by Dani Kollin
“The mound,” said Irma. “The whole mound?”
Rabbi nodded. “At some point, we Jews will be called upon to rebuild the Holy Temple. When that day comes, I’d like to know that we’ll be ready.”
“You do realize it’s going to be radioactive for ten thousand years.”
“We’ll wait,” replied Rabbi with dry smile, as if he were picking up a food order.
“Does that mean the Muslims will want all of Mecca?”
“Tawfik and Fatima will take only what is needed to reestablish the Kaaba on another world or worlds. But these are issues we will deal with on the trip out.”
Rabbi’s DijAssist informed him of a call. He looked to Irma. “Please excuse me, Madam Minister.”
“Binyamin,” Rabbi whispered harshly into his DijAssist, “I’m with a very important person. Are you sure this can’t wait?”
“Forgive me, Mahagaw,” said the voice, using the name of respect accorded him by the Jews, “but the Beit Din requires your wisdom concerning a conversion.”
Rabbi sighed. The issue of conversion was the most pressing he’d had to deal with, given all the people who were interested in joining “the oldest of the faiths,” which, thought Rabbi, might not even be true or, from a spiritual standpoint, particularly relevant.
“What is it now, Binyamin, that it couldn’t wait till organzing the Kotel and the Mount’s removal had been agreed to?” Rabbi looked over to Irma and shrugged his shoulders apologetically. “That they couldn’t wait till I was in orbit?”
“They could wait, Mahagaw, but they thought you’d want to know at once.”
“Is it someone controversial? Don’t tell me Miss Goldstein has finally changed her mind,” he said with just a hint of hope in his voice.
“No, Mahagaw, far more interesting.”
“Well, Binyamin, I’m not getting any younger. What makes this conversion so interesting that the Beit Din felt I must be informed at once? That it takes precedence over bringing back whatever’s left of the Holy of Holies? That makes this person out of all the hundreds of thousands so much more important?”
“She’s an avatar, Mahagaw.”
“Oy,” was the only sound that escaped Rabbi’s lips.
Jerusalem
Earth
USF
Irma watched as the last of the giant mounds of fused glass was placed into the cargo bed of a large military hauler, vacuum sealed, and then driven off to the nearest orport. The Jews, Muslims, and Christians would have their relics, and she’d have her piece documenting their incredible journey of faith. When she was certain she was alone, she pulled out her DijAssist and placed a call she once swore she’d never make again. When the call was accepted, she almost cried, and when she heard the voice at the other end, she actually did.
“Irma,” said Michael Veritas, joy evident in his voice. “My goodness, how are you?”
“I’m fine, Michael, I…”
“Yes?”
“I could really use your help.…”
“Of course, Irma, what is it you need?”
Irma wiped away her tears, staring out at the remains of the holy city. “Forgiveness.”
New York City
Earth
USF
“And so it is with great pride I stand on this land reclaimed from the Atlantic,” said President Trang. “This land that was once known as Central Park will be a park again. But it will no longer be Central Park. It hasn’t been very central for a while now.” This brought a smattering of polite laughter. “Instead it will be called Sambianco Park for the President who tried his best for us and eventually showed us the path out of oblivion. Even though all we have here is a saltwater swamp, barely reclaimed from the ocean, I wish to dedicate a statue to our heroic President as a token of the trees, grass, paths, and lakes that will someday be here.” With those words, Trang deactivated the opacity field around the statue he had commissioned. It showed a powerful figure forced down to his knees and one hand, with the other hand outstretched. The statue showed a man who did not want to lie down, who still had so much to do and was anguished that he’d never get to do it. That he was on his knees and would never rise again.
Trang smiled as he saw the statue and heard the polite comments of how it captured the true soul of the old President. He knew that Hektor would have hated it. When Trang had spent the appropriate amount of time in the ghost town that was now New York, he gratefully flew away to the provisional capital in Boulder, Colorado. As he looked back at the old city, he knew in his heart it was finished. They would drain it and build some parks, but they were not ever going to restrain the Hudson again. If the city had a million residents in ten years, he’d be grateful.
But his mind soon left the dim past as he prepared to meet the future. With full pomp and ceremony, the President of the USF, Samuel U. Trang, met the Chancellor of the Belter League, Mosh McKenzie. They saluted, then they bowed, and then at Mosh’s insistence, they even shook hands. Trang didn’t mind. He knew Mosh had a constituency he had to work with in the Belt just as Trang had one he had to work with in the Core. But after the polite necessities had been attended to, they found themselves alone and in a room ready to talk.
“Allow me to congratulate you on your actual election to the Presidency,” Mosh said as they both sat down with drinks in hand.
“I must admit, I feel better having won the election fair and square. It never sat right simply taking it by military fiat.”
“You did what you had to with an unjust situation. I’m sadly familiar with that.”
Trang bowed sympathetically. “May I ask a delicate question, Chancellor?”
“Mr. President, I’m only Chancellor till the USF gets around to absorbing us. So ask what you want, as long as you call me Mosh.”
“In that case, call me Sam.”
Mosh smiled politely.
“When you attempted the coup, you did so with the belief that Sandra O’Toole would kill us all?”
“At the time, Sam, there was no doubt in my mind. Far as I was concerned, she’d gone well off the reservation. She did Mars behind Joshua’s back!”
“But Sandra O’Toole is also the one who ended up saving us, Mosh. The human race, in fact. Both houses, incorporated and unincorporated, now have a chance to grow and survive—all because of her. Can you admit you were wrong? And if you were, do you regret it?”
“It?”
“The coup attempt.”
Mosh gave Trang a sideways look. “That’s an interesting question, Sam.”
“Indulge me if you will.”
“Was I wrong?” Mosh pondered the question. “Yeah, maybe I was. She fooled us all, and maybe I should have trusted her. As to the second question, do I regret it? No, sir, not one bit. I hate the getting there, but I like the way things turned out. The Alliance is leaving, and the solar system belongs to incorporation, though hopefully one that is more restrained. I was able to save a lot of lives in the asteroid belt, and who knows if it wasn’t my attempted coup that caused her to change course. But I’m curious as to why a President feels the need to ask such a question of a soon-to-be private citizen.”
“Yes,” said Trang, “I understand you’re looking to get your old job back at the Boulder Revival Clinic.”
Mosh nodded.
“The answer is because I need to get a sense of you, Mosh. If I’m going to be trusting you with the human race, it’s those odd little questions that tell me more about a man than the obvious ones.”
Mosh eyed Trang suspiciously. “What do you mean, trust me with humanity? In case you haven’t noticed, I didn’t do such a good job when I did have a great deal of power.”
“On the contrary, Mosh, I think you did great. Oh, not the results, but your intention was the best of the war.”
“Fat lot of good my intentions did,” said Mosh in a tone that belied the harshness of the words.
“Actually, Mosh, I believe you’re the best of us.”
“Real
ly?” answered Mosh, skepticism clear in his voice.
“All of us did things in this war we’ll never be proud of. We acted on dubious orders and condoned with our words, actions, or even worse, our silence one atrocity after another. In the name of victory, we murdered children in their homes, unleashed VR into the mainstream—”
“That was our side, Sam, much to my shame.”
“That’s what I’m talking about, Mosh. When I say ‘we,’ I mean all of us, the entire human race—certainly those with the power to influence events. When it comes to our abhorrent behavior, humanity is sadly united in failure. All except for you and Joshua Sinclair,” said Trang, looking at Mosh with a level of respect that Mosh had not seen in a long time. “You voted against every attempt to make the war worse. You spoke with force and conviction that there are some victories too costly to win, and you were right. When it came time to oppose the wholesale destruction of entire peoples, you did so. You did not succeed—and maybe it was better that you didn’t in the end—but you stood up to the tide of opinion and power and the nature of history itself to attempt what you felt was right. For you, it was about people—all people. Don’t think that that is not known and appreciated in the USF.”
Mosh let out a self-deprecating laugh. “You’re making me sound pretty good there, friend.”
“That’s because you are. You and Joshua Sinclair may be the only good men to come out of this war. Which is why in six years, when the Belter League is officially absorbed into the USF, you’re going to campaign with me as my Vice Presidential running mate.” Trang held up his hand to forestall Mosh’s comment. “And in twelve years, with my full support, you’ll run for and win the Presidency of the USF.”
“Awful confident, aren’t you?”
“In this, yes.”
“Then by your standards, Joshua is just as good a man as I am.”
“You mean the man who’ll be grand admiral of all USF forces in six years’ time? I completely agree. What better way to help reassure those once oppressed by the UHF than having one of their own commanding the USF? In fact, I can’t think of a better grand admiral than the one who is known systemwide for his refusal to take innocent lives both in the Spicer Ring affair and the murder of Mars.”
“How will the people of the USF feel, knowing that its top two positions are held by former traitors.”
“Any other two, I agree, total disaster. But you two will help unite the solar system as only you two can.”
Mosh spent a few moments regarding the man he’d loathed for so long.
“You realize I feel strongly that the laws of incorporation need to be changed. They were deeply flawed to have allowed so much control over someone’s individual liberty, to have created a veritable race of indentured servants and ultimately to have set a course on so much death and destruction.”
“I agree,” said Trang, taking another draw of his bourbon, “and now’s the time to begin that change. With your input, we can correct the flaws of incorporation and unite the solar system. We can make this a safe, secure, profitable, and happy home for humanity again.”
“So much for the job in Boulder.”
“C’mon, Mosh. You had to know you weren’t done yet.”
Mosh thought for a moment and then sighed. “I guess I’m not, Sam.” Then he had another thought. “What about my wife?”
“What about her? I thought she went back to using her maiden name?”
“She did, but we’re not divorced, just separated.”
“Didn’t she put a shoot-on-sight order out on you if you returned to Alliance space?”
“That was a—” Mosh paused. “—misunderstanding.”
“I heard she hired bounty hunters.”
“An exaggeration—they were process servers.” Mosh winked. “Like I said, we’re not divorced.”
“Isn’t she going with the Exodus?”
“She may very well be, but if she doesn’t, I’ll take her back.”
“Despite everything she’s done and said.”
“She’s my wife, Sam. Despite everything, I still love her. I always have, and I always will. If that means I can’t be President after you, then that’s what it means.”
“I don’t think it’ll come to that. Yours is not the only family that has been divided by war and Exodus. A lot of people in the system understand what you’re dealing with. If anything, it makes you better suited to lead.”
As they sat in companionable silence, sipping their drinks, Mosh decided to throw one more wrench into the spokes to see if Trang still wanted him. “You’re wrong about me, you know. I’m not the only one who refused to yield to the pressure. Justin Cord was the greatest of us. He was the one who chose Josh because Josh had refused an unjust order. Justin refused categorically to unleash a VR plague on the UHF. He would never have allowed the bombardment of Mars. I didn’t like him at first. In fact, I blamed him for everything in the beginning. But in the end, the bastard was proved right; it was not Justin Cord, but incorporation that was flawed. All those actions of mine that you praised, I learned by his example.”
“On that, you and I will have to disagree, but I wouldn’t suggest you make that a major plank in your campaign.”
Mosh laughed, raised his glass slightly, and made a toast. “To the future.”
Trang lifted his glass as well. “To our future.”
Oh, yes, thought Trang, I can trust you Mosh, soon to be ex-Chancellor and future President. You can’t help being good. Your wife made you that way by one of the very first shadow audits. And though I have had that data destroyed and had the few people still alive who helped create it eliminated, I will make use of it in you. Is that wrong of me? Trang considered that for the hundredth time and came back with the same answer. Yes, it is. But I don’t care. We are going to need Presidents we can trust until we can repair the system to the point where Presidents won’t matter again. So I will use the evil that made you to do what good I can. And with that, he saluted with his glass the shadow of a man in front of him and Mosh, misunderstanding the gesture, happily raised his glass in return.
Ceres
High orbit around Eris
Janet Delgado Black, looking dignified in her gray formal work suit, entered the Triangle Office. Though J.D.’s face and hand had been repaired and her original beauty restored, Sandra sometimes found it difficult to look at her. But if Janet ever had any doubts about the change, they did not show. Katy was happy with it, and that was good enough for her mother.
“Welcome to the Triangle Office, Madam Vice President,” Sandra said with clear jubilation. Sandra came around the desk to give Janet a hug.
“I’ve been in here practically every day for the last two years, Madam President,” Janet replied stiffly, still uncomfortable with hugs and tolerating them only from her President and her daughter.
“Ah, but this is the first time you’re here as the Veep.”
“If you say so, Madam President,” agreed Janet with no agreement in her voice. “Shall we get to work?”
And so the two women sat near the coffee table and began their comfortable and daily routine.
“Phase one of Exodus will proceed in two days, Madam President.”
Phase one consisted of seeding the proposed route with sufficient resources for the coming waves of colonists. As such, the OA would be launching an enormous amount of ice, asteroids of all mineral compositions, frozen blocks of hydrogen and other gases, along with a few hundred thousand technicians on specially rebuilt settlements. The entire hodgepodge would be going a little slower than the later launches, and if everything was timed properly, they should all reach Alpha Centauri at roughly the same time. The tremendous amount of ice was also, in effect, a large plow, clearing the route that the rest of the colonists were going to take. If something went wrong in the next six months, this spearhead group would discover it and let those set to follow know well in advance. Also if during the long journey, some large amount of resources were n
eeded in the larger asteroids to follow, it would be relatively easy just to slow down the resources needed and have them waiting along the route. All in all, phase one should provide the flexibility and warning signs to make the journey safer for the rest.
Phase two would take place in six months and consist of the launching of Ceres and a host of settlements with recently built and engineered for maximum reliability propulsion units. There were going to be 250 million children, women, and men in that wave containing much of the leadership and industrial capacity of the Outer Alliance. After that, another wave would launch once every six months as the resources could be made. If all went according to plan, the last Exodus colonization fleet would leave the solar system in ten years. But if something went wrong—and something always went wrong—they had another three years under the terms of the Treaty of Luna to fix it.
The final phase would take place thirteen years from the present date, when the final fleet would leave, regardless of how well the earlier phases went. That would be the “last call” fleet. With its departure, the human race would be severed forever between those who went and those who stayed.
J.D. and Sandra’s cursory review had been just that. Between the two of them, there just wasn’t that much to do. The important decisions had been made months ago, and they were just granny-checking to make sure all was as it should be.
They spent more time on the avatar issues. Those were proving to be more difficult. Not all humans and avatars in the Alliance were happy with the new state of affairs. But rather than these throwbacks being a problem, they ironically proved to be the easiest to deal with. Humans who didn’t want to deal with avatars were given avatar-free settlements to populate. There weren’t that many of them—only 200 million or so—and they were relatively content to leave the rest of the Alliance to its foolishness. A number of asteroids were created with pure data nodes for those avatars who wanted little or nothing to do with the human race. They also didn’t number that much—500 million or so—and were content to live their lives pretty much as they always had, except now they didn’t have any humans to look after.
