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They Were So Misanthropic that the Only Reason They Could Tolerate One Another was Because of Their Dedication to Their Cause

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Excerpt from the novel Rising Storm icon-external-link-12x12 icon-search-12x12 by S.M. Stirling icon-external-link-12x12 icon-search-12x12

S.M. Stirling's "Rising Storm" book cover. [Formatted]

HARTFORD, CONNECTICUT

     Ron Labane entered Hartford feeling good. Not even the general atmosphere of industrial decay—the abandoned mills, some converted to glitzy malls, and the tract housing from the vanished heyday of the textile factories—could depress him. He’d turned the radio to a classic-rock station, and tapped out the rhythm of “Dreamboat Annie” as he drove.
     Things were moving along better and faster than he’d ever anticipated. There were now two Eco Party U.S. senators and eight congressmen in Washington and a lot more who were state representatives, five Eco Party governors: two on the West Coast, three on the East.
     Ten years ago they were nothing.
     It was a thrill to realize that the United States at last had a three-party system and that, in large part, it was due to his influence. The New Day show, the books, the clubs, the new magazine, all of these had changed the attitudes of millions of Americans. All because of his grand vision.
     Ron grinned. He felt better than good; he felt invincible. Just before heading out for his speaking engagement at U. Mass. he’d gotten a surprise visit from Eco Party chairman Sebastion MacMillan and his closest associates. He felt a surge of pure pleasure as he remembered the meeting.

NEW YORK

     “Mr. Labane,” MacMillan said, “I realize that this is short notice, but I hope you can spare us a few moments of your time.”
     Ron looked at the professional gentleman at his door in surprise, and at his three associates. Then he smiled.
     “Come in,” he said, stepping aside and gesturing into his austere yet elegant apartment with its handcrafted third-world textiles and slight odor of organic sachet. “Can I take your coats?”
     “No, no, we won’t be staying that long.” The chairman took note of Ron’s small suitcase. “And you’re going somewhere, I see.”
     “Yes, Amherst, up in Massachusetts. I’m speaking at the university there.” He chuckled deprecatingly. “I don’t want to get the reputation of only speaking to the Ivy League.”
     The three men and one woman looked at him as though he’d said something profound. “Your egalitarianism is one of the reasons we want to speak to you,” MacMillan said.
     “Sit down, please,” Ron invited, and led them into the living room.
     He looked them over as they took their seats. The rumor was that the chairman had sent around copies of Dress for Success as soon as he’d taken over and had demanded that everyone in any position of authority make it their bible. Undoubtedly it had helped. These people had always looked intelligent; now they also looked professional therefore trustworthy. Ron looked over and met MacMillan’s eye.
     This is someone I could work with, he thought. He made a mental note to invite him onto the show.
     “I’ll get right to the point,” the chairman said. “In ten months one of New York’s senators will be leaving Washington for good. We’d like you to be our candidate for that office.”
     Ron was genuinely stunned. He’d assumed that they wanted him to do something for them. It seemed it was the other way around.
     MacMillan smiled warmly at him. “I’ve studied your career, Mr. Labane. It seems to me that the logical next step for you is public office. Your genuine dedication to ecological causes is both unselfish and unquestionable. To the general public you’re a hero; to those of us involved with the cause you’re a leader. We’d like to take that a step further and make you a leader with power.”
     The chairman pulled his briefcase onto his lap and extracted a slim file. “The party ran a straw poll to see how the idea of you as our candidate struck people.”
     He held out the file and Labane took it. Ron glanced at the other party members, who all nodded, smiling; then he opened the file. After a moment he looked up at the chairman, astounded.
     MacMillan smiled comfortably. “We’ve never had a result like that when we’ve floated a name.” He shook his head. “As you can see we didn’t restrict the poll to party members either. If you ran on our ticket today you’d be elected. In a landslide.”
     Ron smiled and shook his head, then he blew his breath out in a whistle. He laughed, he couldn’t help it. “This is ve-ry flattering.”
     “Don’t answer tonight.” The chairman held up his hand. “We know you’ll want to think about it. After all, this would be a big step.”
     He rose and the others followed suit. Taking a step forward, MacMillan held out his hand. Belatedly Ron rose to take it.
     “All we ask is that you consider it seriously. I honestly think that now is the time.”
     Ron shook the chairman’s hand. “I’ll certainly give it some thought,” he said. “I’m caught completely flat-footed here, I”—He shook his head helplessly—“honestly don’t know what to say.”
     “I’m hoping you’ll say yes,” Macmillan said, smiling. He started slowly for the door. “In a few years I think this country will be ready for a presidential candidate from our party.” He put his hand on Labane’s shoulder. “We need to do everything that we can to make that day a reality.”
     He stopped and smiled at Ron.
     “That would certainly be a wonderful day for this country,” Ron said, his head whirling. I’m already sounding like a politician, he thought.
     The chairman grinned as though he shared the thought. “Our contact information is in the file.” MacMillan held out his hand again and Ron shook it. “Good night.”
     The other three party members filed out behind the chairman, each offering his or her hand for a firm handshake, making eye contact and saying a polite good-bye that implied great pleasure in their brief acquaintance.
     After closing the door behind them, Ron simply sat down on the chair in the foyer and stared at nothing.
     No, not at nothing: into the future.

HARTFORD

     A very pleasant memory. Even sitting down driving, Ron felt ten feet tall. The numbers had indicated that he would be the near-unanimous choice of New York voters.
     “Unanimous!” he said aloud, and laughed. New Mexico probably hadn’t hurt . . .
     This was heady stuff. Should I expect to hear from the Democrats next? he wondered. Not that he would accept an offer from them. He didn’t think his support would be unanimous with the Democrats.
     His support! He was definitely thinking like a politico already. Must mean this was meant to be.
     As Ron pulled off the highway and into the parking lot of the cheap motel, he frowned. I’ll have to be more careful, he thought. A lot more careful. Maybe this should be the last one.
     The last of hundreds of clandestine meetings that he’d held over the last few years. Meetings designed to give the last little nudge to people who didn’t need very much in the way of a push in the first place.
     But his presence had helped. Had helped to keep even the most aggressive and angry extremists from becoming too violent. While at the same time offering direction and ideas, ideas that had been making headlines for a long time now. Some people called it a “terrorist network,” but that wasn’t how things worked. It was more in the nature of an umbrella.
     He sat in his car looking at the cabin where the meeting was being held. Maybe he should just not show up at all. The truth was, of all the crazies he’d had contact with over the years, these people were the only ones who truly scared him.
     At least they haven’t killed anybody. Yet.
     No one that he knew about anyway. But when he looked in their eyes he could see that in their hearts they’d murdered thousands.
     Hell, they were so misanthropic that the only reason they could tolerate one another was because of their dedication to their cause.
     A cause which Ron had gradually come to see was not quite the same as his own.
     His fingers tapped the steering wheel and he felt his reluctance grow the longer he sat. Ron frowned. He was cagey enough to know that he wasn’t worried about what effect being seen with these people might have on his potential political career. He could always say he was trying to rein them in, and he thought he’d be believed.
     The problem was that he didn’t trust them. They looked at him like they hated him; even as they hung on his words and did as he directed, he could feel their loathing, like an oily heat against his skin.
     He pictured them in his mind’s eye as he’d seen them last. They were all young, all white, seven of them, three women and four men. He didn’t know their real names; they certainly weren’t born with names like Sauron, Balewitch, Maleficent, Dog Soldier, Death, Hate, and Orc. They were pale, and underfed, with stringy hair and a slightly swampy smell about them, as though they lived underground.
     Ron smiled at the thought. They most certainly did.
     And they were angry. Their bodies were stiff with rage, even though their faces were usually blank, until you looked at their eyes. There was emotion enough in those eyes all right, none of it wholesome.
     They didn’t talk about their families or their pasts, so he had no idea what forces had molded them into the dangerous people they’d become. But they spoke freely of their education. Each of them was brilliant, each had received scholarships and had attended prestigious universities.
     And each one thinks he or she is the smartest one in the group and should be in control, Ron thought.
     They thought they were smarter than he was, too. It didn’t take a genius to guess that they were jealous of him and resented his influence—on them and on other people. Influence they wanted for themselves.
     He gave a shudder and pulled the keys from the ignition with a jangle of metal. This wasn’t going to get any better with waiting.
     He strode to the door of the cabin and gave the prescribed knock. Two knocks, pause, one knock, pause, five knocks, pause, one knock.
     “Who is it?” a surly male voice demanded.
     “English muffin,” Ron said wearily. There was a peephole in the door for crissake!
     The door swung open on a darkened room and Labane entered with an audible sigh. He closed the door behind him. “May we have some light?” he asked with exaggerated patience.
     Maleficent turned on the lamp beside her chair and glared at him with what appeared to be heartfelt contempt. “You’re late,” she said coldly.
     “Yes,” he agreed. “I was delayed starting out.”
     Ron went over and sat on the bed, almost landing on Sauron’s legs, since that worthy disdained to move them. “It’s been a while,” Ron said.
     “Meaning?” Balewitch snapped in her foghorn voice, ice-pale eyes blazing. She, more than the rest, was inclined to take every remark personally.
     “Just an observation,” Ron said, his voice carefully unapologetic.
     He decided to say nothing more. They’d asked for this meeting; therefore, let them talk. The old Buddhist stuff about the power of silence had something to it; if you made the other guy speak first, you had him off balance. He waited, and waited, feeling like a mailman surrounded by Dobermans on speed. After what felt like an hour of charged silence—in reality about five minutes—Ron got to his feet and moved toward the door.
     “Thanks for inviting me to your meditation session,” he said sarcastically. “But I’ve still got a couple of hours of driving to do and a great deal of meeting and greeting at the end of it. So if there’s nothing else you wanted—”
     “Sit down,” Hate said, his uninflected voice weighty with threat.
     “No, I don’t think I will,” Ron said, clasping his hands before him. “I will give you a few more minutes. What do you want?”
     “Now you’re meeting with political mavens you think you’re too good to spend time with us?” Sauron asked.
     Ron’s head snapped around to glare at him, hiding the curdling horror he felt inside. For the first time he realized that Orc was missing. How long have they been watching me? he wondered, feeling the back of his neck clench with a sudden chill.
     Sauron sneered at him. Sauron was the smooth one; he was able to hide his feelings most of the time. He wasn’t bothering now. “MacMillan and his school of sycophants,” he drawled. “But they didn’t linger.”
     “No,” Labane agreed. “They said what they came to say and they left.” He looked at each of them. “Their arrival was as much a surprise to me as it was to Orc.”
     “We weren’t surprised,” Balewitch said. Her graying bristle-cut clean for a change, she stared at him as if he was a spot on a white wall.
     “Is that why you asked me here? To discuss their proposal?” Ron asked, trying not to let them see how disturbed he was.
     “Have you sold your soul yet?” Death asked, looking at him sidelong through a dark curtain of her lank hair.
     Ron snorted. “They offered to sponsor me as a candidate for the Senate from New York,” he told them. Even though they probably already knew that.
     “And?” Dog Soldier asked, his voice disinterested.
     “And, I’m considering it.”
     Maleficent actually hissed. Ron looked at her, one brow raised. “That’s where the evil is,” she said.
     “That’s where the money is,” Dog Soldier corrected.
     Maleficent shot him a glare that should have singed his hair.
     “That’s where the power is,” Ron interrupted.
     “The power to change things?” Dog Soldier asked, a smirk playing on his lips. “The power to right all the wrongs, cross all the ts, dot all the is.”
     “Yes,” Ron said. “Why shouldn’t I want that kind of power? Think of the good I could do for the cause with that kind of influence.”
     There was the strangest feeling then, as though, without moving, they’d all drawn back from him in disgust.
     “That’s the sort of thing someone who’d already made up his mind might say to excuse being greedy,” Sauron observed. “You already have a lot of influence with your little television show.”
     “Influence with power behind it will go a lot further,” Labane insisted. “And there’s no telling how high this road could climb. This is a golden opportunity for our cause.”
     The six of them exchanged glances around him.
     “I suspect that we have different goals,” Death told him.
     “We all want to save the planet!” Labane said in exasperation.
     Once again their eyes met, excluding Ron.
     “Fine,” he snarled. “Just forget it. I’m outta here.”
     “Ron.” Sauron stopped Labane with his hand on the doorknob. “Just in case the thought has crossed your mind, I’d like to discourage you from any ideas you might have of turning us in.” He shook his head. “That would be a very bad idea.”
     “I do know something about loyalty,” Ron said.
     “If you’re going to be a politician that’ll be the first thing to go,” Dog Soldier told him, snickering.
     “You do us the dirty and you’d better watch your back, Labane,” Death warned, her dark eyes narrowed to slits.
     “You know what?” Ron said. “Don’t call me, I’ll call you.”
     “Thanks for dropping by, Ron,” Sauron called just before the door slammed.
     They were quiet for a while. Then Maleficent observed, “He’s gone over to the other side. He just doesn’t know it yet.”
     “And he never will,” Dog Soldier said. “That kind of insight takes time.”
     “Death to traitors,” Balewitch growled.
     They crossed glances again. This time they smiled.

ROUTE 91, MASSACHUSETTS

     Ron felt better once he’d left Connecticut behind him. Being with that crowd was always a trial, but tonight! Tonight had been different. The idea that they had been watching him made his stomach clench like an angry fist. How dare those sick little bastards spy on him? How long has this been going on?
     And how far had it gone?
     The thought frightened him and the fear broke the fever of his outrage with a cold sweat. Had they been in his apartment?
     No, he assured himself, they couldn’t have; I’d have smelled them. The contempt felt good.
     Besides, he paid a premium to live in a building with first-class security. It was one thing to watch MacMillan enter his building and to guess where he was going. It was quite another to actually break in.
     His eyes flicked to the mirror to watch a car coming up behind. A little frisson of fear shivered through his belly. Was it them? Were they up to something?
     As the vehicle passed him he saw that it was one of those pickups with a complete backseat and what seemed to be an eighteen-foot bed—known in some circles as an “adultery wagon.” Ron relaxed, feeling himself loosen, almost deflating behind the wheel. Even in deep disguise, that crowd wouldn’t go near one of those things. Unless they planned to bomb it.
     He forced himself to be calm. They had no reason to be after him. He’d never betrayed them. And I don’t need to betray them now. Without him to keep them on an even keel, they’d be in police custody in a month. Most likely they’d betray one another.
     Geniuses! He gave his head a little shake. A lot of the time they had no practical sense at all. They wouldn’t last long enough to create problems for him.
     And if they did . . . well, he knew some other people, too.

THE VICTORIAN INN, AMHERST, MASSACHUSETTS

     Labane entered the pleasant guest room—plenty of froufrou and color, to match the theme—and flung his jacket onto the tiny sofa; then he pulled off his tie and threw that down, too. Unbuttoning his cuffs, he entered the bathroom, unbuttoned his collar, and turned on the tap. He splashed cold water on his face, dried off with one of the inn’s luxurious towels, and stared at himself in the mirror.
     He looked almost as exhausted as he felt.
     Last night had run later than he’d planned, but the company had been good. Besides, he suspected that he’d been too keyed up for an early night. Then today there was the traditional campus tour, followed by the obligatory meeting with the campus’s ecology clubs, an interview with the local press, a formal dinner with the president of the college and all of the faculty and guests from the surrounding colleges—of which the area held a multitude—and then his address to the college. After which there was a mill-and-swill where some people introduced themselves and spoke with him, and more people stared at him from a distance as though he were an exhibit.
     God, it was good to be alone again. He went back into the room and sat in one of the comfortable club chairs; he wondered idly if they were Victorian. Didn’t seem likely. The chair didn’t try to make him sit ramrod straight and the cushions accepted the shape of his posterior without the apparent resentment of true Victorian furniture.
     He’d ordered coffee, and though he knew that the average guest would have been denied, his celebrity status got him what he wanted.
     Ron smiled; life was good. He was tired, but it was worth it. Seeing all those eager young faces, knowing they were hanging on his every word, shaping their lives to fit his philosophy. He closed his eyes, hands folded across his stomach, sighed contentedly. It just didn’t get any better than this.
     There was a discreet knock at the door.
     “Room service.”
     “C’mon in, it’s open,” Ron called out from his chair. “You can just put it there on the coffee table.”
     Then he realized that there was more than one person entering the room. He opened his eyes, annoyed, but smiling through it. Sometimes being a celebrity got you what you wanted, but sometimes the fans wanted something back in return; like the opportunity to show you off to their friends.
     Then he realized he was looking at Hate and Dog Soldier. The artiicial smile froze on his face, then slipped away. “What’s up, fellas?” he asked.
     Hate handed Dog Soldier a pillow from off the bed. Dog Soldier pulled out a huge gun and wrapped the pillow around it.
     “Wait a minute!” Ron said, holding up his hand.
     “Not even,” Dog Soldier said cheerfully, and shot him between the eyes.
     At least that was where he’d been aiming. With large-caliber ammunition it was sometimes hard to tell exactly where the bullet struck.
     Hate picked up the phone and dialed room service. “I’m so sorry,” he said in a nearly perfect imitation of Labane’s voice. “I have to cancel that request for coffee. I’m suddenly so tired I couldn’t even take a sip. I apologize for the inconvenience.”
     Dog Soldier watched him as he put the gun down on the coffee table.
     “Oh, thank you,” Hate said into the phone pleasantly.
     Dog raised a brow as he flung the pillow back onto the bed and took out a small box.
     “Well, that’s always nice to hear,” Hate said.
     Dog got to work on the gun, unscrewing the handgrip and carefully replacing the grip plates with those that had been handled by their mark.
     “Really,” Hate said, rolling his eyes and gritting his teeth even as he kept his voice friendly and cheerful. “All that way? Just for me?”
     Dog Soldier grinned and shook his head.
     “Well, thank you, but I really must go. Yes. Yes, everything is wonderful. Yes. Thank you. You’re very sweet. I must go. Yes. Good night.” Hate put down the receiver carefully. “I was ready to go down there and blow them all away,” he snarled. “Cattle!
     Dog chuckled. “I don’t blame you, man. People get to me the same way. Save the planet—kill all the people!”

Rapin and Murderin People and Chewin Gum

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Excerpt from the novel No Country for Old Men icon-external-link-12x12 icon-search-12x12 by Cormac McCarthy icon-external-link-12x12 icon-search-12x12

Cover for the novel "No Country for Old Men" by Cormac McCarthy. [Formatted]

I wont talk about the war neither. I was supposed to be a war hero and I lost a whole squad of men. Got decorated for it. They died and I got a medal. I dont even need to know what you think about that. There aint a day I dont remember it. Some boys I know come back they went on to school up at Austin on the GI Bill, they had hard things to say about their people. Some of em did. Called em a bunch of rednecks and all such as that. Didnt like their politics. Two generations in this country is a long time. You’re talking about the early settlers. I used to tell em that havin your wife and children killed and scalped and gutted like fish has a tendency to make some people irritable but they didnt seem to know what I was talkin about. I think the sixties in this country sobered some of em up. I hope it did. I read in the papers here a while back some teachers come across a survey that was sent out back in the thirties to a number of schools around the country. Had this questionnaire about what was the problems with teachin in the schools. And they come across these forms, they’d been filled out and sent in from around the country answerin these questions. And the biggest problems they could name was things like talkin in class and runnin in the hallways. Chewin gum. Copyin homework. Things of that nature. So they got one of them forms that was blank and printed up a bunch of em and sent em back out to the same schools. Forty years later. Well, here come the answers back. Rape, arson, murder. Drugs. Suicide. So I think about that. Because a lot of the time ever when I say anything about how the world is goin to hell in a handbasket people will just sort of smile and tell me I’m gettin old. That it’s one of the symptoms. But my feelin about that is that anybody cant tell the difference between rapin and murderin people and chewin gum has got a whole lot bigger of a problem than what I’ve got. Forty years is not a long time neither. Maybe the next forty of it will bring some of em out from under the ether. If it aint too late.
     Here a year or two back me and Loretta went to a conference in Corpus Christi and I got set next to this woman, she was the wife of somebody or other. And she kept talkin about the right wing this and the right wing that. I aint even sure what she meant by it. The people I know are mostly just common people. Common as dirt, as the sayin goes. I told her that and she looked at me funny. She thought I was sayin somethin bad about em, but of course that’s a high compliment in my part of the world. She kept on, kept on. Finally told me, said: I dont like the way this country is headed. I want my granddaughter to be able to have an abortion. And I said well mam I dont think you got any worries about the way the country is headed. The way I see it goin I dont have much doubt but what she’ll be able to have an abortion. I’m goin to say that not only will she be able to have an abortion, she’ll be able to have you put to sleep. Which pretty much ended the conversation.

“This Man was No More Human than that Cell Phone You’re Holding”

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Excerpt from the novel Rising Storm icon-external-link-12x12 icon-search-12x12 by S.M. Stirling icon-external-link-12x12 icon-search-12x12

S.M. Stirling's "Rising Storm" book cover. [Formatted]

     Dieter smiled. She might not be mad, but she wasn’t happy, either.
     While they’d been thrashing out whether Sarah was to go or not, he’d been wondering if he dared call his old friend Jeff Goldberg, his former partner in the Sector.
     I suppose I might as well, he thought. Sully must have made a report by now, and even if he hadn’t, they already knew about my association with the notorious Sarah Connor. Which means that Jeff knows, too.
     He went to the wall and took down a heavily framed painting, setting it to lean against the file cabinet. Then he worked the combination of the safe it had hidden. Removing the valuable papers and other odds and ends inside the surprisingly deep little safe, he opened a tiny secret compartment with a few deft touches. Inside was a cell phone.
     In Vienna, Jeff had one just like it.
     When Dieter had retired they’d decided to arrange a private means of communication in the event that either ever had need of the other’s aid. At the time von Rossbach had been thinking that his partner, still active in a very dangerous profession, might need his help. It just went to show you; a backup plan was always a good idea.
     He placed the phone on his desk and booted up his computer. Once on the Internet he sent off the coded message that would bounce through a few different addresses before it reached Jeff. Then he sat back to wait. It could be a while.

     An hour and a half later the phone range. Dieter snatched it up. “Yes?” he said.
     “I don’t even know why I’m talking to you.”
     “It’s because in spite of everything you’ve heard, you know you can trust me,” Dieter said.
     “If I can trust you then why does it look like you’ve gone over to the other side?” Jeff’s voice was stressed, not usual.
     Dieter wondered if, in spite of their precautions, this call was being monitored—if Jeff was letting this call be monitored.
     “You know better than that,” von Rossbach said dismissively. “What’s the gossip about me?”
     “Gosssip? If it was gossip I could doubt it. I’m talking about official reports, Dieter.”
     “And for what am I supposed to have done in these reports?”
     “For starters, harboring a wanted fugitive!” Goldberg snapped.
     “When was this?” Careful, Dieter thought. You don’t want to antagonize him any further.
     “You know goddamn well when. You were the one who sent me those sketches of her. Then you said the description didn’t match. And of course I believed you because my good buddy wouldn’t lie to me! Next thing I know, you’re running around California recruiting for her army!”
     Dieter was silent for a while as he gathered his thoughts. He’d thought he knew what he was going to say, thought he knew how to counter any arguments Jeff might throw at him. But now that the moment was here he found he couldn’t use any of those glib explanations, because most of them were lies. He couldn’t do that to a man who had been at his back through most of his dangerous career. He’d already done it too often.
     Dieter took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “I owe you an apology,” he said. “I did know it was probably her, but I was intrigued and wanted to investigate her by myself. Especially when you sent me that recording of a man with my face killing police by the dozen. I was bored here and feeling useless.” He shrugged, though his former partner couldn’t see it. “Then you sent Griego and I felt like I had to defend my turf. It wasn’t sensible, and I know it wasn’t professional, but I’d gotten to know her a little by then and I wanted to know more.”
     Goldberg was silent for a long time. “Go on,” he said at last, his voice giving nothing away.
     Dieter felt relieved. At least he was being given a chance to explain. “One night I went over to her house.” He frowned at the memory. “I was bringing a dog for her son, more of a puppy, really.” He took a deep breath and force himself to continue. “Before I knew it we were under attack. By a heavily armed man with my face.”
     “Bullshit!” Goldberg snapped.
     “I wish. God, do I wish you were right.” Until this moment he hadn’t realized how much he would give for all that had happened to have been a dream. “But you’re not. The face was mine, but this man was no more human than that cell phone you’re holding. I saw the body. It had no internal organs—just metal, wire, motherboards, stuff like that. There were sparks flying out of it and it took an incredible amount of ammunition to stop the damn thing.”
     “Do you think I’m an idiot!” Goldberg shouted. “What the hell is the matter with you?”
     Dieter kept silent for a moment; he tightened his mouth and closed his eyes as if in pain. “Jeff,” he said quietly, “I had a whole bunch of lies made up to tell you. I was going to be investigating this thing on my own, trying to find out how far Connor’s influence extended. You know me. I’m good at being convincing when I need to be. You’d have believed me before I was finished with you. But you deserved the truth, so I took a chance and told it to you.”
     Jeff was breathing hard, his breath whistling through the phone. “Shit!” he muttered.
     “Believe it or not, I know how you feel,” Dieter commiserated. “Why would I tell you a story like this if it wasn’t true? Don’t you think I know how all this sounds? Why would I even try if it wasn’t true?”
     He stopped talking, waiting for his old partner to work it through.
     “She could have talked you ’round,” Jeff said at last. “Connor was a damned attractive woman.” His voice was wary, but much less hostile.
     “Yeah, and I’m really susceptible to wild stories and sexy women. That’s why I was such a rotten agent.” Von Rossbach sneered.
     Jeff gave a short laugh. “Nooo, you were pretty good.”
     “I still am.”
     “Yeah, well. This is a pretty crazy story, buddy. You know that.”
     “Have you seen Sully’s report?”
     “Sully is, uh, undergoing psychiatric evaluation. You know he’s one of ours?”
     “Would I ask about his report if I didn’t?”
     “Good point.”
     “Jeff, Sarah Connor is crazy, her son is crazy, Sully’s crazy. Now I’m crazy? Maybe instead they’ve been telling the truth all along?”
     Goldberg gave a kind of hiss. “I can’t go there, buddy. I just can’t.”
     “Are you at least willing to think about it?”
     After a rather painful silence Goldberg said, “Yeah. I could do that.”
     “Good. I need your help.”
     Jeff barked a laugh. “You cocky bastard! You sure you don’t want to give me two more seconds to mull this over?”
     “Yes.”
     “Well, what the hell. I figured you wanted something, otherwise we wouldn’t be talking on these phones. Right?”
     “You got it, buddy.” Von Rossbach waited, wanting his friend to ask.
     “So what do you want?” Jeff said.
     “I’m trying to trace a possible kidnap victim.”
     “Whoa! If you’re talking about Sarah Connor, she took off on her own. If you’re talking about Dr. Silberman, how do you think we know that she took off on her own?”
     Dieter winced. He wanted to tell the truth. But I think I’ve tried Jeff’s patience enough for one evening. “What are you talking about?”
     There was a pregnant pause from Vienna. Then Goldberg asked cautiously, “You don’t know?”
     “Sarah Connor is missing again?” Dieter asked. “Last I heard she was in an institution.”
     “If you don’t know where she is and what she’s doing, then why are you rounding up recruits for her cause?” Jeff challenged.
     “Because I promised her I would before she disappeared from here. I don’t know how much good I’ve done her. Being chased all over California by the Sector didn’t help my efforts. But in any case, she’s not the person I’m talking about.”
     “Oh.” Jeff was silent for a moment. “So, what? Are you a PI now or something?”
     “No, just letting my curiosity get the better of me. This woman is named Clea Bennet, she’s the inventor of something called Intellimetal. They made this sculpture in New York out of it.”
     “Yeah. Venus Dancing, it’s called. It’s all the rage, everyone’s pretty excited about it. Nancy wants us to go see it for ourselves,” Goldberg said.
     “Clea Bennet has been missing for a little while now,” Dieter explained. “I have some suspicion that it might have been the U.S. government that snatched her.”
     “You sure that suspicion isn’t an effect of the people you’ve been hanging out with?”
     Dieter let out an exasperated sigh. “This guy named Craig Kipfer’s been getting reports on a woman from Montana. The reports read like Bennet’s biography. Kipfer passed along an order, I quote, ‘send her to Antarctica,’ that jogged a memory for me. Just before I left the Sector there were hints of someone building an important and very secret research facility ‘on the ice.’ Do you know anything about that?”
     Jeff was absolutely silent.
     “Hello?” Dieter prompted.
     “Kipfer isn’t someone you should have heard about,” Goldberg said at last. “He is like, ultra-black ops. As for the research facility…”
     There was more contemplative silence, but Dieter waited it out this time.
     “I can’t believe I’m telling you this, but… yeah. It’s there. We know where it’s located, but aside from that we know very little. The only thing we can be sure of is that they’re not doing nuclear testing. For once the Americans are playing their cards close to their chests. Though to be fair, it’s not the kind of place that’s easily infiltrated.”
     “So who have you got there?” Dieter said blandly.
     Jeff laughed. “None of your business. Even if we did have somebody there you probably wouldn’t know them.”
     “So where is this base?”
     Dieter waited; would his friend come through for him? Jeff had no particular reason to cover for the U.S. government, but at the moment neither did he have a particular reason to help his old partner.
     “You’re not going to blow it up are you?” Jeff asked sourly.
     Von Rossbach laughed in surprise. “No! That’s not the plan anyway. I might try to rescue this young woman. Assuming she’s there under duress, of course.”
     “Tsk!” Jeff said. “I thought you were out of the hero business.”
     “You going to tell me or not?” Dieter asked.
     “Don’t make me regret this,” Goldberg warned.
     “I won’t, I swear,” Dieter said, fingers crossed. After all, who knew?
     “It’s in west Antarctica.” Jeff gave him the coordinates. “The base itself is slightly inland.” He gave a brief physical description of the place. “You could hike there from the coast in three days.”
     “Thanks, Jeff.”
     “Dress warm.”
     “Yes, Dad. Give my best to Nancy.”
     “You bet.” Goldberg paused. “God, Dieter, don’t make me regret this, please.”
     “Don’t worry.”
     “Just don’t. Okay?”
     “You’ll get old and gray worrying like that,” Dieter teased. “I’m just curious, is all. I like a good puzzle.”
     “If you hear from Connor—”
     “I won’t.”
     “Yeah, right. Don’t blow anything up,” Jeff warned.
     “But that’s the fun part!”
     Jeff hissed in exasperation, then laughed. “Y’know, you’re right.”
     Dieter laughed, too. “Bye, buddy. Thanks.”
     “I am so going to regret this,” Jeff said, sounding more amused than worried.
     “No comment. Bye.” Dieter hung up.
     This American base must be one of Jeff’s projects, otherwise he wouldn’t have the information at his fingertips like that. A lucky break, Dieter though.
     He’d check with Sarah and John to see how their research on supplies was going. Then he’d see about arranging transportation.

A Power that Would Be Called Magic if it Were Not so Completely Rational in Every Way

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Excerpt from the novel Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance icon-external-link-12x12 icon-search-12x12 by Robert M. Parsig icon-external-link-12x12 icon-search-12x12

Robert M. Pirsig's "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance" book cover. [Formatted]

     On this machine I’ve done the tuning so many times it’s become a ritual. I don’t have to think much about how to do it anymore. Just mainly look for anything unusual. The engine has picked up a noise that sounds like a loose tappet but could be something worse, so I’m going to tune it now and see if it goes away. Tappet adjustment has to be done with the engine cold, which means wherever you park it for the night is where you work on it the next morning, which is why I’m on a shady curbstone back of a hotel in Miles City, Montana. Right now the air is cool in the shade and will be for an hour or so until the sun gets around the tree branches, which is good for working on cycles. It’s important not to tune these machines in the direct sun or late in the when your brain gets muddy because even if you’ve been through it a hundred times you should be alert and looking for things.
     Not everyone understands what a completely rational process this is, this maintenance of a motorcycle. They think it’s some kind of a “knack” or some kind of “affinity for machines” in operation. They are right, but the knack is almost purely a process of reason, and most of the troubles are caused by what old time radio men called a “short between the earphones,” failures to use the head properly. A motorcycle functions entirely in accordance with the laws of reason, and a study of the art of motorcycle maintenance is really a miniature study of the art of rationality itself. I said yesterday that the ghost of rationality was what Phaedrus pursued and what led to his insanity, but to get into that it’s vital to stay with down-to-earth examples of rationality, so as not to get lost in generalities no one else can understand. Talk about rationality can get very confusing unless the things with which rationality deals are also included.
     We are at the classic-romantic barrier now, where on one side we see a cycle as it appears immediately—and this is an important way of seeing it—and where on the other side we can begin to see it as a mechanic does in terms of underlying form—and this is an important way of seeing things too. These tools for example—this wrench—has a certain romantic beauty to it, but its purpose is always purely classical. It’s designed to change the underlying form of the machine.
     The porcelain inside this first plug is very dark. That is classically as well as romantically ugly because it means the cylinder is getting too much gas and not enough air. The carbon molecules in the gasoline aren’t finding enough oxygen to combine with and they’re just sitting here loading up the plug. Coming into town yesterday the idle was loping a little, which is a symptom of the same thing.
     Just to see if it’s just the one cylinder that’s rich I check the other one. They’re both the same. I get out a pocket knife, grab a stick lying in the gutter and whittle down the end to clean out the plugs, wondering what could be the cause of the richness. That wouldn’t have anything to do with rods or valves. And carbs rarely go out of adjustment. The main jets are oversized, which causes richness at high speeds but the plugs were a lot cleaner than this before with the same jets. Mystery. You’re always surrounded by them. But if you tried to solve them all, you’d never get the machine fixed. There’s no immediate answer so I just leave it as a hanging question.
     The first tappet is right on, no adjustment required, so I move on to the next. Still plenty of time before the sun gets past those trees… I always feel like I’m in church when I do this… The gauge is some kind of religious icon and I’m performing a holy rite with it. It is a member of a set called “precision measuring instruments” which in a classic sense has a profound meaning.
     In a motorcycle this precision isn’t maintained for any romantic or perfectionist reasons. It’s simply that the enormous forces of heat and explosive pressure inside this engine can only be controlled through the kind of precision these instruments give. When each explosion takes place it drives a connecting rod onto the crankshaft with a surface pressure of many tons per square inch. If the fit of the rod to the crankshaft is precise the explosion force will be transferred smoothly and the metal will be able to stand it. But if the fit is loose by a distance of only a few thousandths of an inch the force will be delivered suddenly, like a hammer blow, and the rod, bearing and crankshaft surface will soon be pounded flat, creating a noise which at first sounds a lot like loose tappets. That’s the reason I’m checking it now. If it is a loose rod and I try to make it to the mountains without an overhaul, it will soon get louder and louder until the rod tears itself free, slams into the spinning crankshaft and destroys the engine. Sometimes broken rods will pile right down through the crankcase and dump all the oil onto the road. All you can do then is start walking.
     But all this can be prevented by a few thousandths of an inch fit which precision measuring instruments give, and this is their classical beauty—not what you see, but what they mean—what they are capable of in terms of control of underlying form.
     The second tappet’s fine. I swing over to the street side of the machine and start on the other cylinder.
     Precision instruments are designed to achieve an idea, dimensional precision, whose perfection is impossible. There is no perfectly shaped part of the motorcycle and never will be, but when you come as close as these instruments take you, remarkable things happen, and you go flying across the countryside under a power that would be called magic if it were not so completely rational in every way. It’s the understanding of this rational intellectual idea that’s fundamental. John looks at the motorcycle and he sees steel in various shapes and has negative feelings about these steel shapes and turns off the whole thing. I look at the shapes of the steel now and I see ideas. He thinks I’m working on parts. I’m working on concepts.
     I was talking about these concepts yesterday when I said that a motorcycle can be divided according to its components and according to its functions. When I said that suddenly I created a set of boxes with the following arrangement:

  • MOTORCYCLE
    • COMPONENTS
    • FUNCTIONS

And when I said the components may be subdivided into a power assembly and a running assembly, suddenly appear some more little boxes:

  • MOTOCYCLE
    • COMPONENTS
      • POWER ASSEMBLY
      • RUNNING ASSEMBLY
    • FUNCTIONS

     And you see that every time I made a further division, up came more boxes based on these divisions until I had a huge pyramid of boxes. Finally you see that while I was splitting the cycle up into finer and finer pieces, I was also building a structure.
     This structure of concepts is formally called a hierarchy and since ancient times has been a basic structure for all Western knowledge. Kingdoms, empires, churches, armies have all been structured into hierarchies. Modern businesses are so structured. Tables of contents of reference material are so structured, mechanical assemblies, computer software, all scientific and technical knowledge is so structured—so much so that in some fields such as biology, the hierarchy of kingdom-phylum-class-order-family-genus-species is almost an icon.
     This box “motorcycle” contains the boxes “components” and “functions.” The box “components” contains the boxes “power assembly” and “running assembly,” and so on. There are many other kinds of structures produced by other operators such as “causes” which produce long chain structures of the form, “A causes B which causes C which causes D,” and so on. A functional description of the motorcycle uses this structure. The operators “exists,” “equals,” and “implies” produce still other structures. These structures are normally interrelated in patterns and paths so complex and so enormous no one person can understand more than a small part of them in his lifetime. The overall name of these interrelated structures, the genus of which the hierarchy of containment and structure of causation are just species, is system. The motorcycle is a system. A real system.
     To speak of certain government and establishment institutions as “the system” is to speak correctly, since these organizations are founded upon the same structural conceptual relationships as a motorcycle. They are sustained by structural relationships even when they have lost all other meaning and purpose. People arrive at a factory and perform a totally meaningless task from eight to five without question and because the structure demands that it be that way. There’s no villain, no “mean guy” who wants them to live meaningless lives, it’s just that the structure, the system demands it and no one is willing to take on the formidable task of changing the structure just because it is meaningless.
     But to tear down a factory or to revolt against a government or to avoid repair of a motorcycle because it is a system is to attack effects rather than causes; and as long as the attack is upon effects only, no change is possible. The true system, the real system, is our present construction of systematic thought itself, rationality itself, and if a factory is torn down but the rationality which produced it is left standing, then that rationality will simply produce another factory. If a revolution destroys a systematic government, but the systematic patterns of thought that produced that government are left intact, then those patterns will repeat themselves in the succeeding government. There’s so much talk about the system. And so little understanding.
     That’s all the motorcycle is, a system of concepts worked out in steel. There’s no part in it, no shape in it, that is not out of someone’s mind… number three tappet is right on too. One more to go. This had better be it…. I’ve noticed that people who have never worked with steel have trouble seeing this—that the motorcycle is primarily a mental phenomenon. They associate metal with given shapes—pipes, rods, girders, tools, parts—all of them fixed and inviolable, and think of it as primarily physical. But a person who does machining or foundry work or forge work or welding sees “steel” as having no shape at all. Steel can be any shape you want if you are skilled enough, and any shape but the one you want if you are not. Shapes, like this tappet, are what you arrive at, what you give to the steel. Steel has no more shape than this old pile of dirt on the engine here. These shapes are all out of someone’s mind. That’s important to see. The steel? Hell, even the steel is out of someone’s mind. There’s no steel in nature. Anyone from the Bronze Age could have told you that. All nature has is a potential for steel. There’s nothing else there. But what’s “potential”? That’s also in someone’s mind!… Ghosts.
     That’s really what Phaedrus was talking about when he said it’s all in the mind. It sounds insane when you just jump up and say it without reference to anything specific like an engine. But when you tie it down to something specific and concrete, the insane sound tends to disappear and you see he could have been saying something of importance.
     The fourth tappet is too loose, which is what I had hoped. I adjust it. I check the timing and see that it is still right on and the points are not pitted, so I leave them alone, screw on the valve covers, replace the plugs and start it up.
     The tappet noise is gone, but that doesn’t mean much yet while the oil is still cold. I let it idle while I pack the tools away, then climb on and head for a cycle shop a cyclist on the street told us about last night where they may have a chain adjuster link, and a new foot-peg rubber. Chris must have nervous feet. His foot pegs keep wearing out.
     I go a couple of blocks and still no tappet noise. It’s beginning to sound good, I think it’s gone. I won’t come to any conclusions until we’ve gone about thirty miles though. But until then, and right now, the sun is bright, the air is cool, my head is clear, there’s a whole day ahead of us, we’re almost to the mountains, it’s a good day to be alive. It’s this thinner air that does it. You always feel like this when you start getting into higher altitudes.
     The altitude! That’s why the engine’s running rich. Sure, that’s got to be the reason. We’re at twenty-five hundred feet now, I’d better switch to standard jets. They take only a few minutes to put in. And lean out the idle adjustment a little. We’ll be getting up a lot higher than this.
     Under some shady trees I find Bill’s Cycle Shop but no Bill.A passerby says he has “maybe gone fishing somewhere,” leaving his shop wide open. We really are in the West. No one would leave a shop like this open in Chicago or New York.
     Inside I see that Bill is a mechanic of the “photographic mind” school. Everything lying around everywhere. Wrenches, screwdrivers, old parts, old motorcycles, new parts, new motorcycles, sales literature, inner tubes, all scattered so thickly and clutteredly you can’t even see the workbenches under them. I couldn’t work in conditions like this but that’s just because I’m not a photographic-mind mechanic. Bill can probably turn around and put his hand on any tool in this mess without having to think about where it is. I’ve seen mechanics like that. Drive you crazy to watch them, but they get the job done just as well and sometimes faster. Move one tool three inches to the left though, and he’ll have to spend days looking for it.
     Bill arrives with a grin about something. Sure, he’s got some jets for my machine and knows right where they are. I’ll have to wait a second though. He’s got to close a deal out in the back on some Harley parts. I go with him out in a shed in back and see he is selling a whole Harley machine in used parts, except for the frame, which the customer already has. He is selling them all for $125. Not a bad price at all.
     Coming back I comment, “He’ll know something about motorcycles before he gets those together.”
     Bill laughs. “And that’s the best way to learn, too.”
     He has the jets and foot-peg rubber but no chain adjuster link. I get the rubber and jets installed, take the lump out of the idle and ride back to the hotel.
     Sylvia and John and Chris are just coming down the stairs with their stuff as I arrive. Their faces indicate they’re in the same good mood I’m in. We head down the main street, find a restaurant and order steaks for lunch.
     “This is a great town,” John says, “really great. Surprised there were any like this left. I was looking all over this morning. They’ve got stockmen’s bars, high-top boots, silver-dollar belt buckles, Levis, Stetsons, the whole thing… and it’s real. It isn’t just Chamber of Commerce stuff…. In the bar down the block this morning they just started talking to me like I’d lived here all my life.”
     We order a round of beers. I see by a horseshoe sign on the wall we’re into Olympia beer territory now, and order that.
     “They must have thought I was off a ranch or something,” John continues. “And this one old guy was talking away about how he wasn’t going to give a thing to the goddam boys, and I really enjoyed that. The ranch was going to go to the girls, ’cause the goddam boys spend every cent they got down at Suzie’s.” John breaks up with laughter. “Sorry he ever raised ’em, and so on. I thought all that stuff disappeared thirty years ago, but it’s still here.”
     The waitress comes with the steaks and we knife right into them. That work on the cycle has given me an appetite.
     “Something else that ought to interest you,” John says. “They were talking in the bar about Bozeman, where we’re going. They said the governor of Montana had a list of fifty radical college professors at the college in Bozeman he was going to fire. Then he got killed in a plane crash.”
     “That was a long time ago,” I answer. These steaks really are good.
     “I didn’t know they had a lot of radicals in this state.”
     “They’ve got all kinds of people in this state,” I say. “But that was just right-wing politics.”
     John helps himself to some more salt. He says, “A Washington newspaper columnist came through and put it in his column yesterday, and that’s why they were all talking about it. The president of the college confirmed it.”
     “Did they print the list?”
     “I don’t know. Did you know any of them?”
     “If they had fifty names,” I say, “mine must have been one.”
     They both look at me with some surprise. I don’t know much about it, actually. It was him, of course, and with some feeling of falseness because of this I explain that a “radical” in Gallatin County, Montana, is a little different from a radical somewhere else.
     “This was a college,” I tell them, “where the wife of the president of the United States was actually banned because she was ‘too controversial.'”
     “Who?”
     “Eleanor Roosevelt.”
     “Oh my God,” John laughs, “that must have been wild.”
     They want to hear more but it’s hard to say anything. Then I remember one thing: “In a situation like that a real radical’s actually got a perfect setup. He can do almost anything and get away with it because his opposition have already made asses out of themselves. They’ll make him look good no matter what he says.”
     On the way out we pass a city park which I noticed last night, and which produced a memory concurrence. Just a vision of looking up into some trees. He had slept on that park bench one night on his way through to Bozeman. That’s why I didn’t recognize that forest yesterday. He’d come through at night, on his way to the college at Bozeman.