Read Worlds Enough and Time online

Chapters (90)

The image is flickering because of some sort of overload phenomenon; you can only pack so much logic into ten nanograms of circuitry. It steadies when it goes back to Berrigan’s prepared speech.

IMAGE:	The decision to manufacture and distribute the anti-plague drug to Earth, for instance. Only thirty percent of the electorate were in favor of that. The prevailing sentiment was obviously that the groundhogs had gotten what they deserved; let them go ahead and die out.
	But the chances are they wouldn’t perish; the plague would run its course. Even if the Earth’s population were reduced to a million gibbering savages, they were still sitting on a resource base a trillion times the size of ours. And a lot of the survivors thought that we were responsible for the war.
	This was the unanimous decision of the Privy Council and Coordinators: we wanted to be remembered as saviors, not as aggressors. They could have nuclear weapons again in a generation or two. The next time they might do a more thorough job.
	A second example is Newhome itself. Only thirty-nine percent were in favor of building it; a solid majority felt the money would be better spent in rebuilding the Worlds.
	The executive decision was that Newhome was necessary for several reasons. One was spiritual, or I suppose you would rather say “emotional”: we had to direct people’s aspirations outward. If we spent twenty years just licking our wounds and glaring resentfully down at the Earth, we might never regain anything like normal relations with them again. Even now, there’s a strong isolationist sentiment, as you surely know.
O’HARA:	Especially the Devonites.
IMAGE:	Another reason, as we discussed openly, is simple insurance for the human race. If there’s another war it will probably be the last one.
	Whether we would then deserve to survive is still open to debate.
	I’m afraid we can’t risk discussing this even on a private, scrambled beam. By the time Harry gives this to you, we’ll be several light-months apart, anyhow. Hard to hold a conversation.
	You may have suspected something like this was going on. I did, long before I was elected and Marcus enlightened me. A lot of people grouse about the government pulling strings behind everyone’s collective back. They don’t know half of it.
	It feels funny to be saying good-bye when I’ll be seeing you in the office tomorrow. This is July eighteenth, ’97. You won’t be leaving for a couple of months. I miss you already.
	I didn’t try too hard to talk you out of this. Someday you’ll … well, you already … you know I feel closer to you than to either of my sons.
	Good-bye.

The image flickers and blinks out.

O’HARA:

(voice quavering) Can you still hear me?