“No question it’s the Jews,” Wrench proclaimed from beneath his sun-hat. Lessing had thought him asleep. “Who profits from exterminating Russia? The West, right? And who runs the West?”
Lessing stayed motionless. The others mostly let him alone, but Wrench delighted in a little missionary work now and then.
Jennifer asked carefully, “You fought for the Israelis in Syria, didn’t you, Alan? You must know them well.”
“I was only a hired hand. A mere. No policy decisions.” He felt her eyes prying at the top of his skull. He refused to be dragged into these discussions. Give him something to do, and he’d do it. Debate was not his forte.
After a moment Jennifer went on: “It’s not fair to blame only the Jews, even if they do turn out to be responsible for Pacov. Others in the System profit as welclass="underline" the great corporations, the banks, the big international combines… all those who gain from an American-Jewish hegemony over a half-empty world.”
“Half empty?” Wrench chuckled. “Like the old joke: the pessimist sees the glass as half empty, the optimist as half full. The Jews’ll drink the contents and keep the glass, too! And make sure the world loves ‘em for doing it. The ‘Chosen People’ value their lovable image. Oh, yeah, they’ll be kind to any surviving immunes, the women, and the kids. You’ll sec: they’ll turn it into the greatest dramatic mini-series ever seen on TV! One that makes you feel all warm and gushy inside.”
“We may be wrong.” Borchardt mused. “The Palestinians could have done this… or the Latin Americans, the Ethiopians, Afghans, or Salvadorans. God knows there are enough dispossessed and bitter people out there. Even the British or the French or some smaller nation…!”
“Or loonies right out of the funny-papers. Wrench scoltea. Borchardt fingered the nape of his neck gingerly. It was bright red. “Did you hear that some are blaming the neo-Nazis? If they knew about its, we’d top the list!”
“We’d have to be crazy!” Jennifer exploded. All the money we’ve spent to legitimize ourpolitical movement! Years of planning wasted! What do we want with a plague-ridden world… or an atomic cinder?” .
“Nazis make the best villains,” Wrench snickered. “When in doubt, punch out the least popular kid on the block! I’m sure they can work an evil Nazi super-scientist into their mini-series, a gang of black-uniformed SS troopers, a couple of death camps.”
Lessing grew bored listening. These people speculated and wrangled endlessly, the way monkeys picked fleas. They had been at it since leaving India a week ago, an aimless, meandenng safari that had taken them first to South Africa, where Mrs. Delacroix s friends warned her against remaining: not only out of fear of Pacov but because trouble was brewing with the Blacks again. Mulder had urged them to join him on Ponape, as remote — and safe— a spot as could be found in an increasingly unstable world.
They all had accepted. Mrs. Delacroix appeared pale and disoriented, and Liese stayed close by her side. Jennifer Caw was used to travelling around the world with no more detailed plan than tomorrow’s plane ticket. She was wealthy, Lessing learned, the offspring of two wealthy South American “Descendant” families. Her father had built up a computer empire in the United States.
Borchardt tagged along, due more to an infatuation with Jennifer Caw than out of fear of Pacov. His business involved liaisons between European and Third World corporations, and he spent much time on Ponape’s primitive satellite telecom hookup. Borchardt was also a “Descendant.” His ancestors had not fled Germany after the Second World War, however. They had hoped to live quietly until memories had faded, but they had reckoned without the tenacity of the Nazi-hunters and the media. Hans never discussed what had happened to them. Communists, liberals, centrists— nearly everybody— had political freedom in Germany, but not the far right, the offspring of those who had once proudly borne Germany s banners. They were still anathema.
Lessing sat up and shaded his eyes, squinting against the shimmering sand for a glimpse of Mrs. Delacroix and Liese. They had wandered off up the beach that fronted Club Lingahnie’s property on Madolenihmw Bay. Mulder’s corporate octopus had spent a bundle getting that beach sanded and landscaped. Ponape was a Micronesian “high” volcanic island and not the idyllic Polynesian coral atoll of the South Pacific romances. It rained almost every day here, and the low shoreline was covered with scraggly mangrove forest and tangled undergrowth.
Personally, Lessing thought that Mulder and his SS comrades had been slickered when they bought ClubLingahnie. Tonga, Tahiti, or Samoa this was not!
He heard a faint chanting: not wily natives but teenagers from the Club. Presently there were about nine hundred guests, mostly young people, from many countries and organizations. Felix Bauer, attired in shorts and an alpine hat with a red feather in it, was visible in the distance on the beachfront road, pacing a column of khaki -clad youths doing military drill.
Back off the beach, among the ever-present breadfruit trees, stood new dormitories and flats, administrative buildings, a recreation hall, classrooms, a radio tower, a private landing strip, swimming pools, a sports arena, and a full-scale hospital. Certain less-public facilities were concealed by the vegetation as welclass="underline" an obstacle course, target ranges, an armory containing a surprising variety of modem weapons, and bunkers that served both as defenses and as practice military objectives. The island’s government, in the town of Kolonia to the north, smiled benignly and reaped the fruits of tourism.
Lessing sat back down again. He had nothing to do this afternoon. His own pupils, those learning guerrilla tactics and weapons, were on an archaeological field trip, building muscles helping the local historical society excavate the ruins of Nan Madol.
That was a fascinating place! Behind a two-kilometer-long breakwater stood a deserted city of stone platforms, with canals and channels between them big enough for canoes at high tide: a junior-size Venice. The walls of these platforms were constructed of huge blocks and columns of prismatic basalt, with cores of stones and rubble. Some of the platforms contained tombs, the remains of the Sau Deleur Dynasty that had gone extinct not long before the first Europeans arrived. Others served as foundations for temples, ceremonial sites, and priestly dwellings. Lessing had once picnicked with Liese within the brooding, enigmatic sepulchre of Nan Douwas, the mightiest of all of Nan Madol’s structures. They had sensed something of the remote grandeur of the ancient past and left early, well before sunset, by unspoken mutual coasent.
These days Lessing was having enough trouble sleeping as it was. Sometimes he dreamed of a bizarre corporation meeting in which he himself was honored as “Salesman of the Month.” It was never explicitly stated, but he knew what the company’s sole product was: death, packaged in pretty, little perfume bottles. In other dreams he walked amidst the tombs of Nan Madol, and the spirits of the vanished chiefs chanted and shook their plumed and feathered heads at him. Were there ghosts? Did the specters of the Russian dead communicate with the em, the spirits of old Ponape?
He had little religious training and even less belief. All he knew was that he was going out of his mind.
The current “president” of Ponape — the paramount chief, the nahnmwarki, to give him his archaic title, revived after independence and reinterpreted to fit the current “American democracy” political model — was fascinated by ancestral glories, real or imagined. Hence the archaeology at Nan Madol. The agonies of a dying Europe were far away, irrelevant to Ponape and the empty sweep of the Pacific.