Solve Gorgoni, page 3
“Not likely,” said Leclerc, continuing to enjoy his drink. “We’re going to have new concerns now; such as transitioning from a Zhapoologani centered intelligence gathering program to other concerns that the Consortium has let slide during the war.”
“Such as?” Mooney wanted to know.
“Corporate corruption, forbidden experimentation on human genes, cloning, etc. The whole gamut of interstellar law. We also need to keep an eye on signs of rebellious behavior on Consortium worlds.”
“I wasn’t aware we had such problems,” said Jules.
“Oh, nothing in the offing...so far as we can tell. As you know, the Consortium allows quite a bit of freedom under the restored Constitution of 1789 so dissent is indulged. It’s when dissent threatens the common sense order and societal upheaval that the intelligence services must step in.”
“Still, the lines don’t seem as clear cut as they were during the war,” said Mooney.
“That’s true. It means MI must take on new kinds of agents, those steeped in political theory and our rights under the Constitution to help discern between healthy dissent and dangerous movements.”
It seemed to Jules the conversation sobered Leclerc greatly since he walked into the house. Something was bothering him. Something he wasn’t ready to talk about.
“Well, you might be happy to know that my nitinol project is proceeding well,” said Jules, changing the subject.
“You’ve licked the temperature problem?” asked Leclerc eagerly.
Jules was cautious. “Maybe. The team has narrowed down the possibilities and I feel certain the solution lay in the nickel titanium mix. As you know if you’ve been reading our summaries, nitinol is composed of almost equal parts nickel and titanium. If the solution lies there, the difference will be one of mili-fractions of a difference between the two.”
“So, you’re ready for actual experimentation; trying different amounts of the mix?”
Jules nodded. “If we’re on the right track, it’ll only be a matter of running checks on different mixes until we hit the right one.”
“That’s encouraging, and will be good news to our engineers,” enthused Leclerc. “Even now, the Navy is gearing up for a new generation of warships that will withstand any of those potentially hostile first contacts I mentioned.”
“I make no promises, you understand,” cautioned Jules. “Just good chances.”
“Understood.”
There was a pause in the conversation then as Leclerc finished his drink. To fill the empty space while waiting for the MI director to get around to his reasons for dropping by, Jules asked about another touchy subject.
“Um, director, I was wondering about the other Jules.”
He sensed Mooney stiffen on the settee beside him. She knew the subject of his other self was one that plagued his conscience for a long time and was always fearful of a relapse.
“How is he doing? He and Joan?”
“He’s not with MI, I can assure you,” replied Leclerc carefully.
“Back in the field?”
“That’s right. I hear that he and Joan are on assignment. A new dig somewhere on the frontier. I don’t know any more than that. Want me to find out?”
Jules shook his head. “No need. Just curious is all. Really, I’m over that now.”
“Good to hear.” Now Leclerc cleared his throat, coming at last to the reason for his visit. “Because I have an assignment for you. Something that’s very, very sensitive and must stay within the tightest need to know circle that MI can arrange.”
“The tightest I know, is between you and the agents involved,” said Jules grimly.
Leclerc nodded. “Anyone else who needs to be brought into this will only be told what they need to know and not the big picture nor the overall context.”
“And here we were talking about MI winding down,” said Mooney. “I guess you’re not here to give me my final exam in person then?”
Leclerc allowed himself a tired smile before going on.
“Have the two of you ever heard of secular humanism?”
Jules and Mooney looked at each other before Mooney replied.
“Ancient history, isn’t it? It ended up causing the last great war on Earth before the movement’s followers were defeated and their ideology suppressed.”
“That was all back in the twenty-first century, early twenty-second,” added Jules. “The Constitutionalists finally won the war then helped to defeat the movement in Europe. Ended up breaking the European Union and eventually most nations agreed to adopt the 1789 Constitution and forming the Consortium of Nations.”
“Every school child knows about the secular humanists,” continued Mooney with vague alarm. “How monstrous they were. Godless maniacs who claimed to worship science and ignoring it completely when it contradicted their nonsensical beliefs. Didn’t they outlaw meat and were eating insects near the end?”
“And when they couldn’t break those who refused to accept such propositions as the supremacy of the state, a genderless society, the inferiority and basic racism of people of European descent, same sex marriage, polygamy, legalized pedophilia, euthanasia, infanticide, socialism, radicalized feminism...the sordid list goes on...they placed them into re-education camps.”
With a growing sense of uneasiness, Mooney scooted closer to Jules who placed a comforting arm around her shoulders.
“Of course, no society could function under such beliefs,” concluded Leclerc. “Denial of logic and God could only lead to breakdown, chaos, and repression. It was an evil that preyed on man’s greed and self-interest until setting one person against another. Balkanization, they used to call it. They used their belief in manmade climate change and the rise of strange, new diseases to demand that the state take more and more control over citizens’ daily lives until people became virtual prisoners in their own homes. But the most seductive aspect of secular humanism was it made life so easy. It’s surface concern for human welfare was Christianity without the need for God. Instead, the state took the place of God, granting and withdrawing rights as it saw fit. Mostly, it took them away. The right to self-defense, the right of free speech, the right of conscience, freedom of movement, freedom of religion, even the right to life itself.
“Eventually, set asides, preferred treatment, reverse racism all set one group against another and the law of the jungle took over. Law and order broke down. It was every man for himself.”
“It was a horrible world,” said Mooney. “I don’t think I like this subject.”
“No one does,” agreed Leclerc. "Luckily for us, there were portions of the old United States that had not succumbed to the secular humanist argument. They resisted and eventually overthrew the old Humanists and condemned their pernicious philosophy for good, wiping every trace of it from human history.”
“Thank God for that,” exclaimed Mooney. “The real God, that is.”
“It was a horrible time, one that humanity has not had any desire to revisit in the centuries since. The Consortium has done a thorough job of suppressing any serious reconsideration of the Humanists’ deranged values.”
“So, what has all of that to do with this new assignment you have for us?” asked Jules.
Leclerc heaved a heavy sigh.
“Well, what it comes down to, is a book.”
“A book?” asked Mooney. “Do they even still exist?”
It was a rhetorical question. Certainly, many millions of physical books still existed but mostly in the world’s libraries or in private collections. Most print was available in digital formats accessible to anyone with a telcomm...which was virtually everyone in the Consortium.
“They do,” said Leclerc, playing along. “Perhaps the rarest of all is a book called Elements of Humanism. There’s only a single copy in existence and until two days ago, it resided under lock and key and much more at the National Archives in New Washington.”
“’Until recently?’”
Leclerc nodded. “Despite the greatest security precautions the Archives could devise, as great as that used to protect the original copy of the Constitution of 1789, the book was stolen.”
The others remained silent, the enormity of what the director was telling them, growing slowly in their minds.
“As you know, all literature dealing with the secular humanist philosophy was destroyed over one hundred years ago except a single copy of the book Elements of Humanism written by one of the heavy theorists of the movement, name of Samuel Pimdale. This one source, though every word in it is poisonous and can lead the weak minded down darker paths of social error, was the only one to be preserved solely for reasons of historical research and understanding. Over the years, only scholars with special permission from the leadership of the Consortium could consult it. Its contents continue to be regarded as so dangerous that it needs to be kept out of the public eye. When their research is finished, those who are given permission to consult the volume, must undergo stringent psychological examination in order to verify that their minds weren’t contaminated by its twisted values. It’s that dangerous.”
“And you say someone stole it?” asked Mooney.
Leclerc nodded. “I can’t emphasize strongly enough how dangerous the book is. When its theft was discovered, the entire resources of the Consortium were mobilized to find it, but because the whole investigation had to be kept top secret, it necessarily hampered the ability of investigators from doing as thorough a job as they could.”
“So, the book is still missing,” summed up Jules.
Leclerc nodded again. “When the government failed to get anywhere quickly, I was able to convince the authorities to let Military Intelligence handle the case on its own. I told them it was my belief that MI would be able to conduct a more focused investigation. And, of course, I had you people in mind from the start.”
“How long has it been since the book was stolen?” asked Jules, anticipating what Leclerc was leading up to.
“Almost a week ago now,” said a gloomy Leclerc.
“A week.” Unable to sit still, Jules stood and began to pace the room. “If its contents were an actual disease, that would be long enough for it to start spreading into the general population.”
“That analogy has already occurred to us,” admitted Leclerc. “Whoever stole this book is playing with fire. Which makes it imperative that we find the thieves as quickly as possible. When I think of how ruthless the Humanists were, how nothing and no one was allowed to contradict their beliefs, how they spent untold wealth, sacrificed millions of lives, perverted science, ended individual freedoms all in order to achieve their impossible, unnatural goals...well, it sends a shiver down my spine.”
“So, is that why you’re here?” asked Jules. “To give me and Mooney the assignment in person?”
“Again, this case is highly sensitive,” said Leclerc. “I wanted to brief you in person rather than trusting even to MI's dedicated hyper-bandwidth. The government gave the job to MI because it agreed with me that we could offer a more focused effort, one that would yield results. To do that, the conduct of our investigation will be as tight as I can make it: I’m giving the assignment to the two of you whom I believe can be trusted with absolute confidentiality. Under no circumstances can word of this be made public. Although the general public can be trusted to reject Humanist positions, there are far too many weaker minds, with little or no critical faculties, that might be influenced to accept them. This mission will be conducted under extreme compartmentalization. Which means for the most part, you’ll be on your own.
“Finally, a second reason I’ve decided to give you the assignment, besides your obvious abilities as demonstrated in past cases, is that you’re conveniently located on Earth where the theft took place. Being members of the science division, I know this assignment isn’t exactly in your line. It’s more of a political situation than a scientific one, but I feel I can trust you with this very sensitive matter.
“Oh, and one other thing,” concluded Leclerc. “Try to avoid any contact with the regular police and security units that had a role in investigating the case. Their knowledge of the wider ramifications of the case is limited anyway, and we prefer that they remain out of the loop if at all possible, for security reasons.”
“Nothing like making a difficult situation even harder,” grumped Mooney.
She and Jules exchanged looks.
“We’ll start right away,” said Jules.
Chapter Three
New Washington
Jules looked down through thinning clouds at the exurbs surrounding the city of New Washington, capitol of the reconstituted United States of America. Whole sections had been rescued after the war by historical preservationists so that, on the ground, visitors could walk for many blocks at a time and never see a dome or a modern style smart home. He read that when the Constitutional armies entered the city after defeating the Humanist forces, they’d found everything run down, buildings in disrepair, the old subway long closed with its old fashioned rail cars rusting on underground sidings, even slums. The Humanists’ socialistic policies that emphasized something called equity over ability, discouraged innovation, and suppressed competition. Anyone whose ideas threatened to give them an advantage over others in any way was quickly discouraged. As a result, nothing much was ever accomplished. Improvements in technology lagged, repair and upkeep of existing infrastructure fell behind, entrepreneurship became impossible. People quickly discovered that under such a system, it was just pointless to exert themselves beyond what was necessary. It was a wonder that the Humanist nation lasted as long as it did...and not surprising that it collapsed so easily once the war began.
As bad off as the Humanists were, conditions had been even worse in Old Europe, Canada, and Australia. Luckily, by the time those countries had been subsumed by the Humanist disease, there had been a revolution in China and Russia suffered an economic implosion. Of all the countries in the Western world, only Israel was able to maintain its societal integrity, keeping the Middle East from exploding until the West could get back on its collective feet again. That process began with the civil war between the Constitutionalists and the Humanists, a war that spread to neighboring Canada which was even worse off than the United States. Eventually though, the illiberal forces there were defeated with the result that the former provinces of Canada allied with the states of America in defining a new political entity to be known as the Consortium.
“What are you thinking about?” asked Mooney from the adjoining seat on the supersonic stratoliner they caught back at the rocket field outside Joshua Tree.
“You know very well what I’m thinking about,” grinned Jules, turning away from the window.
Mooney leaned forward to look herself. “About the war and the Humanists.”
“Yeah,” said Jules but with no humor in his voice.
By then, the plane was in the last stages of its descent to the renamed Ronald Reagan Aerodrome and Rocket Field. They had been warned to reattach their harness straps in preparation for the landing.
The plane was close to the ground now and off in the distance, Jules identified the White House, Capitol Building, and other familiar monuments...those that survived the Humanist regime. It was a miracle, now that he thought about it, that the Jefferson Memorial hadn’t been torn down. The Humanists, he understood, had chosen to use it as a learning tool for the masses, draping it with signage and slogans denouncing Jefferson as a racist and the Constitution for which he had an unofficial advisory role, as an outdated instrument of white male suppression. With that rationale, the Bill of Rights was canceled and the last remaining copy of the original Constitution scheduled for ritual immolation. Luckily, an underground cadre of Constitutionalists managed to rescue the document and kept it safe until the Humanist regime was finally overthrown.
Jules shuddered.
The slogans that defaced the Jefferson Memorial had long since been cleaned up and the memorial restored to its former pride of place.
Others had not been so lucky.
As the stratoliner banked for its final approach to the Aerodrome, it came within sight of the Washington Monument Memorial. Located at the east end of the long reflecting pool, it was all there was to mark the spot where the once famous obelisk had stood before it was demolished by the Humanist regime. Even now, it was hard to believe it was torn down simply because some believed it had been built with slave labor or that Washington himself owned slaves. Instead, Humanists promoted their own brand of heroes: perverts, fornicators, abortionists, and atheists.
When the Humanists were overthrown, the Consortium decided to mark both the former Washington Monument and the madness that destroyed it with the placement of a simple pylon engraved with the reminder of what had once stood on the site.
“What a nightmare world it must have been,” mused Jules aloud.
“Must have felt like a mass lunatic asylum,” agreed Mooney, sensing her husband’s thoughts.
Having been reminded of the lethal derangements of the Humanist regime, Jules became more than ever determined to find whoever stole the Elements of Humanism and to prevent the horrors it gave rise to from ever again reestablishing themselves.
Suddenly, the whine of the ‘liner’s engines shifted in tone, signaling reverse thrust just before the landing gear touched the ground. There was a brief screech and then they were taxiing along the runway, headed for the terminal.
“I’ll never get over how smooth these ‘liners come down,” Mooney was saying. “I hardly felt it when the wheels hit the runway.”
“I didn’t feel it at all,” replied Jules. “If I hadn’t been looking out the window, I never would’ve guessed we landed.”
In minutes, the forward half of the ‘liner inserted itself into a bay at the terminal and passengers all around them rose to gather their things. They exited from the forward hatch directly into the waiting area where travelers were already waiting to board after them.
