The dying of any city begins at its foundation. The French had faced a huge expanse of bayous and reed beds where the Mississippi deposited silt far into the Gulf. This posed a problem. You want to build a town at the mouth of a great river, but which mouth? Natural rivers have many.
They chose the most navigable one, and used a Chippewa word to call it “Mississippi.” But nature paid no heed to names. Channels silted up, and the river kept bulling new paths to the sea.
It was natural, but men found it inconvenient. So they started dredging, saying, “This shall be the main channel, always and forever.”
Dredged mud piled up along the banks of a trough that pushed ever outward, carrying its load of plains dust and mountain sediment deeper into the gulf. Not a fan but a finger, poking mile by mile, year after year, in the general direction of Cuba.
Meanwhile the rest of the delta began eroding.
Logan had inspected hundreds of kilometers of embankments, thrown up in forlorn efforts to save the doomed shore. More tall levees contained the river, whose gradient flattened over time. Suspended silt began falling out even north of Baton Rouge. Soon the sluggish current no longer held back the sea. Salinity increased.
Upstream, the Mississippi fought like an anaconda, writhing to escape. The contest was one of raw power. And Logan knew where it would be lost.
Can you hear it calling? He asked the captive waters. Can you hear the Atchafalaya, beckoning you?
Fortunately, Claire would move away long before the Mississippi burst through the Old River Control Structure or some other weak point, spilling into that peaceful plain of cane fields and fish farms. But Daisy? She’d never budge. Perhaps she didn’t believe because the warning came from him, and that made Logan feel vaguely guilty.
In effect, he could only pray the Corps’ new barriers were as good as they claimed. It was possible. Schools now taught youngsters to think in terms of decades, not mere months or years anymore. Maybe that culture had worked its way even to Washington.
But rivers see decades, even centuries, as mere trifles.
The Mississippi rolled by. And, not for the first time, Logan wondered if Daisy might be right after all. I try to find solutions that work with Earth’s forces. I like to think I’ve learned from the mistakes of past engineers.
But didn’t they, too, think they built for the ages?
He remembered what Shelley had written, about an ancient pharaoh.
Now the pyramids of Giza, symbols of man’s conquest of time, were crumbling under the smoggy breath of fifty million denizens of Cairo. The monuments of Ramses were flaking to dust, blowing away to become thin layers in some future geologist’s dissection of the past.
Can we build nothing that lasts? Nothing worth lasting?
Logan sighed. He had been away too long. He turned away from the patient river and took the rusted, creaking iron stairs back into the ancient city.
A man in blue stood near the door of the restaurant, his crewcut and patchy skin exaggerated by the rhodium flicker of the entrance sign. At first, Logan thought the fellow was a Ra Boy in mufti. But a second glance showed him to be too old, and much too formidable to be a Ra Boy.
Normally, Logan would have left out the second glance, but one does look twice when someone steps up and grabs your elbow. Logan blinked. “I beg your pardon?”
“No. It’s I who must apologize. You’re Logan Eng, may I assume?”
“Uh… I won’t serve time for keeping it mum.” The flip clichi rolled out before he could regret it, but the sallow-faced man appeared not to notice. He let go of Logan’s arm only as they moved away from the doorway.
“My name is Glenn Spivey, colonel, United States Aerospace Force.”
The stranger held out an ID that projected a holographic sphere ten centimeters across, emblazoned with crusty military emblems.
“Please go ahead and use your wallet plaque to verify my credentials, Mr. Eng.”
Logan started to laugh. Partly in relief this wasn’t a robbery and partly at the incongruity. As if anyone would want to fake such a garish thing!
“I’m sure I believe you…”
But the other man insisted. “I really would prefer you check, sir.”
“Hey, what’s this about? I have people waiting…”
“I know that. This shouldn’t take long. We can talk soon as you’ve verified my bona fides. It’s for your own protection, sir.”
In the stranger’s eyes, Logan recognized a tenacity far exceeding his own. Arguing was clearly futile.
“Oh, all right.” He took out his wallet and aimed its lens first at Spivey and then at the man’s glowing credential. Quickly he dialed the private security service he used for such things and pressed his thumb to the ident-plate. In three seconds the tiny screen flashed a terse confirmation.
All right, the fellow was who he said he was. Logan might have preferred a robber.
“Shall we go for a walk then, Mr. Eng?” Spivey motioned with one arm.
“I just finished walking a piece. Can we sit down? I really only have a moment…”
His protest trailed off as the officer showed him to a long black car parked at the curb. One glance told Logan the thing was made of steel throughout, and ran on high-octane gasoline.
Astounding. Work vehicles were one thing. Out in the field, machines needed that kind of power. But what use was it here in a city? This told him more than he’d learned by reading Spivey’s ID.
Logan felt like a desecrator, planting his work pants on the plush upholstery. When the door hissed shut, all sound from the blaring, cacophonous street instantly vanished.
“This is a secure vehicle,” Spivey told him, and Logan quite believed it.
“All right, Colonel. What’s all this about?”
Spivey held up one hand. “First I must tell you, Mr. Eng, that what we’re about to discuss is highly classified. Top secret.”
Logan winced. “I want my lawyer program.”
The officer smiled placatingly. “I assure you it’s all legal. You must be aware certain government agencies are exempt from the open-access provisions of the Rio Treaties.”
Logan knew that. Disarmament hadn’t ended all threats to peace or national security. Nations still competed, and in principle he accepted the need for secret services. Still, the idea made him intensely uncomfortable.
Spivey went on. “If you wish, though, we can record our conversation, and you may deposit a copy with a reputable registration service. Which one do you use for business? I’m sure you often sequester proprietary techniques for weeks or months before applying for patents.”
Logan relaxed just a bit. Sequestering a conversation, to keep it confidential for a short time, was another matter entirely… so long as a legal record was kept in a safe place. In that case, he wondered why Spivey used the word “secret” at all.
“I deposit with Palmer Privacy, but—”
Spivey nodded. “Palmer will be satisfactory. Because we’ll be discussing matters of national safety, however, and a possible threat to public welfare, I must ask for a ten-year sequestration, at ultimate level.”
At that level, only a high court could open the record before expiration. Logan swallowed. He felt as if he had stepped into a bad flat-movie from the twentieth century, one made all too realistic in Daisy McClennon’s enhancement lab. He was tempted to look around for the flashing pink star, installed to cue viewers that this wasn’t real.