GALACTIC SURVEY (COLONY Book 3)

by Richard F. Weyand

  “It’ll be great fun, and great PR for you, for Earthsea, and for your cheese products. It will also help me keep funding the construction of the big hyperspace ships, because if there are no freighters, then there’s no more of that great cheese. We all win.”

  “Well, you know your people, Mr. Ambassador. But a hundred thousand people or more, wandering around the downtown naked, eating cheese?”

  “You’re a little stuck on the whole nudity thing, aren’t you, Mr. Ambassador? Trust me. It will be great fun, people will enjoy it a lot, and it will all be because you’re such a great guy. ‘You know, those Earthsea people are all right. And they make great cheese.’ You see?”

  “Yes. Yes, I get it. All right, Mr. Prime Minister. Let’s do it.”

  “There you go. You know, Mr. Ambassador, you might suggest Director Laurent do the same things on Earthsea. Have a big tea party with Ambassador Diakos as the official host. You can do separate ones in your various cities, and link them all by display or something.”

  “Yes, she might be able to do that. Although it takes a lot more coordination than here, Mr. Prime Minister. All the mayors have to get on board.”

  “Oh, I’m sure if she gets a few mayors in the biggest cities on board, the smaller cities will jump on, Mr. Ambassador. They’ll want to show they’re just as good as the big boys.”

  Romano nodded.

  “That’s very often exactly the way it works, Mr. Prime Minister. I’ll bring it up to her.”

  “Excellent, Mr. Ambassador. Excellent. My understanding is they were going to install the QE radio today?”

  “Yes, and test the chiller loop. Mr. Costa will attempt to bring up the link tomorrow morning. If that goes well, Mr. Prime Minister, we will have communications sometime around mid-day.”

  “My proposal, Mr. Ambassador, is that we use the link to catch up with our own people at the other end. So you can talk to Director Laurent and I can talk to Ambassador Diakos. We get all caught up, and then Director Laurent and I have our first virtual meeting, perhaps in a couple of days.”

  “That sounds good to me, Mr. Prime Minister. We should do some catching up and not jump into things blind.”

  “All right, then, Mr. Ambassador. It’s a plan.”

  Paolo Costa nodded to the plant engineer at the power center for the building. The engineer turned on the breaker for the chiller unit, then walked over to the chiller and turned on its master switch. He watched his panel there for a few minutes.

  “We’re OK on the chiller, Mr. Costa. We’ve got circulation.”

  Costa nodded and turned toward the QE radio link. Of course, he didn’t have to be looking at it for what he was going to do, but it seemed more right somehow.

  “OK,” Costa called back. “Turn on the power to the QE radio.”

  The engineer walked back over to the breaker panel and turned on the breaker for the QE radio.

  When power was applied to the QE radio, the only thing that should come up is the local maintenance interface. He logged into that with his communicator, and a control panel came up in his heads-up display, superimposed over his real vision of the container.

  It was as if the container had sprouted a control panel. So far, so good.

  Costa had the start-up software for the QE radio link in his communicator. He initiated the transfer of the start-up software to the QE radio. The machine loaded the software, checked version compatibility, and went to yellow stand-by status.

  “All right,” Costa said under his breath. “Here goes.”

  Costa pushed the ‘Initiate Link’ button and hoped for the best. He’d had two fail before, but those were both with earlier versions of the hardware. Hopefully....

  The ‘Link Established’ light came on, and Costa breathed a sigh of relief. He initiated a download of the full software package from the Earthsea end. Even though it was the software package for the QE radio itself and the software package for the Arcadia network that would handle seamless communications over the link, the big multi-channel unit had an insane amount of bandwidth and the downloads were nearly instantaneous.

  Costa installed the QE radio link package first. It walked him through configuration details, like the name of the link, the name of the node, its ID in the local system, the current permissions, and alternate routes.

  When Costa had all that configured, he connected to the Arcadia system and logged into the QE radio through its local ID. He had asked Milbanks’s people to configure that for him. It came up, so that had worked out. Now he uploaded the connection routing software from the QE radio into the Arcadia communications network.

  Milbanks’s people should also have configured his permissions to install this code package, so he went ahead and initiated the install. He didn’t get a permission violation, and the package started the installation process. This piece was self-configuring with the data it got from both ends, the QE radio and the Arcadia network.

  When the software had installed, Costa activated it. While logged into the Arcadia system, he placed a call to the Earthsea Network Operations Center. A face popped up on his heads-up display.

  “Earthsea NOC. Planck here.”

  “Hi, Jeff. Paolo, on Arcadia.”

  “No shit?”

  “Yeah. First interstellar call. Thirty-one hundred light-years. Ain’t that somethin’?”

  “I’ll say. Paolo, you’re as clear as if you were down the block. No difference.”

  “That’s great. I wasn’t sure this shit would work.”

  “Yeah, me neither. Not at that kind of distance. So how’s it going over there?”

  “It’s great. The food’s good. Spicy. The people are nice. And, Jeff, get this. All the women here run around topless all the time.”

  “C’mon.”

  “No, it’s true. When they aren’t completely naked, that is.”

  “Now I know you’re pulling my leg.”

  “Oh, yeah? You should have Arcadia news wire access now. Look at the coverage of our arrival parade a couple days back.”

  Planck turned slightly to look at another area of his display.

  “Holy shit. Hey, Paolo, we’re gonna have to censor this stuff. I don’t think we can just open this up to people here, can we?”

  “Not our decision, Jeff. For right now, we’re locked down to a very few people with permissions. Let them figure it out. That’s way above my pay grade.”

  Planck kept glancing off to the side.

  “Yeah. OK. I’m with you there– Geez, would you look at that! That naked gal just kissed you.”

  “Half-naked. Yup. She kissed me on the cheek. ‘Welcome to Arcadia,’ she said.”

  “That’s some welcome.”

  Planck looked aside at his other display window again.

  “My God, she’s beautiful.”

  “Yeah. Miss Arcadia City or something like that. Hey, I gotta go report we’re up. Talk to you later, Jeff.”

  “OK, Paolo. Try not to get in any trouble over there.”

  Planck looked back at the other side of his display.

  “Criminy.”

  Once Costa told him the link was up, Salvatore Romano put in a call to Valerie Laurent. The two capitals were not in sync at the moment, it being early afternoon in Arcadia City on Arcadia and the beginning of the day in Bergheim on Earthsea, but it was close enough.

  “Valerie Laurent.”

  “Good morning, Madam Director.”

  “Sal! You got the link up.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “So how are things going?” Laurent asked.

  “Generally speaking, very well, Madam Director. The people here are very friendly, the prime minster and I have hit it off, and they seem to earnestly want a deal. I detect no hidden agenda at all.”

  “That’s excellent, Sal.”

  “Yes, ma’am. Overall, very positive. There is one thing that concerns me, however....”

  Laurent talked about Romano’s concern with Loukas Diakos before Di
akos got in touch with Rob Milbank. When Diakos and Milbank talked, Diakos filled him in.

  “You’ve got to be kidding me, Loukas,” Milbank said. “They’re upset because we don’t dress to their standards?”

  “It’s more than that, Rob. They have freedom of the press here, and they think that means if they open up the link to Arcadia, people will log into our news wires and see pictures of naked people.”

  “Well, of course, they will. Pictures of naked people somewhere else where the rules are different. And that’s a problem how?”

  “They brought it up, Rob, not me. They really have their lavalavas in a bunch about it.

  “Now, that aside, they really want a deal. This whole balance of payments thing between their cities? They have a century of experience with it, and they’re good at it. We had accounts under a planetary account for Arcadia when we got here.

  “With all that experience, I think they have a leg up on becoming the clearinghouse for all the planetary payment streams. I pointed out that possibility to the director, and she got even more excited about a deal.”

  Milbank had a moment’s pang of greed for that banking business, but Diakos was right. If they were really that good at it, they would win that business eventually anyway. In the meantime, he could use it as a bargaining chip.

  “All right. Thanks, Loukas. Let me think about it.”

  “There’s one other thing you need to be thinking about,” Diakos said.

  “What’s that?”

  “What’s the date, Rob?”

  “July second, 2368.”

  “That’s on Arcadia. On Earthsea it’s April seventh, 2376.”

  “What? How can that be? We haven’t had time dilation or something like that, have we?”

  ”No, Rob. It’s much simpler than that. On Arcadia, we have a twenty-five hour day. So we just kept using the same calendar, but we logged four percent or so fewer days than Earth.

  “On Earthsea, the day is twenty-three and a half hours long or so. Like us, they make up the difference in the middle of the night with extra minutes or something. But, just counting day cycles, they logged two percent or so more days than Earth.

  “So we’re six percent or more off from each other, and over a hundred and twenty-two years or so, it adds up.”

  “I’ll be damned.”

  “Yeah, so I can see another sticking point coming up. Whose calendar do we use?”

  “Oh, shit.”

  The Chen Step In

  Milbank decided to consult MinChao and Jessica on this one. He asked for a meeting, and met with them mid-morning the next day. Once he was seated and tea was poured, he told them what was going on.

  “We have a little problem with the Earthsea deal,” Milbank said.

  “They don’t want a deal?” MinChao asked.

  “No, they really want a deal. But they have an issue with our lack of a nudity ban.”

  MinChao and Jessica looked at each other and back to Milbank.

  “They have a problem with how someone dresses somewhere else?” MinChao asked.

  “Perhaps the nineteenth-century playwright was correct,” Jessica said. “’He is a barbarian, and thinks that the customs of his tribe and island are the laws of nature.’”

  “I think it’s more subtle than that, Jessica. They have freedom of speech and of the press, just as we do here. But if we open the QE radio link between the planets, our news wires would be accessible from Earthsea. The government can’t block them.”

  “Ah,” MinChao said. “But if they look up the footage from your little parade earlier this week, as an example, people are going to get screenfuls of naked people running around.”

  Milbank nodded.

  “That’s it exactly. They can’t block them, but they think maybe they should, because if they don’t people will get upset, so couldn’t we please put some clothes on or censor our news wires for them?”

  “Neither of those will fly here either, Rob, as you well know,” MinChao said. “Nudity acceptance on Arcadia was burned in by the Kendall regime. When Kevin Kendall’s regime sought to ban nudity as just one facet of its tyranny, being able to dress – or not – however one wanted became an enduring symbol of freedom. Any kind of nudity ban would be seen as an attempt at tyranny. The government would fall.”

  “I know, MinChao,” Milbank said. “And we have freedom of the press and freedom of speech, too. And those don’t permit censoring in the way they want, either.”

  Milbank sighed.

  “I’m not sure what to do with this one.”

  They sat and sipped their tea for several minutes. Finally Jessica stirred.

  “There may be a solution to this that doesn’t violate either planet’s sensibilities,” she said.

  “I’m all ears, Jessica, because this stupid thing could kill a deal that’s good for everybody.”

  “Consider, Rob. Freedom of speech and of the press mean you can say or print whatever you want. They do not mean you can force someone else to listen to you or read what you publish.

  “What about a warning label on interplanetary connections that warns people that the customs and practices of other planets are not the same, and they can choose not to read text or see imagery from the other planet.”

  “Put a warning label on Arcadia content?” Milbank asked.

  “No,” Jessica said with some force. “Put a warning label on the interstellar link – all interstellar links – in both directions.”

  “But what would an Arcadian find offensive about their culture?”

  “How about people being legally required to wear clothes when swimming? That sounds like tyranny to most of Arcadia.”

  Milbank’s eyes got wide, then he nodded.

  “And if the links have warning labels and opt-ins in both directions,” he said, “it keeps it from being some sort of implied indictment of one planet by the other.”

  “Exactly,” Jessica said.

  Milbank nodded.

  “That may work. I’ll try that on them and see how it goes. We potentially also have a calendar issue. They have a shorter day than Earth, and we have a longer one, but we just kept counting along every day. We’ve slipped almost eight years. For them, it’s 2376.”

  “I don’t see a problem there, Rob,” Jessica said. “We have a similar issue with time zones now. Everybody understands you can’t call someone two time zones away at nine in the morning because it’s too early over there. So we don’t have to pick one calendar or another.”

  MinChao nodded.

  “As far as business is concerned, it just needs to be specified in the contract,” he said. “If you lease something for a year, whose year are you using? As long as it’s specified, it’s not a problem. From that point of view, we should probably use Earth’s calendar for business, because it’s neutral.”

  “Again, not favoring one planet over the other,” Milbank said. “I like it.”

  Milbank thought about it, then nodded.

  “Thank you so much for your help,” he said. “I was spinning my wheels on these, and wasn’t getting any good ideas from staff.”

  “No problem, Rob,” MinChao said. “That’s what friends are for.”

  After Milbank had left, MinChao and Jessica planned for their afternoon meeting with the Earthsea ambassador.

  “Busy day today,” MinChao said.

  “Yes. Well, if we can help out getting this deal done, we should do that.”

  MinChao nodded.

  “By the way, I think we should meet the ambassador in my tea room rather than yours.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I have the display installed already.”

  MinChao nodded. They had decided to put a display in each of their tea rooms. It had been a tough decision, because those rooms were normally used for contemplation as well as receiving guests. They each had offices for more mundane tasks.

  But the availability of a display in meetings with guests, as the hyperspace project ha
d geared up, had become more pressing. Jessica’s had been installed first, and hers was now operational.

  “Going to show him the simulation?”

  “I’m going to show him the reality.”

  The liaison from the Prime Minister’s office had a short briefing for Ambassador Romano before his meeting with the Chen.

  “The Chen-Jasic family is the wealthiest and most politically connected family on Arcadia, and they are personal friends with the prime minister. As well as pretty much anyone else of influence on Arcadia, for that matter.

  “They are called simply the Chen, but he, Chen MinChao, is called Chen Zufu and she, Jessica Chen-Jasic, is called Chen Zumu. Zufu and Zumu mean honored grandfather and honored grandmother. They are the senior couple of the family and make all the big decisions, and are consulted on most minor ones as well.

  “The meeting will likely be in a tea room, overlooking their downtown gardens. This is where their truly priceless seed stock and hybrids are grown now. Large-scale production is elsewhere, mostly in the mountains to the north.

  “You will sit on pillows, a low tea table between you. A tea girl will serve you all tea. You, as their guest, must sip your tea first. The conversation will be friendly and low-key, but make no mistake about the impact of it. These people are major players in Arcadia business and politics.

  “Both of them are in their seventies now, and have been running the family business for close to twenty years. The inside skinny is that David Bolton, who you’ve met, and his wife are their successors, and will likely take up the reins of the family within the next five years.

  “They will call you Mr. Ambassador. You should call them Chen Zufu for him and Chen Zumu for her. You can remember because it’s ‘f’ like in father and ‘m’ like in mother.

  “The conversation may have long periods of silence for contemplation. That’s perfectly OK. You should let them break the silences. And you should request and receive their leave to depart before getting up to go.