They sat side by side on their antique sofa – all stainless steel and straight lines, copied from a frame found in the Berlin tel – facing the skene, hands touching, like children waiting to be scolded. The skene came to life with a kind of pop, mostly imaginary but telling, because both of them jerked, then stood up straighter, and the little finger of Ganish’s hand wrapped itself around the same finger of her right. Allseven of the Bureau’s directors faced them seated behind a long desk in a room as cheerless as a crematorium. The chair woman, seated in the center, cleared her throat, coughed, said, “Have you any documents you wish to submit?”
Rita was angry. He knew it; he could feel it in her little finger, which was tightening on his and letting go, the last time as if she were trying to break his. She shouted, “What documents do you think would show how much I want the child I’m carrying?”
“Our interest is not in the child per se but in your application for five years of parental leave. Normally, this would be grant without objection, but your case is not normal.”
“Why not?” She sounded fiercely belligerent, sneering.
“Because of your husband.”
“My husband and I are not the same person! He is not carrying the baby!.”
“Your husband is the best choice to manage the reenactment of Earth. You cannot be allowed to interfere with that function.”
“I am not interfering! Child-bearing is one of the most important functions discussed in the First Protocol!”
“You, like many women, can bear and raise raise a child without his presence or input.”
Ganesh interrupted, forcing his voice to be as bland, as uninflected as the chair’s. “But I want to be present, ma”am chair. I want—”
From the third member on their left, a man said,”What you want is not relevant.” The chair looked peeved but said, “As my colleague averred, Ganesh, we are well beyond your wants. That sounds cold, perhaps—”
“Yes, it does,” Rita growled. “Cold and cruel.”
“As your husband said, my dear, in his Colloquium address, the reenactment of Earth may be the most important effort ever taken by us. It is too important to—”
“I don’t remember saying that,” Ganesh interrupted. “I have a copy of my remarks here, if you need it.”
“We have our own copies, and the exact phrasing is unimportant. The reenactment of Earth is an idea that has energized almost every citizen in the moon complex. We have been besieged by volunteers asking for postings to the effort, most of them mentioning you by name, Ganesh. You have taken the place of the Alpha Centauri probe as a central focus the moon colony’s aspirations.” Another woman, this one immediately on the chair’s left, said, “As you pointed out in the Colloqium.”
“I pointed out no such thing. I said that the failure of the Alpha Centauri probe had crushed a dream ad left us limited to the solar system forever. I did not suggest in any way that I was somehow comparable to the unmanned probe.”
“But you did show very clearly that that dream was essential to the well-being, the, um, intellectual and emotional health of every citizen. Didn’t you?”
Ganesh sighed. “Something like that.”
Rita said, “That doesn’t mean that he has to lead the reenactment projet.”
“In normal times, no. But your husband has become something we have never had before – never wanted as you know – a hero. A leader. The First Pprotocol prohibits and mechanism that creates leader. There is a great fear of demagogues.” The woman’s face changed; no longer persuasive, she seemed embarrassed. “Ganesh, we have been through our psychological profiles and we have had interviewed every person who has ever worked with you. We have found no desire on your part toward demagoguery.”
“Ma’am. We have no political machinery that would allow for a demagogue even to cast a shadow; we have no voting, no elections, no parties, no politics. But I suggest that if you see in me the potential for social or political ambition – for dempgpguery – then I am the very man you should be casting out of the pool for people to lead the project!”
“Two men started to speak together; one yielded; the other said, “Let us be frank, Ganesh: you are the ideal leader because you don’t want to lead. We’ve had a deluge of applications to lead the project; almost evry one of them reeks of ambition!” The other man added, “The very fact that they ask to lead is evidence that we can’t allow them to do so.”
Ganesh said with disgust, “You love me for my timidity. It’s worse than being compared to an unmanned probe.”
Rita said, “All we want is five years of normal life as parents. Please.”
The chair sighed. She was gray-haired, apparently unflappable, certainly unmovable. Yet she sounded kind – which cost her nothing. Ganesh was thinking that these seven people were what had once been called civil servants, an unintentionaly ironic term because they were not servants at all; they ran the shaping of people’s lives, thus had what no one living in the shadow of the Firsy Protocol possessed – power. These were what several of the Pensays had called “faceless bureaucrats,” a much-misunderstoo term for centuries and one give a definition after great wrangling in five Colloqua. The term meant people who possessed power but whose formal titles gave no hint of doing so – like these seven. He said, “ What if I refuse to serve?”
The entire committee of seven moved; there was a sound like the rustling of paper; one man put his head back and smacked his forehead. The chair, unmoved, said, “The usual decision is Reeducation.”
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