Chapter 16: Plans for the future
The midday meal with Sam, Eliza, and Celeste was a friendly but occasionally awkward affair. Fiela doted over Celeste, ensuring the girl got everything she wanted, from chocolate cake to peach pie and boxes of fruit juice. Ben and Sam discussed military life (Sam being an Army veteran), history, and pre-collapse politics. Lilian and Eliza quickly found they had nothing in common aside from their gender and spent much of the meal pretending to be entranced by the conversations of everyone else at the table.
Ben invited Sam to his study after the meal and there shared with him his carefully crafted lie about what Steepleguard was. That lie was, in short, that an eccentric billionaire named “S. Ridley,” who was member of the secret society called “the Nisirtu,” had bought the hotel prior to the Y2k scare and prepared it for the end of the world. When that didn’t happen, he readied the place for the next apocalypse. As luck would have it, the second apocalypse arrived on schedule.
“Who are all these people, then?” Sam asked.
“The animals of the ark. The people who are going to repopulate the planet, or at least govern it.”
“What?”
Ben smiled and said, “I told you Ridley was a nutcase. But like a lot of nutcases, he was persuasive. He started networking with a lot of rich eccentrics, mostly Nisirtu members, and they all poured money into this place, the deal being that before the ball dropped they’d be able to come here with their families. Not all of them made it. About a hundred locals got stuck here, too.”
“I wish I had that kind of bad luck,” Sam said. “At least they’re eating. What language is it that everyone is speaking? I mean, even your wives - and that’s a whole other thing - even they have accents of some kind. Are all of these people foreigners?”
“Many are, if by ‘foreigner’ you mean ‘from outside the former United States.’ They don’t exactly recognize our old national borders and never did. In fact, to maintain their exclusivity, and for reasons of security, they developed their own language. I had to learn it, too.”
“You said you weren’t Nisirtu at first. How did you end up being Noah?”
Good question, thought Ben. He said, “I was working on a project for Ridley – the translation of ancient writings on stone tablets he’d collected. That was my profession, before. Lilian’s father was a friend of Ridley. He died when Lilian was still a girl, so the old man took her under his wing. She grew up here, like Fiela did.”
Now came the lie. “While I was working on the tablets, I fell in love, and well, I guess you could say I was ‘bound’ to the Nisirtu.”
Sam raised an eyebrow and asked pointedly, “Fell in love with who? Lilian or Fiela? No, don’t answer that. It would only get you in trouble. I’m just going to assume you love all three of them.”
“Three?” asked Ben, confused. He experienced a moment of panic.
“Persipia and I spoke.”
“Oh.” Thank God.
“Yeah,” replied Sam, drawing out the word. “Look, I’m not one to judge. What’s your plan? You said this was an ark. What happens when the waters recede?”
Ben leaned forward and opened a bottle of bourbon that was sitting on a small table between the two men. Filling two glasses, he said, “That’s a good question.”
“Mr. Ridley doesn’t have a plan?”
“He probably did. The old man planned pretty much everything. He just didn’t bother sharing his plans with me. He just gave me the keys to this place and ‘poof’ – disappeared.” He handed the other man a drink. “I’ve got a lot of decisions to make.”
“Thank you,” said Sam. After his first sip, he gave Ben a curious look. “How’d they become your decisions to make? Yours alone? That doesn’t sound very democratic. We’re still Americans, right? Everyone gets a say.”
Ben looked at the man, downed his drink, and brooded. “Yeah, you and me. We’re Americans. Most of the folks living here aren’t, though. Not exactly. They’ve got a very different way of looking at things.”
“Tough shit. They’re in America now. They can learn our ways.” Sam took another sip from his glass. “Damn that’s good. But see here, what I mean is, well, it’s just silly, them calling you a king and all that. We don’t have kings in the U.S. of A. I think you’re a fine fella and all that. You and your…well, you and Fiela saved my life. You’re good people. But I’ll be damned before I kneel down before you or anyone else.”
Ben nodded. “I hear you, Sam. I really do. In fact, it’s good to hear from someone outside of this place who thinks like I do.” Or did? “The thing is, there are hardly any Americans left. There’s hardly anyone left in anywhere in the world. I’ve got to depend on these people to spark the engine. We’re not talking about rebuilding the United States. We’re talking about rebuilding the entire world.”
“Then do it democratically.”
“How, exactly?”
“I don’t know. Read a book.”
Ben sighed. “You misunderstand me, Sam. I know the basics. I was in the service. I understand the Constitution. Don’t peg me as a dictator just because I got sucked into this situation. For whatever reason, the people I need to get the world going again want a dictator. They want kings and queens and knights and all that. That’s the system they know and it’s the only system they’re willing to work under.” He refilled his glass. “For now, at least.”
Sam extended his own glass and watched as it was refilled. “Where in God’s name did these people come from?”
“Short answer? The past.”
Sam leaned back and took another drag on his cigarette as he swirled the bourbon. “Okay, you’re going to play along for a while. I return to my initial question: what’s the plan?”
“Security has to come first. We can’t govern without security, and it’s security that will attract survivors. We’ve been looking at maps-”
“We?”
“Me, Lilian, Fiela, Diz, Thal, some of the nobles…it’s a long list.”
“Nobles?”
“Higher-ups.”
“Ah.”
Ben drew invisible lines on the table between them with his finger. “Using Steepleguard as the central point, we’re going to establish territories inside the radius. It will be a small radius initially, of course. We just don’t have the manpower to patrol larger areas.”
“How will you decide the boundaries of the territories?”
“Good question. There are a lot of factors to consider. Distribution of survivors is the primary determinant. All the territories should have roughly similar populations. We’ll also need to ensure that each area has equal access to farmland, timber, fresh water, roads, and so forth. Otherwise the populations will migrate and things will become unbalanced.”
“What’s in it for the survivors? Why should they play along?”
“Security, primarily. You have to admit that’s in short supply.”
“Yeah, that would be a big draw,” Sam agreed.
“We’re also talking about establishing medical centers, schools, and markets. Civilization. Normalcy.”
Sam nodded. “A decent plan. I mean, beggars can’t be choosers. What are you going to do with those survivors who don’t play along, though? What if you run across a survivor like me, but not so accommodating? Someone who doesn’t have a family to worry about. What if they don’t want to be part if this new civilization?”
Ben slouched in his chair. “That’s a point of debate.”
“What do you want to do with ‘em?”
“Leave them be, as long as they don’t cause trouble.”
“Good. That’s an American talking. What do the others say though? Your nobles? What if there’s a guy who doesn’t pay his taxes or won’t allow farms to be built on land he says is his?”
Ben raised his glass to his lips. “What do you think, Sam?”
Sam nodded and lit another cigarette. “I think this new world sounds a lot like the old one.”