"How many worlds does this make?" The dialogue took place before a wall-sized view-screen. The image was not one to make for happy conversation.
The aide knew the question was rhetorical. As the Ghin aged he was becoming soft, without direction. Yet powerful still.
"Seventy-two."
"Not including Barwhon or Diess."
"They have not yet fallen."
The answer was silence. Then,
"We will use the humans, and their mutant brothers."
At last!
"Yes, your Ghin."
Silence, a glance at the view-screen.
"That makes you happy, does it not, Tir."
"I believe it to be a wise decision, as all of your decisions are wise, your Ghin."
"But slow to come, late. Without decisiveness, without, what is that human word? 'Élan.' "
The words of the aide's reply were carefully chosen. "Had the decision been reached sooner, there, perhaps, would have been greater profit. Certainly the loss would have been reduced."
A long minute later the answer: "The profit will be greater in the short run, surely. But at what loss in the long, Tir?"
"Surely the programs have taken effect. The humans are controllable."
"So thought the Rintar group millennia ago."
"Those humans were half formed, brutish. They were unrefined and wild. The new races are much more malleable and well-adjusted to technological controls. They are minimally dangerous and after the invasion the few that remain will be grateful for any bone we toss them."
Another long silence as the Ghin stared at the view-screen.
"Perhaps you are right, Tir. But I doubt it. Do you know why I am allowing the human project to go forward?"
"If you think the premise flawed, I wonder, yes."
Silence.
"Why?"
"Guess."
A pause, a breath, then a longer pause.
"Because we will lose many more worlds without their aid?"
"In small part. Tir, we will lose all the worlds without the humans."
"Your Ghin, our projections indicate that the Posleen will fail if slowed to their current rate, they will senesce. However, we stand to lose two hundred more worlds before that happens, surely an unacceptable loss."
"Those projections are flawed as our projections of the humans are flawed. At the end of this era the humans will be the masters and the Darhel will be an outcast race living on the edge of civilization scavenging the garbage. And your human project will be the cause."
The Tir carefully schooled his features. "I . . . question that projection, your Ghin."
"It isn't a projection, you young fool, it's a statement."
On the view-screen a world burned, and a world glowed green.
Norcross, VA,, Blue Zone 10, Sol III
1447 EDT March 16, 2080 AD
Michael O'Neal was a design consultant and part time tour guide for newbies with a Richmond based design firm. What this meant in practice was that he worked eight to twelve hours a day with CAD/CAM, and snot nosed young engineers. When the associate account executives or the account executives needed somebody along who really understood what the system was doing, when, for example, the client group included an engineer or computer geek, he would be invited to the meeting to sit there and be quiet until they hit a snag. Then he opened his mouth to spit out a bare minimum of technobabble. This indicated to the customer that there was at least one guy working on their project who had more going for him than good hair and a low golf score. Then the sales consultant would take the client to lunch while Mike went back to his office.
While Mike had fine hair, he played neither golf nor tennis, was ugly as a troll and short as an elf. Despite these handicaps he was working himself steadily up the corporate ladder. He had recently gotten an unasked-for raise in lieu of promotion, which surprised the hell out of him, and other rattling noises had been heard that indicated the possibility of further upward mobility.
The office he moved into was not much; there was barely room to turn his swivel chair, it was right next to the break room so several times a day it was overwhelmed by the smell of snack food, bad snack food, and he had to install a hanging book rack for his references. But it was an office, and in a time of cube farms that meant everything. Someone in the background was grooming him for something and he just hoped it was not a guillotine. Unlikely—he was the kind of aggressive pain in the ass every company secretly needed. But he did have a window, a window that had a semi-direct line of sight to the nearest Tiberium processing area. He used it as an object lesson for newbies: "Look out there, do you see the green glow? That's our number one enemy in this company, because Tib eats metal and poisons flesh. All designs and projects that we are hired to do are sooner or later going to go out into the Yellow or Red zones to keep expanding the TCN, so make sure that it is not a death trap for the operators or god forbid the passengers, or the cargo; or you'll wish you were dead with them."
He was currently in a mood to kill. The overblown requirements on the newest client's design were slowing their design pace to a crawl. Unfortunately, the client insisted on the "little" pieces of tech that were taking up so much of their volume, so it was up to him to figure out how to reduce it.
He sat with his feet propped on his overloaded desk, gripping and releasing a torsional hand exerciser as he stared up at the "Tick" poster on his ceiling and thought about his next vacation. Two more weeks and then it would be no work and all play.I should have gone ZONE, he thought, his face fixed in a perpetual frown from weight lifting, and become a personal coach. Sharon looks good in workout clothes.
He had just taken a sip of stale, cold coffee, thinking black thoughts of CAD surgery, when his phone rang.
"Michael O'Neal, Punishment Design, how can I help you?" The phone snag and stock answer were performed before his forebrain kicked in. Then he nearly spit out his coffee when he recognized the voice.
"Hi, Mike, it's Jack."
His feet slammed to the floor with a crash and Tiberium resistance for Dummies followed it. "Good morning, sir, how are you?" He had not talked to his former boss in nearly two years.
"Good enough. Mike, I need you down at Hampton Roads on Monday morning."
Whaaa? "Sir, it's been eight years. I'm not GDI anymore." By nearly Pavlovian response, he started to catalog everything he would need to take.
"I just got finished talking to your company's president. This is not, currently, an official recall . . ."
I like that little hidden threat boss, Mike thought.
"But I pointed out that whether it was or not, you would be eligible to return under the GDI Veterans Recall Act . . ."
Yup, that's Jack. Thanks a million, ole boss o' mine.
"That didn't seem to be a problem. He seemed to be kind of upset at losing you right now. Apparently they just got a new contract he really wanted you to work on . . ."
Yes! Mike chortled silently. We got the First Orion upgrade! The design was a plum job the company had been chasing for nearly a year. The account would guarantee at least a solid two years of lucrative business.
"But I convinced him it would be for the best," the general continued. Mike could hear other conversations in the background, some argumentative, some subdued. It seemed almost like the general was calling from a telephone solicitation company. Or several of his cohorts were making the same calls. Some of the muted voices in the background seemed almost desperate.
"What's this about, sir?"
The answer was met by silence. In the background a male voice started shouting, apparently displeased with the answer he was getting on his own call.
"Let me guess, OPSEC?" Any answer to the question would violate operational security directives. Mike scratched at a spot of ink on the varnished desktop then started working the gripper again. Blood pressure . . . . It was security and dominance games like this that had partially driven him away from the military. He had no intention of being sucked back in.
"Be there, Mike. The SigInt building attached to FORCECOM."
"Airborne, General, sir." He paused for a moment, then continued dryly. "Sharon is going to go ballistic."