company could lose a lot of money if we have to restabilize the Habitat’s ecosystem with one fewer insect species. But we will pass that cost on. Ultimately council will end up paying for it. And if any future increases in council appropriations wind up being tied convincingly to one of their projects, then Sharawaggi will suffer some future retribution. The Wags know this. So why risk it? Why put so much effort into a project which they know will cost them in the future? There must be something bigger at stake here. What is it?”
2
“I hear your Mr. Fremont is concerned about our Soyinka Patera Project,” said Cheri Millefiori, Director of Sharawaggi’s Marjolin field office, as she slipped languidly through my door and settled uninvited onto the couch in my quarters. She wore a slim anklet of tiny gold bells which jingled as she walked. That had been my only warning she was coming.
She had not even identified herself, but I had seen her picture before—I even had a copy of our own dossier on her sitting there on top of my desk. I arranged to drop Otis’s atmospheric impact report on top of it, just in case she decided to sashay over and have look at the hard copy I’d been studying.
The dossier picture had not done her justice. Ms. Millefiori was the most beautiful woman I had ever seen. Her long, golden hair was looped in a braided crown about her head, and she walked with an erect grace evocative of ancient royalty—projecting self-confidence verging on arrogance. Her curvaceous figure was barely contained by the gossamer wrappings of a sari, opalescent as a butterfly’s wing. Even the asymmetry of the jeweled stud in one nostril seemed to call attention to the perfect line her nose drew between lips and forehead, which in turn lured one into looking into her deep dark eyes—
I assumed her clothing choice was part of a deliberate effort to ensure I was hormonally distracted when I first met her. I also decided the plan was working.
“Do you always pay surprise visits on newly arrived corporate goons like myself?” I ask abruptly, not wanting to surrender total control of the meeting. “And doesn’t Sharawaggi corporate etiquette include such niceties as knocking before you enter someone else’s quarters?”
“That’s right, you’re from Earth,” she sighed, “where there are locks on doors and all that. I must apologize to you then. I was born here in the dome. We are much less formal, you know. ‘True Sybarites’ according to Enterprise promotional literature. We enjoy life too much to be always on the defensive.
“If you’d like, I can leave and come back later… maybe even make an appointment or some such thing? You do use that procedure on Earth, don’t you? Request an appointment. Make sure you’re on time so the person you’re visiting can demonstrate his superior position by making you wait—all the social dominance games Earthers consider necessary, before doing anything?”
She had a point, but as an Earther, I had no intention of conceding it.
“Now that you’re here,” I grumbled, “you might as well stay. And yes, Mr. Fremont is concerned, both by the environmental impact of the Soyinka Patera project and with the fact that a project with such a clear and significant impact was designed, and taken to council with no study being done.”
“We did our own study,” she said simply. “We know all about the impending demise of several million mosquitoes. We frankly saw that as nothing to be alarmed about.”
“You know full well that there’s more at stake than mosquitoes,” I retorted, and gestured towards the sheaf of flimsies I had been reading when she entered. “Since I assume you have as little respect for the privacy of my colleague’s computer as you do for my rooms here, I imagine you hacked in and read his reports while he was still working on them. But just in case you didn’t, let me mention a few of the other variables you are ignoring. One: Soyinka Patera is the only sizable wetlands area under the dome not immediately adjacent to the central lake, and is the primary biological filter for the aquifer which provides water to Nothern Settlement. Was council made aware that without it they’ll have to begin artificially purifying drinking water within the next twenty years as a result of your project? There’s no mention of it in the council minutes.”