by John Barnes
“Right.” I see Glisters is right with me. “Rights to that story would be worth astronomical amounts, wouldn’t they? And Mom always says where there’s money there’s lawsuits—”
I see Wychee’s light go on. “Oh, my god. My god. You’re right. The first thing Derlock’s dad did was file for an injunction arguing that Derlock has the rights to everything connected with the story. It’s Munshi versus Slabilis but more so!”
All us girls are nodding; F.B. and Glisters both look like they’ve just awakened on a new planet where no one speaks their lnaguage.
Wychee says, “It’s something any girl at a place like Excellence Shop has to be aware of, just for personal safety.”
Glisters asks, “Personal safety?”
For a second I’m angry at him; it’s so bizarre that boys don’t have to know this, and so unfair that we do. But it’s hardly his fault; if human males were all like Glisters and F.B., after all, there’d be no such issue. So I make myself explain as politely as I can, “If you hang around with celebrity boys it’s one of those things you’ve got to always have in your mind. Sir Penn Slabilis was just your plain old garden-variety performing-bear celebrity lawyer till he celebrated winning a case for Carole Munshi—”
“At least that name is familiar, but I don’t remember why. Was it in the celeb law class?”
“It’s only one of the most important names in all of the history of special media interest law,” Wychee puts in. “Gliss, Susan is maybe in danger of exploding, because she’s having a hard time believing she’s got to explain it; it was one of the few things that all the girls stayed awake for in class.”
“Even me,” Marioschke says. “If you don’t know about Munshi versus Slabilis… well, it just must be nice to not have to know. And most of us don’t really like to talk about it, it’s too—too—”
“Sad,” Fleeta says, just as Wychee says, “Grim,” and I say, “Infuriating.” Sort of a bonding glance runs among us; then Wychee says, “All right, I guess it’s my turn to explain.”
Notes for the Interested, #16
MUNSHI VERSUS SLABILIS: guaranteed circuses to go with the guaranteed bread
Very often the whole future of a nation, or even of the human race, will turn on a court case that establishes the way things will work from now on, for good or ill. Hardly anything else can change all of history so quickly; if you want to know what’s going on in the world, you have to watch the courts. Our real history is replete with names and terms like Socrates, Cicero versus the Catiline Conspiracy, the Star Chamber, Dred Scott, the Dreyfus Affair, Sacco and Vanzetti, Nuremberg, Brown versus Board of Education, and Miranda versus Arizona. In this future history, one of the most important principles of PermaPaxPerity was established in the famous case of Munshi versus Slabilis.
Carole Munshi was a singer-songwriter with astronomical recognition scores and several major hits in the genre of Bangala pop between 2089 and 2094. It later emerged, during her divorce suit in 2096, that her manager-boyfriend was taking all her earnings and holding her prisoner. Her attorney, Penn Slabilis, won a complete victory in court.
The day that the settlement was final, Slabilis took Carole Munshi out to celebrate, and raped her. He recorded this and distributed a meed of it in the pirate faces dedicated to violent porn. Hooks from that meed were among the most-splyctered Top 100 in that category for more than a decade afterward.
Brought to trial, Slabilis defended himself by arguing that because he had created the story by committing the rape, he owned the whole story. Therefore all the recorded material about the rape was his intellectual property, and the court could not use his recordings, any testimony from Munshi, or any part of the story, to convict him, including anything they learned if the recordings or her testimony were what had led them to look for it.
Although some social observers cited the old joke about the man who killed his parents and then demanded mercy because he was an orphan, and there were immense marches, protests, and demonstrations worldwide for more than a year, the PermaPaxPerity Authority declared the decision would stand.
The greater social good demanded it; the computer models clearly showed that some controllable, mostly peaceful unrest now would be better than widespread, unfocused social anomie and disaffection that might last for generations.
PermaPaxPerity, for the first time in human history, had abolished poverty and war and created universal security, and removed the dangerous, dull, and unpleasant aspects of labor (for the few people who still did any work). Earth was becoming less polluted, less overpopulated, a better planet every decade.
The one threat on the horizon to PermaPaxPerity was boredom, and for more than three centuries, since the theatrical fads, condemned-criminal cults, and musician manias of the late 1700s, one of the most effective, reliable antidotes to public boredom had been celebrity gossip. Penn Slabilis pioneered the concept of overriding media interest: If a story amused and fascinated enough people, they had a right to have it go on, and if conviction, imprisonment, or execution posed a significant risk of ending the story, then PermaPaxPerity required that conviction and sentence be suspended forever, or simply nullified.
For his services to society, in securing a vast stream of entertainment and ensuring that no one’s favorite celebrity criminal would leave the media too soon, Penn Slabilis eventually received a UN Knighthood.
Carole Munshi’s public self-immolation was one of the top media events of 2098, and the hooks of her struggling in the flames are still commonly splyctered even twenty years later. And, of course, every time one of those hooks is shown on any screen to anyone, Sir Penn Slabilis collects another microfee.
As she has been explaining, Wychee has been realizing that Glisters and F.B. seem to be hearing this for the first time, despite our all having had it in a mandatory class two years before. “Sheeyeffinit, Susan and Em and I never studied anything if we could help it, and we did all the supplementary reading. Fleeta was already on happistuf and she studied it. When Susan was getting involved with Derlock, you can trust me, somewhere in her mind there was the thought that this guy could get rich by raping or mutilating her. Why do you think I was scared sick when Emerald got involved with him?”
F.B. is staring at her, and then suddenly he blurts out, “He’s going to get away with it.”
I say, “Yeah, he’s going to get away with it.”
To my deep shock, F.B. bursts into tears. “Poor Emerald!”
Marioschke grabs him in a smothering hug. “Just keep listening, I don’t know where Susan and Wychee are going with this, but it’s important.”
“So here’s the thing,” I say. “Derlock’s dad has spent decades arguing, successfully, for this whole overriding media interest idea, which boils down to, people like stories about the psychos and the sickos and if we don’t let them out to commit more crimes, we won’t have enough stories to entertain the crime fans, and we need to incentivize our thugs to keep us all amused—and the incentive is that they get to own the story of their crimes. You know, historically it worked for novels and songs and meeds, why not for crimes?”
“And that’s what Slabilis must be doing, right now, with this case,” Wychee says. “Quite possibly he even put Derlock up to it in the first place. The whole thing does seem much more thought-through than I’d expect from Derlock. Anyway, every distress call they picked up from us is probably being archived and sealed under an injunction, as part of the forthcoming Derlock Slabilis, Most Interesting Boy in the Solar System documentary special. They’re arguing that they own all the rights to it because if Derlock hadn’t committed his crime, there wouldn’t be any story.”
“But it’s not true!” Glisters seems to think this matters. “He didn’t commit the crime they’re using to get the injunction. It’s just about the only crime he didn’t commit.”
I explain, “But truth isn’t the issue. Being an accused criminal gives you the right to the story, whether it’s true or not. Other people don
’t get to disrupt it, especially not with the truth, unless the truth becomes more popular and interesting, but of course there’s no legitimate way for them to find it out, at least not while he’s got an injunction, and whatever we do or say now, any message we get to anyone on Mars, will automatically be part of the story, and he’ll own it.”
Wychee is nodding vigorously. “Help we are still alive and in trouble, by us, is now Derlock’s property.”
“Except you can beat those cases by getting the truth out,” I say. “Slabilis has lost more than once when a victim made himself or herself so popular on the pirate faces that the overriding media interest was in allowing that part of the story out. And the first step in getting out on the pirate faces is letting people know that they’re not getting the whole story. So that was what Pop and probably your mom, too, Glisters, hired that actor to do. He jammed that revelation into the press conference so that a few million people watching the live feed would know there’s an even better story being kept from them, which should get the pirates after the story.
“They were also letting us know they’re on the case. And it knocked Derlock over because in his arrogant, Derlocky way, he fully expected that we would have screwed up and died out here by now.”
“So what can we do to support the home team?” Wychee asks.
“Well, I have an idea,” I say. “Let’s pump out a fifteen-minutes-a-day slice-of-life program called, um, Life on Virgo. Just whatever happens for that day, but do our best to tell it as an interesting story. At first it will get some attention because it’s contradicting Derlock, and that should get it onto the pirate faces—maybe even on one of the big ones like Ed Teach, at least as a novelty. It has a bunch of good hooks, you know: cover-up, kids stranded in space, people who are supposed to be dead are sending us a daily diary, officialdom is not telling the truth—that’s going to play to the pirates. Of course, to do that means among other things we need a meed-maker with really major skills.”
“If you say so,” Glisters says.
“No modesty, Gliss,” Wychee says. “That’s what you’re always telling me.”
“On the other hand, do not get all fancy and cut things into tiny little pieces and spoil the story telling aspect,” I add. “Just remember, this will be the first time you’ve ever worked on something that really, really matters.”
He sighs. “Everything comes with strings, doesn’t it?”
22
CHRISTMAS ON THE WAY OUT
October 4, 2129. On board Virgo, upbound from periareon to aphelion (point in orbit farthest from the sun). 257 million kilometers from the sun, 42 million kilometers from Mars, 143 million kilometers from Earth.
“COMMANDER?”
I no longer have to think that’s me. “Yeah, Glisters.” I am squirming out of my sleepsack at his voice on the speakers.
“Something everyone should see. Big news in the cockpit. If you get here first I can show it to you before the others see it, so I’m not letting them know till you’re here.”
“Okay. Is it that bad?”
“That good. Hurry.”
In the cockpit, he hands me a squeezebulb of coffee, and says, “Don’t have any in your mouth while I run this meed, and strap in, okay?”
I suck welcome, warming coffee and strap in. “So are you going to call the others?”
“Soon as I’ve got you watching this.” He’s watching me strangely. “The answer to every question you’re about to have is that all I know is what’s in this meed, which I watched three times before I called you. My search algorithm found it on a pirate face that was shut down a few seconds after I picked it up—naturally a onetimer.”
“What’s a onetimer?”
“Something that’s costing Mom, and your father, a fortune, if they’re behind it. A whole channel, not just some faces but dedicated submillimeter-wave transmitter someplace in orbit, that pops up and runs till the UN Communication Control Center orders it to shut down. Only intended to last a matter of hours, or even minutes, wildly illegal because the software can’t filter it—it can only be turned off at the source.”
“But the source is right there at the intersection of all those submillimeter wave beams.”
“You bet, and there are huge fines and all kinds of other trouble for firing off a onetimer. But because the UN cops have to get to it physically, during the few hours it’s up, nothing can stop the pirate community from downloading from it for later circulation—and once enough pirates have it, it’s impossible to keep it from leaking, over and over, into all the other faces. Putting it out on a onetimer makes sure a message gets out beyond recall. It costs plenty because you have to bribe it onto a registered rocket launch, or illegally push it off a space station, just to begin with, and any kind of unauthorized launch is a high order UN felony.”
“And you think our parents did that?”
“Somebody rich who wanted to make sure the whole world knew something extremely relevant to our case did. You know anyone other than our parents that could be? So, the point is, anyway, at a guess, probably a hundred thousand pirates—say half of all the pirates there are—have recorded this and will distribute it to a few hundred million more locations within twenty-four hours, and it’ll start being splyctered everywhere in a few days at most. The content is good news all by itself, but it’s even better news that it came in through a onetimer, because this can’t have been suppressed and somebody paid a lot to make sure it couldn’t. Now you watch while I contact the others and bring them in here.”
The screen image blips up abruptly; a lot of the pirates don’t bother bringing you in or out, they just run the footage, wasting no millisecond of open face. It shows—for one instant, I think it’s just some archived hooks of my Aunt Destiny and then I realize. That’s a Space Patrol cruiser and—
The voice kicks in, “—the cruiser Gagarin on September 28, 2129.”
Looking strangely bloated and half-dead, Aunt Destiny, alive, just six days ago, is airswimming feebly out of an airlock, between two guiding, supporting uniformed Space Patrolmen.
Cut to a pellor clinging to a mostly collapsed iceball.
Voice breaks in again over the pictures, and audio quality is poor, but it’s my waves of emotion that block at least half of them: “… apparently stranded… explosion on Virgo… had the Tang Rule rations for four crew for one month in the lockers… crude electrolysis device made more oxygen… pellor engines can take ice from an aperture in an iceball surface membrane directly…”
I realize why she looks the way she does: She didn’t have the anti-calcium-loss, anti-bloating, or muscle-maintenance drugs on board, because the longest they ever expected to be out in a pellor was a day or so. The voice explains some more “… Tang Rule, intended to ensure survival for stranded evalists… never intended to cover going to Mars in a pellor. Neither the necessary drugs nor the required radiation shielding…”
Oh, man, now that’s the other reason she looks awful. For four months she was not behind two meters of water like we are, or half a meter of ferrocrete the way people were in the crew bubble; she’s taken a pretty serious radiation bath. They’ll be pouring preventive onco into her, they’ll have to keep her in an almost abiotic environment for weeks, she’s going to lose tonnes more blood cells, most of her hair, maybe some of her skin and intestinal cells…
And she’s alive. At least as of September 28, she was alive. I’m crying too hard to listen well, but there will be months and months to rewatch the meed. Destiny’s alive.
Voice again. “… cruiser Gagarin met the pellor approximately fifteen days out of Mars, in response to the distress call. Captain Khalidiya, in defiance of an injunction not to damage the commercial value of the the Derlock Slabilis survival story…”
Then the cockpit is filling up with my friends, summoned by Glisters, and I have to be calm and reassuring and all those commanderly things. I manage somehow, but I don’t think I would convince myself. My brain is too busy with the
thought that Destiny’s alive, and Pop’s on the job of getting us home. When the uproar has finally settled down to a happy buzz, F.B. asks, “Does this mean we’ll get rescued sooner?”
“I hadn’t even thought about that,” I admit. “And I really don’t know offhand. Let me think.”
Now I see what a complicated mess Pop and the good guys must be dealing with. First Derlock called in, and Slabilis Celebrity Law got an injunction right then. Then Destiny turned up, and the Space Patrol (which I imagine likes Slabilis about as well as cops have ever liked lawyers) broke the ownership injunction by going out and rescuing Destiny; they’ll probably do okay in court about that, because they can argue things about saving human life and being a government institution and so on, but they also had to keep the operation secret. Just about the same time that Destiny got close enough to Mars for her distress call to be heard, Glisters’s transmitter-gadget started breaking into the drop-channels, starting an entirely separate pirate-versus-owner fight. And then Derlock finally landed, walked out of the cap, and under cover of that injunction, said several things that a few hundred thousand people knew were blatant lies.
I hope the judges on Mars enjoy complexity.
As we watch it the whole way through, with enough composure to be quiet and listen, I pick up the rest of the details; Destiny is alive, Pop is grateful, and they let him slip in a line about looking forward to having his whole family home and safe, but not mentioning me directly. Probably the little sentence he was allowed to say cost a couple days of pricey lawyer-time, but if his results are measured in my gratitude, he got a bargain.
