“Come conference with me when we get to Derfhome and I can call Sally and Gordon, would you please?” Lee requested of Jeff and April.
“What is the agenda?” April demanded. “I like meetings to stay on point.”
“To see how Sally is doing mustering a crew and letting Gordon know you will move the Sharp Claws and Retribution for us,” Lee said. “What else do we need to discuss?”
“What is your strategy?” Jeff demanded. “I know it may not last five minutes, but it is nice to have a plan even if it doesn’t survive contact with the enemy.”
“I’m interested in beyond that,” April said. “Once you kick the Commission-cum-North American administrator out of office, how are you going to run the place?”
“I asked Gordon to be the fleet commander. He’s the strategist. We can ask him how he intends to take control of the planet. I’m not sure I want to RUN the place. I was hoping to suggest the population there decide how they want to be governed in civil matters by referendum. Like the Mothers allow the trade towns autonomy. As long as they meet their new contracts, I wouldn’t interfere in local affairs.”
April and Jeff just exchanged a lingering glance at each other silently.
“Does that look mean I’m an idiot and you don’t want to say it out loud?” Lee asked.
“It’s so complicated I don’t know where to start,” April admitted. “Will you make overriding law on demand like the Mothers or Heather? Or will you issue a basic form of law to start and demand it be expanded case by case? How often would you hold court to do that? If you allow them to keep North American law, you get all the mess of corporations and the juvenile laws that saw you locked up. European or Asian legal systems all have similar horrid tenets you will find repugnant. I can’t see how you can embrace any of those legal systems and not have people assume they will serve the cultural assumptions that created them.”
“I’m surprised the Mothers didn’t have any suggestions when we discussed it,” Lee said.
“You can go simple. Are you familiar with the Ten Commandments?” Jeff asked.
“It sounds like something I’ve heard of before but I can’t remember,” Lee admitted.
“Look it up. It will be in the web fraction. I’m not suggesting it word for word but you could make a secular version. Call it Lee’s Twenty Principles or something like that.”
“People are too evil to follow broad direction and not push back,” Lee said after she examined it on her pad and thought about it briefly.
“Yes, that’s always been the problem,” Jeff agreed. “People demand all kinds of exemptions and want infinitely detailed rules. If you say, don’t murder, they want thousands of pages detailing what is criminal and what is justified homicide. They want it pinned down - what is a reasonable fear for life and limb to warrant a lethal response. Is a person vowing they are going to kill you out loud sufficient or must you wait until they draw a weapon? Maybe they are an idiot with a training gun or a marker and so you should wait and let them take the first shot! Common sense is not at all common, and you can find lots of ridiculous demands embedded in all the legal systems.”
“So, you would banish all legacy legal systems?” Lee asked.
“I think you have to,” Jeff agreed. “If you give them any recognition at all they will use them against you. You may be sure there is nowhere on Earth, not just North America, that will grant you standing or equal treatment.”
“That’s what Gordon was trying to say,” Lee realized.
“Tell her what you went through with Camelot,” April demanded.
“I’ll try to condense it,” Jeff said and was silent a moment composing.
“I got stuck with the Chinese lunar colony after we banned armed ships past L1. It seemed an obligation by all international standards to administer it as conquered territory. The problem was that it was a show colony, created for propaganda. It wasn’t self-sustaining and it was full of party functionaries. These political hacks felt just about any honest work was for peasants and beneath them. Worse, they falsely swore to Heather and then resisted and disrespected my administrator.”
“You didn’t just evict all of them?” Lee asked.
“I should have. It seemed like that would be abusive at the time. I unloaded it later as a package deal, and the new owners did fire everyone and trapped them into selling the properties I’d granted them cheap. So, all my efforts to be decent about it came to naught. A few of them didn’t deserve that. The ones who did real work like maintain the buildings and rovers. The party officials and show workers not so much.”
Lee looked grim. “I’m sincerely trying to learn from your mistakes. I’m not going to allow any pure administrators to stay on the planet. Maybe somebody who works in support services like IT or satellite communications but not just a straw boss for North America via the Claims Commission. If they try to declare a sudden desire to go native and become a colonist, I’m not buying it. Having my onsite administrator sounds good too.”
“No security people either. They may have cute euphemisms for them,” April warned.
“OK, their muscle. That makes sense. They could be trouble later,” Lee agreed.
“How are you going to return them to Earth?” Jeff asked.
“I’ll need you to drag the Retribution to Earth for me. Is that a problem?” Lee asked
“No, not at all,” Jeff assured her. “Taking a bunch of North American bureaucrats and thugs inside the Hringhorni would have been the problem. Even opening the hold to vacuum might never get the smell out.”
“I’ll drop you at the hotel,” Lee promised after parking the Kurofune in orbit nearby, not docked to Derfhome station. “Meet me in my suite later?”
“It’s past supper down there. How about the morning?”
“That works too,” Lee agreed.
“Walter?” Lee asked. He’d been quiet since boarding except for a few quiet exclamations when they lifted silently.
“Yes?”
“I’m going to take you to meet your fellow researchers. When you are done talking shop with them, have them show you how to call a car to bring you back to my hotel. I’m usually able to get people a room but if I can’t, I’ll put you up in my own suite. Check with the desk when you come in. We’ll have you set up with a place within a couple of days. Are you OK with being pretty much on your own right away? I have lots of other things to do. If you need to eat and don’t want to venture out there’s a restaurant in the hotel.”
“I’ll be just fine. It’ll be an adventure,” Walter assured her.
Walter got on so well with her people she wondered if he’d even be back today. They were hunched together over a disassembled thruster and so intent on it they barely acknowledged her leaving. She hoped they’d remember to eat.
* * *
“You’re not the boss of me anymore,” Sam called out to Bill.
“Like you hadn’t made an art form of insubordination even before we decided to conspire not to go back home,” Bill King scoffed.
“Yeah, thanks, but it is official now,” Sam said. “We are directed to shut down all operations, destroy all codes and records, and exit as we are able via a commercial carrier with whatever liquid assets may be recovered. The agency informs us they can no longer maintain contact in the area of assignment to resupply or direct us.”
“Like the occasional USNA dollars were worth more than walking around money to buy a coffee when we are in town,” Bill said. “Truth is, they probably have little use for what we were sending them. So, why should they pay to keep collecting it?”
“Should I tell them to go pound sand, that we quit?” Sam asked.
“No, no, no, no… You have this intemperate streak in you,” Bill said. “We’re already subsidizing our assignment from our own funds given the cost of drone relay messages. If you want to waste a little money for one last good-bye, you want to give the desk jockey who is handling our assignment reason to pigeon-hole our file so it disappears into oblivion as it gets more and more dated. Ideally, it will scroll off the active files and become an obscure item on some inactive backup that will never be called up and examined. If you are rude and insubordinate with him, you might provoke them into classifying us as rogues, or worst of all, initiating some plan to extract us, if he sees we don’t want to follow the directive.”
“OK, you are better than me at layering it on thick and deep. Tell me what to say.”
“Confirm their bias that we are serving in a Spacer hell hole at personal risk and sacrifice. Say the arrival of Home here has precipitated an episode of historic hyper-
inflation and political instability. Humans and foreigners are viewed with distrust and we will hunker down and keep a low profile. We will shut down operations as instructed but that leaving our secure location is both impractical and hazardous now. We’ll quietly continue our cover business for our personal survival until such a time as local conditions allow a safe exit by whatever indirect routing becomes available within our means.”
“Wow, I’m getting all choked up,” Sam said, “thinking about those brave agents caught up in distant chaos but valianly hanging on underground, to keep their secret safe.”
* * *
“Do you think she is lying?” the head of Indian Intelligence asked his second.
“You know better,” he said bluntly. “You just don’t want to believe.”
“Tell me why.”
“It’s too detailed. You couldn’t break her and install such a complex set of false memories given a year to work on her. She remembers some statements verbatim and doesn’t change the wording at all when she repeats them. If it was a lie, it would be a believable lie. You don’t impart an unbelievable fantasy. It’s not even useful as misdirection. She has no sort of resistance to veracity testing and scores solidly that she believes her story. Instead, we have all sorts of things we don’t want to believe and find insulting and improbable, if not impossible. The worst of which is their statement to her they just don’t care about the things she’d tell us.”
“And the French fellow was a substitute. He was a good match but not their man,”
“Are you going to tell them?”
The head of the agency sighed.
“Yes, if only to deflect any suspicion that we had anything to do with it. I suspect the Moon queen will inform them too. One hopes the stories match sufficiently to satisfy them. They had close contacts with previous French administrations and I’m not sure how much they have maintained them.”
“Look at it this way,” the number two fellow said. “Her mission for her ministry was a success. We did establish we can make claims in this new system to expand and protect our interstellar commerce. At least off in that half of the heavens.”
His boss nodded. “I expect that will move most Earth-based ships to explore in that direction as safer than the other, which has no organized protection. But everything else she revealed makes me unhappy.”
* * *
“Want to come over and have some breakfast early?” Lee invited Jeff and April.
“It’s barely sunrise,” Jeff said. “Did you rouse the others out this early?”
“No, but I know you two get up way early. Our talk yesterday made me realize I’m not prepared to deal with Providence, and I want to talk about it more. We can include Sally and Gordon later or even another day if I don’t have a plan to share with them,” Lee said.
“Give us ten minutes,” Jeff said. “I like that we have our elevators but sometimes I wish we didn’t have to ride down and back up.”
“You’d fret over the security if we had any common connection on this floor,” April said loud enough Lee could hear.
“You’re probably right,” Jeff admitted.
“See you in ten,” he told Lee.
Lee considered joking that they could remove the privacy panel and gap between their balconies. The trouble with Jeff was you never knew if he’d take you seriously. The thought did make her decide to serve them on the balcony and she ordered a breakfast buffet.
April and Jeff were dressed casually and without the lunar armor. Jeff’s shadow, Strangelove, was in spex and fur without weapons beyond his axe, was persuaded that he could sit with them since there were no others that had to be watched from behind Jeff. It was early enough in the morning that Jeff was soon reaching in his collar to dial up a little more heat. Lee had a pot of coffee she made before the hotel brought breakfast. She warmed her hands around the mug, preferring the old-fashioned kind instead of insulated. Strangelove got the rest of the pot after a cup for each Human.
“Did you get Walter set up?” Jeff asked.
“Not fully set up, but I introduced him to Born and Musical. I left them in full geek mode and have no idea if he even came back to the hotel. He had a room waiting for him if he didn’t pull an all-nighter with them.”
“He’s here but returned late,” Strangelove said. “I keep track of who is in the building.”
Jeff and April nodded and didn’t have other questions. They seemed to be waiting on her to direct the conversation this morning. That was typical of the Centralists, to speak little and somehow manage to make you reveal everything, but only fair today, since it was her problem and her party in several ways.
“I thought about it a great deal last night and decided I’m not old enough or wise enough to formulate a legal code. I sincerely doubt I’d create better than a couple of thousand years of human thought and history has. I briefly considered offering Heather sovereignty over Providence and decided she was too smart to borrow trouble.”
They both nodded their agreement to that.
“The idea of having an administrator like Jeff did with Camelot has a lot of appeal. The trouble as I see it is that they still need some sort of direction. My personal sense of what is right and wrong is a hodge-podge of Human and Derf, with a little Badger thrown in. I’m sure most of the people already living on Providence are North American. They’re going to think the cultural norms of North America as they learned them at their mother’s knee by observation are laws of nature and truth. That’s just Human nature.”
“No argument so far,” Jeff allowed. “Nobody ever tells little Johnny that you don’t eat your siblings. Yet by the time they are five or six they all know cannibalism is forbidden.”
“Normal children,” Lee said. “I’m just now seeing the comics and videos that teach all that undercurrent of cultural rules. Growing up in a mixed-species family with no external community, I missed a lot. I can figure out pretty easily that cannibalism is a bad idea as an adult. But it’s not the same instant revulsion that is taught by jokes and depictions of missionaries in big cooking kettles. I can’t tell you how weird I thought that was the first time I saw a cartoon showing white people in pith helmets in a pot surrounded by black folks with spears and bones in their noses intent on cooking them.
“I can’t even remember the written joke in the speech balloons. It gave me a glimpse of how deeply cultural prejudices are embedded in some things. Nobody would ever draw the black people in the pot and the missionaries outside putting wood on the fire. The North American web fraction my parents could buy had most of that sort of thing sanitized. But when I saw a wider web fraction later it was shocking. There were things my parents were uncomfortable explaining that I learned to ask Uncle Gordon. Some of them were so far outside Derf understanding he could only shrug and say he didn’t understand it any better than me.”
“It’s easy for us to forget you had an odd upbringing,” April admitted. “Don’t forget, we were both raised in a hab under North American law and most of the population was North American, even if there was some Japanese influence. I’m sure that, if we have to be totally honest, we both have lingering elements of Earth Think in our preferences. We can already see some divergence in the cultural norms at Central. Some things the younger generation find normal makes us uncomfortable.”
“That’s why I decided I can’t impose arbitrary standards on Providence,” Lee said. “If I tried, I think it would just lead to lots of conflict. I considered doing what Jeff regretted not doing and just forcing everyone to leave. It would be unjust. If it were just a couple of hundred people that might work. You could make some compensation. Then you could start over granting licenses and land.
“There are somewhere around three thousand people on Providence now. The Commission didn’t make a detailed census available. I don’t think I can remove that many people without being condemned by others who don’t even have a direct interest. History would condemn me. It doesn’t even feel right to me.”
“Since you are going to give us land, I’ll have an interest,” April said. “I’d rather the planet wasn’t in a constant low-level state of rebellion that must be suppressed.”
“Exactly,” Lee agreed. “You did help me formulate a solution by explaining why I can’t reject sovereignty. As sovereign, I can explain what basic principles I want advanced by my Voices. I can still invite the locals to form local regulations that feel right to them, but subject to approval and gaining the force of law from my Voices. I just have to pick Voices whose personality I trust to be reasonable even if they don’t make the exact choices I would.”
“I hope this isn’t a job interview,” April said. “I have no desire at all to ride herd on a bunch of North Americans, not even a full generation removed from the fatherland. I can assure you my choices for them would probably enrage them. Besides, I have a life.”
“No, and I’m not stupid,” Lee insisted. “I’m aware you have businesses and assets to oversee. You could throw mine away without bothering to count them.”
“Maybe not that vast a difference. But I shouldn’t try to correct you,” April said.
“If I appoint someone like you there is still the problem that all the Providians will look at you and expect you to follow all the norms they know are ‘right and true’,” Lee said.
“Did you just coin that name for your residents?” Jeff asked.
“Yeah, I opened my mouth, and it just kind of jumped out,” Lee admitted.
“So, how do you get around their expectations?” April demanded, dragging the conversation back on course.
“By always having at least one of the Voices a non-Human,” Lee said. “A Derf or maybe down the road eventually a Badger or Bill. Who knows? Maybe even a Hin if a crazy singleton could be recruited. They won’t have any expectation an alien shares the same values they do. It might even jar some of them into thinking.”
Strangelove mostly stayed out of their conversations while guarding Jeff, but this struck him so funny he couldn’t help but have a giggle fit.
Lee blinked at him, uncertain.
“I know you are amused, but still uncertain if it struck you as a good idea or terrible.”
“Oh, good. Definitely good, Missy. How to say this? Maybe you can hear it without taking too much offense. Humans tend to be smug. You have the sweetest toys and the newest tech. There are so damn many of you that you have more geniuses busy inventing new toys and tech than there are Derf alive. Knowing that, we don’t expect to catch up. But it does amuse me to think of Humans coming before a Derf to get approval for their own community rules. I’ve learned to read Human faces very well. I’ll tell you plainly that I can read them nearly as well as your veracity software. So, I can picture the repressed look of consternation some Humans would wear being judged by a Derf. It will be hilarious if you ever do implement it.”
“Maybe I should offer you the job so you can have the joy of it daily,” Lee suggested.
“Not-a-chance,” Strangelove declared absolutely. He showed all four palms to Lee in a gesture of rejection. “Like your friends. I have a life. I’m happy at what I do, and I do it well.”
He stopped and his countenance changed abruptly to serious with another thought.
“I will suggest, if you haven’t noticed, we Derf rely on the Mothers to govern and regulate our affairs. Not our Fathers. If you appoint a Derf as such a Voice choose a female. They are much more suited to the job by their way of thinking and temperament. You don’t want to pick a male unless you wish him to quietly put up with all sorts of nonsense until he’s thoroughly exasperated and ready to use the axe.”
“I’ll take that advice to heart,” Lee promised him.
“Assuming you use Strangelove’s suggestion, it sounds good to me too. That was another mistake I made with my Chinese,” Jeff admitted. “Their avowed philosophy was supposed to be Socialist and deeply committed to equality. The truth I found out after the whole affair wrapped up was that they disrespected my administrator because she was too young and female. It seems a few thousand years of Chinese history were imbedded in their attitudes deeper than a couple of hundred years of political indoctrination.”
Lee’s pad pinged her and Jeff’s and April’s phone pinged them before she could read the message. Strangelove’s spex alerted him last of all judging by the tilt of his head.
“This is strange,” Jeff said. “Jan is informing me Mel got this message and it is copied to several other people and marked as not being confidential. It lists your mechanic and aircar designer, that other Earthie, Pam Harvac, and several people I don’t know, andinforms them that the lawyers Sam and Bill are no longer working for any off-planet entities.”
“That’s polite talk for North America,” Lee said.
“Heather made supporting anything off-planet very difficult for them,” April said.
“They cut them loose?” Jeff asked.
“I can’t think of any reason they’d lie about it,” Lee said. “On the other hand, having a misunderstanding that they were still affiliated could be embarrassing or even lethal. Say if somebody comes looking for them and we thought we were being helpful to ID them.”
“Is that what you were just pinged about?” Jeff asked Strangelove.
“I don’t see how you knowing that helps me guard you,” Strangelove replied.
Jeff thought about it a little. “I guess it doesn’t,” he concluded.
“They don’t want to go back,” April concluded.
“Well yeah. I never thought they were that stupid,” Jeff said.
“How many left to go back to the Solar System on the Out o’ My Way?” Lee asked.
“A hundred eighteen boarded, but we have no idea how many wanted to go to Beta at Fargone, or Gamma at Mars. Even those who returned to Central may have business to do there and then get on the next trip to go somewhere else,” Jeff speculated. “There may be people who board at Beta to come here via Central. It will be interesting to see if there is enough traffic for Heather to keep it going as a paid service.”
“Are we still going to talk to Sally and Gordon?” April asked.
“If you will, yes, but later. I asked them to come this evening to give us time to unwind from this meeting and digest it before diving into another. Does that work for you or do you have commitments?”
“I leave scheduling to my ladies,” Jeff said.
“We’re in luck,” April said. “If we cancel your polo lesson and move your net-cast, we can fit in an evening meeting with Gordon and Sally.”
“See?” Jeff said. “They always make it work.”
* * *
“That’s crazy,” Kirk told his boss, Pam Harvac. “If they got recalled why would they tell everyone? Now, they are just two mediocre business guys without any government support or resources. How does that improve their situation here? For that matter, what in the world did they tell their agency? You don’t just remotely resign from an intelligence agency, do you? I’d think they’d demand a debrief of some sort.”
“It tells everybody who already knew they were grade B spooks that they have entirely different motivations now. It may even drum up some business that people wouldn’t give them as long as they had any connection to North America. As far as what they told their bosses, I have no idea. I just sort of assumed if Bill King is involved, it didn’t involve any excessive truth. Now that North America has been cast down from the heavens they would be returning to a very uncertain future. They might be pensioned off in a newly devastated economy so it would be risky to go back voluntarily. They could end up barely above a negative tax existence. They’re not that stupid.”
“You put things so oddly sometimes. Do you think they can survive OK here without being subsidized?” Kirk asked.
“With all the Homies that just moved in and the Moon queen promising regular visits by a ship making a circuit of the habs and worlds? They should thrive.”
She cut off the last awkwardly, like she had more, and had decided not to say it.
“I’ve gotten to know you too well. What did you just decide not to tell me?” Kirk asked.
“I don’t think you can know me too well, sweetie. I didn’t want to worry you,” Pam said, taking his hands, but we didn’t get any funding last month or this month. I imagine it’s the same for the spook lawyers. The banking pipe got cut off.”
“Oh, my goodness. What are we going to do?” Kirk worried.
“See? That’s why I didn’t want to upset you. You haven’t paid any attention to the books for our cover business,” Pam said. “If you had you’d see it can cover a great deal more than our reason for being here. It’s running sufficient profit that I could be sending support home instead of the other way. We’re just fine. The bees are busy working for us. The Derf love their honey and the price is not dropping at all. Price inflation in food has been strong and I can sell all we produce. I won’t say we’re rich. My father would be amused at that idea. But we’re comfortable and improving steadily.”
“Then we’re not in any rush to go back home either?” Kirk asked.
“With things so uncertain back home?” Pam asked. “I honestly think it would be foolish. If they do recall us, the State Department is much less fussy and formal about quitting. I’d do that in a minute and not have any need to lie about it to have a friendly separation. My father’s interests are large enough it would take a very long, terrible down-turn to damage his worth. But we don’t need to ask him for a rescue when things are going so well here. I feel good about that, and he’d approve of our success. Let’s just let things slide until we see how the Moon Queen’s actions play out for everyone before making any moves. I can be content here, can’t you?”
“As long as I have you here, yes,” Kirk agreed. “But I guess my work here isn’t needed now. I’m not sure what I’ll do.”
“Oh no. All your information gathering about the Derf economy and understanding them has been invaluable to my running the honey business. You should continue and add even more detail to the studies,” Pam insisted squeezing his hands. “I may even want to diversify eventually and will need your data for that.”
“Oh, I’m glad. Maybe I’ll write a book about it,” he decided.