A Charter for the Commonwealth

by Richard F. Weyand

  “Shelly Stewart. President of the Jablonka Branch of the Bank of Earth? She’s a really good choice. She knows where all the levers and buttons are.”

  “That’s what I figure. We need to stop the flow of funds to Earth, which is our right under the treaty, but it’s going to take someone who knows what they all are to pull that together.”

  “So what else did we have?” Orlov asked. “Oh, yeah. A capital complex, or government center. Whatever you call it.”

  “Commonwealth Center. The Planetary Governor’s Mansion has a huge estate, fifty square miles, which is no longer needed. We’ll build it here. This part can stay Jablonka’s government center, and then we’ll build Commonwealth Center on the north end, up the coast.”

  “That’s right. You also need to start a planetary government. An electoral republic?”

  “Sure,” Westlake said. “I asked the Council members who are staying here until the dust settles to design one for me as a project. They’ve been working on it since they got back four months ago. They’re trying to make a model constitution for planetary government that any of the other colonies could use as well. Not something Jablonka dependent.”

  “That sounds good.” Orlov clapped his hands. “All right. Since we solved all the world’s problems this morning, what say we get some lunch?”

  The Relief of Doma

  Stargazer made its hyperspace transition on the system periphery at zero mark ninety on Doma, north of the planet. It was fourteen weeks since the ESN had firebombed Doma’s cities, and, space travel and communication being as slow as they were, it was only now the first relief was arriving.

  Before starting in toward the planet, Stargazer pulled mail and newsfeeds from the mail relay. When she had left Jablonka eight weeks before, it had been fifteen weeks since the murder of Ansen, there was no news yet from Admiral Sigurdsen’s fleet at Earth, and Admiral Holcomb was waiting for the arrival of an ESN fleet at Jablonka.

  There was no way Captain Scott Huggins was going to start in toward the planet before he found out what had happened during Stargazer’s two months in hyperspace.

  “All hands, this is the captain. We have pulled the mail and newsfeeds before starting in toward the planet. I have some news you all want to hear.

  “First, the ESN fleet that firebombed Doma’s cities has attacked Jablonka. Admiral Holcomb’s fleet engaged them and destroyed them. Every one of the bastards who bombed Doma is dead.”

  A cheer went up in the ship. Huggins waited.

  “Second, Admiral Sigurdsen’s fleet defeated the ESN Home Fleet at Earth in two separate battles.”

  Another cheer.

  “Third, the Earth government has signed a treaty recognizing the Commonwealth of Free Planets and given up its claims to the colonies. We’re free of them.”

  That cheer was loudest of all.

  “All right, so that’s the news. I’ve also been in touch with the planetary governor on Doma, and they’re really glad to see us. It’s been fourteen weeks since the bombings, and they need a lot of what we brought. It’s going to take us another week to get there, but then we’re going to help these poor people get back on their feet.

  “I’ve opened up the newsfeeds to the crew, and I know everybody wants to read all about all that’s gone on, but we still have a ship to run. So read the news on your off-shift so we don’t run into a planet or something, OK?

  “Captain out.”

  Stargazer took a week to make Doma orbit. The two big cargo shuttles on its bows separated and each grabbed eight of the big containers off her racks for the trip down to the planet. A dozen big cargo shuttles also met Stargazer in orbit. Each grabbed eight containers and headed down to the planet.

  Even so, it would take days to unload the more than three thousand containers aboard Stargazer.

  As they started to unload Stargazer, the Starhunter reported in from the system periphery and began its trip to Doma orbit.

  There were several big paved areas alongside highways that ran between the coastal cities of Nadezhda, Vera, and Istina, and between the cities and the farms located in the interior. Rest areas and the like.

  The first shuttle loads got set down in these areas. Coming down on the pavement, the shuttles set the first loads of containers, in a block four wide and two high. Doma men standing by opened the lower four containers and climbed behind the wheels of large semi-tractor trucks with refrigerated trailers. The upper four containers were tanks, filled with diesel fuel. They fueled the trucks up and ran them out of the containers, to start making food runs between the farms and the camps of people outside the cities.

  After several trips of the shuttles, with over four hundred trucks delivered, the loads changed. Now four-wide-by-two-high blocks of containers were all diesel fuel tanks, to add to the supplies already emplaced.

  The next round of deliveries were hundreds of “mess kits,” containers that each contained a complete mess tent, with the tent, the appliances and utensils, pots and pans, tables and benches. Every three of these also had one container that was a huge cylinder of LP gas. These the shuttles brought down in four-by-four blocks, and they dropped each layer of four – three mess kits and a propane cylinder – in a different spot in and around the cities.

  One thing Doma wasn’t lacking was manpower, and large teams of men set to each container to set up the kitchen mess tents. These were set up around and within the burned cities, usually in the parks, and would function as meal locations now and as the reconstruction work proceeded.

  The next round of supplies were hospital tents and sanitary tents, which were a block of bathrooms integrated to a small chemical treatment plant. These came down organized in pairs, in four-by-four blocks, and the cargo shuttles dropped a pair at each location of three mess tents. The hospital tent container included a stationary generator that was shared among the hospital, mess, and sanitary tents.

  “That’s it for us, sir,” Huggins said. “Our focus was the food supply and processing, hospital and sanitation. I’m not sure what Starhunter has aboard, as they were loading her when we left.”

  “You’ve been a big help, Captain Huggins,” Planetary Governor Edmond Fournier said. “It’ll be nice to have a hot meal again. I can’t thank you enough.”

  “You’re very welcome, sir. And now we’re off back to Jablonka to see what we can bring for you next time.”

  “All right, Captain. And maybe next time we’ll be organized enough down here to give your crew some decent shore leave. Until then, good spacing to you.”

  Starhunter was loaded down with almost four thousand containers, but it was all light cargo. Processed food – pasta, cereal, canned goods, flour, sugar, salt, cooking oil, spices. Clothing, mostly heavy work clothing that would stand up to a beating as the reconstruction proceeded. Laundry facilities in the form of a laundry tent for each mess tent complex. Containerized water purification plants, and containers of pipe and plumbing supplies. A centralized administrative center for the planetary government, in the form of a dozen tents for offices to coordinate the effort. A communications and administrative container for each mess tent complex. It went on and on.

  Jablonka had long been a supplier to small colonies getting started, and its manufacturers were working twenty-four-by-seven to meet the needs of rebuilding an entire planet.

  After eight weeks of relief effort, with a freighter of supplies arriving every week from Jablonka, they were finally around the bend on the humanitarian crisis. It was time for reconstruction to start.

  “Sir, we just had fourteen large ships make hyperspace transition on the southern approaches. They’re requesting permission to enter Doma space,” said Don Meaker, Edmond Fournier’s chief of staff.

  “Did they identify themselves?” Fournier asked.

  “Yes, sir, but – Well, they say they’re from Earth, sir. Twelve freighters of construction supplies and two passenger liners full of construction crews.”

  “Give them permission, Ji
m. The ships we don’t want are the ones that don’t ask permission.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Yes, sir, we’re here to help anyway we can,” David DeLorme said.

  “You’re the commander?” Edmond Fournier said.

  “I suppose you could say that, sir. I’m a Senior Project Manager in Earth’s Major Projects Agency. I manage big construction projects for a living.”

  “What have you got aboard, Mr. DeLorme?”

  “Construction equipment, sir. We have gravel crushers, heavy quarry equipment, dump trucks, bulldozers, cement mixers, cranes both large and small, all that sort of thing. We also brought a hundred million board feet of lumber or so, several thousand containers of structural steel, thousands of containers of cement, rebar, shingling, rivets and rivet guns, nails and nail guns, large stationary generators – pretty much anything you need to build without any local infrastructure, sir. Oh, and four thousand construction crew in the liners. They hot-bunked it on the way here to get them all in.”

  “That’s incredible, Mr. DeLorme. Well, we can sure use you. So do you want to start on one city, or spread your effort across all three at once?”

  “Oh, we’ll have to start all three at once, sir. To have enough room.”

  “Enough room?”

  “I’m sorry, sir. I should have mentioned. This is just the first shipment.”

  All the colonies together didn’t approach Earth’s massive economic output. While simply keeping everyone on Doma alive was for Jablonka a major relief effort, rebuilding Doma’s cities was for the Earth a medium-sized remote construction project. Whole fleets full of supplies and personnel continued to arrive, and those supplies and personnel poured into Doma’s cities.

  Another Regime Change

  Richard Mcenroe, His Excellency the Planetary Governor of Bahay, was sitting out on the balcony of the Planetary Governor’s Mansion with Michael Jacobus, the head of the Bahay Protective Service, looking out over the Kabisera City Park.

  “What do you think, Michael?” Mcenroe asked.

  “About the proposed planetary constitution?” Jacobus asked.

  “Well, Jim Westlake doesn’t call it proposed. He doesn’t even say it’s recommended. He just calls it an option for member planets that is consistent with the Commonwealth Charter.”

  “I understand. It still seems a bit heavy-handed to me.”

  “We can’t forget it was Jim Westlake and all the people he recruited to his cause – Georgy Orlov, Gerald Ansen, our own Jane Paxton, and this entire navy he just pulled out of his hat – that freed us from Earth. The amount of money Earth was pulling out of the colonies is staggering. We can cut the tax burden in half and still have more money than we know what to do with. So I’m willing to cut Westlake quite a bit of slack. And we can still come up with something else. It just has to be compatible with the Charter. The civil rights provisions, mostly.”

  “Of course, it’s just – I don’t know. I guess I should be grateful. When Earth came down with new stuff it was all mandatory. And now I’m grousing about suggestions.”

  Mcenroe laughed.

  “That’s my take. I have a pretty free hand from here, but I think I’m just going to go along with Westlake’s suggestion. He’s been right all down the line so far, and that’s no small thing, considering what he’s pulled off.”

  “What happens to us, then?”

  “Bahay still needs a police force, and it still needs a chief of police or whatever we call it. As for me, at the Commonwealth level, I’m a member of the Council for the time being. I could be in the Bahay legislature, or run for the executive or whatever. We’ve been pretty light-handed here, and I think people will remember that. I’m pretty young to retire, but I could do that, too. Or go into business or something. Lots of choices. And nobody from Earth can tell me I can’t.”

  “So you think you’re going to sign the suggested planetary constitution?” Jacobus asked.

  “Yes. The transition language in there is such that, as Planetary Governor and Member of the Council, I can sign it and have our other two Council Members sign it, and then it starts the election cycle. You know, I could make a big celebration out of it. We should do that, don’t you think?”

  “Have a big party?”

  “Sure,” Mcenroe said. “We do it in the park. I sign the document, Jane Paxton signs the document, whoever the other guy is –”

  “Anderson Lail.”

  “Anderson Lail, that’s right. He signs the document, then we have a big party. Constitution Day. I’ll even do the beer truck thing Jim Westlake did. You should consider it, too.”

  “You mean, have the police passing out the beer, like they did in Jablonka?”

  “Yeah. Why not? Start a tradition. New beginnings are a good time for new traditions.”

  Jane Paxton and Anderson Lail both received hand-delivered invitations to dine with Robert Mcenroe that evening. Both told the driver who dropped around with the invitation that they would come. And at the appointed hour, the driver reappeared to pick them up.

  Jane Paxton was handed into the rear of the car by the driver. Anderson Lail was already seated in the back. They had not seen each other since they had gotten back from the Westlake Conference nearly six months ago.

  “What’s this all about, Andy?” Paxton asked.

  “I have no idea. I received an invitation to dinner. That’s all I know,” Lail said.

  “Do we get arrested or does he give us a medal?”

  “My internal odds maker puts it at fifty-fifty.”

  Paxton laughed.

  They were shown through the Planetary Governor’s Mansion to a large stone patio in the back. From the hill it was on, it looked out over Kabisera City Park. There was a single table there, set with three chairs. Mcenroe was on the patio, smoking a cigarette and looking out over the park. At the noise from the doors, he turned and walked forward to meet his guests.

  “Welcome, welcome. Ms. Paxton. Mr. Lail.”

  They each shook his hand, somewhat in a daze, and mumbled something in return. He laughed and waved them to be seated.

  “Would you care for a drink? Or a smoke?”

  Paxton and Lail both demurred.

  Mcenroe turned to his major domo.

  “Thirty minutes, Patrick.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Mcenroe turned to his guests.

  “I’m sorry if I’ve caught you off guard, but I needed to ask you something. Did you both receive copies of Mr. Westlake’s suggested planetary constitution?”

  “Yes,” Paxton said. Lail nodded.

  “What do you think of it?”

  Paxton and Lail both looked at each other, turned back to Mcenroe.

  “OK, maybe it’s unfair to put the question that way, open-ended, given the history. Let me put it this way. I am disposed to sign it, and I wondered if either of you knew any reasons why we shouldn’t.”

  Paxton and Lail both had a bit of a stunned look. Paxton shook herself out of it first.

  “No, I have no reason not to sign it. I think it would be wonderful.”

  “I agree,” Lail said. “It’s built on the work we did on Doma.”

  The mention of Doma cast a cloud for a moment.

  “I want to say that what the Earth did to Doma was a war crime and I hope Arlan Andrews burns in hell,” Mcenroe said.

  “Really?” Paxton asked.

  “Oh, yes. You knew you didn’t like Earth policies. You didn’t know that I didn’t like them, either, but I had no choice but to implement them, as reasonably as I could. Being under Arlan Andrews’ thumb the last ten years has not been easy.”

  That was a new perspective for Paxton, whose world view was undergoing some serious re-alignment.

  “Bear in mind that no one in human space was free to make his own decisions for the last ten years except Arlan Andrews. My hands were often tied. And I knew he had spies and operatives here. My life would be forfeit if I didn’t do as I was told. What leew
ay I had, I used, but there was always a danger in pushing too far.”

  “That is, um, illuminating,” Lail said. “I had no idea.”

  “Yes, well, that’s all gone now. We are free to make our own decisions. What I would like to do is to sign the planetary constitution, without changes, for Bahay. This weekend. Saturday at noon. Right out there.”

  Mcenroe waved out at the park.

  “Then we can all have a big party.”

  Mcenroe looked back and forth between them.

  “What do you think?”

  Saturday was a beautiful spring day in the Kabisera City Park. There was a stage set up under an awning at one end of the long main lawn. Large video displays framed the stage, and were replicated at intervals down either side of the lawn. The crowd started to gather at 10:00, and by noon at least ten thousand people were present.

  Anderson Lail started with a short speech about the Charter and the civil rights it granted. Robert Mcenroe followed with a short speech about the future of Bahay. Finally, Jane Paxton gave the short version of the sort of stemwinder she was famous for.

  When Paxton sat back down at the table, on the other side of Mcenroe from Lail, Michael Jacobus brought out a large document and set it in front of Mcenroe. The video zoomed up to show Mcenroe sign the document with a flourish. The document was moved over, and Lail countersigned, and then it was moved to Paxton, and she countersigned. When Paxton signed the document, a cheer went up from the crowd.

  Mcenroe, Lail, and Paxton all stood and shook hands.

  Jacobus went up to the microphone.

  “Happy Constitution Day, everybody. In the dozen booths you see on each side of the lawn, the Bahay Protective Service is now serving free beer. Let’s party!”

  Yet Another Regime Change