In fact, the whole ship seemed chilly and somehow frightening to Tolly Mune.
The only real warmth was to be found on the tiny portion of the top deck where Haviland Tuf spent his nights and days. The long, narrow communications room he had refitted as his central control was cozy and comfortable. His quarters were crowded with worn, overstuffed furniture and an amazing assortment of bric-a-brac accumulated in his voyagings. The smell of food and beer permeated the air here, bootsteps did not echo so, and there was light and noise and life. And cats.
Tuf’s cats had free run of most of the ship, but most of them seemed to prefer to stay close to Tuf himself. He had seven now. Chaos, a long-haired gray tom with imperious eyes and an indolent, dominating manner, was the lord of all he surveyed. He could most often be found sitting on top of Tuf’s master console in the control chamber, his bushy tail twitching like a metronome. Havoc had lost energy and gained weight in five years. She did not seem to recognize the Portmaster at first, but after a few days the old familiarity returned, and Havoc took up the acquaintance where it had dropped, and sometimes even accompanied Tolly on her wanderings.
Then there were Ingratitude, Doubt, Hostility, and Suspicion. “The kittens,” Tuf called them, though they were really young cats now, “born of Choas and Havoc, madam. Originally they comprised a litter of five. I left Foolishness behind on Namor.”
“It’s always best to leave foolishness behind,” she said. “I never figured you to part with a cat, though.”
“Foolishness developed an inexplicable fondness for a vexing and unpredictable young woman of Namorian origin,” he said. “Since I had many cats and she had none, it seemed the appropriate gesture under the circumstances. Although the feline is a splendid and admirable creature, it remains relatively scarce in this sad modern galaxy. Thus my innate generosity and sense of duty to my fellow humans prompt me to offer cats to worlds such as Namor. A culture with cats is richer and more humane than one deprived of their unique companionship.”
“Right,” said Tolly Mune, smiling. Hostility was near at hand. She scooped him up carefully, stroked him. His fur was very soft. “Strange names you gave this lot.”
“Perhaps more apt to human nature than to the feline,” Tuf agreed. “I bestowed them on a whim.”
Ingratitude, Doubt, and Suspicion were gray, like their father; Hostility was black and white like Havoc. Doubt was noisy and fat, Hostility was aggressive and rambunctious, Suspicion was shy and liked to hide under Tuf’s chair. They liked to play together, a boisterous cat pack, and seemed to find Tolly Mune endlessly fascinating, climbing all over her whenever she paid Tuf a visit. Sometimes they turned up in the least likely places. Hostility landed on her back one day as she ascended an escalator, and the surprise left her breathless and shocked. She grew accustomed to having Doubt in her lap during meals, begging slivers of food.
And then there was the seventh cat: Dax.
Dax, with fur the color of night and eyes like small golden lamps. Dax, the single most lethargic vermin she had ever seen, who preferred being carried to walking. Dax, who peered from Tuf’s pocket, or out from beneath his cap, who sat on his knees or rode on his shoulder. Dax; who never played with the older kittens, who seldom made a sound, whose golden glance could somehow displace even huge, lordly Chaos from a chair both of them coveted. The black kitten was with Tuf constantly. “Your familiar,” Tolly Mune said to him one mealtime, after she had been aboard for nearly twenty days. She pointed a knife. “That makes you a . . . what was the term?”
“There were several,” Tuf said. “Witch, wizard, warlock. The nomenclature derives from Old Earth myth, I believe.”
“It fits,” said Tolly Mune. “Sometimes I feel this ship is haunted.”
“This suggests why it is wiser to rely upon intellect rather than feelings, Portmaster. Accept my assurance that if ghosts or other supernatural entities did in fact exist, they would be represented aboard the Ark by cell samples, in order that they might be cloned. I have never encountered such samples. My stock in trade does include species sometimes referred to as hooded draculas, wind-wraiths, lycanthropes, vampires, garghouls, witchweed, and other such terms, but these are not the genuine mythic articles, I fear.”
Tolly Mune smiled. “Good thing.”
“More wine, perhaps? It is an excellent Rhiannese vintage.”
“That’s one good idea,” she said, splashing some into her glass. She still would have preferred a squeeze bulb; open liquids were sneaky things always waiting to spill. “My throat’s dry anyway. You don’t need monsters, Tuf. This ship of yours could destroy worlds as it is.”
“This is obvious,” said Tuf. “Equally obvious, it can save worlds.”
“Like ours? You have a second miracle up your sleeve, Tuf?”
“Alas, miracles are as mystic as ghosts and goblins, and there is nothing up my sleeves but my arms. However, the human intellect is still capable of certain less-than-miraculous breakthroughs.” He rose slowly to his full height. “If you are quite finished with your pop-onion pie and wine, perhaps you will accompany me to the computer room. I have applied myself diligently to your problems and have arrived at a few conclusions.”
Tolly Mune got up quickly. “Lead on,” she said.
“Note,” said Haviland Tuf. He pressed a command key; a projection flashed upon one of the screens.
“What’s this?” asked Molly Tune.
“The projection I made five years ago,” he said. Dax hopped into his lap; Tuf reached out and stroked the black kitten. “The parameters used were the then-current S’uthlamese population figures and the projected population growth, as of that time. My analysis indicated that the additional food resources introduced into your society by means of what Cregor Blaxon was so kind as to dub Tuf’s Flowering should have given you at minimum ninety-four standard years before the specter of planetary famine again threatened S’uthlam.”
“Well, that’s one goddamned projection that wasn’t worth a pot of vermin,” Tolly Mune said bluntly.
Tuf raised a finger. “A more volatile man than myself might take umbrage at the implication that his analysis was defective. Fortunately, I am of a cool and tolerant nature. Nonetheless, you are most incorrect, Portmaster Mune. My projections were as accurate as they could possibly have been.”
“Then you’re saying that we don’t have starvation and collapse staring down at us eighteen years in the future? That we’ve got, what, almost a century?” She shook her head. “I’d like to believe that, but—”
“I said no such thing, Portmaster. Within its prescribed margin of error, the latest S’uthlamese projection also appears to be quite accurate insofar as I have been able to determine.”
“Both projections can’t be correct,” she said. “That’s impossible, Tuf.”
“You are wrong, madam. During the intervening five years, the parameters changed. Attend.” He reached out and depressed another button. A new line, rising sharply, curved across the screen. “This represents the present curve of population increase on S’uthlam. Note how it climbs, Portmaster. An astonishing rate of ascent. Were I of a poetic turn of mind, I might even say it soars. Fortunately, I am not so afflicted. I am a blunt man who speaks bluntly.” He raised a finger. “Before we can hope to rectify your situation, it is necessary to understand that situation and how it came to be. Here all is clarity. Five years ago, I employed the resources of the Ark, and, if I may be so bold as to put my accustomed modesty aside, tendered to you extraordinarily efficient service. The S’uthlamese wasted no time in undoing everything I had done. Let me put it succinctly, Portmaster. No sooner had the Flowering taken root, so to speak, than your people rushed back to their private chambers, unleashed their carnal lusts and parental urges, and began reproducing faster than ever. Mean family size is greater now than five years ago, by .0072 persons, and your average citizen becomes a parent sooner by .0102 years. Small changes, you may protest, but when factored into the enormous base populat
ion of your world, and modified by all other relevant parameters, they make a dramatic difference. The difference, to be precise, between ninety-four years and eighteen.”
Tolly Mune stared at the lines crossing upon the screen. “Puling hell,” she muttered. “I should have figured, goddamn it. This sort of information is classified, for obvious reasons, but I should have known.” Her hands clenched into fists. “Goddamn it to hell,” she said. “Creg made such a newsfeed carnival out of the goddamned Flowering, no wonder this is happening. Why should anyone refrain from birthing—the food problem has been solved, right? The goddamned First Councillor said so. Good times had arrived, right? All the damned zeros had turned out to be puling anti-life alarmists once more, the technocrats had worked another miracle. How could anyone doubt that they’d do it again, and again, and again? Oh, yes. So be a good church member, have more kids, help humanity evolve to godhood and defeat entropy. Hey, why not?” She made a disgusted noise. “Tuf, why are people such puling idiots?”
“This quandary is even more perplexing than the dilemma that is S’uthlam,” said Tuf, “and I fear I am not equipped to answer it. So long as you are engaged in the division of blame, you might also assign some to yourself, Portmaster. Whatever misleading impression might have been given by First Councillor Cregor Blaxon was most certainly confirmed in the popular mind by that unfortunate final oration delivered by my impersonator in Tuf and Mune.”
“All right, damn it. I’m guilty, I helped gnarl it up. That’s past now. The question is, what can we do about it?”
“You can do little, I fear,” said Haviland Tuf, his face expressionless.
“And you? You worked the loaves and fishes miracle once. Can we get a second helping, Tuf?”
Haviland Tuf blinked. “I am a more experienced ecological engineer now than when I first attempted to deal with the problem of S’uthlam. I am more familiar with the full range of species contained within the Ark’s cell library, and the effect of each upon individual ecosystems. I have even increased my stock in trade to a certain extent during the course of my travels hither and yon. Indeed, I can be of service.” He cleared the screens and folded his hands atop his stomach. “There will be a price.”
“A price? We paid your damn price, remember? My spinnerets fixed your goddamned ship.”
“Indeed they did, even as I repaired your ecology. I do not require any further repairs or refitting of the Ark at this time. You, however, appear to have damaged your ecology once again so you have further need of my services. It strikes me as only equitable that I be compensated for my efforts. I have many operating expenses, chief among which is my still-formidable debt to the Port of S’uthlam. By dint of exhausting and unremitting labor on numerous scattered worlds, I have raised the first half of the thirty-three million standards you assessed me, but an equal amount remains to be paid, and I have but five additional years to earn it. How can I say if this will be possible? Perhaps the next dozen worlds on which I call will have ecologies without blemish, or will be so impoverished that I will be forced to grant them severe discounts if I am to serve them at all. Day and night the size of my debt preys upon my mind, often interfering with the clarity and precision of my thoughts and thus making me less effective at my profession. Indeed, I have a sudden hunch that when wrestling with a challenge of the vast magnitude of that posed by S’uthlam, my performance might be far superior were my mind to be clear and untroubled.”
Tolly Mune had expected something like this. She had told Creg as much, and he’d given her limited budgetary discretion. Still, she managed a frown. “How much do you want, Tuf?”
“The sum of ten million standards leaps to mind,” he said. “Being a round number, it might be deducted from my bill easily without posing any knotty problems of arithmetic.”
“Too damn much,” she said. “Maybe I could get the High Council to agree to lop off, say, two million. No more.”
“Let us compromise on nine million,” said Tuf. A long finger scratched Dax behind a small black ear; the cat silently turned its golden eyes on Tolly Mune.
“Nine isn’t much of a compromise between ten and two,” she said drily.
“I am a better ecological engineer than mathematician,” said Tuf. “Perhaps eight?”
“Four. No more. Cregor will implode on me as it is.”
Tuf fixed her with an unblinking stare, and said nothing. His face was cool and still and impassive.
“Four and a half million,” she said under the weight of his gaze. She felt Dax staring, too, and suddenly wondered if that damn cat was reading her mind. She pointed. “Damn it,” she said, “that little black bastard knows just how high I’m authorized to go, doesn’t he?”
“An interesting notion,” said Tuf. “Seven million might be acceptable to me. I am in a generous mood.”
“Five and one-half,” she snapped. What was the use?
Dax began to purr loudly.
“Leaving a net principal of eleven million standards to be paid within five years,” said Tuf. “Accepted, Portmaster Mune, with one additional proviso.”
“What’s that?” she said suspiciously.
“I will present my solution to First Councillor Cregor Blaxon and yourself at a public conference, to be attended by newsfeed peeps from all of your vidnets, and broadcast live over the entirety of S’uthlam.”
Tolly Mune laughed aloud. “Incredible,” she said. “Creg will never agree. You can forget that idea.”
Haviland Tuf sat petting Dax, and said nothing.
“Tuf, you don’t understand the difficulties. The situation is too damned volatile. You’ll have to give on this one.”
The silence lingered.
“Puling hell,” she swore. “Tell you what, write down what you want to say, and let us look it over. If you avoid anything that might stir up problems, I suppose we can give you access.”
“I prefer that my remarks be spontaneous,” Tuf said.
“Maybe we can record the conference and broadcast it after editing,” she said.
Haviland Tuf kept silent. Dax stared at her, unblinking.
Tolly Mune looked deep into those knowing golden eyes, and sighed. “You win,” she said. “Cregor will be furious, but I’m a puling heroine and you’re a returning conqueror, I suppose I can cram it down his gullet. But why, Tuf?”
“A whim,” said Haviland Tuf. “I am often taken by such fancies. Perhaps I wish to savor a moment in the light of publicity and enjoy my role as savior. Perhaps I wish to show the S’uthlamese billions that I do not wear a mustache.”
“I’ll believe in goblins and ghouls before I pay one standard for that load of ore,” said Tolly Mune. “Tuf, there are reasons why our population size and the gravity of the food crisis are kept secret, you know. Policy reasons. Now, you wouldn’t be thinking about, ah, opening that particular box of vermin, would you?”
“An interesting concept,” Tuf said, blinking, his face blank and noncommittal.
Dax purred.
“Unaccustomed as I am to public speaking and the unflattering glare of publicity,” Haviland Tuf began, “I felt it incumbent upon myself to come before you and explain certain things.”
He stood before a four-meter-square telescreen in the largest hall in Spiderhome, with a seating capacity for almost a thousand. The room was packed; newsfeed reporters were jammed in elbow-to-elbow up front, twenty rows of them, a tiny miniaturized camera in the center of each forehead busily recording the scene. Farther back were the curious who had come to watch—spinnerets of all ages, sexes, and professions, from cybertechs and bureaucrats to eroticists and poets, wealthy groundworms who had come up the elevator for the show, flies from distant systems passing through the web. On the platform with Tuf were Portmaster Tolly Mune and First Councillor Cregor Blaxon. Blaxon’s smile looked forced; perhaps he was recalling how the newsfeed peeps had all captured the long, awkward moment when Tuf blinked at his proffered hand. For that matter, Tolly Mune looked a bit uneasy.
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Haviland Tuf, however, looked impressive. He loomed over every man and woman in the hall, his gray vinyl greatcoat sweeping the floor, the sigil of the EEC upon his green billed cap.
“First,” he said, “permit me to point out that I do not wear a mustache.” The statement provoked general laughter. “Nor have your esteemed Portmaster and myself ever united in physical congress, vidshows notwithstanding, though I have no reason to doubt that she is a skillful practitioner of the erotic arts whose favors would be held in high esteem by any who enjoy that sort of diversion.” The horde of newspeeps, like one clamorous hundred-headed beast, turned and fixed their third eyes upon Tolly Mune. The Portmaster was slumped deep in her seat, with a hand rubbing her temples. Her sigh was audible as far as the fourth row.
“These points of information are minor in nature,” said Tuf, “and are advanced solely in the interest of veracity. The major reason that I have insisted upon this gathering is professional rather than personal, however. I have no doubt that each of you listening to this newsfeed is aware of the phenomenon that your High Council called Tuf’s Flowering.”
Cregor Blaxon smiled and nodded his head.
“I must presume, however, that you are unaware of the imminence of what I will be so bold as to call S’uthlam’s Wilting.”
The First Councillor’s smile wilted, too, and Portmaster Tolly Mune winced. The newspeeps swung back to Tuf en masse.
“You are indeed fortunate that I am a man who honors his debts and obligations, since my timely return to S’uthlam has allowed me to intervene once more in your behalf. Your leaders have been less than frank with you. But for the aid I am about to render you, your world would face starvation within the short span of eighteen standard years.”
A moment of stunned silence occurred. Then a small riot began in the rear of the hall. Several people were forcibly ejected. Tuf paid the incident no mind.