Read Online After Earth: A Perfect Beast by Peter David Michael Jan Friedman Robert Greenberger - Free Book Online

voice laced with an unmistakable arrogance, “often without our realizing it. And when they do that, we have to change, too. We have to live in the present, my friends, not in the past.
    “We used to try to cure illnesses by bleeding people with leeches. We don’t do that anymore. We used to think it was all right to pollute Earth’s atmosphere. We learned our lesson. Now we’re spending a disproportionate amount of our colony’s resources on the Rangers.”
    His teeth grinding, Conner forced himself to continue listening.
    “Even though we haven’t had a problem with the Skrel for hundreds of years, even though we have enough early-warning satellites to build our own moon, even though crime is at an all-time low. Need I go on?”
    “Hey,” said a familiar voice behind Conner’s back, “shouldn’t you be asleep?”
    Conner turned and looked back at his pal Blodge. “And shouldn’t you be hiking in the mountains?”
    “I was. Then Julie twisted her ankle—nothing terrible but annoying enough for us to head back. What are you watching?”
    Conner scowled. “Vander Meer.”
    Blodge chuckled sympathetically. “Right. That guy.”
    “I don’t get it. How can anyone think the Rangers are obsolete?”
    Blodge dismissed the question with a wave of his hand. “Don’t listen to him, Conner. He’s out of his mind.”
    “What if someone had decided the Rangers were obsolete before the
first
Skrel attack? Where would we be then?”
    “He’s just making noise, man.”
    “But people
listen
to his noise,” said Conner. “They think he’s got a point.”
    “Who cares what people think? It’s not like there’s anything we can do about it.”
    “We can speak up. Maybe that’s not much, but it’s something. We can make it clear to people the Rangers are still needed.”
    Blodge smiled. “Sure … if anybody asks us.”
    Unfortunately, Vander Meer’s was the voice everybody wanted to listen to. Conner shook his head. Couldn’t they see how dangerous his advice was?
    He wondered what his dad thought of Vander Meer. He would make a point of asking him the next time they spoke, but he had a feeling he already knew. Frank Raige took pride in being a Ranger, in coming from a long line of Rangers.
    He wouldn’t have much use for a know-nothing loudmouth like Vander Meer.
    Prime Commander Wilkins was usually the first of the colony’s three leaders to attend their monthly tripartitemeeting. This time, an unexpected demand for her attention made her the last one.
    As she entered the conference room, she saw Primus Leonard Rostropovich and Savant Donovan Flint sit up abruptly in their chairs. People did that when they’d been caught at something, she noted.
    “Starting a conspiracy?” she asked.
    Flint, a slender man with thinning blond hair and an even blonder mustache, laughed, albeit a little nervously. “You caught us, Commander. We were going to scheme behind your back to redesign those rusty brown uniforms you Rangers insist on wearing.”
    “They’re a tradition,” Wilkins said. “The first Rangers to set foot on Nova Prime wore them, and we’ll keep on wearing them as long as there are Rangers. But that’s not what you two were whispering about.”
    The Primus, an austere individual with a sharp widow’s peak and a prominent hawklike nose, sighed. “Very well. We were trying to spare your feelings, but if you insist.” He smoothed the front of his brocaded brown robe, a fancier version of what his augurs wore. “You’ve heard Trey Vander Meer’s latest broadcast?”
    Wilkins stiffened. “I have. And I’m addressing it.”
    “In what way, if I may ask?” said the Primus.
    “I’m appearing on his program to … discuss it with him.”
    Rostropovich frowned. “Not the tack I would have taken.”
    “I meet problems head-on,” said the Prime Commander. “I am, after all, a Ranger.”
    The Savant and the Primus exchanged glances. “But you’re not just a Ranger,” Flint said.