Her cheeks darkened in anger. "I devote my time to achieving something worthwhile: your downfall."
"Had any success?" Lawrence had heard of opposites attracting, but this was ridiculous. He was sure she was about to throw her drink over him. Except her glass was back on the bar. She couldn't be carrying a weapon. Could she?
"We will," she said.
"So who do you plan to control our factories and revitalization projects once you've driven us out of your country? Yourself and your friends, perhaps?"
"We'll close down your factories. We don't want that kind of society."
"Ah, green anarchy. Interesting ideology. Good luck convincing everyone to adopt it."
"I'm wasting my time. You're not allowed to think: you just recite company dogma. Next you'll tell me to buy a stake if I want to change the way things are."
Lawrence closed his mouth before he said, Well, yes, actually.
"Are your career and your stake worth so much that you have to build them up on the destruction of others?"
She looked so damn earnest when she asked him. It was the worst kind of student politics: we can change the whole world if we can just open a dialogue. Try opening a dialogue to a mob flinging Molotovs at you. "I've never destroyed anyone," he said lightly.
"You've taken part in the campaigns to pillage other worlds. If that's not destruction, I don't know what is."
"Nothing is destroyed. And our campaigns help fund the greatest human endeavor there is."
"What's that?"
"Establishing colonies on new worlds."
"My God, you're worse than a cybersoldier, you're an ecocide advocate."
"It's even worse than that, actually. I'm here in Amsterdam to join the starship officer college. I'm going to find lots of new planets we can ecocide."
Her head was shaken in soft disbelief. "Why?" she asked, genuinely puzzled. "Why would anyone do such a thing? That's what I never understand about your kind. Why do you always think that you can only achieve anything by violating what's right and natural? If you have this urge, why can't you channel it into something creative?"
"Exploring the universe is the most creative endeavor there could possibly be. It's the culmination of a thousand years of civilization."
"Starflight is the most appalling waste of resources and money. Z-B is practicing interstellar imperialism with its expansion program. There's no worthwhile outcome. We have a planet here that desperately needs our help in just about every domain you can mention, and we can't provide that help because you're bleeding us to death."
"Z-B provides almost as much funding for ecological and urban revitalization projects as it does for starflight."
"But they're your revitalization projects. Revitalizing in your image, spreading the dead corporate uniculture into weaker societies."
"Look, I can see where you're coming from. You want money devoted to issues you think are important. That's perfectly natural politics, convincing governments or corporations to pay for your own pet projects, or convincing enough people to win you the popular vote. Fine. Keep on campaigning and raising people's awareness. But you will never, ever, get my vote, because I will always vote for more star-ships. And the only practical way I get those is through a stake in Z-B. Sorry, I'm not going to be converted. I'm already doing the one thing I believe in the most."
"It's wrong, and in your heart you know that."
"I do not know that. I'm afraid all your arguments fall down with me, for the simple reason that you can't look above your own horizon. You have no sense of wonder, no drive. You've limited yourself to seeing only the smallest pixel in the picture. You practice the worst sort of parochialism."
"I see this whole world and how it's hurting."
"Exactly. This world and no other. Without starflight I would never have been born. I'm not from this planet." He smiled at her frown of confusion. "I'm from Amethi. And we don't practice ecocide there. We're regenerating an entire living biosphere. Something I happen to think is worthwhile in the extreme."
"You weren't born on Earth?" she asked.
"That's right."
"Yet you came here to join Z-B so you could fly starships further into the galaxy?"
"Yep."
Her short laugh was of pure incredulity. "You're crazy."
"Guess so." Lawrence grinned back. "So are you going to wish me luck for my assessment tomorrow?"
"No. That I can never do." Her expression was sorrowful as she turned away.
"Hey," he called. "You didn't tell me your name."
For a moment he thought she was going to ignore him. Then she glanced back over her shoulder, hand running through her buoyant hair as she made the decision. "Joona," she said at last. "Joona Beaumont."
"Joona. That's good. I like that. I'm Lawrence Newton. And I wish you a happy life, Joona."
Finally, just before she reclaimed her barstool, she allowed him to see a slight smile tweak her lips.
Breakfast was as depressing as Lawrence expected it to be. The Holiday Inn restaurant was full of his fellow candidates, all being hearty and cheerful. He joined in, putting on that same mannerly facade the way he'd learned back home when his father had other Board members at the house and he had to be a proper little Newton. It was surprising how easily the deceit came.
The other hopefuls were mostly from upper-management families with big stakes in Z-B, fresh out of college, or with a few years spent in one of the company's various spaceflight divisions. Dressed in his strategic security uniform, and with his starflight experience, Lawrence soon became their focal point. They kept him busy answering questions throughout the meal. He was still telling them about Floyd and the aliens when they walked en masse over to the headquarters building. Lawrence looked around the square, but there was no sign of any protesters. Not that he'd expected them there quite so early in the morning.
Group epsilon three's morning started with the introduction, a half-hour talk from a captain about what Z-B looked for in its starship officers. The usual bull about devotion to duty, comradeship, professionalism. Lawrence got a different version from a strategic security officer every time the platoon was put through a new training course. The captain ended with: "We expect you to give us better than your best"
Day one was devoted to testing their reflexes. The college's i-environment was the most sophisticated Lawrence had ever experienced. They were given full stim-suits to wear, a tight-fitting one-piece made from a fabric of piezoelectric fibers; then led into a big anacoustic room with three rows of gyro-seats. Once they were strapped in, the AS started off with simple coordination tasks. It was easy to begin with, three-dimensional grid alignments, like being inside a hologram pane graph, lining up the glowing green-and-scarlet symbols. They soon progressed to steering fast cars through a maze, and different wheel limitations and engine fluctuations were gradually introduced. Crashes became progressively more violent. After lunch they were given full aircraft simulations, taking up single-seat jet trainers. That was when the AS began to put them under stress, giving them engine flame-outs, failed flaps, spins that were so fast they threatened to make Lawrence vomit. Equipment malfunctions at critical moments. Cockpit fires, with real smoke blowing in through the suit helmet vents and heat searing their hands and legs.