GREEN DAYS by Ataide Tartari ------------------------------------------------------------ PROLOGUE A LITTLE GIRL'S DIARY 1. Tuesday, June 15. Today I went to Camellia's after school. Her older brother Pelican had locked himself in his bedroom and didn't want to let us in. Camellia said he'd got an EnviroIncorrect movie with one of his friends who seems to deal with EnviroIncorrect things all the time, and other things from the Ravager Age. My teacher says it was a very dirty time, people lived in the dirt, people ate dirt, people made dirt, people didn't respect beautiful things. And people made these EnviroIncorrect movies. I know they are dirty, but I wanna watch them anyway. Why not? The other girls and boys do it! They never let their moms and daddies know about it, of course. They wouldn't understand. Well, I think some of them understand, but my father doesn't. He is sort of stubborn and he works at EPA. No EPA people understand it. Everybody says they're taught to always think and behave EnviroCorrect. Dad would never understand what I did today. I think he would forbid me of going to Camellia's for the rest of my life if he discovered. Pelican is sort of stubborn too. He thought that only he had the right to see the movie just because his friend lent it to him and because his friend was his friend, no ours. Then I was mad and I yelled at his bedroom door and said I knew the two girls he was dating and I'd tell them both about the other one if he didn't let us see the EnviroIncorrect movie. I'm a smart girl, smarter than Camellia, much smarter than the boys. Pelican is a so-stupid grown-up boy that he believed what I said and let us in. His sister never scared him as I did. The cassette of the EnviroIncorrect movie was new and like the others. The name of a new movie was written on it. But inside it was a tape from the Ravager Age. Pelican said the tape was new, but was a copy of a copy of a copy of a copy. It looked bad, but I was so curious it seemed good. Pelican and his friends know a lot about this movie. They say it was a TV series that worshipped the Unbounded Progress; that's why it's so EnviroIncorrect. My teacher says a lot about the Unbounded Progress too. The other day she showed us a movie that was made in the Ravager Age, but it was an EnviroCorrect movie. Some Ravagers made EnviroCorrect movies too, she says. I liked the movie. Everybody in my class liked the movie. The Ravagers made better movies than the new ones. My teacher said that this movie shows how dangerous and dirty the Unbounded Progress is. I didn't understand why. It just shows an ugly monster, Frankenstein, created by Doctor Frankenstein who went to the cemetery to pick dead bodies to sew them together and make a monster. The monster represents the Unbounded Progress, she says. The Ravagers created the monster and the monster destroyed everything and everybody. Me and my friends didn't understand her. The monster is not that bad. We liked him. I'd like to have a friend like him, a friend that could protect me against the bad guys with his enormous body and his mean face. If he did that to me I could kiss him in the mouth and be his friend forever. I'd love him and take care of him, and he'd take care of me. If he is the Unbounded Progress, I love the Unbounded Progress. But Pelican's movie, that TV series of the Ravager Age, didn't worship a monster like Frankenstein. It is called "Star Trek" and there are no monsters like Frankenstein in it; there are starships. Starship Enterprise. I said that to Pelican and he said that starships are things that belong to the world of the Unbounded Progress; starships are as dangerous and EnviroIncorrect as any other thing from the world of the Unbounded Progress. But I love them. We love them. Every adult tell us that we must hate all these things, EnviroIncorrect things, things from the world of the Unbounded Progress, and love the Natural Leader. I hate the Natural Leader and I love these things and I don't care. Pelican says he loves these things too. He wants to be a captain of a starship like Captain Kirk of Starship Enterprise. I want to be Mr. Spock. He is like me: he is smarter than his friends. THE ENVIROPROTECTOR 2. Thank God he had an alarm clock in his head. A natural clock. (Quite EnviroCorrect.) The problem was, his artificial one, his alarm clock, the real thing, had broken three months ago. He took it to the best recycling store of the community, Gaia Recycling, two blocks away from the EPA office, paid for the recycling, and was told that his newly recycled alarm clock would be ready in sixty days...Sixty days, huh? He knew that the recycling business was getting worse every day. Ten years ago, he remembered, when he was twenty-five, it took no more than fifteen days to recycle products that were much more complex than a mere alarm clock. And their quality was better, much better. His father's VCR had been recycled in twelve days and the newly recycled one had an improved resolution. But now-- He didn't know what time it was, but, as his natural alarm clock never failed, it had to be between seven and seven-thirty a.m. He threw the thin blanket down to the foot of the bed. This was going to be an uncommonly cold summer, it seemed. It was June and the evenings still were cold. The home-recycled--that is, sewn--blanket fell to the floor. His wife Cypress, still asleep, started to pull an imaginary blanket. "I...cold," she murmured. "Wake up, Cy!" He sat up on the edge of the bed. "How would you live without me, Pheasant, your alarm clock?" He was already standing and trying to open the wooden venetian-blinds window of their bedroom. Recycled wood, of course. He had to be careful with this window, for the hinge was fixed to the rotten part of...too late-- "What was this noise?" asked Cypress. "Our venetian blinds...smashing your roses." After hearing about the fate of her garden she managed to leave the bed. Now they were with their torsos onto the window sill and looking fifteen feet down at the garden that had gained a rotten recycled wooden venetian-blinds window to protect its roses from the seven-thirty sunshine. "Great! That was all we needed!" she said, sighing, and letting her body collapse back onto the bed. "Our house's falling apart--" "The whole community is falling apart--with your help, by the way." "The whole world is falling apart, with or without my help. I'm just an insignificant part of the machine." "That's what everybody says, including the Natural Leader." "And he's right, Cy. The world is ruled by the natural laws, and so is he. Nature, the environment, is the real leader. I wouldn't like to be in his place; I'm happy where I am." "Oh God, my naive husband..." She started to walk toward the bathroom. "I'll pretend I didn't hear this." He shrugged and went downstairs to pick the damn window. Sometimes he was tempted to think Cypress was right...Tempted...Yes, tempted seemed to be the word--the word that explained her harmless digressing from EnviroCorrectness, and explained the incorrect behavior of the majority of the community people nowadays, for that matter. It sounded as if she--they--were always tempted to to put the blame on someone, some human, some person they knew. They were always tempted to insinuate that life was better in the Ravager Age, that things worked out fine. Well, maybe they did work out fine, but...at what cost? The cost had certainly been higher than the cost of the fixing of the rotten window he was lifting from the garden of smashed roses. He only would have to fix the hinge to a firmer part. No problem. These venetian blinds would have to wait until this evening and then he would...No, he wouldn't. Today he would work like a mule because Fir Rifkin, the EPA chief, his chief, was about to start one of those crusades he was famous for. The bastard was addicted to crusades. In his last crusade he went too far and ended up arresting several children who owned hamsters. Even the Natural Leader himself was against this crusade. (It was said that Rifkin arrested a great-grandchild of his, which drove him mad.) The media remained silent about the ending of this crusade. Natural Leader's orders. Only the EPA people knew what happened. Anyway, his venetian blinds would have to wait until the weekend. No problem. The two-story house where he lived had been built after the Ravager Age, but it was designed as a typical--according to some History books' photos--Ravager Age suburb house: with garage. Needless to say that his garage was nothing more than a depot full of useless things that had not been sent to recycling yet. But then he was now staring at the only three useful things in his garage--their bicycles. The little one belonged to his little daughter, the ten-year-old Sunrise, and the bigger, older ones were ridden by him and his wife. His favorite bike had a strong, authoritative, imposing dark-blue color and his name, Pheasant Jones, and his EPA-officer number painted with huge golden letters in order to keep thieves away from it, especially in public parking areas. To have a stolen bike was the worst nightmare in the community since you didn't only lose your means of transportation, you did lose the very recycleable good; and the environmental rules were pretty clear--there's no new product without an old one to recycle. On the authoritative dark-blue bicycle, Pheasant started to ride toward the EPA office, a twenty-minute ride. The mud from the last rain had dried and last week's muddy street was now a dusty street. Riding out of his neighborhood, he entered the jam-packed Yanomami Avenue. It was rush hour and there were hundreds of bikes zigzagging their way to downtown. The dry mud of Yanomami Avenue was badly cracked, as usual. The avenue looked like a goddamned hydrographic map. In fact, it was a hydrographic map carved on the pavement; in this large avenue the rain water had to carve its own ways toward the gutter and the canal. During last week's rains, Yanomami Avenue became so muddy, everybody had to walk and pull their bicycles. Pheasant took forty minutes to get to the office. The best season was the winter; in the winter the mud was either dry or frozen, and in any case they could ride with little effort--and no sweat. He kept riding, trying not to zigzag too much. He looked at the bike on his right side. A rather fat woman --fortyish, he could say--riding a pink-and-yellow bike with a small basket on the back. Typical women's two-wheeler. Her purse was in the basket--was tied to the basket with a rusted chain and padlock, probably the same chain and padlock she used to keep the bike from stealing. She turned her head and looked at him. He tensed his neck and looked straight ahead, at the horizon. He could say that she was desiring him; a young, strong man riding an authoritative dark-blue bike with his name and EPA-officer number painted on it, a member of the second most powerful organization of the community beside the Natural Leadership. She would dream of him tonight, she would dream of being his wife, she would despise her own insignificant husband--if this fat woman ever had a husband. Pheasant used his powerful legs to pass the fat woman and another dozen bikes. He was now riding beside a tall, slim man on a worn-out bike. In fact, the man seemed as worn-out as his two-wheeler. The man stared at his authoritative vehicle and, all at once, crossed the avenue almost hitting other bikes. He seemed to be running away from...an EPA officer? Pheasant crossed the avenue and went after the suspect. He was almost trailing behind the worn-out bike when it hit a badly eroded section of the dry mud and the man lost his balance. Pheasant stopped. "You all right?" asked Pheasant, looking right into the suspect's eyes. He didn't look like a suspect right now. He wasn't afraid of him. He was just a tired old fellow. "I think so." He held Pheasant's hand who helped to pull him up. "Thank you." The fat woman stopped, too. "I'm a nurse. Can I help you, sir?" "I think I didn't scratch anything. I'm only dusty-- dirty--" "Well, if everything's all right I think I'm going," said Pheasant. The fat woman, the nurse, suddenly started to glare at him. "Why the government never does anything about this? The streets are getting worse everyday and you do nothing about it!" "I'm not the, uh," Pheasant would say government. Everybody thought that an EPA officer was as responsible for the community's Administration as Rifkin, Lovelock, and Revelle. But he was just a damn part of the machine. "This is not my department." "When I was young," said the old man, "the streets were paved with tiles, concrete, and asphalt...They were as smooth as a baby's face...My mother had an automobile and she used to drive me to school--and I felt as if I were in heaven riding a cloud--" Pheasant mounted his...humble...bike and went away. Bitch! At first she was looking at him, desiring him, desiring the EPA officer, a Part of the Machine, and then she was...glaring at him, blaming him for the erosion caused by the rain--the rain!--and not by the government, or the EPA, or a mere Part of the Machine...His theory was right: People were surrendering to this temptation, they were blaming humans for natural events and insinuating that life had been better in the Ravager Age. And he was...where was he? He was following hundreds of bikes, zigzagging where they zigzagged, ducking the same crevasses, less than four miles away from his downtown office, when he heard the horn. It was a loud sound, and it was getting louder. He turned to look behind him and saw that the truck was coming fast, too fast for a place that was crowded with bicycles. The riders were trying to clear the way for the truck and were hitting each other and falling together like a mass of bodies and wheels being splashed away by a four-wheel axe. Pheasant heard the horn near his ear and tried to turn his head again to see where the damn beast, the axe, was. And it happened that the axe was touching his authoritative dark-blue fender with its more authoritative jet-black bumper, that's where it was. The horn and the jet-black bumper were more than enough to make him forget his maneuvering skills and so he jumped to the right, to the bike that was on his right, which jumped to the bike that was on its right side, and they all became a mass of bodies and wheels splashed onto the dry mud. When Pheasant finally managed to remove his two-wheeler from the body that was beneath it, he, the body, grabbed his shirt and almost tore it. "Pheasant, you son of a bitch, can't you ride a bike?" Jesus, there were hundreds of bikes around him and he had crashed against Spruce Doherty's! "Spruce?! Is that you?" "No, it's Fir Fuckin' Rifkin...Pull me up, for Christ's sake." "Sorry, Spruce. Did you see who was driving that truck?" he asked, pulling his friend up. "I don't know, but he was having a hell of a good time. It was a grinning boy." They dusted themselves down and mounted their bikes. Spruce Doherty was the kind of EPA officer who never seemed to be proud of his occupation. Not that Pheasant saw himself as a happy person. Sometimes--most of the time, in fact--he felt that his life needed to be, well, recycled. But he simply had no idea of how to do it! There seemed to be no alternatives left! As Spruce used to say, with his defeatist philosophy, life is a funnel: When you are a child your potential is immeasurable, you can choose any alternative, you can be anything, you can do everything; in high school you still have a lot of alternatives left; after high school you have already chosen one of them; ten years later you are on the run and there's no way out, no back down, no alternative left, you are what you are, you are what you chose to be ten, fifteen years ago--life is a funnel! But Spruce, beside his ominous philosophy and the obvious dislike for the choices he made when he was on the wide side of his own funnel--Spruce never seemed to take anything seriously, especially himself. He was bitter and ironic at the same time. He was always ready to uncover the irony of the worst catastrophe. "How's Lilac?" Pheasant asked, about Spruce's wife. "Cypress's always asking about her." "Really? Hmm, I think we must watch our wives, Pheasant. How much do they love each other?" Pheasant just smiled and shook his head. "Anyway, she is all right...I think...though she's been talking too much to my mother. They are great friends now. They are experts when it comes to my defects--or to what they consider my defects. Her mother is growing jealous. I think I should be her best friend now...Naaah, she's too far from being cute--" To whom Spruce was talking? Pheasant stared at him. He was looking ahead. "I've heard that Fir's new crusade will be against organic cotton. It seems that organic cotton is not that organic after all. Something is being done against the natural laws." "The natural laws change every season. They depend on the Natural Leader's mood." "The interpretation changes--because the environment changes. If the laws are natural, they are...natural...so they cannot be changed." "Jesus Christ, Pheasant! I can't talk to you! You make me feel a if I were in the elementary school!" "I say what I know." "Then you don't know much." "Well, I don't know what Fir's up to. Do you?" "Maybe you're right about the organic cotton. Maybe he sends us after these cotton mills. But his eternal crusade will be against Anabasis, if--" "But then he won't send us. Anabasis is a job for the Corrects--" "If Anabasis really exists, Pheasant." "Now you're going too far, Spruce. You're implying that the Natural Leader is a liar." "Isn't he?" Spruce had gone to the EPA office, but Pheasant was two blocks away, in Gaia Recycling, asking the clerk if his newly recycled alarm clock had arrived. Five minutes later the clerk returned. "I'm sorry, sir. Try next week." "Listen kid, I'm an enviroprotector and--" "I'm sorry, sir. This is no privileged class, you must know that," the clerk said, and turned around. "Hey!" he said, and the clerk came back with an unfriendly face. "Which size is that jeans?" He pointed at the only pair of jeans in the store. "Medium size." "Is it recycled?" "No, that's new. New cotton, from the last harvest." "How much?" "Five hundred." "Jesus Christ!" "But it is reserved, sir. I'm sorry." He mounted his bike again and rode to the EPA office. Bowls of dust were rising from the ground. This was going to be another windy day. The streets were lined with red-brick buildings, the most used type of EnviroCorrect construction material, since lumber was utterly EnviroIncorrect. By the door of the EPA building, he parked his bike in its parking lot and looked up at the bronze plate that read, "Crazy Horse Alternative Community" and "EnviroProtection Administration". As always, as it happened everyday, his... funnel...had brought him safely for another workday. Well, with a few scratches, as usual. No problem. 3. A whirlwind was sweeping Slaughtered Sioux Boulevard, where the EPA building stood. Actually, as Pheasant couldn't see anything, it seemed the whole Crazy Horse City was inside a dust cloud. He tied a handkerchief to his mouth and nose and put his sunglasses on and mounted his authoritative dark-blue two-wheeler, which was real authoritative now since he was leaving the building to accomplish an official environmental mission. Spruce, who led the five-enviroprotectors task force, said, "Are you feeling aerodynamic today, guys?" Redwood yelled, "For how many miles do we have to be aerodynamic?" "About twenty. It seems we've got the farthest cotton mill." Pheasant was right about their new mission--to catch some cotton-mill owners, envirocriminals who were using chemicals. But he was wrong about the new crusade of Fir Rifkin. As they stepped into the EPA office, Palmetto, their coordinator, started yelling orders and forming teams to go visit several suspect cotton mills that had been denounced by their competitors (probably cotton-mill owners and recyclers who had been left behind by them). An envirojustice had issued the warrants and...that was it, they had another mission out of the town, another mission that seemed a goddamned Tour de France with groups of enviroprotectors riding along the community's earthen roads, some of them too aged for this kind of endurance. Some years ago, when the financial status of the community allowed, they used electric jeeps for these out-of-town missions, but now, with the community's financial health going down the tubes, their means of transportation were powered by their own legs. Knowing that they would spend the whole day just to get there and return, Palmetto was somewhat brief. About the Fir's new crusade, he said, he was informed that its beginning had been postponed and that it would be the greatest crusade in the community History--just like the previous ones--and that only the Corrects would participate and that the EnviroCorrectness Department of the EnviroProtection Administration would be enlarged and so...they all, Pheasant included, grew excited. A Correct enviroprotector had higher salaries and benefits, as well as a higher status in the community. The community people feared them, which was much different than their behavior toward the ordinary enviroprotectors, as Pheasant knew. The wooden gate of the mill was itself a hint that they were about to find some envirocriminals in the place and therefore make their day. Spruce produced his badge and showed it to an Indian employee that was near the gate and and asked for Elm Davis, the owner. The Indian opened the wooden gate and showed the way to the office without saying a single word. When they found Elm Davis the Indian spoke: "Some enviroprotectors want to talk to you, Mr. Davis." A smiling, white-haired Elm Davis turned to them. "How can I help you, gentlemen?" Spruce showed his badge and unfolded the warrant. "We want to know--I mean, an envirojustice sent us here because, apparently, some of your competitors want to know how you whiten your cotton." They were environmental authorities, for Christ's sake! Why Spruce had to apologize for his protecting of the environment? Pheasant couldn't understand his partner's behavior. He really hated his job; he did hate his...funnel. "Just like they do." "What do you mean?" "Nothing. I do nothing. I used hydrogen peroxide, we all used, but now--" Spruce was listening, but Pheasant was reading a piece of paper he had taken from his pocket and saying, "Then we have a problem." "Do we?" He looked at Mr. Davis's smiling face. Was he mocking him? "Yes, we do. It happens the Natural Leadership decid--I mean, realized, this year, that this...hydrogen peroxide...is a chemical product that may harm the environment, therefore now it's an envirocrime to use it." Spruce took the paper from his hand. "Right. May harm the environment," he murmured. "Your report is right, officer. This year our green leaders decreed--or realized--as you wish--that it is forbidden to whiten our organic cotton...Is this our problem?" He took the paper from Spruce and read it again. "Our problem is, it is an envirocrime to use hydrogen peroxide, but then your cotton seems as whitened as ever. The other mills had to change the appearance of their cotton." "Then this is their problem...My cotton comes from a better farm. I use the best organic cotton available, that's all." "Where does it come from?" "From another alternative community. From the South; a hot place. I confess I didn't hire a detective to check the EnviroCorrectness of the farmer. Is this an envirocrime?" Pheasant didn't know how to reply, so he lifted the paper and read the next item: Arsenic Acid, the product used by the Ravagers, Ravager farmers, in the Ravager Age, to strip off the cotton, with or without a frost--which was the EnviroCorrect way of stripping it off. "Do you know if your farmer uses Arsenic Acid?" "He does not." "You sounded so sure...You know what it is?" "Of course I know. It is used--it was used to strip off the cotton. But it doesn't exist anymore," said Davis. Then he lowered his voice. "Unfortunately." Pheasant glared at him. Spruce smiled and shook his head. "You sure?" "Pretty sure. My grandfather was a cotton farmer and used arsenic acid in his time, in the Ravager Age. It was a product called Paraquat--write this in your report...That made him an envirocriminal, I think." "No," said Spruce. "That wasn't an envirocrime in the Ravager Age. There were no envirocrimes in the Ravager Age." Now Pheasant was glaring at Spruce. "Of course his grandpa was an envirocriminal! The environmental laws are eternal; they never change! If he was using arsenic acid he was breaking the natural law! The Ravagers didn't punish themselves for breaking the natural laws, of course, but they ended up punished by the environmentalism and their age was terminated--" "As the whiteness of our cotton," said the grandson of the envirocriminal. Spruce sighed. "All right, I think our mission is accomplished." Pheasant walked. "Let's take a look at the rest of Mr. Davis's place." "Make yourselves at home," said Davis. "Oh, we have some enzymes to soften our cotton. Those grandpas in the Natural Leadership didn't...realize...they're against the natural laws, so we keep softening our cotton." Minutes later Pheasant smelled something. Something delicious, he could say; something he had never smelled before. He followed his nose and ended up behind the employees' cabin, staring at a half-dozen employees, envirocriminal employees, around a coal bonfire with two slaughtered fowls over it. "Spruce! Come here!" he shouted. The employees didn't know what was happening. They stood up and remained staring at him. Spruce, the other three enviroprotectors, and Davis, their employer, showed up. "See what I've found here! Take a look at this!" he said, proud and indignant at the same time. Then he raised his voice. "You are arrested for slaughtering two animals--what is this?" "Chickens, sir." "Where did you hunt them?" "Hunt?! We raised them!" "Then you are arrested for the slaughtering of two chickens and for the enslavement of animals." "Don't forget the production of global-warming gases," completed Spruce, half-smiling. "Yes, that too!" Then he turned to Elm Davis. "And the owner of the place is arrested too!" How proud Pheasant felt! How proud he was! He had protected the environment! He had avenged the environment! A NATURAL LEADERSHIP 4. Fir Rifkin was telling the driver of his limousine, the Ravager Age vehicle he had appropriated ages ago, when he defeated the Ravagers--Fir was telling him to drive faster. His driver was trying to, but he simply couldn't run over all those bicycles on Yanomami Avenue. As it usually happened, the riders that were awkwardly trying to clear the way were hitting other bikes, and the four-wheel vehicle was creating formless waves of crashed bikes and riders as if the limo were a large ship cruising down a narrow channel. Fir lifted the cellular phone and dialed Mockingbird Revelle's number. Maple Revelle, the Natural Leader's older daughter, answered. "Is he--?" Fir didn't know how to ask, so he let the unspeakable question drifting in the air. "Yes, he's alive. The crisis is gone, thank God...Where are you, Fir?" "In the limo. It's five-thirty--the streets are full of bikes--we can't drive faster." "Don't worry, Fir. Dad's all right--for now. The doctor is here. Ah, Wren is here, too." His driver took another twenty minutes to leave all riders behind and stop by the main entrance of the Natural Leader Mansion and open the door and help him to get up and walk with his walking-stick, which he was obliged to use since he had broken a femur, ten years before, when he was only seventy-nine years old. The Natural Leader Mansion was a magnificent EnviroCorrect house designed by a famous EnviroCorrect architect at the dusk of the Ravager Age when, by the way, he was one of the most active followers of their environmental leadership, their Natural Leadership...Those exciting days...when they were young...when it was so exciting to be EnviroCorrect...and to watch how other people were living...and judge them...and then punish them...It was so exciting...so correct...It was at that exciting time that their follower, the architect, built this house without moving a single tree from its natural place in the land. Its rooms and corridors were built around the natural vegetation, wrapping it, and with atria to let it breathe naturally, and with corridors that cut across the house and linked the natural vegetation, corridors designed to let the natural fauna pass freely through the artificial construction that had invaded their land. As Fir Rifkin stepped into the EnviroCorrect Natural Leader Mansion with his two legs and his cane, Maple Revelle hugged him. Her hair was not white anymore, which means she had dyed it with some unnatural, inorganic product. Bu then, that's all right...for a member of the Natural Leadership, that is. She was shedding tears. Fir frowned his already wrinkled forehead. "Maple! What happened? You said he's alive--" "And he is, but...for how long?" "Oh, he'll outlive us." Which wasn't big deal, since the natural average of the natural age of the Natural Leadership was well above ninety natural years. The third member of the Natural Leadership, the leader who had demolished the Ravagers and the Ravager Age as an incendiary lecturer, Wren Lovelock, 95, was brought by an electric wheelchair. Fir Rifkin, 89, the youngest of the three, stared a his lifelong buddy and said, "Wren, you lazy bastard! Get up and walk!" "I can't. I can't. My legs are aching." Fir turned to Maple. "He's always afraid of something. Always! Since last year he's afraid of walking, of falling and breaking his bones." "And he's right," said the doctor, who had dodged two trees since he left Mockingbird Revelle's bedroom and was now with his hand onto Wren's shoulder. "His bones are too weak. It's dangerous to walk." With this, Fir smiled and sat down on the nearest couch. The doctor sighed. "Since I've been treating you two and Mockingbird for the last twenty years, I believe that you trust me." Then he remained looking at the two old environmental leaders, waiting for some reaction, until they nodded. "Well, can I talk to you openly, even about EnviroIncorrect subjects?" Fir said, "Listen, doctor. We do trust you, but as a doctor. We don't know your political views and, frankly, I don't think we would be interested." "I want to give you my opinion as a physician, but it is also...EnviroIncorrect...and, therefore, political. I'm about to say this because I'm worried about your health as individuals and the health of our community, for you're our leaders--" "Go ahead, doctor. You're among friends." He sat down on the opposite couch, facing Fir. "Very well. I am a gerontologist, I am an EnviroCorrect gerontologist, a natural one, and so I only treat my patients with natural methods--" "Except us," said Wren, grinning. The members of the Natural Leadership were allowed--by themselves--to bring unnatural medicines and methods of treatment from the Unbounded Progress when they...realized...that that was the natural way to preserve themselves and their Natural Leadership. "Of course, except you. But now...in order to improve your own health...and the health of our community...I think you should...enlarge...these exceptions." "For instance--" "You could, for instance, bring gerontologists who work and research under the Unbounded Progress's rules." "Why? What can they do that you can not? You already bring their medical equipment and medicines for us." "That's true. But the fact is, Revelle is no responding to them anymore. The Natural Leader is dying." Maple Revelle began to weep again. "We three are dying," said Wren Lovelock. "And so, the political fact is, we're not immortals, no one can save our health, and the health of our community must be saved with new leaders." Fir grunted and said nothing. "It might be dangerous," said the doctor, "and I think it is not necessary." "Younger leaders are not as dangerous as the Unbounded Progress," replied Wren. "I don't think the community would accept new and unknown leaders. There's no one with a sufficient and widely accepted EnviroCorrect record--" "Sure, we took care of them all," said Wren. The doctor cleared his throat and Fir glared at Wren. "Anyway, it is too dangerous because this could raise the ambition of several people and create opposing parties, and this could break our community and open its doors to the Unbounded Progress." "My colleagues, the gerontologists of the Unbounded Progress, may have the solution to this problem, Fir. And I've heard that the Unbounded Progress is researching immortality too, Wren." "That's intolerable, doctor. Intolerable!" Fir Rifkin was managing to get up with the help of his cane and the support of the dying Natural Leader's daughter. "I built my leadership fighting against this same genetic engineering, against the Ravagers who wanted reformulate the living creatures, including us, the human beings...We named their progress Unbounded Progress because this is the precise word for it. They never stop. They don't know where to stop..." He started to walk toward the dying man's room. "And now you say they are researching immortality!...Jesus Christ--" Wren and Maple gestured to the doctor, as if to say, Don't worry, we'll change his mind. Then they all went to see how alive the dying Natural leader was. They remained around the bed, staring at Mockingbird Revelle while he inhaled and exhaled, fogging his oxygen mask. Maple turned to the doctor. "He will be able to decide?" "Sure. He is going to sleep about ten hours and then he'll be conscious again." Then she turned to Fir. "Fir, he will choose to save our community by saving himself, through the Unbounded Progress. That's the right thing to do. I'm sure you'll agree with us." "He will choose to save our community, our environment, and himself by slaughtering our principles," said Wren, from the wheelchair. "That's the right thing to do. I'm sure that any EnviroCorrect person will agree with us."