Free Death Wave by Ben Bova

Jordan looked through the bedroom window and suggested, “Let’s take a walk. It seems to be a pleasant afternoon outside.”
    The same soldier was sitting on the steps of the barracks’ front door when they got downstairs. He said nothing to them, but Jordan saw that he got to his feet and followed them at a distance of a few meters.
    They strolled down a paved sidewalk, then hesitated at the corner of an intersecting street. Jordan turned to the young soldier. In Spanish he asked if he could show them around the base. The youngster smilingly agreed and led them up and down the well-ordered gridwork of streets, and out to the edge of the airfield.
    Pointing, he showed Jordan and Aditi where the mess hall was, then said in English, “Since you are guests here, it has been decided that you may take your meals in the Officers’ Club.”
    â€œThat’s very gracious,” said Jordan.
    â€œSeñor Castiglione insisted on it,” the soldier replied. “I am told that he wants you to be completely comfortable here.”
    â€œHow very thoughtful of him,” Jordan said, with a cold smile.

 
    MOUNTAIN VIEW
    â€œThis is where your wise man lives?” Nick Motrenko asked, puffing with exertion.
    He and Rachel Amber were struggling up a steep embankment along the side of Highway 101. Traffic was buzzing in orderly fashion along the old road, every car, truck, and bus moving at precisely the speed limit, neatly spaced by their automatic guidance systems.
    Rachel had borrowed a coupé from the library where she worked and parked it on the shoulder of the highway. Nick hoped the police drones patrolling the road wouldn’t send an impoundment team before they got back to it.
    Gulping for air, Rachel said, “This is where he told me to meet him.”
    Nick frowned unhappily. The area was hardly the kind of place he’d expected. Looking around, he could see in the distance the old space museum and amusement park down by the water’s edge and, farther off, the clustered buildings of venerable Stanford University. Rolling green hills were studded with row after row of government-built housing, identical as if they’d been stamped out of a cookie cutter.
    He’d been skeptical of Rachel’s description of this wise man, this guru whom she idolized. But she was so enthusiastic, so determined to get Nick to meet the guy, that Nick gave in and made the trip down to Mountain View with her. “The things a guy will do to get laid,” he muttered to himself.
    They reached the top of the embankment and there was nothing to see. No buildings within a kilometer or so, not even a tent.
    â€œThere he is!” Rachel said, pointing excitedly.
    A dozen or so people were squatting on the grass a few dozen meters away, in a sort of glade that was shaded by stately old trees. She started running toward the group, her face alight with anticipation. Nick hurried after her.
    A tall, gangling black man was standing before the little group, pacing up and down as he talked and gestured with both his long arms. He was wearing what looked to Nick like a bathrobe, grayish white. As the two of them got closer, Nick saw that the robe badly needed a washing, and the man’s face was stubbled with several days’ worth of heavy dark beard.
    â€œâ€¦ I was like you,” the man was saying, in a deeply sonorous voice, “lost, adrift in a world not of my making, accepting the pittance that the government doled out in exchange for remaining idle, useless, impotent.”
    Despite himself, Nick felt the words hit home. That’s what I am, he told himself: idle, useless, impotent.
    The man nodded once at Nick and Rachel as they sat down at the rear of the little group. He was really tall, like a basketball pro, but gaunt, just skin and bones. Rachel was staring at him in wide-eyed awe; Nick felt jealous.
    Raising his voice slightly, the man continued, “But then I had