Chapter 10

In all of human history there has, however, never been a cause behind which all could unite. Peace, love, mercy, justice, every such ideal has found its detractors at any given time; education, individuality, achievement are all opposed by a tenacious few who have determined them to be somehow evil. Human beings can't even agree on their origins, there are still those who continue to insist that the Earth is flat, and many of most inspirational leaders of the past were in fact murdered by their disaffected fellows. Anything and anyone claims its share of nay­sayers.

So, too, it was with Eden Rescue and its self-assigned mission. For all of the widespread support it had garnered there remained, in small pockets and isolated enclaves, those who dissented vehemently. Some, despite SES' well-publicized disclaimer, professed to fear that the advent of Edenite life would somehow pollute the entire Earth. For others saving the Edenites violated some obscure tenet of religious faith. A larger number grumbled at the economic outlay while even a single one of Earth's teeming billions remained enmired in poverty. And some few opposed the project for still less well-articulated reasons, or even none at all (at least that they could or would speak).

For the most part the scattered opposition contented itself with rhetoric, simply inveighing verbally or in writing against the project. But some, proudly naming themselves activists, took the view that drastic action was needed to compel the misguided majority to bend to their will.

The first sign of trouble was an abortive attempt on Meiersdottir's life just a few weeks after her triumphant initiating holocast. She'd finished a briefer follow-up holo presentation and was graciously accepting congratulations and expressions of good wishes from those present when a disheveled young man abruptly lunged forward with a knife. Igwanda, by her side as usual, deflected the weapon easily with one hand while using the other to lay her attacker out. Under interrogation afterwards the young man could only babble about her advocacy of the Edenites being "against the will of God."

It was fairly easy to trace the would-be assassin back to a small cult who deemed Chen's nova to be a heavenly annunciation of the long-awaited Second Coming of Christ. In just what way frustrating its destruction of another life-form would disturb this divine purpose was much less clear, but authorities detained and discredited the cult leaders and scattered the rest of the "flock." Meiersdottir's personal security was stepped up several notches, but a repetition never came.

More serious efforts were initiated by those who continued to fear the undertaking might threaten all Earthly life, notwithstanding universal scientific disclaimers. According to them the SES' initial view had been right; and besides, what about Edenite bacteria, viruses, micro-organisms of all sorts that might have unspecified but deadly effects on all who came in even remote contact with them?

There were even those who claimed that Meiersdottir's mind, as the minds of all who'd visited Eden, had been occluded by the Edenites at the time to the point that she now had no will left of her own. The more conspiracy-minded among them hypothesized that she'd passed the contagion on to SES executives in unspecified "private meetings," while others more prosaically argued that she'd merely blackmailed them into acquiescence by unspecified means. (There was in fact a tiny nugget of truth in the last; none of the SES brass had cared to have either their inherited complicity in the long-ago cover-up of the breach of containment in the Eden lab or their later ignorance in failing to recognize it now exposed to public view, and so had couched their recantation in terms of "after extended study.")

Fear is a mighty motivator, irrespective of its rationality; and those of this persuasion formed the nucleus of the anti-Eden activists. Their first effort was to set off an explosion at Eden Rescue's new headquarters, which failed when a routine police stop prevented an explosives-laden van from entering the underground parking garage. After that, though, the terrorists decided to focus their attention instead on the projects themselves, where security was more lax.