By Dawn's Early Light

by Jason Fuesting

  “That’s--”

  “Horrific? Awe inspiring? Either appellation works. So, you see, Turing Interstellar single-handedly waged war on all the governments of Earth. All at once. And we won. We. The others that helped up? They became Inner Party. They supplied manpower, financial backing, but without my forbearers there would be no Protectorate. And for what? They gave us this planet, but was that truly what my forebears wanted? Maybe they wanted to live like kings, perhaps? Does it matter? Did it ever matter? They burnt humanity to ash because they fought for an ideology of poison. Greed and hate. I wonder, did they think that maybe this time their ideals would work? That somehow they could ignore the cumulative experience of Man throughout history like it meant nothing? Were they so arrogant to think that this time, Marx would work because this time they had all the right people and all the right knowledge? Just like every fool before them? And to think we traded liberty for slavery.

  “And now you see why I am drinking myself silly today.”

  “So,” Eric began flatly. “You’re why we can’t have nice things.”

  Silence strangled the room for several seconds while Turing gaped. Might’ve overstepped on that one. A smirk broke Turing’s mask of shock and he broke into dark laughter.

  “Point for you. Well played, sir.”

  Day 350

  Sitting on the porch steps lost in thought, the sound of footsteps behind him didn’t register.

  “Nawgale,” Eric muttered to himself.

  “What?” Byron asked, peering down at him. “What did you say?”

  “Oh, sorry, didn’t hear you come up to me. Nawgale huayheh.”

  Byron shook his head slowly and said, “You mean, ná géill choíche.”

  “That’s what I said.”

  Byron chuckled, “No, that’s what was lodged in your mouth. That’s my native tongue you’re butchering and I’m highly curious as to where you heard that phrase.”

  “You remember when Frost put me in medical back on the Shrike?”

  Byron slowly nodded.

  “The ship’s doctor told me that before he turned me over to Hettinger. What’s it mean?”

  “Interesting. Very interesting.”

  “That doesn’t make any sense.”

  Byron snorted, realizing Eric’s mistake. “No, that the doctor would tell you that. Our language has a lot of nuance in pronunciation. Simply put, he told you ‘never surrender’ or ‘give them nothing.’”

  “So he was a Caledonian agent?”

  “Now you see why I find that interesting.”

  “I mean, I’m pretty sure that was when I started having issues with my memory. Do you think he’s the one who gave me those nanites Turing said I was dosed with?”

  “Anything is possible. Some possibilities sure seem convincing, don’t they?”

  Eric stared at the grinning Caledonian intelligence agent before slowly shaking his head.

  “So, what are you up to, Eric?” Byron asked.

  “Taking a break from studying. Figured I’d come out here, get some fresh air, and watch Hadrian run the volunteers in circles a bit. You?”

  “Oh, the same. You sure you aren’t shirking and hoping Leah will come over here once they’re done with morning PT?”

  Eric grinned. “Anything is possible. Some of the possibilities sure seem convincing, don’t they?”

  Byron chuckled. “Touché, sir. Touché. I’ll leave you to it. Places to go, people to kill, secrets to steal. You know how it goes.”

  Day 362

  “Don’t be too terribly hard on yourself,” Turing told Eric. “Chemistry is a fair bit easier to study when you have a lab and plenty of reagents.”

  “I did that badly?” Eric asked and slumped on the stool. His eyes fell to the kitchen floor.

  “Not as well compared to the other topics we’ve covered so far, but quite well by most academic standards. I will have to thank Jorge for his time. It doesn’t appear to have been misspent at all,” Turing commented as he poured boiling water for his tea.

  “So what’s next?” Eric asked.

  “I’m thinking a few more specialties of math. After that? Maybe economics.”

  “Economics? That’s just more math. Math, math, and more math.”

  Turing belly-laughed. “Econ is a fair bit more than that, Eric. I don’t have an economist on staff, and honestly, I wouldn’t let a Protectorate economist teach you. I’ll lend you one of our econ books so you have an idea where we went wrong, but there’s actually an excellent discussion of economics on your tablet by a man named Thomas Sowell.”

  Eric nodded. Some of the stuff I’ve read--“Turing, what makes economics so hard for most people?”

  “Evidently, when you put a currency symbol in front of the numbers, it makes math harder,” Turing replied.

  Eric shared a grin and checked his watch.

  “Have somewhere to be?” Turing asked.

  “Not really? Leah’s patrol was supposed to be back six hours ago.”

  “Understandable thing to worry about. I’m sure she’s fine. She’s out with Hadrian and the others from this batch of recruits. I’m sure if there were issues, we would have heard about it over the link by now.”

  Eric jerked in his chair by a thump in the hall. Was that the door?

  In the hall outside, Hadrian’s voice boomed with urgency, “Read, go get Doc.”

  Doc? Leaping from his stool, Eric’s mind went to dark places. He rushed out of the kitchen and nearly collided with one of the recruits in the hall.

  “Sorry,” the man blurted as he sidestepped him at nearly a run.

  Eric blinked. Blood coated the man’s coat and had dribbled a trail down the hall. Oh shit.

  “Leah?” Eric yelled as he ran for the foyer.

  Hadrian stepped into the doorway with his hand up, blocking Eric. Amidst the piles of gear and packs behind the man in the foyer, two frightened recruits tended to a prone figure lying on a tarp.

  “Hadrian,” Eric growled, “Move.”

  “You don’t want to see this,” Hadrian said.

  Eric’s eyes narrowed to slits. “Move or I’ll move you myself.”

  The two exchanged determined glares a moment before Hadrian nodded and stepped back.

  Eric rushed to the prone figure and knelt at her side, “Leah?”

  Her eyes flittered open.

  “Eric?” she asked, her voice little more than a whisper. “Eric?”

  He took her dirty hands in his and squeezed them. She reeked of spent gunpowder and blood.

  “I’m here, hon. I’m here.” Tears welled in his eyes and he wiped them away. “What happened?”

  The recruit nearest to him looked away. Eric counted heads.

  “Hadrian? Where’s Chris?”

  “Outside in a tarp.”

  “Drink,” Turing told him and handed Eric another tumbler. “Hadrian, now that Doc has seen to Leah and we know she’ll be okay, what exactly happened?”

  “We were on our way back when Chris came across some tracks. I looked at them. Tracks from six people. Since we were the only ones out that direction, we followed them. Turned out to be twelve.” Hadrian’s expression darkened before he finished, “We lost Lance Corporal Taylor in the first few seconds. Leah risked herself to recover his weapon. That grenade launcher is the only reason everyone else walked away. If this were a regular line unit, I’d recommend both of them for medals.”

  “You’re a much better tracker than that,” Turing commented flatly through steepled fingers.

  “The tracks were for six. The others had to be another group that came in from somewhere else. I’ll go back tomorrow and check the tracks though, it wasn’t but an hour outside the wall.”

  Byron frowned and said what everyone was thinking, “They must have found another way here.”

  Turing brooded while the rest sat in silence.

  “I have a few observation units that could be moved,” Turing eventually said. Everyone looked at him. “We�
��ll need more laser repeaters set up if we’re going to make it work. It will stretch what little processing power is left in the medusa, but we have the topography maps and there’s only so many ways into this valley from their direction. We might be able to cover the majority of them if we’re creative.”

  Eric rocked back in his chair and said, “A medusa? That’s how you’ve been monitoring the pass?”

  Both Turing and Byron nodded back, but Turing spoke, “It was the only way. I’d hoped to have some level of overlap off the sensors so more of the processing could be kept on the local devices, but this is too much area to cover, especially with only one blade in the chassis. The other wouldn’t boot up. Ideally, you’d want a cluster and five times as many optical sensors.”

  “You know a whole lot about how they’re used,” Eric groused with no small amount of suspicion.

  “I would. I knew the man who designed the prototype. We went to the University together; it was his thesis project. I might have helped refine the initial designs a smidge. Everyone, you can go. Hadrian, stay. We need to discuss expanding your project again. It appears we need to teach the Legion to stay on their side of the mountain.”

  “And so today we lay to rest our cherished friend and valued comrade. Lance Corporal Chris Taylor gave his life so that others may live. Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends. Major, render honors.”

  Eric bowed his head as Turing continued and the words washed over him. Leah shifted in uncomfortable silence next to him as she clenched her one good hand. Eric laid his hand on hers as Hadrian barked orders to the honor guard when Turing finished.

  “Ready! Aim! Fire!”

  They both jerked when the honor guard fired the first volley. She clutched his hands like a vice at the second. Eric felt her tremble at the third.

  “Present, arms!”

  Both Eric and Leah snapped a final salute as the coffin descended into the hole.

  When the ceremony had finished and the crowd began to drift away, Eric stood riveted to the spot. Leah squeezed his hand and he looked up at the mound of fresh earth. After a final salute, Eric turned to help Leah stand.

  Peace in Our Time

  Day 365

  “So, I’ve been thinking,” Leah said, handing him his tablet.

  “What about?”

  “Well, I’ve read a few of the political theory bits. I found Algernon Sydney and the Bastiat pieces fascinating, but I’m pretty sure I need to be more up to speed on the history. Maybe I’m blind, I just didn’t find them, but all the talk on how government should work and all that. Well, like I was saying, I was thinking and, well, why have government at all?”

  “I’m not following?”

  “Well, the Protectorate’s government is supposed to protect its people, right?”

  “Ostensibly, sure. It’s easy to say one thing and do the other. That and, no offense, you Protectorate types have an awfully odd idea of what protecting people means.”

  “Hmm, well, what I was thinking was if we can’t trust politicians to do the right thing, why not just do away with all of them? We don’t have any politicians here and shit works, right?”

  “Not exactly,” Eric said, pausing to consider his next words carefully.

  “Okay?” Leah asked a few moments later when he didn’t continue.

  “Well, first off, we do have a politician. Just one. Turing. Primarily, it works because we’re small scale and Turing isn’t so big of an ass we can’t stand him. Not having any other viable alternatives other than starvation doesn’t hurt, either. That said, anarchy isn’t a thing, really.”

  “How so?”

  “Well, I get the impression from what I’ve read that society is self-assembling. You simply can’t have no government, it builds itself whether you want it to or not. What that ends up as comes in only a few flavors. You have rule by one, rule by few, rule by many, rule by law, and rule by none.”

  “Okay?” Leah prompted when Eric fell silent a few moments to collect his memory.

  “If you accept that a single person simply does not and cannot have the time or ability to coordinate everything, rule by one becomes rule by few. Monarchy and the rest are essentially the same thing with prettier words and justifications. Oligarchy. I suppose that’s a better word for what we have here now that I think of it. Turing has all his department heads. Rule by many? In a democracy the majority sets the rules. Simple majority and you get your way. Every case I’ve read about, this system falls apart because the people are, I believe the phrase was ambitious, vindictive, and rapacious. Eventually the strain results in open violence against the various factions which leads to rule by none.

  “But rule by none is little more than a way station on the way to somewhere else. People will always have problems they can’t fix on their own and they’ll turn to someone else to try to fix them. Imagine if you reset society and now nobody was in charge. How long do you think it would be before someone decided they wanted to be in charge? How long after that do you think it’d be before someone rose to the top? When that someone else has enough people turning to them, they might as well be the government, at least insomuch as authority is concerned. And that’s despotism and back to oligarchy in almost every case.

  “Rule by law boils down to an attempt to restrain the government just as much as it restrains the people. The law dictates what’s right, not a single dictator or his cronies. If you do it right, the law is a reflection of the people not the will of well-connected men.

  “So really it boils down to oligarchy or the rule of law in a Republic. Neither of which are permanent. I don’t know about you, but I’m not a fan of the chosen few dictating to me how to live.”

  Leah frowned and brushed her hair back but didn’t speak.

  “As a pirate, I grew up with what most might think of as anarchy. Ship’s captains set the rules on their boats. The owners of the various stations set their rules. Everyone has their own little fiefdom where they’re king and when you’re in another king’s territory, you step mighty lightly. Even then, that’s not really anarchy, not by definition. It’s just a web of oligarchies that may or may not even bother cooperating. Even the pirates can’t make anarchy work.

  “Hell, the only agreement that connects them is the Compact, but aside from a few choice points, I don’t know more about it. It’s supposed to dictate how pirates deal with each other out in the black when the normal rules aren’t so easily enforced. I’m not sure what would happen if someone attacked the pirates as a whole. Your guess is as good as mine, but I don’t really see all those kings cooperating to defend people they don’t know and never cared to know. The system would shatter.

  “So yeah, if I had to pick, I’d live in a Republic as long as we could keep it. Though, keep in mind, I’m still reading the history and the like so I might not have a good picture, but that’s my uninformed opinion.”

  Leah looked at the floor a few moments before commenting, “Maybe you’re right. You’ve read a lot more on this than I have yet.”

  Eric laid his hand on her shoulder.

  “Sorry, I’m not trying to be a dick about it. It’s just, reading all this history, I get frustrated with how people have handled things. That’s not your fault, I’m sorry.”

  “It’s okay, I guess. I just don’t like not knowing what you’re talking about sometimes.”

  “Well, it’s not like there’s a rush, hon. We’ve got pretty much all the time in the world and it’s not like we need to hammer out a new government tomorrow. You’ll be caught up in no time. Are you feeling okay?”

  “About as well as can be expected, I guess.”

  “Eh, I got wrapped up talking about history and it occurred to me that you’re still dealing with Chris’s loss on top of all this.”

  “I’m fine, Eric. Or as fine as anyone has a right to be. Chris died. Nothing I can do will change that. Like Byron told me, I just need to make sure I live up to his sacrifice.”
<
br />   Eric nodded as he squeezed her hand. He said, “Speaking of having time, did you find the media cache on this thing?”

  “Media cache?”

  “Oh, you’ll love this. Here, let me find the one I watched last week. It was ancient long before this tablet was made.”

  “What’s it called?”

  “Full Metal Jacket.”

  Day 391

  “Captain Friedrich?” an unfamiliar voice called out behind him. Eric smirked at the irony of his new militia rank as he had nearly every time someone called him by it. Leave it to the pirate to be a captain, but not a Captain.

  “Ceasefire on the firing line,” Eric called out and turned around to find an unfamiliar young man jogging toward him, huffing.

  “Sir, Major MacGregor told me to come get you. Something big is going on.”

  Damn, that can’t be good.

  Eric turned and growled at the newest batch of recruits, “Everybody take five. Sergeant, we might be done with this exercise for the day. See that they start on cleaning their weapons when break’s over.”

  “Yes, sir,” Leah said with a grin. As he stalked off toward the manor house, her best drill instructor voice carried over the sound of the running saws at the mill down the way. “All right, maggots, you heard the captain, range session is over.”

  Eric was still smirking at just how incongruous that voice was to her normal demeanor when he stepped onto the porch. Watching all those old war movies on Mournealt’s tablet while she recovered may have been a bad idea.

  Julien opened the back door.

  “They’re waiting for you in Turing’s study,” the Orleanian said. Eric noted the sour tone, but thanked the man anyway before making his way down the hall.

  “And you think we can trust them?” Byron was asking as Eric entered the study.