From: Damien Broderick (thespike@earthlink.net)
Date: Tue Jan 21 2003 - 13:02:09 MST
Ho ho. However--
I have to report, Mike, that I beat you to this prank, in STRIPED HOLES
(1988), which I hope will be on Fictionwise.com in a few weeks' time:
=======
"I represent a political faction in the forty-seventh century," the insect
told him complacently. "Out of office right now, true, but we're making our
comeback. Plenty of support out there in the hustings. Ordinary people
aren't going to sit still much longer for-"
"Political..." Sopwith muttered. His mind had seized on the first word he
could relate to and rejected the rest. "Why me? Why not the Prime Minister?
Industrialists, the guys with the real power? Anyway, why Australia, for
God's sake? I'd expect you to be sitting in the White House or the
Bundestag, what the hell are you-"
The insect snorted tersely. It gazed at the ceiling. "If you were as astute
as my colleagues must have supposed, you'd grasp the reasoning instantly."
Sopwith's jaw sagged. For a moment one could be forgiven for thinking he
was about to burst into tears.
"Well, I haven't the time to second-guess their judgments," the alien said
huffily. "The line of thought is obvious. Think, man. The human creatures
you itemized are well past their prime as breeders."
"That's not what I hear," Sopwith mumbled.
"I'm not interested in discussing their dirty little hotel room secrets,"
the insect said haughtily. "We're talking species survival here, not
hide-the-cabana. Your world is due to crash into long-term deep freeze in a
matter of hours and you want to trade backroom scuttlebutt with me. Joseph
Smith!"
Sopwith leaped to his feet. "The war of the worlds?" he shouted. "Invasion!
You're planning to destroy the Earth!"
"Sit down you bloody fool." The insect drew from its breast pocket a thin
cigar and shot him in the middle of the forehead with an intense thread of
hard green light. He collapsed voicelessly back into his wonderfully
comfortable leather seat.
"Pay heed. I'll tell you this just once. Your sun's setting is about to be
turned down by my political opponents in the Solar Energy Conservation
Party. They'll leave the pilot light running, but your oceans will certainly
ice up and most of the atmosphere will fall down within two weeks."
"Why?" Sopwith cried feebly. "Why would anyone in the future do such a
terrible thing to their ancestors?"
"It's not that hard to appreciate, I would have thought, even if they are
my political enemies. What have you ever done for your descendants? Ripped
them off, that's all. Used up their reserves. Pillaged the planet. Turned
the nonrenewable resources into flat-screen word processors and Dolly Parton
DVDs. They're pulling the plug, Mr. Hammil, and though I can't condone them,
I respect their right to their opinions."
"I don't understand! Why the sun? Why not- I don't know, why not take all
the uranium away or something? Aren't they against the misuse of nuclear
energy?"
"Of course they are! What do you think the Sun is, you cretin? A
thermonuclear reactor. It's burning up nearly five million tonnes of gas a
second. Do you have any appreciation of what sort of fuel bill that amounts
to? We're talking 3.86 by 10 to the 33 ergs every second. That's not chicken
feed. That's sheer waste, from the forty-seventh century viewpoint. Why
should you low barely evolved human creatures get it all? Answer me that!"
=======
and so on.
Damien Broderick
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