New Frontiers- The Complete Series

by Jasper T. Scott

  “All right, then conscript them,” General Russo said. “At least we’ll get something back for carrying them on our backs.”

  “That’s not a bad idea, but it will never pass in the senate. We’re a democracy, which means we need to make popular decisions, not expedient ones.”

  Durand sighed. “Then what are we discussing, Mr. President? Our hands are tied. Nothing has changed.”

  “Actually, that’s not entirely true. I had a proposal from Sakamoto Robotics come across my desk a month or two ago. It was a suggestion for how we could automate the majority of existing crew positions in the fleet and then send those people back to re-train for command positions on new ships.”

  “You just said we can’t afford to build a bigger fleet, so what would be the point of that?”

  “We can’t afford to build one ourselves, but we could afford to lease one.” Suddenly all eyes were on Wallace, waiting for him to continue. “The second part of Sakamoto’s proposal was for us to sign lease-to-own agreements with them for new ships. They have a large stockpile of cash, and they would be willing to finance commissioning a new fleet.”

  “Won’t that work out to the same thing as borrowing the money to buy the ships?”

  “No, because Sakamoto has generously offered us a lease agreement with a zero interest payment plan over a generous hundred-year term.”

  General Hunter of the army leaned forward and folded his hands on the table to add his two cents. “What’s in it for them?” he asked in a gravelly voice.

  “New defense contracts in a world where defense budget spending has been diminishing steadily for decades. And since our birth rate is practically zero, the economy is stagnant, so they’re not selling any more bots—just repairing old ones. That means they have a stockpile of cash and nothing to do with it.”

  “Must be nice,” Anderson said.

  “They could go spend it in mindscapes and give a boost to virtual economies,” Hunter suggested.

  “And make Mindsoft richer?” Wallace replied, smiling and shaking his head. “If Mr. Sakamoto wanted to build a virtual empire, he wouldn’t have spent so much time and effort building a real one. He’s a Humanist without the aversion to AI or automation.”

  “Hmmm,” Hunter replied, scratching a light growth of dark stubble on his cheek. “We still need to get the money for those lease payments from somewhere. Zero interest doesn’t mean zero cost.”

  “I agree, and I’m looking into ways to procure that funding from the existing budget, but we don’t have a lot of leeway. Coincidentally, Mindsoft may have the answer to our budget problem. I actually have a meeting with them now, to discuss their proposal,” Wallace said, checking the time on his comm band.

  “You mean a way to reduce the dole?” General Eriksson asked.

  “They implied that, yes.”

  Silence reigned as people traded dubious looks with one another.

  Eriksson frowned. “I doubt they could have a solution for the dole when your administration and all the previous administrations combined haven’t been able to come up with one.”

  “I’m skeptical, too,” Wallace said, “but I’m going to hear them out. What do we have to lose?”

  “Nothing I suppose,” Fleet Admiral Anderson said.

  Wallace nodded. “Chairman, do we have any further business to discuss?”

  Chairman Durand looked around the table, waiting for someone else to speak. When no one else did, he said, “Meeting adjourned.”

  Wallace stood up from the table. “Gentlemen,” he said, nodding. “Let’s hope we’ve found our solution.”

  The joint chiefs of staff rose and saluted. Wallace hastily returned their salute and hurried out the door. He was eager to meet with the representative from Mindsoft. He needed a solution to present to the public, and fast, or he’d never get re-elected, and then he’d be unemployed just like everyone else.

  * * *

  President Wallace sat around a table in the presidential palace with a group of his cabinet ministers and a few trusted Utopian Party senators, listening as majority shareholder Phoenix Gray’s husband and legal representative, Dorian Gray, outlined Mindsoft’s proposal. Mr. Gray stood in front of the assembled group, his dark hair cropped short, blue eyes bright and burning with enthusiasm. He wasn’t good-looking enough to have been born a Gener, and there were plenty of rumors about his reasons for marrying the late Bryan Gray’s only daughter and heir, but none of that did anything to take away from his authority as his wife’s mouthpiece.

  “Why is it so hard to make cutbacks in the dole?” Mr. Gray asked, spreading his hands to direct the question to his audience.

  Secretary of commerce Donna Harris snorted. “I hope you’re being rhetorical.”

  Gray favored her with a smile. “I am.”

  “Go on,” President Wallace urged. He was just as skeptical as everyone else that Mindsoft had a real solution, but he hoped for everyone’s sake that they did.

  “With pleasure, Mr. President,” Gray replied. “The reason it’s so hard, if you’ll all pardon my directness, is that unpopular decisions will not lead to re-election, and therefore, it is not in any of our senators’ best interests to sign off on unpopular legislation. Not to mention that they represent the people, and people want the dole. We would have riots in the streets without it.”

  Wallace nodded and steepled his hands in front of his face. “You’re correct so far.”

  “Well, what if I told you we could get people to voluntarily reduce the dole?”

  Wallace arched an eyebrow at that. He noticed ministers and senators trading curious looks with one another.

  Mr. Gray turned and gestured for the holoscreen behind him to come to life. An aerial image of a sprawling building complex appeared, surrounded by mountains and trees. Either that was for effect, or the complex was actually going to be built far from cities and existing infrastructure. Wallace frowned, wondering what he was looking at. The complex looked about the size of a small town, but all of the individual buildings were connected to each other with tubes that might have been walkways.

  “Mindsoft is proud to present the world’s very first automated habitat. It’s a kind of arcology,” Gray said. “With just over fifteen million square feet, there is room to house a million people in this habitat.”

  Wallace gaped at that number.

  Jacob Jackson, the Secretary of Housing and Urban Development shook his head. “You’re talking about fifteen square feet of living space per person. I’ve heard of tiny living, but that’s not even enough room to lie down without bumping your head.”

  Gray turned to regard Jacob. “Oh, it is enough room to lie down—as long as you do so standing up.”

  “I’m not sure I understand…” Jacob replied.

  Wallace was afraid that he did. “It won’t work.”

  Gray favored him with a tight smile. “It must work, Mr. President, and it will. These facilities will have all the dolers living in life support tanks, spending all of their available time in the Mindscape. That’s not a big difference from what they do right now. All we’ll be doing is removing the need for tedious and unwelcome breaks from the Mindscape to eat, walk around, go to the bathroom, sleep, and so on. In our automated habitats all of those functions are performed automatically without residents even needing to wake up. In fact people will be able to get by on much less sleep than before. We’re talking about full immersion, all day, every day.”

  Wallace shook his head. “No one would want to give up their freedom like that.”

  “No one is going to force them to stay in the tanks, Mr. President. They can wake up and get out whenever they want. In fact, there’s nothing stopping people from taking just as many breaks as before. They won’t have their government-issued apartments to walk around in, but they can always go outside and get some fresh air, or travel to the nearest city and sample some real-world entertainment.”

  Wallace heard his good friend, Senator Harris, spea
k next: “I don’t see how this helps with dole spending.”

  “It’s simple actually. Our government spends more money to provide free housing, health care, and utilities than it does on the dole, while actual dole money gets spent on food, clothing, and other basic necessities.

  “In the tanks people won’t get sick, and utility bills will be minimal. Moreover, clothes won’t be necessary, and food will be incredibly cheap, so cheap that we could bundle that cost with an equally low tank rental fee and no one would be the wiser. By moving to the tanks people will be able to assume the costs of their own housing and still have plenty of money left over to buy virtual luxuries for themselves in their favorite mindscapes. Government housing will slowly vacate as people catch on, at which point it can be sold back to the private sector to generate income. And the best part is none of this needs to be approved by the senate. People are free to make their own choices about their accommodations, and the lure of extra money for virtual spending will convince most people. Our focus groups suggest as many as half of all dole recipients would happily make the move.”

  “Assuming you’re right, why are you presenting this to us? If the idea doesn’t require any legislation, then there’s no reason not to go ahead with it right now.”

  “Well, Mr. President, there is actually one law that’s stopping us, but nothing related to the dole. It’s actually a law that limits the number of consecutive hours people can spend in virtual worlds. If you live in a life support tank, you’ll obviously want to spend all of your time in the Mindscape.”

  Wallace considered that. He knew the law Gray was talking about. No one had really thought much of it at the time. A few people had starved to death while immersed in their mindscapes, so the law had seemed like a necessary measure to force mindscaping companies to automatically wake up their users if they stayed immersed for too long. But with automated habitats like the one Mindsoft was proposing, there would be no need for breaks, and forcing people to wake up multiple times a day only to realize that they’re actually living inside a coffin-sized tank would take the appeal out of the system for most people.

  “I’ll see that the law is revised,” Wallace said.

  Mr. Gray smiled anew. “I’d hoped you would, Mr. President.”

  After the meeting was over, Senator Harris accompanied President Wallace on his way to deliver his address to the Alliance following the attack on the Moon.

  As they walked, Harris said, “Human League Party Senators will never go for this. You’ll have to explain the revision to them, and then they’ll put up a fuss—they’ll say we’re taking one step closer to making our species obsolete.”

  “Human League senators are a minority,” Wallace replied. “They don’t have to go for it so long as we have all the Utopian Party senators on our side.”

  “The League could make our lives difficult in other ways. They could make the idea seem so dangerous and unattractive to the public that no one will be interested in living in tanks, even if the law is changed. We need to find a subtle way to make the necessary legal reform.”

  “That could take forever, and the result will be the same once the League figures out why we reformed the law. No, I’m going to use my address to the Alliance to publicly come out in favor of this idea and gain support for it before the Humanists have a chance to undermine it. When I present this as the solution to our budget crisis and a way for us to fund a more adequate defense fleet, people will be flocking to Mindsoft’s habitats before they’re even finished building them.”

  “That’s another issue, sir. After the Moon attack, won’t people be afraid to cluster together like that? A million people in one building is a hell of a tempting target.”

  “So is a city. Don’t worry about popular support, Harris. I’ll get it. All we have to worry about is how the Humanists are going to get revenge for us blindsiding them like this.”

  “Let’s hope it’s nothing too unpleasant.”

  Wallace slapped his friend on the back and smiled. “Cheer up. We’re actually going to the people with solutions for a change. If the Human League is smart, they’ll see that and they’ll back us, too.”

  “If they’re smart. I think that’s asking a lot from a group of technophobic extremists.”

  They reached the balcony where Wallace was going to make his address to the public, and he turned to Harris. “Time to find out. Wish me luck.”

  “Good luck, Mr. President.”

  Wallace turned and walked up to the sliding glass doors leading out onto the balcony. The doors opened automatically for him, and he stepped up to the podium beyond. Applause thundered up from the parade grounds below. A large crowd had gathered there. Most of them were present only as holograms projected from hovering mobile virtual presence devices, but that was more than he could say for the turnout on most days.

  As soon as the applause died down, Wallace began his speech. “Good evening, citizens of the Alliance. Today our way of life and freedom came under attack by a deliberate and pre-meditated act of destruction, the likes of which we have not seen since The Last War.

  “The victims were innocent citizens like you, mothers and fathers, friends and neighbors, children and babies. Millions of lives came to a sudden and horrifying end that has filled us with terrible sadness and a solemn, simmering anger.

  “This act of mass murder was no doubt intended to bring us to our knees, to paralyze us with fear, but it failed. Our Alliance is strong. Unfortunately, it was not strong enough to prevent this attack, and I fear we must all be ready to make some bold new changes if we are to face this threat and defeat it.

  “The fleet has already moved into a defensive formation around Earth and the Moon, and we are hunting for our attackers. My advisers tell me that we need more ships to be completely sure that an attack of this magnitude could never reach Earth. Unfortunately, the problem is the same as it has always been: we can’t afford the fleet we already have, let alone to build a bigger one. Yet I am here today to tell you that we can, and we will. We cannot sit idly by and allow our great Alliance to come crashing down. If the missiles that hit the Moon had hit Earth, tens or even hundreds of millions would have died. We cannot allow that to happen.”

  Wallace paused to let that sink in, and then he launched into his sales pitch for Sakamoto’s lease-to-own proposal for a new fleet. Once he was sure people were asking how the Alliance could afford to make payments, he introduced Mindsoft’s automated habitat project. Wallace was careful to emphasize the positives and downplay the negatives, painting life in the arcologies—not tanks—as idealistically as possible. He wasn’t a hundred percent sure how people were going to take it, but by the end of his speech, he was greeted with violent applause.

  Wallace smiled. “Thank you. Good night. And long live the Alliance!”

  Chapter 6

  “We have reached the midway point to the Looking Glass, Admiral,” Lieutenant Bishop announced from the helm. “Coming about for ten Gs deceleration.”

  “Carry on, Lieutenant. Still nothing on sensors?” Alexander asked.

  “Not a blip,” Lieutenant Frost replied.

  “Hmmm…” The missiles looked like they’d come through the wormhole, so it was possible that it was actually between them and their attacker, blocking the enemy ship from view. To test his theory Alexander brought up a tactical map and checked the ship’s logs for the trajectory of the missiles that had hit the Moon.

  The trajectory showed them crossing beside the wormhole rather than through it. He’d expected that given the wormhole’s orbital velocity and the amount of time that had passed since the attack, but it also meant that if there’d been something hiding behind the wormhole, it should be in plain sight by now—unless it was far away and they were limiting their emissions to stay hidden.

  “The mouth of the wormhole only lined up with the Moon for a very brief window of time,” McAdams said from beside him, her eyes on the map.

  Alexander nodded. “Whoever was
behind the attack, they timed it perfectly to make sure we would think it came from the Looking Glass.”

  “Are you sure that it didn’t?” McAdams replied.

  “You heard what Bishop said. It would take 180 times the orbital distance from the Earth to the Sun just for a ship to reach a third of the speed of light, and we know from experience that nothing can travel that far into the wormhole without being ripped apart.”

  “Maybe there’s a safe zone—some point where the tidal forces balance each other out and it’s safe to traverse.”

  “I’m no physicist, but I’m pretty sure that’s not how wormholes work.”

  “Well, I hope you’re right and the attack didn’t come from the Looking Glass.”

  “And why is that, Commander?”

  “Because the mouth of the wormhole is pointed at Earth now.”

  Alexander checked his tactical map again. She was right. The Looking Glass was now aimed at Earth like the barrel of an interstellar cannon.

  McAdams shook her head. “Bishop, I have a math problem for you.”

  “What’s that, Commander?”

  “Find out when a missile traveling at a third of the speed of light would hypothetically need to exit the mouth of the wormhole in order to hit Earth.”

  “Yes, ma’am. Give me a minute to run that through the computer.”

  “That’s what targeting computers are for,” Lieutenant Cardinal put in from gunnery. “I can calculate that faster.”

  “I don’t care who does it, just get me the calculation,” McAdams replied.

  Alexander’s brow furrowed. “You’re really stuck on this theory that someone is attacking us from inside the wormhole.”

  “It doesn’t matter. Our attackers are either actually using the wormhole to direct their shots, or they’re pretending to. In either case the attacks will have to come from a specific direction at a specific point in time, which means we should be able to predict where and when another attack will come.”