Chapter 5: The Vultures
“Please state your business on Trena,” the bored customs officer spoke as he looked over the papers the man presented him. Although the planet was mostly an exit only world, Trena was still getting a fair number of visitors from other worlds. The only visitors denied entry were citizens of the Theocracy and the People’s Republic of the Stars.
“We’re from Salvage Inc.,” the man said, “I am here to purchase as much of the abandoned property and goods that I can.”
“You are aware of course sir, that the Crown has levied a very hefty tax on all items exported off Trena not needed by the evacuation or our people on Home.”
“Yes I am aware of that,” the man said, he presented his export license, and his bank information. The crown had levied nearly a 50 percent tax on all items being up lifted from Trena, not being transported to Home. The export fee was for the actual purchase price of the material. If no purchase price was available, the customs service charges a minimum of 1000 crowns even if the item was only a box of tooth picks. It was an attempt to keep the vultures from picking Trena clean before the crown was completely through with the world. To get this far the man had to fill out an application in the Earth Empire where he was from; he had to be completely vetted by The Trenaport Mounted Patrol, and had been thoroughly investigated by the Corps De Chameleon, the Terran Imperial Intelligence Service. If there had been a questionable business practice at any time in his past he would not have been allowed to make final application and deposit a million earth imperials in the Bank of Home. The Queen and her advisors were doing their best to make sure that as much of the evacuation expenses were being recovered.
“Then I need to say this to you and this is being recorded,” as he said recorded the work station expert system began to record every that would be said next, “In less than four months, nine days and six hours the last transport will lift off world. As you have arrived on Trena, and at Trenaport, with your own transportation the Crown and Royal government of Trena will not ensure that you have safely left the planet. While you are here on Trena you will be required to obey all the rules and regulations concerning the evacuation of our citizens. Should you violate any of our laws, your embassy here will assist you; but they have more or less stated that Terran citizens who have come to Trena to pick over the bones of the people of Trena, will be on their own and at the mercy of the Queen’s Justice.”
“Kind of tough there ole buddy,” The man replied, “I’m just here to do a bit of business.”
“Do you understand what I have just told you and do you acknowledge that you will responsible for your own transportation off world. And that at any time the Crown’s Police forces may deport you with no more than five minute notice.” The customs agent asked.
“I understand,” the man said.
“Then ole buddy I suspect you want to be on your journey to plunder the remains of my people.” the customs agent said.
“Jesus,” The man said “all I am trying to do is do a little business.”
When the man had left the office, his supervisor spoke softly, “If it wasn’t for the money we are extorting off of those vultures I would shoot every one of them. Come on we have some shipments to inspect.”
“This will be fun! I wonder how many stowaways we’ll find.” The man said shutting down his work station thankfully they only had to deal with these people once or twice a day. The word was getting out. Not too many of these vultures were coming in these days.
It was a ten minute drive across the port to where the port authorities had set up the staging area for goods being exported from Trena. Today’s load was about a thousand ground cars and light utility vehicles. A large roll on roll off landing craft was grounded with its large gapping front ramp down. There were twenty customs agents waiting to begin the inspection. The crew of the Ro-Ro lifter was standing around waiting for the inspection to begin. The deal was that the customs team would go into the lifter and make sure all crewmen and passengers were accounted for. If the ship was found to have a stowaway on board or even one piece of non-declared cargo was on the ship, the ship would be confiscated and the crew escorted to the departure docks and put on the first ship to the space station and then escorted to the first liner leaving the Trena Solar System.
The customs crew went into the ship. They opened any and all closed doors, hatches and lockers. They didn’t care which crew member had the contraband, as the entire crew would be shipped out. This crew had been through the drill about fifty times so they had stopped arguing with customs officials and had declared everything they had on the ship. The custom crew made quick work of the mostly open Ro-Ro lifter.
“Captain,” the lead customs agent called, “As usual the ship’s clean. Where are your exports?”
“Here gentlemen,” The captain responded. The customs officer went to where the exports were standing.
“As required by her majesty and by the crown attorney I must ask you,” The customs officer read from a card, “Are you the owner of the vehicles listed on this manifest.”
“I am Ronald LaGrange owner of the vehicles on that manifest.” a youngish man replied.
“Do you certify that every one of these vehicles have been purchased in accordance with the salvage laws and ordinances as enacted by the crown and as amended by the Evacuation Command.” The customs officer continued.
“Yes,” the man answered.
“You are aware that if you are smuggling anyone off world, or if we find any contraband in any of the vehicles you have said you own on this manifest we will destroy any and all items on the manifest. You will forfeit your million imperial bond, you will have any and all funds on Trena confiscated and you will be escorted to the nearest off world out system transportation. If we deem the offense serious enough you will be presented before the crown bench and will be prosecuted to the full extent of law. This may include transportation to a Royal, Imperial or Thonian prison.
“If you wish to make a declaration of any contraband in your vehicles, or to declare that you have people in any of your vehicles we will not destroy them or cancel this exportation.”
“To the best of my knowledge no one has approached me or my employees to ask to be smuggled off world. I make this statement without reservation, that any employee of mine who has assisted anyone in smuggling themselves or others or things off world will have their employment terminated and be turned over to the authorities and I will testify against them in any court of law.” he locked eyes with the people standing with him. No one flinched.
The custom official nodded and said, “You may begin loading.”
It took hours, although the exporter had made his statement, in the past such statements were discovered to be lip service and exporters had tried to smuggle people off world. They had derived a system to make things move fast. Over a couple of days the vehicles would arrive at the customs quarantine unit. In quarantine the vehicle would be checked against the manifest and would be checked to make sure the vehicle hadn’t been stolen. It was also checked against the list of people of who had left Trena. That people who had evacuated had abandoned the property being exported. As part of the out processing by people evacuating to Home, or going to another world destination, the evacuees ceded any property that they were leaving behind to crown. Most of the evacuees didn’t have any problem with that as most of them were allowed to take their family car with them, and a lot of their personal possessions into the one container they were allowed, or if they were a large family needing no more than two containers they could take most of their things with them to Home. Occasionally someone with a special utility vehicle like a plumber, carpenter etc. would be allowed to take two vehicles with them. Mostly though people abandoned their second vehicles, all this had to be checked. That took only a few hours the day before. Now as the cars and trucks even a school bus was loaded on to the Ro-Ro they were searched again. Although some of the search was for show a lot
of it wasn’t. The customs people knew they were being watched. They knew that were not catching everything, but they also knew that they could make it harder for people to get things through the port.
Truthfully they were not too interested in the small stuff. Trena was never known for drug abuse, or smuggling drugs out. The smugglers wanted a place that they could bribe officials and not have problems with law enforcement. Trena handled drug smugglers by destroying their ships and executing everyone on board. Commercial Space Liners got the message, their owners only had to lose one or two ships and have their entire crews executed on the spot when the customs people found illegal drugs on board. The crown knew that jewels and other things were occasionally smuggled out and that they could do little to stop it. They wanted to stop the people smuggling. There were still far too many people trying to leave Trena by informal means. All of these people were leaving behind their obligations. Not caring if their spouses and children were taken care of. All they wanted was to get them self to safety. Sometimes they tried to smuggle their entire family off world. Sometimes they were successful. The crown didn’t mind if a family wanted to evacuate before the crown was ready for them. As long as the family had a place to go, and employment waiting on a planet willing to accept them the crown turned a blind eye. If they could prove this, the crown gave them the same grant as they would have gotten on Home. The Evacuation Command gave the family a five hundred crown grant that the family never had to repay. The crown didn’t want to be stuck with thousands of unwanted spouses, children and old people who had been abandoned by their so called loved ones.
So every door was opened. Every place a human being could be hidden was checked again. It took hours but when the customs people finished the inspection the car or truck was loaded into the Ro-Ro. The Ro-Ro was literally the largest ground to orbit vessel flown on Trena. It was five hundred feet square and one hundred feet high. It was towed out into Trenaport Bay where it could launch without destroying the port facilities when its engines lifted the nearly three million tons of space craft and cargo into orbit. One of these ships lifted from Trena once a day. Before the evacuation Trena would have been lucky to export a thousand cars and trucks a week and most of those were built in orbit from asteroid resources.
Every Last Mother's Child Page 142