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.He carried the pistol in the front pocket of his jeans and itsPage 20ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.htmlweight and discomfort was a perpetual reminder of this situation that he dbeen dragged into, pursued by killers from Trashcanistan and escorting illegalbiotechnology.He kept mentally rehearsing drawing the pistol and shooting it.Over and over,remembering to thumb off the safety this time.Just in case Trashcaniancommandos stormed the train."Hurled into life," he muttered."An object lesson right out of Heidegger.""Beg pardon?"He looked at her."Heidegger said we re hurled into life.Just like I ve beenhurled into " Hefile:///G|/Program%20Files/eMule/Incoming/Wa.ams%20-%20The%20Green%20Leopard%20Plague.txt (19 of 40) [10/16/2004 5:38:27 PM]file:///G|/Program%20Files/eMule/Incoming/Walter%20Jon%20Williams%20-%20The%20Green%20Leopard%20Plague.txt flapped his hands uselessly."Into whatever thisis.The situation exists before you even got here, but here you are anyway,and the whole business is something you inherit and have to live with." Hefelt his lips draw back in a snarl."He also said that a fundamental featureof existence is anxiety in the face of death, which would also seem to applyto our situation.And his answer to all of this was to make existence, daseinif you want to get technical, an authentic project." He looked at her."Sowhat s your authentic project, then? And how authentic is it?"Her brow furrowed."What?"Terzian couldn t stop, not that he wanted to.It was just Stephanie s hardluck that he couldn t shoot anybody right now, or break something up with hisfists, and was compelled to lecture instead."Or," he went on, "to put this ina more accessible context, just pretend we re in aHitchcock film, okay? This is the scene where Grace Kelly tells Cary Grantexactly who she is and what the maguffin is."Stephanie s face was frozen into a hostile mask.Whether she understood whathe was saying or not, the hostility was clear."I don t get it," she said."What s in the fucking bag?" he demanded.She glared at him for a long moment, then spoke, her own anger plain in hervoice."It s the answer to world hunger," she said."Is that authentic enoughfor you?"Stephanie s father was from Angola and her mother from East Timor, both formerPortuguese colonies swamped in the decades since independence by war andmassacre.Both parents had, with great foresight and intelligence, retainedPortuguese passports, and had met in Rome, where they worked for UNESCO, andwhere Stephanie had grown up with a blend of their genetics and their serviceethic.Stephanie herself had received a degree in administration from the Universityof Virginia, which accounted for the American lights in her English, thenshe d gotten another degree in nursing and went to work for the Catholicrelief agency Santa Croce, which sent her to its every war-wrecked,locust-blighted, warlord-ridden, sandstorm-blasted camp in Africa.And a fewthat weren t inAfrica."Trashcanistan," Terzian said."Moldova," Stephanie said."For three months, on what was supposed to be myvacation." She shuddered."I don t mind telling you that it was a frighteningthing.I was used to that kind of thing in Africa, but to see it all happeningin the developed world.warlords, ethnic hatreds, populations being movedat the point of a gun, whole forested districts being turned to desertsbecause people suddenly need firewood." Her emerald eyes flashed."It sall politics, okay? Just like in Africa.Famine and camps are all politicsnow, and have been since before I was born.A whole population starves, andit s because someone, somewhere, sees a profit in it.It s difficult to justPage 21ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.htmlkill an ethnic group you don t like, war is expensive and there are questionsat the UN and you may end up at the Hague being tried for war crimes.But ifyou just wait for a bad harvest and then arrange for the whole population tostarve, it s different suddenly your enemies are giving you all their money inreturn for food, you get aid from the UN instead of grief, and you can awardyourself a piece of the relief action and collect bribes from all the reliefagencies, and your enemies are rounded up into camps and you can get yourarmed forces into the country without resistance, make sure your enemiesdisappear, control everything while some deliveries disappear into governmentwarehouses where the food can be sold to the starving or just sold abroad fora profit." She shrugged."That s the way of the world, okay? But nomore!" She grabbed a fistful of the Nike bag and brandished it at him [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]