by John Ringo
Simon’s lips twitched, despite the gravity of the situation. He’d raised an eyebrow at one of the clauses, which had read, essentially, The right of the people to keep and bear arms for self-defense and defense of the homeland shall never be infringed, limited, rescinded, interfered with, or prohibited by any decree of law, decision by court, or policy by the executive branch or any of its agencies. And this time, we mean it.
Kafari had told him, with typical Jeffersonian fire, that many Grangers felt the clause didn’t go far enough. He certainly hadn’t been inclined to argue the point. Not after some of the disasters he’d seen, on worlds he’d fought to protect. He’d seen worlds where the Concordiat had revoked treaties, due to massive human rights violations. No, he hadn’t felt like arguing the point at all.
President Lendan tapped restless fingertips against his desktop, staring for long moments into Simon’s eyes, as though trying to read his thoughts. Or, perhaps, trying to decide how much more to say. His deep-set eyes narrowed slightly, then he spoke again, evidently having reached a decision. “Fortunately, your authority and your paycheck come directly from the Brigade’s Sector Command, Colonel. That may prove to be critical, down the road. And I don’t like saying that any more than you like hearing it. But a man in my shoes — or yours — doesn’t have the luxury of pussyfooting around this issue, not with nearly ten million souls to safeguard.”
“Just how serious a problem do you think we’re looking at, sir?” he asked carefully.
Brief anger tightened down through Abe Lendan’s face. The muscles at his jaw jumped. “It could be damned serious. There are a lot of unhappy people out there,” he nodded toward the tall windows beside his desk, overlooking a city that was still being rebuilt. “The House and Senate have had to pass some mighty unpopular legislation. Nobody likes paying higher taxes, but frankly, they aren’t high enough. Not to pay for everything that needs to be done to get us back on our feet again. If we don’t get that space station into orbit soon…”
He didn’t need to finish the thought. Simon knew only too well the economic penalty Jefferson’s industry was paying for lack of an adequate spacedock for off-world freighters. The House and Senate had stalled and stalled on the funding vote for the station. They’d even balked at funding replacements for the weather and military surveillance satellites the Deng had blown to atoms. Half the fishing fleet had been lost during a violent, out-of-season storm that had ripped its way across the Western Ocean without anything like adequate advance warning. That storm had sent three factory trawlers to the bottom with all hands on board.
It was that disaster, in fact, and the public outcry over it — four hundred fifty children had lost one or both parents to the storm — that had finally forced the vote due to take place today. The pending legislation also included replacement of the military surveillance satellites and a provision requiring Jefferson to ship troops off-world, to support the savage fighting along humanity’s borders. Both items were required under Jefferson’s full treaty obligations and both had been forced through committee by some very courageous politicians. The military satellite expenditures were unpopular amongst the urban poor, but the shipment of troops was a political hot potato of immense size.
“What do you need from me, sir?” Simon asked quietly.
Abe Lendan’s voice was harsh with strain. “I need you to go over the defense priorities we’ll have to carry out on our own, if the Joint Assembly rejects the treaty. Whoever wins the presidential race six months from now will have to know what’s most critical to implement, if we lose you and your Bolo to our own stupidity.”
Simon winced at the bitterness.
“I take it,” Lendan added, “that you’re ready to testify before the Joint Assembly this afternoon?”
“I am.” The two words came out grim with the foreknowledge of exactly what tempest he was about to brew in the formidable teapot of Jefferson’s ruling echelons. “What I have to say won’t endear me to your political rivals. And your supporters won’t like it much, either. What the Concordiat needs — let alone what Jefferson needs — is mighty unpopular, just now, and I can’t see it getting any more palatable in the forseeable future.”
“I’m aware of that.” Abe Lendan’s voice dropped to a hush, his weary face haggard with deep lines and dark circles beneath his eyes. “Perhaps more so than anyone on Jefferson. If I can just hang on until after the elections…” His voice trailed off. “The best hope I can see for us is the Granger vote. If the urban vote swings the elections, we’re looking at real trouble, I’m afraid, and probably sooner than you can imagine. Unless,” he added grimly, “you’re half as smart as I think you are and you’ve got ears they haven’t thought about. And are willing to act on what you hear.”
Simon flexed his jaw muscles, but didn’t answer right away. If he were any judge of human character, the situation could get savage in a real hurry, with the presidency up for grabs in an open election.
“Very well, sir. Given the circumstances, we’d better hold that meeting with your advisors. Particularly the War College’s General Staff.”
Abe Lendan merely nodded, lips tightening briefly as he took in the deeper meaning of Simon’s words, took it in, shook the wrinkles out of it, and moved calmly on to the next task. As Abe Lendan touched the intercom controls, fingertips ominously unsteady, Simon wondered whom he’d be visiting in this office six months from now — and whether or not the next person to sit in that chair would be even a quarter as qualified as its current occupant. He found it difficult to believe that anyone ever could.
And prayed that he was wrong.
II
I monitor the progress of the presidential motorcade and its destination, Assembly Hall’s Joint Chamber between Jefferson’s Senate and House of Law, through a variety of sources. The interior of the Joint Chamber has been thoughtfully provided with a security system that includes cameras that sweep the entire room, allowing me full visual as well as audio capacity. Senators and representatives mingle informally, clumping in what I shortly identify as party-line affiliation clusters, quietly discussing the issues to be decided and the votes to be cast.
High Justices form another, insular group, which mingles with no one but itself. Clerks and technicians scurry like harried insects, checking cables and electrical connections, ensuring that the datascreens at each chair are functional and have the correct documentation keyed up and ready to view, filling cups with water, coffee, and other beverages of preference, all the minutiae that attend major gatherings of people about to conduct formal business.
News feeds intended for broadcast or transmission through the datanet provide me with multiple views outside Assembly Hall. Security officers stand guard at various checkpoints. Attendants assigned to park air and groundcars for arriving dignitaries rush between the entrance drive and the underground parking area adjacent to the Hall. I can see Law Square, as well, through the news cameras. The Square — an open plaza between Darconi Street and the massive structure that houses the legislative branch of Jefferson’s government — is jammed with onlookers, protestors, and news crews with cameras and commlinks. Approximately four thousand one hundred twenty-eight people have come to stand vigil at this crucial vote.
I tap more than fifty separate signals in Law Square alone, besides the interior security system of Assembly Hall. The effect is a kaleidoscopic jumble similar to what insects doubtless perceive through their many-lensed eyes, but I have no trouble following the various data feeds, sorting the signals into a coherent, comprehensive picture of what is occurring.
How I see and hear is less interesting than what is being done and said. I know the agitators in this crowd. It has been my task to monitor their actions and the effect they have on Jefferson’s population, particularly the urban contingent that is proving to be an effective incubator for dissatisfaction and resentment. Vittori Santorini is visible in the front tier of protestors, dressed deceptively in the type of dungarees common to the urb
an factory worker, rather than his more flamboyant student attire. Vittori and his younger sister, Nassiona, are not impoverished. Nor do they spring from the same social stratus as Jefferson’s typical working men and women. The Santorinis are the children of a Tayari Trade Consortium executive, a mining and manufacturing magnate whose company’s operations were damaged but not destroyed in the war.
I do not understand the motivations behind their increasingly successful campaign, promoting the organization they have established as a nonprofit educational and poverty-relief agency. They produce nothing but words and give no one anything but slogans and hatred. The Populist Order for Promoting Public Accord has an official Manifesto which puzzles me intensely. Of the seven-hundred thousand, twenty-one words in the POPPA Manifesto, six-hundred ninety-eight thousand spring from demonstrably false statements. Eighty-seven percent of the remaining two-thousand twenty-one words distort known facts to a degree bordering on falsehood.
Why do humans distort facts?
Failure to adequately correct such misapprehensions is a dangerous risk to the welfare of the entire society. Distortions of this magnitude lead inevitably to decisions based on misinformation. Poor decisions made using faulty data render the entire population vulnerable to destruction during battle. Given the demonstrably high risks, why do humans have such fondness for distorting provable facts? More disturbing, why do people believe such distortions blindly, when the accuracy of such statements is easily proven or disproved?
The statements made by the Santorinis are demonstrably false. Yet the POPPA movement gains nearly a thousand new adherents each week and is raising a considerable amount of money for purposes that I have not yet been able to discern completely. Some of it has gone into the political campaign funds of politicians opposed to meeting Jefferson’s treaty obligations with the Concordiat. I have, at Simon’s request, traced these donations, which often pass through two or three entities before arriving at the election offices for which they were ultimately destined, yet I find clear evidence that the politicians receiving the money know exactly where it originated, as well as why.
Other large sums of money have been transferred into holding accounts under various names and a substantial amount has been siphoned into an off-world trading company, destined for unknown purchases or other purposes, none of which I have been able to determine. SWIFT messages have gone out, paid for with POPPA funds, but the contents of those messages seem innocuous, if mystifying. Simon has been unable to shed light on the wordings or possible meanings of these expensive communications, which leads me to conclude that the senders are using a type of code that is particularly difficult to break. Such a message could carry hidden meanings that no one but a person privy to the translation keys could possibly determine. “Say hello to Aunt Ruth” could mean literally anything: kill the head of the interplanetary trade consortium, pick up munitions from our off-world contact, expect delivery of smuggled-out industrial plans. It might even mean “Say hello to my aunt, who lives next door to you on Vishnu.”
Whatever their purposes, brother and sister Santorini evidently have sufficient leisure and resources to devote immense effort to whatever it is they intend to do, and the outcome of the elections scheduled six months from today clearly plays a major role in those plans. It disturbs me that I cannot discover what. Nor do I understand what I or my Commander can do about it, so long as the Santorinis continue to behave in a lawful manner, as they have been scrupulously careful to do. They have successfully recruited the services of an attorney by the name of Isanah Renke, whose political and philosophical leanings evidently match their own very well. She has met with the Santorinis and other members of the POPPA organization many times and her advice is meticulously adhered to, from what I have been able to piece together. I have not been privy to many of their meetings, as they tend to discuss business out of doors with great frequency, away from data terminals I could use to listen to conversations.
I suspect individuals who take such precautions would be intensely and publicly outraged to know that their precautions were, in fact, necessary. I do not like this kind of work. I am not a law enforcement official or a spy. I am a Bolo. I was not designed for surveillance and espionage work. My programming is insufficiently complex to properly analyze the information available to me, nor is sociology an exact science. I am unsure of myself and fear failure on a mission I do not entirely understand.
I begin to comprehend the emotion humans call misery.
The presidential motorcade is ten blocks away from Assembly Hall when individuals scattered throughout the crowd of onlookers begin to chant. “San-to-ri-ni! San-to-ri-ni!” The sound spreads, sweeping more and more people into a frenzy. Guards assigned to the entrance of Assembly Hall shift uneasily as the chant builds into a shout that echoes off the stone steps and rolls across Law Square like the distant thunder of enemy weaponry. Vittori Santorini scrambles up onto a makeshift platform fashioned from a wooden crate and lifts both hands into the air. The shout that greets him cracks against the walls of Assembly Hall, then dies away as he begins to speak.
“My friends,” he calls out in a voice magnified through a cleverly disguised microphone and voice amplifier concealed in his working man’s coveralls, “in just a few minutes, our elected representatives will be deciding your fate. The fate of your wives. Your husbands. Your sons and daughters. Politicians with vested interests in keeping you poor and helpless. They’re going to vote, today, on how to spend your hard-earned money. Do you want to pay for spy satellites when we need jobs?”
“No!”
“Do you want your children forced onto troop ships at gunpoint? Sent off-world against their will? To die as slaves in somebody else’s war?”
“NO!”
“What can you do to stop them?”
“POPPA! POPPA! POPPA!”
Within twenty point seven-nine seconds, an estimated two thousand people are screaming the battle cry. The howls reach their frenzied crescendo as the president’s motorcade arrives, a feat of timing I have rarely seen equaled. President Lendan looks mournfully at the demonstrators for a long moment, then turns and climbs the steps toward the entrance to the Assembly’s Joint Chamber, followed by Vice President Andrews and other members of his advisory council.
The reception for Simon, whose transport arrives thirty point nine seconds later, is savagely hostile. Simon’s penetrating stare is anything but mournful. I have seen that look on my Commander’s face. It distresses me to see it there, again. He has risked his life to save these people from certain destruction. They greet him with curses and shaken fists.
I do not understand my creators.
It is my fear that I never will.
Chapter Ten
I
Kafari was loading trays with glasses filled with the first cider of the season when Stefano and Estevao rushed into Grandma Soteris’ kitchen, bursting with questions. “Kafari! Is it true? Is Mirabelle Caresse really making a movie about you?”
Her younger cousins — aged nineteen and eighteen, respectively — waited with literally bated breath. She wrinkled her nose. “Yes. She is.”
“Wow!”
“Will we get to meet her?”
“Before I have to ship out?”
That latter was from Stefano, who’d just signed a contract with the captain of the Star of Mali, as crew aboard an interstellar freighter. They’d lost both parents in the war and didn’t want to try rebuilding, with just the two of them. Kafari hated to disappoint them. Mirabelle, the hottest star to hit the screen in Jefferson’s history, didn’t bother to actually research the characters — or real people — her scripts portrayed.
Kafari picked up the tray. “Sorry, guys, but I doubt any of us will meet her. Not even me. Mirabelle Caresse doesn’t consider it necessary to talk to the person whose life she’ll be playing, let alone that person’s family. Trust me, you won’t be missing much. I’ve read the script.” She rolled her eyes and bumped open the kitchen do
or with one hip, heading out into the crowded family room with the cider just as Kafari’s grandmother called out, “It’s coming on! Simon’s there, already.”
There were nearly forty people in the family room, crowded onto every available seat and most of the floorspace, and that was only about half the immediate family. Kafari handed glasses around while her mother and cousins followed with more trays. When her tray was empty, Aunt Minau scooted over slightly to make space on the sofa for her.
Minau’s husband, Nik Soteris, was a younger version of Kafari’s grandfather, with the same carved-olivewood face, dark eyes, and work-roughened, capable hands. Aunt Minau was expecting again, another son. Kafari glanced into her eyes and saw shadows there, worry and fear as she watched her two young sons poke each other with elbows and roughhouse in a friendly sort of way. While Geordie and Bjorn fought a mock battle over their share of the floor space, Kafari reached over and took her aunt’s hand, squeezing it gently. Minau’s expression softened as she returned the comforting gesture. Then Uncle Nik signaled for silence and yanked up the volume.
As President Lendan made his entrance, Kafari wasn’t the only person who sucked down a shocked breath. There weren’t words to describe how terrible Abe Lendan looked. Kafari’s eyes stung with abrupt tears. She knew exactly what had put that exhausted, burnt-out look in his eyes. He stumbled slightly climbing the steps to the Joint Chamber podium. Vice President Andrews shot out a steadying hand, preventing a nasty spill. Utter silence reigned, both in the Joint Chamber and the Soteris family room.
