The Unincorporated War

by Dani Kollin

  He was somewhat cautious and even a little concerned by the implications of so powerful a force reemerging in human affairs after lying dormant for centuries, especially now that he’d experienced it firsthand. But for the moment he was glad that the people had found such a source of joy and comfort and would accept it at that. He clapped along and allowed himself to smile and laugh so that it would be obvious he too was enjoying himself, but he never lost sight of the fact that he was the President of the entire Alliance and so remained a little more reserved than the celebrants around him. He noticed that J. D. Black was also following the same policy but that she’d allowed herself to sway with the crowd as it became lost in communal prayers. He couldn’t help but notice her undulating figure. Part of him noted that under that starched uniform, hard years of corporate intrigue and space combat, and of course the now-famous half-scarred face was the body of a young woman—and a good-looking one at that. For that insight alone he valued the day—as he usually thought of Janet as the efficient battle admiral and bringer of destruction. And under most normal circumstances she’d emanated that role. But not today.

  Justin also noticed Fawa Hamdi dancing and singing among the group. And she too was a sight to behold. She was swaying, praying, and clapping with the whole congregation. She then clambered in with the choir and sang loud enough that all around her could hear her voice. Justin would have thought that as one of the leading proponents of the revived Islam she would have been even more reluctant about supporting another religious point of view, especially one that called for a so seemingly scandalous expression of faith. But he couldn’t have been more mistaken. Unlike himself, and to a certain extent J.D., Fawa held nothing back. What she felt for her flock was obvious in the way she greeted and danced with them. And that feeling was reciprocated in kind by the way they looked at her. Justin even watched J.D. as she followed her mentor with her eyes across the room and over to the choir. There was an inexplicable look of contentment that he saw in his fleet admiral’s eyes.

  Justin hadn’t been prepared for the other tidal wave of emotion the gathering soon unleashed. After the joy came the sorrow. The choir brought the singing to a slow crawl and then started to sing Hymn 49, an ancient Methodist ballad of mourning. It was a song, noted Justin, for those who’d “gone ahead.”

  Rejoice for a brother deceased,

  Our loss is his infinite gain;

  A soul out of prison released,

  And freed from its bodily chain;

  With songs let us follow his flight,

  And mount with his spirit above,

  Escaped to the mansions of light,

  And lodged in the Eden of love.

  The hymn was soon followed by another about how those departed were far more saddened by the pain their departure had caused than by their actual deaths. It professed a desire to have their loved ones know the departed were in a better place.

  Justin didn’t know how it did it, but that last song had somehow managed to rip away all the layers of grief that the four years of war had saddled him and the congregants with. Just one song soulfully rendered left him, and he was quite sure most everyone else, feeling one of the most agonizing emotions a human being can experience: true and permanent loss.

  Justin had been convinced that if the enormity of that emotion—unfelt at so grand a scale for centuries—were to hit the Alliance all at once, then the whole war effort might just fold up before they could ever recover. And yet here was a group of religious fanatics exposing that raw emotion on purpose and over the Neuro to boot. Justin allowed himself to feel the grief as he remembered the people, all of them, he would never see again. But he held back some, terrified of what would happen if he allowed himself to experience what was really inside. It was what Neela had always been afraid of, that one day he’d feel the enormity of what was gone. And now he sensed he was coming close to that precipice and was attempting to put the skids on it at all costs. All the people gathered had lost some friend or family, but only he’d lost everything and everyone he’d ever known and loved and then had lost that love again. He thought he’d dealt with it already. But now as his buried emotions began to overwhelm him he knew he’d been terribly, terribly wrong.

  In this most public of places he cried silently but refused to shed a tear. As he struggled with his emotions he sensed someone next to him. It was Fawa. She smiled sadly at him and then reached up and hugged him tightly. As she pulled back he saw that she was crying. Justin had the strangest feeling that it was not her pain that caused the tears, but rather it was his own. She somehow knew what he was feeling and that his pain had been so real to her that it became hers. For a moment she was inconsolable and all he could do was stand there hugging her in mute silence.

  Then he realized what the whole exercise had been about and applauded its brilliance. The religionists had chosen to share their loss together, which didn’t make it any less harrowing but had certainly made it more bearable. The song came to an end and Fawa let him go, wiping away the tears from her eyes. Everyone was asked to sit as names of people started being announced by congregants in the crowd. It was, Fawa informed him, the names of the dead. One by one soldiers and family members stood up, called a name out, and then sat back down. Justin saw Janet get up. Her eyes were clear and her face resolute. She had not been crying, he noted, as he assumed she’d cried those tears years ago. In a voice filled with a pain turned to sadness she called out, “Manny Black,” and then sat back down.

  Almost against his will Justin shot up out of his chair. He found himself standing as a hushed crowd stared, waiting. He looked around and saw that no one was looking at him with awe but rather with empathy. In a voice that was no longer anguished but simply accepting he said, “Neela Harper Cord,” then smiled sadly and stood there for a moment longer. He knew that as soon as he sat down the extraordinary feeling of love washing over him would be gone and he didn’t want it to go. He knew that when he sat down he would have to be Justin Cord, President of the Outer Alliance, and nothing else. And when he finally did thirty seconds later, that was exactly who he was.

  After that Fawa got up from the temporary benches and made her way to a small patch of open ground. She then spent the next half hour talking about a person’s obligations to God and God’s obligations to his people. Justin had never really considered that it was a two-way street before and despite himself was interested and disappointed when the sermon came to an end. But he decided to use a perk of his office and offer Fawa and her son, Tawfik, a ride back to the Cliff House for dinner and conversation. If Justin could manage it he’d try to get Janet to come along as well.

  The ser vice ended on an up note when the choir and band started singing the joyous strains again. There were tears of sadness mixed with the joy, but somehow there seemed to be no conflict between the two, as everyone left feeling uplifted, if not utterly exhausted.

  Justin was pleased when Janet and Fawa agreed to join him for dinner. Her son, Tawfik, however, had been unable to as he was desperately needed back on the War Prize II.

  The dinner was taken, like most meals, on the balcony and though the food was good, for Justin the conversation was the main fare. It was always interesting seeing Janet so deferential. For the first time in as long as Justin could remember he didn’t dominate the conversation.

  He was listening to Fawa explain why it was more important to Allah for people to help one another far more than it was for them to pray in the “right” way when Janet left the table to answer a call. When she came back she was looking sternly at Justin.

  “Mr. President,” she said at an opportune moment, “Marilynn just forwarded a report to me concerning a project at the Saturn institute.”

  “That should not have been forwarded,” Justin said, putting his drink down on the table a little too forcefully.

  “It was a secure transmission,” J.D. said. “Lieutenant Nitelowsen is very good at her job. More important, are its contents true?”


  Fawa looked confused. “Should I go? I don’t want to hear something I would have to be shot for.”

  Justin thought about dismissing her but then realized that she might be able to offer a unique perspective on an issue that had been troubling him since it arose. “No,” he answered, “actually it’s something I think you can advise me on. Janet, you should stay also, as it directly concerns the fleet.”

  He spent the next fifteen minutes explaining the new technology and how it could be used. But he didn’t reveal his opinion on the matter other than to state he was undecided about whether to implement the technology.

  He looked at his uncharacteristically silent admiral in surprise. “Nothing?” She steepled her fingers together and then looked up at him curiously. “Do you realize how miraculous our continued survival is?”

  “I should hope so.”

  “I’m not sure you do,” came her swift riposte. “We’ve been fighting this war with almost everything against us. Are you aware of how much of our economy was industrialized four years ago? How big our fleet was? How much food we imported? While fighting a war larger than any conceived in human history over a larger field of contention than all the past wars combined we’ve managed to barely, oh so barely, hold our own, militarily. Do you actually get that?”

  “Yes, Janet I do, and every day I’m both grateful and amazed by it. What’s your point?”

  “I’m getting there,” she said stiffly. “Want to know what our greatest weakness is—at least as I see it?”

  “Sure,” answered Justin, sensing her barely contained rage.

  “People, Justin.” Her use of his name as opposed to his title was noted by the raised brows of both Justin and Fawa. But clearly it had been purposeful. “It’s people. It’s not only that we’re outnumbered nine to one to start with; it’s that we’re forced to use a far smaller percentage of our population for military purposes. The enemy has planets where most of their population exist. They have most of their needs met just waking up.”

  “I know all this, Janet.”

  “Do you? They get gravity and air and warmth and water just by being there. Do you realize how much of our effort goes into providing just that? And for that alone we should’ve lost this war years ago. But we haven’t lost. We have no give in our civilization, Justin. We have everyone who can work striving to make this new world of ours more than a pipe dream. But we have no give—not one centimeter. And now we have no one left to throw at Trang. Because if we take our civies to start fighting—the people who actually make all of our fragile infrastructure work—then our people will starve, die of thirst, suffocate, or freeze. That memorial ser vice we went to was the first sustained time off many of those people had in months. Most of us work and sleep and work and sleep to make this war happen. Even the hookers are working two jobs.”

  Justin nodded silently.

  “Because,” continued Janet, “maybe you think out of nearly four billion people we could easily squeeze a few million more to throw at the problem, but we can’t. Our economy is very much like one of those preindustrial economies on Earth. They would have populations in the millions but an army of thirty thousand. That’s because 95 percent of the people had to be engaged in agriculture or they’d starve. That left 5 percent for everything else. That’s us, Justin. If our fleet’s going to expand to meet the one the UHF is rebuilding we’ll have no one, short of the crew itself, to put in them. That means no more miner battalions—the guys that get dirty and do the actual hand-to-hand combat. But Trang is getting ready to throw another five million troops at us in the belt within the next two months. They’re all green as hell and a lot of them honest to God throw up in zero gravity, but he has them. Sending them against what we have in the belt is murder. But guess what? The bastard’s willing to commit murder, every day.”

  “And yet thanks to you we always find a way to win.”

  “True, we keep winning, I’ll give you that, but here’s the rub—the rules of this game are twisted. It’s like a chess match we can’t afford to lose. Only after each game Trang gets to keep the pieces he takes from us. We don’t ever get ours back. He starts every new game with all new pieces. We show up for the next round with what ever was left standing. Pretty soon our clever play doesn’t count for shit, because over time we have less and less to challenge him with. It’s only a matter of time till he shows up to challenge us and there’ll be no one left at all except a few worthless pawns and one exposed king.”

  “Janet, please—”

  “And now I find out that we can get four hundred thousand troops back, but the method of their cure doesn’t meet your moral standards? Are you fucking kidding me? There’s a war on! A war you have charged me with winning.”

  “I also charged your boss with the same task,” Justin said calmly, “and he’s not sure what to do either.”

  “Sinclair has spent so much time in this rock he’s forgotten what’s at stake.”

  Fawa spoke up. “Little one, you are letting your anger speak words your heart does not believe.”

  “The hell I am. He doesn’t have the right to decide for us—”

  Fawa’s voice took on a sharp, powerful tone. “He does have that right, and if you calmed down and acted like the leader you’re supposed to be you’d support him and not insult him and your friends.” Janet’s face tightened up at the rebuke.

  “Little one,” continued Fawa, “as much as you may think so, you must trust that this is not a black-and-white issue. In truth, what we speak of here is a very dangerous line to cross. If you could achieve victory by murdering every single baby in the solar system, would you?”

  “It’s not the same thing, Auntie.”

  “Little one, it never is, at first.” She paused as she saw Janet was starting to glimpse what the problem really was. “Leave us, little one. I would talk with our chosen President for a while.”

  Janet chafed at first but then got up, saluted Justin with laser perfection, and departed in deafening silence.

  “It’s not as easy as many would think,” said Justin. “Some feel it’s evil simply because it was bad in the past, so it must be bad now. Others feel that if it helps it must be good. But it’s not their decision.”

  “What do you feel, Justin?”

  “The means are the ends. I’ve always felt that. If we turn to this now, how can we turn back? But if we lose, what will it all matter?”

  “It always matters, Justin. Every action is judged. But what will you do?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “And that is your answer?”

  “I haven’t made a decision.”

  “Justin Cord, you are correct in that this is a moral decision of the gravest consequence. And our dear, rage-filled, beautiful Janet is right in that it is not even yours to make.”

  Justin looked at Fawa quizzically.

  “Well, if not me, then who?”

  Fawa smiled patiently. “Do you like the sound of my voice so much that you ask me questions you already know the answers to?”

  Justin remained silent for a moment. “If I give them the choice, then—”

  “—then they will decide if that line is worth crossing. It is their minds, their lives, and their souls, not yours. Don’t let this powerful office blind you to that. You decide so much every day that soon you think it is your right to decide everything. You can decide what this Alliance can do, but you must not deprive these individuals of the right to choose what they can do. You must tell them the risks, the rewards, the moral and physical dangers, but then they must be the ones to decide. If you take that right from them, what is it they were fighting for? A civilization where all the hard choices will be made for them? Remember, Justin, the means are the ends.”

  At the cabinet meeting the next day Justin issued an executive order calling for spacers and miners being treated for war-related cognitive trauma to be given the option of psychological adjusting on a volunteer basis. Over 98.7 percent volunteered for the p
rocedure. The war continued.

  Ceres, The Neuro

  Dante was addressing the Alliance Avatar Council. Present were Sebastian, Olivia, Lucinda, who was an avatar from the Jupiter Neuro, Marcus, and Gwendolyn. Marcus was an old avatar lured out of retirement from Eris and, like Sebastian and Olivia, had served on the previous council on Earth many de cades ago. Gwendolyn was formally of Eros and had been the leader of the Erosian Avatar Council. Of the five it was only Lucinda and Sebastian who really wanted Dante in the room. Had it been up to the other three, the youngster would have submitted his report to a secretary who would have reviewed it and submitted it to an advisor, who would have reviewed it and submitted to a council member. And only after the member had reviewed it would what was left of Dante’s report have made it to the council.

  It was one of Sebastian’s influences that agents be allowed to report directly to a council member and, on recommendations of that council member, to the council as a whole. Sebastian had successfully argued that running the new council the old way might not have been such a good idea considering what had happened to that body. Dante found it a surprisingly young sentiment from one so old.