My Commander is gone.
Nor will I have a new commander. I am stunned by the reality of it. Despite Simon's forebodings, I did not truly believe Sector Command would totally abandon me. I am not fit for self-command. I know this, even if Sector does not.
What am I to do, without Simon?
I have not even been able to prove that the crash was deliberately engineered. The official verdict of the crash-investigation team was software failure in the aircar's governing circuitry. Accidental cause is the official—and only provable—explanation. I remain suspicious, but cannot justify a further need for Battle Reflex Alert status, given the rendering of this verdict. The freighter carrying my last commander to the hospital complex on Vishnu has barely left spacedock at Ziva Two when I receive my first communique from President Zeloc.
"Bolo. Wake up."
"I have been awake for two days, nine hours, fifteen point three-seven minutes."
"Why?" The voice addressing me carries the timbre of suspicion. The president has not seen fit to activate the visual portion of his transmission, so that I am speaking to a disembodied voice. I find the impersonal greeting more irritating than I had anticipated. I am not programmed for complex protocol, but I am accustomed to civil courtesies.
"Sar Gremian's attempt to kill my Commander brought me awake from inactive standby mode. I maintained active standby mode at his orders, monitoring the unfolding situtation. When my Commander's aircar crashed, leaving him seriously injured, I could not relapse into inactive standby, given my mission parameters. Sector Command's SWIFT transmission notifying me of Simon Khrustinov's medical-retirement status, with no replacement commander pending, placed me on immediate permanent active Standby Alert. I am therefore awake."
"I see." I detect a slight abatement of hostility in these two words. "Well, here's my first order, Bolo. Shut yourself down and stay shut down until I call you again."
"I cannot comply with that directive."
"What?"
"I cannot comply with that directive."
"Why the hell not? I gave you an order! Obey me at once! This instant!"
"You are authorized to direct my actions in defense of this world. You are not authorized to interfere in my primary mission."
"How do you construe an order to go to sleep as interference with your primary mission? I'm the president of Jefferson. Your mission is whatever I say it is."
"That is incorrect."
"What?" The inflection is incredulous, full of frustrated anger.
I attempt to explain. "Your belief that you have the right to determine my mission is incorrect. My primary mission was assigned by Sector Command. It has not been rescinded. You are not authorized to interfere with the critical parameters of that mission."
The video portion of President Zeloc's transmission is abruptly activated. One look at his face confirms that Gifre Zeloc is angrier than I have ever seen him. Veins protrude at his temples and his face has flushed dangerously purple. "Do you see who I am, Bolo?"
"You are Gifre Zeloc, ninety-first president of the Concordiat Allied World of Jefferson."
"Then explain this bullshit you're feeding me. I am your commander and I am damned well ordering you to go to sleep!"
"You are not my Commander."
Eyes bulge, even more prominently than the veins in his temples. "What do you mean by that? 'I'm not your commander'? Now, see here, machine, I won't stand for any nonsense out of you, do you hear me? You'd better get that clear, right now, or you'll find spare parts exceedingly difficult to find! I'm your goddamned commander and don't ever forget it!"
"You are not my goddamned commander, either. You are the civilian authority designated to issue specific instructions that direct me in carrying out my mission."
Fleshy lips work for six point nine seconds, but the sounds emerging are unintelligble as any human language with which I am familiar. This is of considerable interest, since I am programmed to understand twenty-six major Terran languages and the lingua franca of eighty-seven worlds which use various pidgins and polyglots. I have not needed to make use of this information during my active career, but the Brigade does its best to be prepared for all contingencies.
President Zeloc eventually recovers his powers of intelligible speech. "You're as good at double-speak as Vittori Santorini. All right," his voice grates harshly, "clarify your primary mission. And then give me a straight answer on why you won't go to sleep as ordered."
I fear that it will be a long and stressful mission, without Simon to assist me in political and protocol minefields. I do my best. "My primary mission is to safeguard this planet from danger. As the highest ranking public official on Jefferson, you are authorized to direct my actions in carrying out this mission in the event of an armed threat to the stability of this world. Without a human commander to coordinate the defense of this star system, it is imperative that I remain awake to function as a human commander normally would, maintaining surveillance over shifting conditions that affect the primary mission."
"I see." A sudden change in tone and facial expression suggest that I have said something that pleases Gifre Zeloc. I wonder a little frantically what it was. He smiles into the videoscreen, flashing well-maintained dentition. "Well, now. That's much clearer, isn't it?"
I am pleased that I have been understood, although I am still unsure how this explanation made such a marked difference in attitude.
"What, exactly, do you intend to do while awake?"
Since I am unsure, myself, what I am to do during the long years that will undoubtedly comprise my defense of this world, I am unsure how to answer. I settle for the simplest response I can provide. "Maintain surveillance over potential threats to Jefferson and run possible defense scenarios based on conditions both on- and off-world."
"I see. Or maybe I don't. Just what, exactly, do you mean about maintaining surveillance over on-world conditions?"
"My mission includes threat assessments from on-world sources, including subversive activity, sabotage by enemy agents, armed dissident organizations that may pose a security threat to the stability of the government and therefore pose a potential threat to the long-term survival of Jefferson as an autonomous, self-governing planet. I monitor economic conditions to advise my Commander—" I hesitate and correct that statement "—or the highest civilian official authorized to direct my actions on possible stability issues that may affect Jefferson's long-term sustainability as a viable society. My mission is comprehensive, complex, and of high importance to Sector Command, as no human commander can be spared from the shifting battle front with the Melconians."
Gifre Zeloc frowns for a moment, then an expression I cannot immediately interpret shifts his heavy-jowled features. He hesitates before speaking, giving me time to cross-reference what I know of human facial expressions from a century of contact with humans. I classify the configuration of eye, mouth, brow, and jaw muscle movements as slowly dawning realization of something unforeseen and potentially useful.
"Tell me," he says in a voice that reminds me of purring kittens, "tell me about the battle front with the Melconians."
"I cannot divulge classified information," I begin, earning a scowl, "but it is within your need-to-know status to clarify the general situation as it pertains to Jefferson's security."
"And what is that general situation?"
"Given current trends in the position of battle fleets, evacuation patterns, and Brigade transmissions to and from the Central Worlds, on Brigade and Navy channels that I routinely monitor, it is likely that the war will continue to move away from this region of space. Given the total annihilation of Deng populations in this sector by Melconian forces, there are no longer any inhabited star systems on the formerly Deng-held side of the Silurian Void. Zanthrip is the nearest star system still held by the Deng. The Melconians have been unable to colonize this region, given the ferocity of the battle front along Melcon's border with humanity, which has forced Melcon to divert ships and personnel it would doubtless have committed to that colonization process to deal, instead, with the severe fighting that rages across thirty-three populated star systems."
I flash battle schematics to the president's datascreen, carefully omitting any information that Gifre Zeloc is not authorized to know. He draws an abrupt hissing breath as the general pattern becomes clear to him.
"The Concordiat has been unable to take advantage of the emptied worlds, for the same reasons Melcon has not. The fighting through this region," I shift the color of affected star systems, to clarify my explanation, "has forced Sector Command to commit most of its military assets to the defense of human space. This leaves a substantial buffer of seventeen newly uninhabited star systems between Jefferson and the nearest Deng- or Melconian-held worlds. Given its position relative to current battle fronts and its location within the Void and the vacant star systems beyond, Jefferson is now, in effect, the most isolated human system anywhere in this sector of space."
Gifre Zeloc leans back in his chair, staring at the schematics I have transmitted to him for long moments, so long, I begin to wonder if he intends to speak again or if I should simply terminate the transmission. At length, a slow and mystifying smile appears. "Very instructive," he murmurs. "Yes, very instructive, indeed."
The smile broadens, indicating a state of mind I find peculiar. Admittedly, I have not known many planetary heads of state, but I know from many sources that command responsibility is a heavy burden. Heavy enough that it prematurely ages office holders, even in times of peace and economic stability. During war or the threat of war—or some other cataclysmic shift that damages a society—the burden can become intolerable. It killed Abraham Lendan, a man who commanded Simon's deep loyalty, the love of Kafari Khrustinova—one of the most creative warrior minds it has been my pleasure to know—and the respect of an entire world.
It therefore confuses my logic processors that President Zeloc should be so pleased by my VSR. I would have expected a more serious response from the planetary ruler of a system as isolated as Jefferson now is, with outside assistance and resupply unlikely, should any of a number of social, economic, or military disasters befall this world. President Lendan was, by every measure I am capable of using to judge performance and character, a far more capable leader than Gifre Zeloc.
I know serious misgivings as the man who will be directing my defensive efforts leans back in his chair and says, "That's fine, Bolo, very fine, indeed. I believe I am going to enjoy having you work for me."
I consider pointing out that Gifre Zeloc works for the Concordiat, serving as their proxy in the defense of a highly isolated corner of human space, and that he therefore works for me, as I am the instrument of the Concordiat's intentions regarding the defense of this world, but am unsure how to explain this subtle difference. I am still struggling with possible wording when Gifre Zeloc, tapping restless fingertips against the gleaming wood of his desk, issues another complex question.
"Just what is the extent of your on-world monitoring of shifting conditions affecting the stability of this government?"
"Please clarify. I require specific parameters to properly answer your question."
He considers for a moment, then asks, "What specific data on Jefferson's internal political and economic activities did you collect for Colonel Khrustinov before I instructed him to shut you down?"
This is the simplest and most direct question he has yet posed. "It will take approximately nine point nine-two hours to present this information to you at a delivery speed suited for the average human's assimiliation."
Gifre Zeloc's eyes widen momentarily, then he smiles again and says, "I'm all ears, Bolo. And I suspect there is literally nothing on my plate that is more important than hearing what you're about to say." He picks up a cup from the corner of his desk and sips. "Go ahead, Bolo. I'm listening."
I begin to speak. As I explain my data collection methods and summarize the data I have collected on Simon's orders—during which there are significant lapses in my active standby status, creating substantial gaps in my information—Gifre Zeloc's smile turns to shock, followed by slow, smouldering anger. This is finally superceded by an abrupt, deeply startled grin that appears to indicate delight.
That response sends a vague disquietude skittering through the complex heuristics governing my logic processors and personality gestalt stabilization-analysis circuitry. Simon did not trust the political party which Gifre Zeloc represents. The POPPA coalition's philosophies and actions are based on an alarmingly high percentage of falsified data. The coalition's finances and off-world dealings are puzzling. POPPA advocates methods of social engineering proven ineffective on many human worlds, including Terra.
As I am operating with woefully incomplete data, it is imperative that I bring myself up to date, scanning societal trends, economic conditions, and changes in legislative and constitutional law. Perhaps POPPA has discovered a way to translate its ideals of societal and economic parity and universal access to resources into a system that functions more effectively than its ideological predecessors?
I face a massive, multipartite chore, obtaining an accurate VSR that I must then analyze and incorporate into my threat-assessment evaluations and defensive contingency plans. Since I am now essentially locked into active standby mode, with a low likelihood of reversion to inactive status, I will at least have the time this task will require. Provided, of course, that a now-remote enemy does not show renewed interest in this pocket of the Silurian Void.
My list of questions grows by the second, as many of the items that puzzle me spark even more questions, creating a rapid data cascade of pending problems for which I must find answers. I am unsure that answers even exist for some of those questions. I harbor a nagging fear that I possess entirely too limited an understanding of the intricacies of human thought and societal dynamics to understand those answers, in the unlikely event that I actually find them.
I am not comforted by Gifre Zeloc's next comment, delivered long before I have finished reciting my data analysis efforts. He favors me with an expression that I define as smug satisfaction. "You're very thorough, Bolo. Yes, indeed, you're doing a very commendable job. Keep up the good work." He taps neatly manicured fingertips against the padded armrest of his chair, narrows his eyes slightly as he ponders the things I have said—or perhaps the possible actions he wishes to take, based on my VSR.
He reaches a decision, setting his cup aside as he leans forward and scrawls a few brief notes onto his desktop datagel interface, a micro-thin jotting system integral to the surface of the desk, that translates his handwriting into coded notes. A privacy shield pops up from the desktop, blocking any view of the writing surface, including the video component of his communications datascreen. Not even the room's security cameras are in a position to see the surface of that datagel.
I note these details primarily because I do not have clearance to access the datagel's storage matrix. It therefore houses the most secure dataset on Jefferson, excepting my own classified systems, of course. After sixty-eight point three seconds, the president digs his stylus emphatically into the datagel, consigns his notes to permanent storage, and wipes the datagel's surface clean. He lowers the privacy shield, then addresses me in a brisk, decisive manner.
"The Joint Assembly will be voting on some important legislation in a few days. There's been a lot of dissension from some regions, with a lot of wild talk and even threats from certain population segments. I'm not talking about the routine 'I won't vote for you again if you vote for that' kind of threat. That's only to be expected. You can't propose any major change to a legal code without ruffling somebody's feathers."
I file a reminder to research this pending legislation and the reasons it has been proposed as well as protested, since it troubles the president so greatly. After he reveals the reason for his concern, I make this my highest priority.
"What's worrisome—to me, at least—are the threats of retaliation against hard-working members of the Joint Assembly. If they vote to pass this legislation, if they support measures critical to the defense of this world, these dissidents are talking about personal and violent retaliation against Assembly members and their families."
If accurate, this is a serious charge to levy against one's opposition. Intimidation tactics are invariably the hallmark of those whose agenda is abuse of power. Such practices are worthy of contempt. If the threat they pose is serious enough, honor demands that such threats be met with all the proper legal—or physical—action necessary to remove the threat to individuals or to a society as a whole.
If there are sufficient numbers of dissidents advocating intimidation, coercion, and violent retaliation against lawfully elected officials, Jefferson may face a serious threat. An internal enemy can be as deadly to long-term stability as outside invasion. It is all the more insidious because it is subtle, making it more difficult for people to recognize a threat to their safety, freedom, and well-being.
Bolos are programmed for strong ethics in this regard, for good reason. Were a Bolo to use its firepower to usurp command of a local system of governance, few governments could muster anything to stop it. Tyranny is tyranny, whether perpetrated by humans upon one another or by war machines against their own creators.
Usurpation is one of the Seven Deadly Sins a sick Bolo can commit, sins which trigger the Resartus Protocol, preventing a Bolo from acting on its destabilized impulses. There is very little a human fears more than the spectre of a mad Bolo. Intentions—good or otherwise—are immaterial when human survival is at stake.
Gifre Zeloc's voice jolts me out of my distracted reverie. "The vote is due to take place six days from now. I want a full report on dissident activities and plans before then. I'll give you further guidance after you've debriefed me on the state of affairs you uncover."
The president breaks the connection. I ascertain, through my surveillance of data lines leading from the Presidential Residence's computers, that he places an immediate call to Vittori Santorini. I ponder whether or not I should monitor that conversation, along with everything else I am attempting to do. Before I can decide whether or not to break contact, the call goes through and Gifre Zeloc says, "Vittori, I've got some wonderful news. No, not over the phone. The usual meeting place? Is four-thirty suitable? Excellent. I can hardly wait to discuss things."
The president breaks the connection, leaving me to ponder what Gifre Zeloc has to tell the founder and leading power behind the POPPA coalition. Speculation in the dark is useless. I turn my attention to the daunting task of learning what has transpired during the bulk of the past ten years and what the dissidents President Zeloc spoke of may be saying and doing. I am unsure that once I know, I will be any materially better positioned to know what to do. It is an unhappy state of affairs to look forward to additional guidance from a man Simon Khrustinov refused to trust.
I have no other choice.
Unlike Gifre Zeloc, I am not pleased.
Simon drifted in and out of awareness, caught somewhere between confusion, pain unlike anything he had ever known, and a drifting disconnection from himself, from the world, from reality itself. It was like drifting through thick fog where every touch of smothering vapor cut like razor wire. He didn't know where he was or why everything was so desperately wrong. He could remember nothing except a lurch of terror that blotted out everything beyond the knife-edged pain.
When the pain ceased, as suddenly as though it had never existed, Simon fell headlong down a bottomless black hole in which nothing, not even himself, existed. When he roused again, his mind was strangely clear, but he couldn't feel anything. That was sufficiently alarming to nudge him further toward wakefulness. He struggled to open his eyes and found nothing that looked even remotely familiar. The space in which he lay was small and cramped, which he found odd, since he was positive that he'd been injured badly enough to need a hospital's care.
Had he been captured? Kidnaped by Vittori Santorini in some weird vendetta?
He tried to reach for his wrist-comm, to contact Sonny, and discovered that not only could he not feel anything, he couldn't move, either. Straining produced no response at all, not even a twitch. Fear began to seep into his confusion, cold and poisonous. He stared at the portions of the room he could see and frowned, or would have, if he'd been able to control his body. The walls and ceiling looked like the interior of a space-capable ship.
He'd been on enough interstellar transports of one kind and another to know the telltale signs and this room had them. He was trying to puzzle out why he might be on a space ship when he heard a sound from somewhere behind him, exactly like the opening of a cabin door.
"You're awake, Colonel," a quiet, soothing voice said. A moment later, a man he didn't know stepped into his field of view. He was dressed in medical whites. "I'm Dr. Zarek, Colonel. No, don't try to move. We've got nano-blocks in place in your nervous system, to keep you from shifting, even involuntarily. Do you remember what happened?"
Simon couldn't shake his head and his vocal chords didn't seem to belong to him any longer, either. The doctor frowned, tapped at something behind him, and muttered, "Too high. Let's dial that down a bit."
A whisper of pain ate into his awareness. His first voluntary sound was a hiss that he had almost no control over, as his body reacted to some ghastly level of abuse he didn't want to think about too closely. Then he realized he could move his face, just a little. "What happened?" he whispered, barely able to control the muscles in mouth and tongue enough to get the question out.
"Your aircar crashed. If you were someone else, I would say you're a very fortunate fellow. Instead, I'll say it's a good thing you're a cautious Brigade officer and listened to the intuition that prompted you to armor your aircar. It saved your life."
"Shot down?" he managed to ask.
Dr. Zarek's eyes were shadowed. "We don't think so. Your Bolo didn't think so, either. I was in the room when your wife contacted the Bolo, so I heard what it—he—said." The doctor's expression altered, shifting into something Simon couldn't quite fathom. "He apologized. The Bolo asked your wife to tell you it was his fault. He was watching for missiles and didn't think about sabotage."
Simon narrowed his eyes, then winced. How much damage did it take, to make that small a gesture hurt that badly? Through a body-wide nano-block? Then Simon forced his attention back to the larger issue. If Sonny thought his aircar had been sabotaged, no doubt remained in Simon's mind, either. It bothered him, however, that he couldn't remember the crash.
"Don't remember," he struggled to say.
"That's not particularly surprising," Dr. Zarek said with a slight frown. "The mind can blank out an event too traumatic to face, right away, just as the body can dump enough endorphins to deaden severe pain long enough to get to safety. You knew you were going down, probably knew somebody had deliberately rigged your transport, and doubtless knew that your wife and child would be left alone in the hands of a hostile regime. Given enough time, the memories will probably resurface, once your subconscious mind thinks you're strong enough to face what's hidden."
That made some sense, although he found it disquieting that a portion of him, one he couldn't control, was able to hide something that serious from his conscious memory. Then a new thought cropped up, more alarming. "Kafari! Where—?"
"She stayed on Jefferson, Colonel. With your little girl. You're on a Malinese freighter, headed for Vishnu." An unhappy shadow passed across his face. "I was chief surgeon at University Hospital. I assembled a whole team of surgeons to stabilize you. We did the best we could, but I can assure you that the medical care and rehab you will need do not exist on Jefferson."
Simon's brows twitched as he focused on the most puzzling part of that statement. "Was?" he rasped out hoarsely.
Dr. Zarek's gaze held his, steady and unflinching. "Colonel, I've been watching POPPA just about as closely as I'm sure you have and I can tell you, sir, I do not like what I see coming." Muscles jumped in his jaw. "News of your recall by the Brigade was splashed across every newspaper, datachat, and broadcast medium on Jefferson. So was the gloating over your near-fatal crash. And I use the word gloating deliberately. They're calling it a suicide attempt. 'Disgraced officer tries to kill himself rather than face military tribunal.' "
Simon cursed. Hideously. And tried to get up.
"Easy, Colonel," Dr. Zarek cautioned, "you can't move, yet, and you can't afford the physiological strain of trying." Despite the soothing, cautionary tone, his eyes crackled with anger as he studied a monitor just out of Simon's visual range. "That's better. As to the rest of it . . . A government willing to engineer the destruction of a Dinochrome Brigade officer's career is a government that cannot be trusted. But they weren't content with that. They tried to kill you, as well. That suggests some very ugly things to me. I don't know what you know, Colonel, or how big a threat that might be to Vittori Santorini and Gifre Zeloc.
"But I can tell you this, without hesitation. I have no interest in staying where that kind of government is in charge. I'm not politically acceptable, for one thing. I was a junior member of Abraham Lendan's medical team, right after the war. My views on POPPA are widely known. If they went after you, Colonel, they'll go after others, and their stunning success with you will breed contempt for anyone and everyone who disagrees with them. And I'm Granger bred, as well, which is starting to look like a very dangerous thing to be.
"So I pulled rank over every other physician at University Hospital and insisted on accompanying you to Vishnu. I don't intend to return. If Vishnu won't allow me to stay, I'll go to Mali, instead. They need surgeons on Mali," he added, voice bleak. His eyes were shadowed again. "I don't have a family," he said quietly. "They were killed in the war. The house was almost directly under the Cat's Claw . . ." Memory ran through his eyes, wet and filled with anguish. "I tried—very hard, Colonel—to persuade yours to leave with us."
Simon knew exactly why they hadn't. Dr. Zarek merely confirmed it.
"Your daughter wouldn't go. I have a recording from your wife, which I can play now, if you like, or I can run it later."
"Later," Simon whispered. He caught and held the surgeon's eyes. "Tell me."
Dr. Zarek didn't insult his intelligence by asking Tell you what?
By the time he'd finished answering, Simon was profoundly grateful that nano-tech neurology blocks existed. He hadn't realized it was possible to do that kind of damage to a human body and survive it. If the surgeries he still faced—an appalling number of them—were a success and if the nerve regeneration therapy and cellular reconstruction worked, he might be able to walk again. A year or two from now. Far worse was the knowledge that Kafari couldn't—wouldn't—leave, not without their child.
The only hope he could cling to was the knowledge that POPPA had spent years carefully grooming Yalena's support, because her belief in the cause held enormous propaganda value. He had never forgotten—could never forget—the year of hell they had put Yalena through in kindergarten, followed with a deliberate and highly effective piece of social engineering, during her first-grade year. Yalena still believed that POPPA's loving regard for everyone's rights and welfare had rescued her from the unfair cruelty of one unfit teacher acting from personal hatred. She still believed that POPPA had acted from genuine concern for her, correcting a deep social injustice and transforming misled children from enemies into dear friends. She still didn't understand that POPPA had engineered the hatred and abuse, as well.
It suited POPPA very well to groom Yalena into a staunchly loyal acolyte. He didn't know, yet, what they intended to do with that loyalty or how, exactly, they intended to cash in on that propaganda. Vittori and Nassiona Santorini didn't chart their course to power by planning what they would do during the next few months or even years. They thought in terms of decades and lifetimes. Whatever they had in mind to do with Yalena, they'd planned it out well before her entry into school. The best—the absolute best—he could hope for, lying broken to pieces in a Malinese freighter, was that POPPA's plans for Yalena included Kafari's survival.
They were being evicted.
Just like that. Kafari, home on bereavement leave from the spaceport, reread the message on her datascreen over and over while her numbed mind tried to make the words say something else. No matter how many times she reread it, the nasty little note said the same thing.
As the legal dependents of a non-Jeffersonian military officer who has been cashiered and sent off-world in disgrace, you are hereby evicted from the government-owned quarters you are no longer entitled to occupy. You have twenty-five hours from receipt of this message to remove yourself, your daughter, and your private belongings from the dwelling you currently occupy. Failure to leave within the allotted time will result in penalties, fines, and possible criminal charges for illegal occupation of a restricted military site. Personal belongings left behind will be confiscated and distributed to the needy. Removal of any government property will result in criminal charges for theft of military property.
A lengthy list of the items Kafari was not allowed to remove followed the message. It wouldn't be difficult to pack, since virtually everything in the apartment had been classified as government property, including the extremely expensive computer system she had purchased with her own funds, to support the intensely sophisticated needs of a psychotronic programmer. Kafari was so stunned, she couldn't even curse at the screen. She finally punched her wrist-comm.
"Dad?"
"What is it, hon?"
"What's the comm-code for your attorney?"
"That doesn't sound good. What's wrong?"
"We're being evicted. And those snakes are trying to grab our personal property. Things Simon and I paid for, ourselves."
"I'll get the number."
Five minutes later, she was pouring out her grievance to John Helm, who asked several brief questions, including a query as to whether she had proof that various items had been paid for out of private funds.
"Oh, yes," she assured him, "I have plenty of proof."
"Good. Send me the eviction notice and start packing. We can't fight the actual eviction, but POPPA can't touch your personal property. That much, at least, I can accomplish. If nothing else, we'll go public and crucify them on the evening news. I don't think POPPA will relish having news reports showing them grabbing the personal belongings of a bereaved war heroine and her young daughter. That idiotic film Mirabelle Caresse made about you may just be useful for something, after all."
"Huh. That would be a switch, wouldn't it? All right, I'm sending the message now. And thank you."
"It is entirely my pleasure."
She sat back, wondering where to start and how she could possibly get everything packed, when someone rang the bell at the front door. Startled, Kafari switched the datascreen view to the entrance security camera. She was even more startled to see who it was. "Aisha?" she said aloud, not quite believing the evidence of her eyes. She flew to the door and opened it with a wondering stare.
"Aisha Ghamal? What in the world are you doing here? How did you get here?"
The older woman gave her a honey-warm smile. "Kafari, it's good to see you, child. You've been so busy, these last few years, I haven't wanted to bother you. But things are different now. So I just climbed into my car and came along to visit." She held up a pass-card, required for anyone who wanted to enter Nineveh Base, these days. The P-Squad gate guards had itchy trigger fingers and a serious suspicion of everyone and everything that tried to enter their headquarters and training base. "I had to talk the Klameth Canyon sheriff into it, but he got me an authorization."
Kafari stared, thunderstruck, from the pass-card to Aisha's face. "Do you have any idea how hard it is to get an authorization like that? My parents had trouble getting one."
Aisha gave her a broad smile, touched here and there by gold, a slender band edging one tooth, a gleaming star inlaid into another. It was an ancient art form, a cultural tradition early pioneers had carried to the stars from Terra, itself. "Oh, yes, I know exactly how hard it is, Kafari. But Sheriff Jackley never had a chance, once I decided to convince him." She gave Kafari a broad wink and another grin.
Tears trembled on Kafari's eyelashes. "It's just wonderful to see you! Come inside, please." Kafari ushered her into the living room. "Can I get you something to drink?"
"Maybe in a bit. But tell me this, first. Is your little girl here?"
Kafari shook her head. "No, she's still at school. Yalena's involved in a whole bunch of after-school clubs."
"Just as well. From what I've been hearing, it's just as well it's you and me and nobody else."
Kafari frowned. "What's wrong, Aisha?"
"With me? Not a blessed thing. But you have been handed one big heap of troubles. You've got a big family, child, and you don't need me to tell you how blessed you are to still have them. But Dinny and I talked it over and we couldn't help thinking there might be a thing or two we could do, even if it's just giving you somebody to talk to, now and again."
Tears threatened again.
"Now, then, if it don't hurt too much to talk about it, how's your husband, child? I don't hardly bother listening to the news, these days. There's not two words in ten you can take to the bank without finding 'em counterfeit. So how is he, really?"
The tears spilled over, this time. "He's alive. But he's all broken up. Like a china doll somebody smashed into the ground." She wiped her cheeks. "The doctors say he might walk again. Some day. If he's lucky. If his immune system doesn't reject the bone regeneration matrix. The surgeons and rehab specialists on Vishnu have to rebuild him . . ."
"Rebuild him?" Aisha asked gently, when Kafari stumbled to a halt.
She nodded. "His lower legs and arms were shattered. His breastbone and ribs cracked like spiderwebbed ice. They had to remove splintered bone from his face, a lot of it. Once the new bone matrix has filled in, they'll have to sculpt a new face for him. And they'll have to do the same thing with his legs and arms, only it's worse, there, because a lot of the nerves were severed and crushed. They're going to try molecular nerve-regeneration therapy to replace nerve networks destroyed in the crash. The emergency air-lift crew said it was literally astonishing that none of his major arteries was severed. If they had, he would've bled to death before they reached him." She wiped her face again. "At least he was on active duty, so the Brigade is paying the bills."
"Then he wasn't fired, like the news reports said?"
She shook her head. "Not exactly, no. The Concordiat reassigned him. He was supposed to take command of another Bolo in a place called Hakkor. They'd already dispatched a courier ship to pick him up, told him to be ready to leave within three days. Then his aircar crashed."
Aisha pinned her with an intense stare. "Was that crash an accident?"
"I don't know," Kafari whispered. "There's no proof."
"Huh," the older woman muttered. "I got all the proof I need, child, looking at your face and watching what's happening, out there." She nodded toward Madison.
Kafari sighed. "Whatever the truth is, there's nothing I can do about it, one way or the other. And just now, I've got bigger worries on my mind. We're being evicted. We have twenty-five hours to leave."
"Twenty-five hours? Honey child, you and I got a fair bit of work to do, then, don't we?" She stood up and glanced around the apartment. "You got any boxes? Or suitcases?"
"Aisha, you don't have to . . ."
"Oh, yes I do. There's some things the Lord puts in our path, meaning for us to do, and I can tell you from experience, we turn into mean little people if we don't do them. So you tell me what goes and what doesn't and we'll just get started."
The faucet behind Kafari's eyes started dripping again. Kafari hugged her, hard, and felt the other woman's love wrap around her, along with strong, protective arms. Perhaps it was foolish—or merely desperate—but as they began to sort out what could be salvaged, she felt a wave of hope crest within her, born of the realization that she had the support of both family and friends. As bad as things might get in the next few months and years, she wouldn't face them entirely alone.
And if Dinny and Aisha Ghamal ever needed help . . .
Kafari would move mountains—even star systems—to give it.
At the end of five days, twenty-one hours, and seventeen minutes, I conclude that I am in serious trouble and do not know how to remedy the situation. President Zeloc has not contacted me again, evidently too busy doing whatever it is he does, all day, to contact me. I do not know what Gifre Zeloc does, because I have been locked out of the Presidential Residence's security system, by some very sophisticated programming on extremely expensive psychotronic hardware. This was put into place shortly after my first lengthy debriefing with the president. Evidently, Gifre Zeloc prizes his privacy and is willing to pay a great deal of money to maintain it.
Spending other people's money is something he does a great deal of, given the data I have uncovered detailing his administration's expenditures over the past ten years. The economy was in trouble, a decade and a half ago. It is now stuttering toward total collapse. The legislation pending in Jefferson's Assembly involves a restructuring of Jefferson's tax codes, which have been modified five thousand, one hundred eighty-seven times since Gifre Zeloc came to power. These alterations, which have placed a disproportionately large tax burden on Jefferson's middle-class business owners, white-collar workers, and agricultural producers, have resulted in widespread bankruptcies, both personal and entrepreneurial.
I do not understand the strategy whereby businesses are stripped of profits and incomes are taxed into "levels of parity" which force closure of factories and retail outlets, throwing more people out of work and swelling the ranks of the unemployed, who must then be fed and housed via public subsidies. There are, at present, too few people gainfully employed to provide the tax base necessary to continue the public subsidy programs already in place. If drastic measures to undo the damage to private-sector business are not undertaken, I project economic collapse in approximately ten point three years. Unless tax relief and capital investments are granted to Jefferson's agricultural producers, I foresee starvation conditions within six point nine years.
Taken together, the indicators are grim.
The legislation due to be voted upon later today addresses this serious situation, but not in a way that is likely to prove effective. It proposes neither tax relief nor capital investments in Jefferson's agricultural future. It reads, instead, like the ranting of a madman:
"Insofar as monopolistic agricultural interests have placed the public welfare in jeopardy, through refusals to provide the basic subsistence provisioning required to maintain health and public safety, the Assembly of Jefferson hereby establishes a code of tax rules to ensure fair distribution of critical food supplies currently hoarded by agricultural producers; establishes urgently required price caps to regulate the amount lawfully chargeable for wholesale and retail sale of agricultural products, which are necessary to end socially unjust practices perpetrated upon a helpless public by sole-source producers; and provides a framework by which perpetrators of social injustice will be tried and punished, including reparations payable for any and all damage caused to the public welfare by said unlawful practices.
"The following are hereby outlawed and made punishable by incarceration in a planetary security facility and by immediate confiscation of all private holdings of the guilty parties, said holdings to be redistributed fairly to the public upon conviction for tax evasion or upon procurement of evidence of prohibited activity. Prohibited practices include: price gouging above government-mandated, maximum allowable market prices for agricultural products; and hoarding of agricultural products to avoid participation in legally mandated, socially just distribution systems.
"To ensure the continuing availability of critical food supplies, to prevent the loss of critical farm labor, and to remunerate the people of Jefferson for decades of monopolistic price-fixing, widespread environmental damage, and the wanton destruction of shared resources, the Assembly of Jefferson hereby establishes a new Populist Support Farm system of government-run collectives. All agricultural operators are hereby required to donate no fewer than fifty hours per week of labor on a PSF collective as their fair share of the burden necessary to feed the burgeoning urban population. The produce, grain, and meat provided from these collectives will be distributed at no charge to recipients of public subsistence allotments, thus easing the burden on Jefferson's neediest families while providing high-quality foods to the economically disadvantaged."
The bill's thirteen-hundred provisions continue in much the same vein. This "societal fairness plan" for feeding the unemployed is nothing less than insanity. It ensures massive public support for POPPA, given the urban population that will begin receiving food at no cost to themselves, but it will destroy the economic system governing sale of the remaining food produced on privately held acreage. The government is the largest market segment currently purchasing food from those farms. If the PSF legislation goes through, the loss in farm income will send a downward economic spiral through the entire food industry, sending it into bankruptcy that will spread from producers to packers to suppliers and shippers and retail outlets. The PSF plan will literally send Jefferson headlong down an unstoppable road to starvation.
The secondary effect seems almost paltry, by comparison. In exchange for backbreaking labor conducted without pay or proper equipment, using inferior seed, and banned from using the only effective chemicals necessary to bring in a healthy, edible crop, Populist Support Farm system workers will earn a grudging promise that they won't be jailed for their many supposed crimes against the people.
Most of these, evidently, are crimes committed by the mere act of growing food, while others consist of promulgation of a creed of intolerance to anything or anyone in disagreement with programs developed to ensure public well-being. These programs include such provisions as the confiscation of land currently underway, which was initiated three point eight years ago. Some of the "environmentally sabotaged land" is forcibly returned to its "pristine, natural state," a process which appears to be seeding the soil with toxic substances that kill every Terran life form growing from it, in order to allow the return of indigenous species.
The threat of jail appears to be the only effective means POPPA has found to induce "voluntary" compliance with such edicts, since no rational person would support them. It would seem that Jefferson's cities are inhabited by millions of irrational people, all of whom are indulging in behaviors that would shut a Bolo down, if a Bolo exhibited such wildly illogical thought processes or actions. I find myself wondering if humanity would be better off, if each human being were equipped with its own biological version of the Resartus Protocols?
That is a question I am not designed to answer.