“Of a sort. They are within the law, apparently, but just barely.”
“Perhaps we could stop them legally, through the international courts.”
Umetzu shook his head the barest fraction of a centimeter. “Do not put your faith in the courts. Direct action is better.”
“Then you are willing to help me?” Nobuhiko asked.
“Of course. The skytower must be destroyed.”
“Yes. And it must be destroyed in a manner that will discredit the very idea of building such towers. It must be brought down in a disaster so stunning that no one will ever dare to bring up the idea of building another.”
Nobuhiko felt his cheeks flushing and realized that he was squeezing his miniature teacup so hard its edge was cutting into the flesh of his palm.
Umetzu seemed unmoved. “How do you intend to accomplish this tremendous feat?”
Regaining his self-control, Nobuhiko put the lacquered cup back on its tray as he answered, “My technical people know how to bring it down. They have all the information we require. What I need is men who will do the task.”
“Men who will become martyrs.”
Nobuhiko bowed his head once again.
“That is not terribly difficult,” said Umetzu. “There are those who welcome death, especially if they believe they will accomplish something of worth in their dying.”
“But it must be kept absolutely secret,” Nobuhiko repeated in an urgent hiss. “It must never be traced back to Yamagata Corporation.”
Umetzu closed his eyes briefly. “We can recruit martyrs from elsewhere: even the fat Americans have fanatics among their New Morality groups.”
“Truly?” Nobuhiko asked.
“But what of your own technicians? Will they be martyred also?”
“That will not be necessary.”
“Yet they will have the knowledge that you wish kept secret. Once the tower falls, they will know that you have done it.”
“They will be far from Earth when that happens,” Nobuhiko said. “I have already had them transferred to Yamagata operations in the Asteroid Belt.”
Umetzu considered this for a moment. “I have heard that the Asteroid Belt is a very dangerous place.”
“It can be.”
“Wars have been fought there. Many were killed.”
“I have heard that the Flower Dragon has followers even in the Belt. Loyal followers.”
Umetzu understood Nobu’s unspoken request. This time he did smile thinly. “So your people will not be martyrs. Instead they will fall victims to accidents.”
“As you said,” Nobu replied, “the Belt is a very dangerous place.”
CIUDAD DE CIELO
Elliott Danvers was lonely after Molina left for Australia. He missed their meals together, their adversarial chats, the verbal cut and parry that kept his mind stimulated.
Over the weeks that followed Molina’s departure, Danvers tried to forget his own needs and buried himself in his work. No, he reminded himself time and again. Not my work. God’s work. He felt puzzled that Atlanta had shown no visible reaction to his report that nanotechnology was being used to build the skytower. He had expected some action, or at least an acknowledgement of his intelligence. Nothing. Not a word of thanks or congratulations on a job well done. Well, he told himself, a good conscience is our only sure reward. And he plunged himself deeper into his work. Still, he felt nettled, disappointed, ignored.
He went to Bracknell and asked permission to convert one of the warehouse buildings into a nondenominational chapel. As the sky-tower neared completion, some of the buildings fell into disuse, some of the workers departed for their homes. Danvers noted that there seemed to be fewer Yankee and Latino construction workers in the streets, and more Asian computer and electronics technicians.
“A chapel?” Bracknell looked surprised when Danvers raised the question.
Standing in front of Bracknell’s desk, Danvers nodded. “You have several empty buildings available. I won’t need much in way of—”
“You mean you’ve been working here all this time without a church building?” Bracknell looked genuinely surprised. “Where do you hold your services?”
“Outdoors, mostly. Sometimes in my quarters, for smaller groups.”
Bracknell’s office was far from imposing. Nothing more than a corner room in the corrugated-metal operations building. He sat at a scuffed and dented steel desk. One wall held a smart screen that nearly reached the low ceiling. Another had photos of the tower at various stages of its construction pasted to it. Two windows looked out on the streets and, beyond one of them, the dark trunk of the tower, rising above the distant green hills and into the heavens.
Gesturing to the plain plastic chair in front of his desk, Bracknell said, “I thought we already had a church here, someplace.”
Danvers smiled bitterly as he settled his bulk in the creaking little chair. “You’re not a churchgoer.”
With an almost sheepish grin, Bracknell admitted, “You’ve got me there.”
“Are you a Believer?”
Bracknell thought it over for a moment, his head cocked slightly. “Yes, I think I can truthfully say that I am. Not in any organized religion, understand. But—well, the universe is so blasted
“You don’t have to apologize about it,” Danvers said, a little testily. He was thinking, Not in any organized religion, the man says. He’s one of those intellectual esthetes who rationalizes everything and thinks that that’s religion. Nothing more than a damnable Deist, at best.
Bracknell called up a map of the city and told his computer to highlight the unused buildings. The wall screen showed four of them in red.
“Take your pick,” he said to Danvers, gesturing to the screen.
Danvers stood up and walked to the map, studying it for several moments. “This one,” he said at last, rapping his knuckles against the screen.
“That’s the smallest one,” said Bracknell.
“My congregations have not been overwhelming. Besides, the location is good, close to the city’s center. More people will see their friends and associates going to services. It’s a proven fact that people tend to follow a crowd.”
“It’s the curious monkey in our genes,” Bracknell said easily.
Danvers tried to erase the frown that immediately came over him.
“Was that too Darwinian for you?”
“We are far more than monkeys,” Danvers said tightly.
“I suppose we are. But we’re mammals; we enjoy the companionship of others. We need it.”
“That’s true enough, I suppose.”
“So why don’t you join Lara and me at dinner tonight? We can talk over the details of your new chapel.”
Danvers was surprised at the invitation. He knew, in his mind, that a man could be a non-Believer and still be a decent human being. But this man Bracknell, he’s leading this nearly blasphemous skytower project. I mustn’t let him lull me into friendship, Danvers told himself. He may be a pleasant enough fellow, but he is the enemy. You either do God’s work or the devil’s. There is no neutrality in the struggle between good and evil.
The restaurant was only half full, Bracknell saw as he came through the wide-open double doors with Lara. A lot of the construction people had already left. Once the geostationary platform was finished, they would shift entirely to operational status.
