Elephant Song - Smith Wilbur - Страница 71
- Предыдущая
- 71/140
- Следующая
How she had smuggled the device past the hawk-eyed security guards was a mystery, but now she was wielding it with telling effect.
So often at other meetings that Daniel had attended, the questions from the floor, no matter how pertinent or penetrating, had lost all their force simply because they were not audible to the bulk of the audience.
What did he say? and Speak up!
were the cries that greeted them, and the game was lost with the first delivery.
This was not happening to Kelly Kinnear. Perched high on her chair, in full view of the entire audience, she was lashing Sir Peter Harrison at a range of thirty paces in a ringing young voice.
She was smaller than Daniel had expected, but her neat little body was poised and graceful, almost birdlike, and there was a force and presence about her that transcended her physical size. Mr. Chairman, BOSS has very recently included the image of a green tree in the company emblem.
What I want to know is whether this is to enable you to cut it down?
There was a stunned silence. Her sudden appearance had been greeted with amused and admiring smiles from most of the audience, the natural masculine reaction to a pretty girl, but now the smiles were replaced by puzzled expressions. For thirty years, Sir Peter, Kelly Kinnear went on, ever since you have been chairman of BOSS, the slogan of the company has been "Dig it up! " "Chop it down! " or "Shoot it! " The puzzled expressions turned to frowns, shareholders exchanged worried glances. For many years BOSS employed professional hunters to massacre wild animals. The meat was used to feed the company's thousands of employees. The policy of cheap food was only discontinued relatively recently. That was the "shoot it" philosophy. The back of Kelly Kinnear's slim sun-tanned neck was flushing with her mounting anger.
The thick dark braid of hair hanging down between her shoulder-blades twitched like the tail of a lioness. For thirty years, BOSS has been ripping the mineral riches from Africa's soil and leaving gaping craters and devastation in its wake. That's the "dig it up" mentality.
For thirty years, BOSS has been slashing down the natural forests and putting the land to cotton and ground-nuts and other cash crops that drain the soil, that poison it with nitrate fertilisers, that contaminate the streams and rivers. That's the "chop it down" philosophy. Her whole body quivered with indignation, a phenomenon that intrigued Daniel. Those cash crops produce no food for the people who once lived upon the land. They are forced to trek away from the devastation that BOSS has created to live in the odious slums of Africa's sprawling new towns. These people are turned into outcasts by BOSS's greed. Sir Peter turned his head and raised an eyebrow at the company secretary. Obediently the secretary leapt to his feet. Will you please state your name, and put your question briefly and clearly?
My name is Doctor Kelly Kinnear, and I am putting my question. Will you just give me a chance? That is not a question.
You are haranguing. . Listen to me, she ordered, and hopped around on the chair to face the ballroom filled with shareholders. For most of us, our personal welfare ranks far ahead of tropical forests and lakes in a faraway land. The princely dividends paid by BOSS are more important to us than exotic birds and unfamiliar animals and tribes of indigenous people. It's so easy to pay lip service to the environment as long as it doesn't affect our own pockets-'Order! Order, please!
bawled the company secretary. You are out of order, Doctor Kinnear.
You are not asking a question. All right, Kelly rounded on him. I'll ask a question. Is the chairman of BOSS aware that while we sit here, the tropical rain forests of Ubomo are being destroyed? She glared at him.
Does the chairman realize that over fifty species of wildlife have become extinct in Ubomo as a direct result of the activities of BossFShame! Sit down! The death of a species affects us directly.
It will lead in the end to our own extinction, the death of man on earth.
There was a hum of indignation and outrage from the shareholders.
Sir Peter Harrison smiled and shook his head pityingly, making no attempt to respond to her attack. He knew where the loyalty of his shareholders lay. Sit down! somebody shouted again. You silly bitch!
Doctor Kinnear, the company secretary called, I must ask you to resume your seat at once. This is a deliberate attempt to disrupt our proceedings. I accuse you, Mr. Chairman, Kelly pointed a quivering finger at Sir Peter, I accuse you of rape. There were shouts of protest, some of the other shareholders were on their feet. Shame!
The woman's a lunatic One of them attempted to pull Kelly down off her chair, but it was obvious that she had surrounded herself with a small group of supporters of her own, half a dozen young men and women in casual dress, but with determined expressions. They closed up around her. One of the young men pushed her attackers away. Let her speaK!
I accuse you of the rape of Ubomo.
Already your bulldozers are ripping into the forest set her out of here!
Doctor Kinnear, if you don't heed the chair I will have no alternative but to have you forcibly removed. I'm a shareholder. I have every right-'Throw her out! There, was confusion and uproar in the front of the hall, while on the dais Sir Peter Harrison looked bored and detached.
Answer me! Kelly yelled at him, surrounded by her struggling cohorts.
Fifty species doomed to extinction so that you can drive around in your Rolls-'Ushers! Ushers! yelped the company secretary, and from every corner of the room the uniformed security men leapt, into the fray.
As one of them elbowed Daniel aside and charged forward, Daniel could not help himself. He thrust out his right foot, a cunning little ankle-tap that knocked one of the usher's large black boots across his own ankle. The man tripped himself and was hurled forward by his own momentum. He flew headlong into a row of chairs and, amidst loud cries of protest and outrage, knocked the occupants into a heap. Chairs crashed, and women screamed.
The press photographers loved it, and their flashes bloomed and lit the ball with a flickering like summer lightning. While you mouth your sanctimonious platitudes and put a little green tree on the BOSS emblem, your bulldozers are tearing the guts out of one of the most vulnerable and precious forests in the world. Kelly Kinnear's amplified voice rose above the uproar. She was still on her chair, but swaying precariously in the storm that raged around her, a small heroic figure in the confusion. Those forests do not belong to you. They do not belong to the cruet military tyrant who has seized power in Ubomo and who is your accomplice in this atrocity. Those forests belong to the Barnbuti pygmies, a tribe of gentle inoffensive people who have lived there since time immemorial. We, the friends of the earth, and all decent people everywhere say "keep your greedy hands off the Three of the BOSS ushers formed a scrimmage line; in their black uniforms they resembled a New Zealand front rank.
They broke through her ring of defenders and reached up to drag Kelly Kinnear down from her perch. Leave me alone, she yelled at them, and turned her bullhorn into an offensive weapon, raining blows upon them Until the trumpet cracked and shattered and she was defenceless.
Between them they dragged her down off her perch and bore her, kicking and clawing and biting, from the hall. A kind of awed calm returned.
Like the survivors of a bomb blast, the shareholders picked up the chairs and straightened their clothing and examined themselves for injuries.
- Предыдущая
- 71/140
- Следующая
