Island Worlds (3 page)

"Pleased to meet you," Carstairs said. "I'll confess I wasn't expecting to feel very welcome here tonight, in the middle of the founding families of space enterprise, but Mr. McNaughton here has been most hospitable." Carstairs had a touch of Liverpool in his accent. "I was surprised to find that we really have a great deal in common."

"I'll be interested to hear about that," Thor said.

"And so you shall," Murdo said. He gestured with a wineglass in the direction of a group of exotically-dressed people who were chattering excitedly among themselves. "We're having a sort of mini-U.N. meeting here tonight After the main festivities are over and most of the guests have gone on to other parties, some important business is to be discussed. I'd like for you to sit in on the meeting, Thor. This is going to be of utmost importance to the future of the family interests."

"I'd be glad to," Thor said. "I notice that there are no Soviets among the UN people."

"They wouldn't show had they been invited," Jameson said. "You see that fellow over there in the robe and and turban? He's a representative of the People's Islamic Republic of Iran-Kazakhstan. The Soviets still claim Kazakhstan and won't recognize any of its representatives."

"The Soviets are headed for the trashbin of history, Thor," Murdo assured him. "All these people here tonight are Third Worlders, and they haven't voted with the Soviets for decades. They are, however, the most powerful single bloc in the U.N. and as such they must be courted."

"What's the nature of this meeting?" Thor asked.

"That will have to wait," Murdo said. "Our security is the best, but we can't very well go searching our guests for bugs, snoops and pickups. The meeting will be in the theater and our precautions will be very thorough."

"Excellent," Carstairs said. "Wouldn't do to let this leak to the media prematurely."

"This is beginning to sound like a conspiracy," Thor said.

Carstairs laughed unaffectedly. "Every political maneuver in history started with a conspiracy. Nothing gets done, otherwise."

"Now tell me," Murdo said, changing the subject, "while we're on the subject of media leaks, what's this I hear about Senator Jameson renouncing his Constitutionalist affiliation?"

"It's true," Jameson said. "I've finally and sadly come to a break with the Party. Over the years, Constitutionalist policy has become as antiquated and irrelevant as Republican and Democrat. They all had their day, but that day is over."

"Senator Jameson has come over to us," Carstairs said. "And I'm going to see to it that he gets our nomination to run for President in the next election."

"Good choice," Murdo said. "Let me be among the first to congratulate you on acquiring the Senator, Mr. Carstairs. He'll make the future of your party."

"The people will make the future of the Party, Mr. McNaughton," Carstairs said, seriously, "but they have to have a spokesman, and I'm certainly not qualified for that task

"Quite so," McNaughton said. "And let me congratulate you, Senator. You'll have a chance at the office while you're still young and vigorous instead of having to wait for seniority to take its course."

"Far more important," Jameson said, "I'll be in the forefront of the movement that will determine the future of mankind on this planet. To serve that cause, even in a small way, is a privilege for which I'm grateful."

Was this really how things got done? Thor wondered. Carstairs obviously meant every word he said. Jameson sounded like he was talking for reporters. It struck him that several people were standing near enough to eavesdrop, and Jameson might expect every word he said tonight to appear on every screen in the country along with the rest of the morning news.

Thor spent the rest of the party in small talk with relatives and acquaintances. He did not see Karen. She was probably still angry with him, and he found that this didn't bother him nearly as much as it should. He looked around for Bob, but couldn't locate him. It had been a long time since Thor had attended a family bash. If the political element, especially the foreign one, was a new factor, there were also some notable omissions. There was not a single Kuroda present.

The two families had been close allies in the early days of commercial space exploration. In recent decades they had been fierce competitors, but they usually observed all the polite conventions on formal occasions. Few of the Kuroda clan had stayed on Earth. On a hunch, Thor made his way into the den. Several of the Islamic fundamentalists were there, getting away from the contamination of alcohol. As he had suspected, the portrait of Goro Kuroda was gone from its place above the mantel. The old samurai had been a close friend of Sam Taggart. Somehow, the whole family was shifting gears. He was glad that he had decided to leave. He didn't like the look of this.

When he returned to the main salon, the party was breaking up. Murdo signaled to him and Thor followed the group of political guests to the theater. It was a small auditorium with a sloping floor and rows of seats. At the bottom of the slope was a small stage surmounted by a multimedia screen.

Murdo mounted the little stage. "Please be seated, ladies and gentlemen. For those desiring them, each seat has a headset for simultaneous translation. This discussion shall be conducted in English, so just key the language of your choice. Are there any questions at this point?"

One of the Islamics stood up and made the usual
pro forma
protest against being seated with women. No attention was paid the protest, nor was any expected. The house lights dimmed and stage lights came on. "Please forgive the dramatic lighting," Murdo said, "but later we shall have some screen figures for you to examine. Our first speaker is Mr. Boniface, of Haiti. Please give him your closest attention."

Boniface was a plump, professional-looking black man with graying hair and artificial corneas. His clothes were several years out of date. He cleared his throat. "What we discuss here, my colleagues, will be common knowledge in the United Nations within a few days. The purpose of this meeting is to give the nonaligned nations of the world a chance to discuss and prepare themselves for a monumental piece of legislation which is about to be proposed." He had an oddly high-pitched voice.

"The international Earth First Party, of which I have been a member for many years, and of which the distinguished Senator Jameson has recently become a member, have drafted a proposal which they wish to have adopted as law by the United Nations as a whole and, severally and with alterations, by the individual nations as well. I think that you will agree with me that this legislation is not only fair and just, but long overdue.

"The proposal will now be explained to you by Mr. Anthony Carstairs, United States National Chairman of the Earth First Party. Each of you will be given a printout of the complete text of the proposal and the proceedings of this meeting. We ask that you do not communicate any of this to the media until it has been made public in the United Nations General Assembly."

Carstairs took the stand. He had taken off his coat and pushed his sleeves back to the elbows. His forearms, as heavy-muscled as an athlete's leg, were covered with coarse, black hair. The bristly hair of his head was cropped so short that his scalp shone through beneath the overhead lights. The crude vulgarity in these elegant surroundings did not seem to be a calculated pose. Thor had never before seen a man of such forceful presence. He revised the union leader-gangster image. Who was that Italian dictator of the last century? Bob was right, I'm deficient in history, he thought. Mussolini, that was it! But Mussolini had been a strutting buffoon. This man was the real thing. He made men like Murdo and even Jameson fade into the woodwork.

"All right," he began, "I'm no orator, so I'll just speak my mind. Not to mince words, this planet's been heading down the toilet for some time now." Thor felt a touch of amusement. This was what he'd been saying to Karen a few hours ago. "Now is neither the time nor place to thrash out the hundreds of problems that the peoples of the various nations are suffering from. We're here to address the root problem that has lain behind most of the others for more than a century: the drain of manpower and capital into the colonizing of space!"

There was a subdued murmur in the room and Thor looked around for signs of protest at this radical statement. There were none. "Most of you are aware of the policies and beliefs of Earth First. Briefly, when the infamous arms race of the last century wound down, it was replaced by the all-out space race. The prospect of immediate nuclear annihilation was eliminated, but the long-term effects of the space race were as bad and we're feeling those effects right now. The arms race drained wealth and resources from much-needed social programs and funneled it into useless military hardware. Stupid as it was, at least the treasure and the scientists stayed right here on Earth.

"At first, people all over the world sighed with relief. The danger is over, they said. This exploitation of space resources is going to make us all rich, they said. At first, it really did look safe. Sure, people died up there, but it was in small numbers, not like a real war. Even the Djakarta disaster, which was as destructive as a nuclear attack, didn't cause people to wake up to the dangers inherent in the irresponsible way that the commercial exploitation of space was carried out, and still is."

Thor winced. That was striking close to home. The Djakarta Incident had been the blackest mark on man's exploration of space. It had been in 2015. On a routine mission, a chunk of ore-rich asteroidal rock was being steered into Earth orbit when a maneuvering rocket attached to the rock had misfired. Instead of achieving a stable orbit, the rock had struck squarely in the Sunda Strait, inundating Djakarta and the southern tip of Sumatra. The death toll had been over a million and Borneo had tried to take advantage of the disaster by annexing Indonesia. A bloody war had followed, with millions more dead. The International Space Council had forbidden any large chunks of extraterrestrial matter to be brought into Earth orbit again. Mining and refining operations were to take place in deep space from that time forward.

"We've had no such disasters as that in the years since, thank God," Carstairs went on, "but space operations are still carried out in the same antiquated, irresponsible fashion. For a century, now, a very significant portion of the Earth's wealth and time have been spent on building space colonies, wealth and time that might better have been spent solving the problems of this planet. What's more, all too many people have taken advantage of the education provided by the great universities of this planet and then, as soon as they have their degrees and are ready to begin returning to the world economy something of what has been invested in them, they emigrate and go into cushy jobs in the offworld colonies! This Earth-to-space brain drain may prove to be the worst effect of the whole disastrous space program."

Carstairs paused and drank from a water glass on the podium before him. "Well, we can't undo what's been done, but we can correct how it's done in the future. For better or worse, and I happen to think it's for worse, we've become dependent on materials from the offworld colonies and on technologies developed in offworld labs. They have a choke hold on us as deadly as that wielded by the energy cartels of the last century.

"All of which brings us to the proposal which the Earth First Party is putting before the U.N. It's the opening campaign in our program to seize back from the offworld elitists we have created the future destiny of the people on Earth. This bill will be submitted simultaneously to the International Space Council and to the U.S. Senate for ratification. The protocols are as follows:" The lights dimmed further and a facsimile of the printout before Carstairs rolled up on the screen behind him.

"Item One: All technical professions essential to space exploration, settlement and exploitation, shall henceforth be under the licensing board of Space Council member states. A licensed professional must be under contract to the government of a member state.

"Item Two: All professionals in the critical categories may be placed under control of a licensing board even without their applications.

"Item Three: No licensed professional may break contract while on an extraterrestrial assignment. Any contract jumping without first returning to Earth is a felony punishable by imprisonment of up to seven years.

"Item Four: Any individual leaving the environment of the Earth-Moon twin planet system must leave his/her assets, to include currency, stock holdings, bank holdings, real property and any other possession defined by law of the licensing nation as 'asset,' save for such currency, property, etc. as shall be necessary for maintenance of life during the said extraterrestrial assignment, at the pleasure of the licensing government. He/she may reclaim all such assets by returning to the Earth-Moon system within a period of five years except when that individual is absent from the said system under a specific order of the government for a longer period. If he/she fails to return within five years, the said assets are forfeit to the government. The outer-worlders with holdings on the Earth-Moon system may continue to enjoy their property ownership if they return within five years of the passage and ratification of this bill. Until their return, all such assets shall be in custody of the ratifying state or the International Space Council.

"Item Five: All of the above to be in effect immediately. However, those in the critical professional categories who are already off the Earth shall be licensed within six months or be returned to the Earth for retraining."

The screen winked out and Carstairs put his paper down. "Well, there you have it. That's essentially the form in which our proposal will be put before the General Assembly and the Space Council. However, the Earth First Party is truly international, and there might be changes desired by signing member nations, to be binding only upon citizens of those nations. For instance, under some legal systems, the definition of the word 'asset' alone could run for paragraphs or pages."