The Last Theorem - Arthur Charles Clarke [123]
Ranjit’s answer was to sweep him up in a thoroughgoing hug. “You are such a fool,” he told his oldest and best friend. “I thought it was the other way around. I thought you were mad at us for turning your offer down so long ago.”
Released, Gamini gave him a rueful grin. “Actually,” he said, “I’m not so sure you were altogether wrong. Can I come in?”
Of course Gamini Bandara could come in, where he got hugs from Myra and little Robert as well. Robert got the most attention, because Gamini had never seen him before, but then Robert went off with the cook to play with his jigsaw puzzles, and the grown-ups settled down on the veranda. “I didn’t see Tashy,” Gamini remarked, accepting a cup of tea.
“She’s out sailing,” Ranjit informed him. “She does a lot of it—says it’s practice for a big race she plans to be in. But what brings you to Lanka?”
Gamini pursed his lips. “You know Sri Lanka’s got a presidential election coming up? My father’s planning to resign from the Pax per Fidem board and come back to run. He’s hoping that if he gets elected, he can bring Sri Lanka into the compact.”
Ranjit looked genuinely pleased. “More power to him for that! He’d make a great president.” He paused, and Myra said what Ranjit had been unwilling to.
“You look doubtful,” she observed. “Is there a problem?”
“You bet there is,” Gamini told her. “It’s Cuba.”
He didn’t really need to say more, because naturally Myra and Ranjit had been following the events there. Cuba had been on the verge of a Pax per Fidem plebiscite of its own.
It had seemed pretty certain to pass, too. Cuba had been spared the usual third world horrors. Fidel Castro had caused much harm, but he had done a certain amount of good along the way—Cuba had an educated population; a copious supply of well-trained doctors, nurses, and other health professionals; an expert corps of pest-control people. And not a single Cuban dying of starvation in more than half a century.
But the other thing Castro had done was to inflame partisan passions. Some of the sons and grandsons—and daughters!—of the Cubans who had gone off to fight and die for the world revolution in a dozen different countries had not forgotten. Even a few of the ancient fighters themselves survived, though now at least in their eighties and more, but quite capable of pulling a trigger or setting the fuse on a bomb. How many of these were there? Not enough to put the verdict of the plebiscite in doubt, anyway. When the votes were counted, disarmament, peace, and a new constitution had achieved better than 80 percent of the ballots cast. But twelve of Pax per Fidem’s workers had been shot at, nine of them had been hit—the old fighters for socialism knew how to handle a gun—and two of the wounded had died.
“Well,” Ranjit said after a moment, “yes, tragic, but what does it have to do with Sri Lanka?”
“It has to do with America,” Gamini said angrily. “And Russia and China, too, because they do nothing. But it’s America who wants to send in about six companies of U.S. troops. Troops! With rapid-fire weapons and, I’m pretty sure, even tanks! When the whole point of Pax per Fidem is that we never use lethal force!”
Everyone was silent for a moment. Then, “I see,” Myra said, and stopped there.
It was Ranjit who said: “Go ahead, Myra. You’ve got the right. Say ‘I told you so.’”
34
PENTOMINOES AND CARS
Natasha Subramanian was practicing wind curls on the shallow seas near her parents’ home when she saw the odd-looking yellow car. It was coming down one of the streets that led to the beach, hesitating at each intersection. When it turned off that one, the street it turned onto was the one that the Subramanian home was on. From her position standing on her windsurf board she couldn’t see the house itself, but she could see the next street over clearly enough. The car didn’t appear there. So it had to have stopped