2206 : Window Onto A New World
IV. Machine Messiah
know how I get during campaigns } he reflected apprehensively, { everything will be alright... there's no reason to worry } he thought, effectively calming himself down, if not totally then at least sufficiently to stay at the table and display an unfazed expression. Turning his attention to the young Emir's file that was open in front of him, the First Man of Ovel recollected events of his lifetime partnership with the Malakis, surely one of the most powerful families of the former Lands of the Sands, and indeed of the whole planet. The formidable fortune of the dynasty had been accumulated from the exploitation of the vast reserves of fossil fuel of the once almost desert and now terraformed Middle Western countries. Back at the epoch when the Global Government had not yet been established, nations still had complete control over the production of energy, and those unparalleled quantities of liquid petroleum had represented the saving grace of the otherwise impoverished region. The Conservative statesman had known four generations of Malakis. He had been personally acquainted with Omar and Abdel, the up and coming brothers and heirs, and also with Hassan, their father and current manager of the holdings. He had met the late Ahmed at a few mundane occasions, as the previous patriarch had always been close to the party, just as most males descendants of the bloodline it seemed. And he could rekindle blurry childhood memories of Sayid, the once renowned political historian, chronicling the foundation of the Federation on television. A Federation for which the balding elder did not care much anymore, or not as much as he used to at any rate. Given all that he had suffered for its sake over the course of his legendary career, the matter was certainly imaginable, if not excusable. Yet, he was bound by duty to verify that the alliances forged over the years were still secure enough to withstand the upcoming electoral stress test. And so the divided, weary chief would struggle with himself through the obligatory visits and courtesy calls to the deciders of the Conservative strongholds, including the Prime Ministers of the so-called artificial states, to the ranks of whom Omar Malaki had been the newest inductee. The septuagenarian remembered how, thanks to a loophole in the law, his first administration had found a way to facilitate the creation of the controversial lands, which typically were relatively small, low populated, very wealthy societies built around a single and generally virtual venture. As most of them were located on artificial islands, they had been so labelled in derision by numberless critics who loudly denounced their existence, claiming that they were as many insults to the spirit of the Constitution. Counting merely a few tens of thousands of citizens, and bringing comparatively very little to the union in terms of taxes or natural resources, they still had the privilege of voting, just like any other constituency. And although, officially, the legal procedure was always respected to the letter, it was only too obvious that these newly fabricated and federated man-made paradises had yielded their allegiance in exchange for an accelerated handling and a guaranteed approval of their requests, and who knew which further advantages. Ramsay recalled the opposition emphatically condemning the dubious manoeuvres during the The Threshold
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Christopher Stewart