Governor's Tribute

by Sharon L Reddy

Chapter Six

  Dirda looked over the plan and smiled. Boer was going to be very pleased with it. She glanced out the window and her smile widened. Aura was drilling her volunteers. Barri was grinning when she looked back.

  "I'd have never thought of it and I'd have never come up with anything that would work as well."

  "I told Boer about it and he whooped. Three years service in the Nunturi Volunteer Restoration Corps will make the sons and daughters of government employees just Nunturi. We had four who aren't ask about joining."

  "We did?!"

  "Four girls. Lieutenant Jastorim told them volunteer service was for one year for everyone else, but they could volunteer for another at the end of it. She said all four of them seemed pleased with the explanation of the three-year commitment asked of those boys and girls whose fathers had just done what everyone else did to keep their families from ending up in one of the gov housing projects."

  "We're going to do it. We're actually going to end 'they' this generation."

  "They?"

  "They did it to us. They deserve to be punished. They punished us for what our fathers didn't know how not to do. They deserve to be punished. One generation after another getting even for what was done by the last at its worst."

  "There are records of tribes doing that for a couple millennia. A king or big nation would come in answer to the pleas of the people caught between them, who just wanted to raise their crops, or go to work at their jobs, in peace. As soon as the king or nation pulled out, the ones whose grandparents had been on the receiving end the time before started getting even, until somebody sat on them. The horror stories those told their grandchildren assured they'd get even, as soon as they got the chance. 'They did it.' The directors used a variation of it here, until they were well-enough entrenched to drop the pretense and just begin to take everything from everyone who didn't work for them taking that everything."

  "What's in Yarrow sector, Lola?"

  "Thirty-two empire worlds and nineteen classified as independent colonies of those worlds. Remembering to say 'classified as' is important. Those worlds aren't like Greens and Bounty. Most of them are also classified as moderately-high-populated technological. The colony classification includes them under the sector treaty without having to petition the empire for inclusion or negotiate a separate treaty. Yarrow sector had some pretty nasty wars before reps from twenty-six planets asked the empire to stop them. Unlike our sector, those wars were between worlds, not on one. The sector treaty is pretty standard. These worlds got fed up with losing trade and traders and asked for the protection given to empire worlds. 'You really want to sign it too, don't you?' Same story as before but the empire outlasted the horror stories."

  "The empire that doesn't rule."

  "Tax is point two percent of the planetary government budget at the time of signing for the protection of the empire fleet and the laws are you don't make war, you don't oppress your people and you educate all your children. Those terms are just defined extremely clearly, so there's no misunderstanding. If your military budget was extremely high at the time, you cut it fast or you paid for it from then on."

  "Dereva-Baslior combined fleet calling Governor Thiretess."

  "First Lady Relatross receiving you Dereva-Baslior. Welcome to Nunture. We've really been looking forward to your arrival."

  "Dirda, this is Hanus. Start with Nunture."

  "Boer, of course. The planet is Nunture and the people are Nunturi."

  "Where's the ship?"

  "On the ground. Boer landed it."

  "What?!"

  "Well, more who, but that's what exactly what he said when Li told him she had an idea of how to do it. We came down fast and Boer disposed of the bureau directors and their senior assistants with a well-placed shot from the hip, with an avalanche danger reduction shell from Dona's kit, in their a-grav as they were trying to escape to a yacht they were stocking for the purpose. Everyone else got real cooperative real fast."

  "I... can see they would. I have two admirals behind me who are wondering what they're doing here and working not to giggle."

  "We need your help down here badly, Hanus. We've got a plan to help them, but there aren't enough of us to teach them how to do things, so they can do them. Start with there's no such thing as sewage treatment in gov housing and only enough cropland under cultivation to feed government employees. You already know they can't read."

  "Why didn't the cropland show on orbital surveys?"

  "The fields are all nicely maintained. They're just not growing crops. We found out most of it was grass and not grain when we sent flyers over them. We've located enough seed for about twenty percent, but we haven't got the personnel to teach enough people to get the crops in fast enough for a harvest this year. The majority of the population is in gov housing, wooden boxes with cold water, oil stoves, no lights and a sewer pipe straight down to a drain, concentrated on the coasts and along major rivers. The people in them fed themselves with fish they caught by hand at night or starved. Moving out of the boxes wasn't allowed. The fences around gov housing projects assured no one tried more than once. That's the power cost for the projects in the annual budget. No one saw anyone who was arrested for fishing during the day again, or anyone who was arrested for anything else either. So, the people have stayed where the government put them and fished only at night for about one hundred thirty years most places. There's no business and very little industry. That industry made things only for government employees and the people working in it were government employees. The only thing supplied to everyone at no cost was contraceptive. Cases of five-year patches were just delivered to housing projects at regular intervals. Once a year, a mobile medical unit went to each and the poor could get treatment for an injury or disease, for themselves or a child, if they requested permanent sterilization. We have a suspicion the government made sure many of them needed treatment before the unit went to them, but that hasn't been necessary for quite some time. Our estimate is the population is about thirty percent of what they said it was."

  "Thirty... Why didn't the orbital surveys show that?"

  "I'll send them to you. The average number of people living in one of those lovely complexes with large pool, ball courts and such is nine. They're bachelor complexes and primarily empty. Most houses around here have a detached garage big enough for four cars and a hanger big enough for two flyers. Basically, even the lowest government bureau employee had a home the equivalent size of a very spacious six-bedroom house and anyone above that level had a vacation home or six in pleasant places. Since keeping house was all women were allowed to do, and the judgment of their value as people, they didn't need other assistance with them. It's not visible on the orbital surveys because about ten percent of the population was occupying space enough for seventy percent. It was carefully laid out so it wouldn't be visible on orbital surveys. The plan was get out of the empire in about ten years because the emperor hadn't appointed a governor and the treaty called for one."

  "If the emperor hadn't appointed Boer, they could have done it."

  "They thought they'd found a way to shorten the timetable went they took Jobe to him."

  "Well, we don't have farmers and such with us, but we've got people who can read an instruction manual on farm equipment."

  "That's what we need."

  "Where's the governor?"

  "He and Jobe are going from one housing project to another and telling the people the government has fallen and they have friends coming to teach them, so they can help themselves. There's no comm to any of them."

  "The rest of the people?"

  "The former government employees, in all but the bureaus, are helping. The older children, boys and girls, of those are joining the Nunturi Volunteer Restoration Corps for three years and getting in shape to rebuild their world. Anyone else who wants to join the Corps only volunteers for a year. The three-year commitment is for tho
se who know they most benefited in a very unfair system and intend to help straighten it out. The former bureau employees are just waiting. Most of them are sure they'll be needed in their old jobs soon. The truth is, they will be. There aren't many others who can read or operate a comp and most of those don't know anything about record-keeping and such. The plan is move the people in the projects into the condo complexes and operate them as training schools, then move the former bureau employees into the housing projects while their houses are being rebuilt into multi-dwelling units. We want to make sure it's not defined as punishment, but as a learning experience. They need to know what the policies of those above them, that they helped implement, were actually doing to people. Those at the highest levels to be last to move out of them. There will also be a limitation on advancement when they do go back to work. Basically, no one who did work for one of the bureaus can rise above the position of office manager and the benefits and power of those positions will be greatly reduced."

  "It sounds like all you really need is people to help implement a good plan."

  "That's the job Boer gave us, Hanus. He told us these people needed to see women do it nearly as much as to have it done."

  "You're going to have about sixty thousand people arriving within the next fifteen days to put the plan in action, Dirda, and I'm not counting the personnel of four fleets. Those from Rinder and O'Dona should arrive by tomorrow. Thirteen worlds and the emperor are sending a lot of help."

  "It's all needed, but I hope they're bringing a lot of food with them."

  "If they aren't, we'll get it here fast. Admiral Hoster sent a message farmers, seed and bedding plants were needed as fast as they could be gotten here while we were talking. Admiral Lahaliha is organizing transport down."

  "We'll get them to farms with instruction manuals on how to get them plowed and ready for planting."

  "Dirda, they were feeding themselves."

  "Yes, Hanus, most of them did get just enough fish and seaweed or river bank weeds to survive to about age fifty. Jobe was very healthy because he was highly skilled in an essential craft. He repaired holes in fishing nets."