Blue Mars - Kim Stanley Robinson [362]
worry so much, they’re goners, there won’t be a single one left in ten years. Don’t be too sure about that. Don’t be too happy about that, you’re only a few years younger than them, you idiot. Oh it was a most interesting week we have been sleeping in the parks, and everyone was most kind. Werteswandel, the Germans call it. They’ve got a word for everything. Bound to happen, that’s evolution. We’re all mutants at this point. Speak for yourself jack. Speak to the waiter. Six years! That’s great news, I’m surprised you’re sober. Oh I’m not, ah-ha-ha, I’m not! Little red people charging around on red ants, think they’re helping out, whoops, right over the edge of the rim, better hope they’re flying ants. No wonder I’ve been getting so many ants. So the man says, Well, doc— Yes, and? That’s the end of the joke, he only just gets to say Well doc and then he dies, quick decline get it? Very funny. That’s right it is funny! All right, all right, ha-ha, it’s not worth getting hot over it. Anytime you have to threaten people to get them to laugh at your joke you have to consider it less than successful, okay? Fuck you. Oh clever. So anyway there we were when the troops kind of make like they want to go back to the Socket. They go at it very gently, single file behind a little electric hotel cart they got their hands on, and everyone moves a little and lets them go, and they were passing through us looking nervous, and then people were shaking their hands like they were all Nirgal at the gates, and asking them to stay, leaving them alone if they couldn’t handle it, kissing them on the cheeks, leis piled up till they couldn’t see over them. Right back into the Socket. And why not since they made their point and threatened us enough for the goddamned traitor government to fold without a fight? This joker doesn’t seem to understand the principles of jujitsu. Of what? What? Hey just who the hell are you? I’m a stranger in town. What? What? Excuse me miz, could you bring us another round of kava? Well, yes, we’re still trying to get it into the parts-per-billion range, but no luck yet. Don’t give me Fassnacht, I hate Fassnacht, the worst day of the year to me, they killed Boone on Fassnacht. They firebombed Dresden on Fassnacht. No end of evil to atone for. They were sailing in Chryse when a howler picked up their boat and threw it all the way over the Cydonia Mountains. That’ll be the kind of experience that brings you closer together. Oh please, who is this guy. It’s no big deal there’s blimps every week get blown around a bit, it’s no big deal. We got caught out in that same howler, but we were just outside Santorini, I mean to tell you the water’s surface was torn to smithereens to a depth of about ten meters, I’m not kidding. The boat we were in the AI got scared and took us under right down into another boat that was already down there, so we banged into this boat and it was like the end of the world, boom, everything dark, the AI went insane, scared it to death I swear. It probably just broke. Well I broke my collarbone. That’ll be ten sequins please. Thanks. Those howlers are dangerous. I was in one in Echus and we all had to sit down on our butts and even then we were kind of scraping along. I had to hold on to my glasses or else they would have been torn right off my ears. Cars flipping like tiddlywinks. The whole marina cleared of every single boat, it was like some kid took his toy harbor and knocked it across the room. I too experienced this storm at its utmost fury. I was visiting the township Ascension, in the North Sea near Korolev Island. Hey that’s where Will Fort surfs. Yes, here as I understand it the waves on Mars reach their greatest heights, and in this storm they towered a hundred meters from trough to crest, no, I do not jest. Waves much taller than the sides of the township, which on these dire rolling black hills appeared no larger than a lifeboat to those of us on it. We were a veritable cork. The animals were unhappy. And to compound our difficulties, we were being cast onto the south point of Korolev. The