Kinsella (Kinsella Universe Book 1) (17 page)

“Since then, you can get those plans on the Internet.  They have always been available to the government for the asking.  And now, nearly two years down the line, every Tom, Dick and Harry are flying their own spacecraft, except the Space Service.  Now the Space Service wants to buy technology that’s nearly two years old.  Right now the Space Service flies leased ships from other manufacturers.

“Sir, surely you’ve read the articles — I’ve seen several — about Moore’s Law as applied to space vehicles.  So far, it’s been holding, although with different parameters than with integrated circuits.  Instead of doubling performance, halving cost and reducing in size by half every eighteen months, the wags are predicted a halving of cost and a doubling of size of the vehicle.  I personally think it’s ludicrous, but then, I’m not a reporter.

“Mr. President, for the foreseeable future the most valuable cargo spaceships are going to carry is people.

“As for the crews, sir, if you know your career tanks the first time you refuse a mission, that’s a lot of pressure to fly.”

“It doesn’t seem to faze those Navy pilots who refused to go up.”

“Mr. President,” John Gilly said levelly, “when your career is already tanked because of professional jealousy, why on earth would you want to stick out your neck for nothing?”

The President rocked back, obviously surprised.  “It’s that bad?”

“Sir,” Stephanie interjected, “the numbers are clear.  Since the Space Service was formed nearly three-quarters of all Air Force officers who’ve flown missions have been promoted.  Zero naval officers have been promoted, even though some of them have flown a half dozen missions.”

The President’s eyes turned baleful.

He turned to Captain Gilly.  “I thought it was a one-time thing, John.  I’m truly sorry.  I thought I put the fear of God into the Air Force the first time.”

“Sir, you cashiered a first lieutenant, a captain and a lieutenant colonel.  From a force in the Space Service of twenty-five thousand, 90% of whom are Air Force officers.  You didn’t even cause a hiccup.  They lose many times that to retirement and failure to reenlist every day.”

“Captain Gilly, I’ll entertain a suggestion from you for a new commander of the Space Service.”

“Admiral Delgado, sir.  He’s served as a fighter pilot, he’s commanded a carrier fighter squadron, an Air Group, he’s commanded two carriers, both times in combat, and is currently up for Commander, Pacific Forces.”

“I’ll take it under advisement.

“Now, it’s time to shift gears.  I’m getting a lot of flack from Congress, the press and the public about why we’re falling behind when it comes to interstellar exploration.  The recent return of two probes, supposedly flown by El Al, but everyone knows were run by the Israeli Defense Force, with data on a dozen star systems has caught everyone’s attention.”

He waved at Stephanie.  “Professor?”

She shook her head.  “I don’t know where to begin.  First, as I alluded to a bit ago, the Space Service is laughable when it comes to development.  Miss Sanchez recently joked that if the Space Service had been in charge of developing automobiles for Ford, the Model T would first have appeared in 1966 and would have been the size of a dump truck.

“Sir, the Israelis sent out six probes and got two back.  That’s peachy keen for unmanned probes, but the clamor isn’t that we send robots, but crews.  The same people howling for fast action would be the first ones to howl for your head when you lost two thirds of the crews.”

“I figured.  But still, we could do that robot thing.”

“Why bother?  The Israelis are about ready to launch a second wave; this time twelve probes.

“And there is still the little matter of developing a manned vehicle in the near term.  We’re nearly ready to go.”

“The Israelis do seem to be way ahead of everyone else when it comes to robotics,” the President admitted, trying to change the subject.

“I can’t imagine why,” Stephanie said drolly.  “A couple of times a week the President of Iran calls for their nuclear obliteration, swearing he’s going kill every last Jew on the planet, right after he finishes turning Israel into a radioactive parking lot.  A few months ago Iran dropped an ICBM into the water just off of Cyprus, having over-flown Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Israel and the Greek portion of Cyprus.

“They fired that missile from as far to the southeast in Iran as they could get.  That missile can strike any city in Europe including all the Scandinavian capitals, London and Dublin.  Shooting in other directions, they could hit anywhere in the industrial heartland of Russia, including Moscow and St. Petersburg, and all the major cities in India.

“Now, the UAE, Tunisia, Morocco, Saudi Arabia, Algeria, Egypt and Turkey are developing nuclear weapons; so is Greece.  Isn’t that just wonderful!  I can’t imagine why the Israelis are looking for some place to move to!”

She finished, realizing belatedly that the President had expected her outburst.  “Oh,” she said softly.  “Now?”

“No, not quite just yet.  Robot probes are robot probes.”

The President turned to Captain Gilly.  “I’m still of two minds about cutting you in on this thing of Professor Kinsella’s.  It’s one hundred percent political and you’re one hundred percent not, just like her.  Still, you’re not a stupid man, and there are some concepts that require as many intelligent people as possible to look them over in advance to reduce the chance of mistakes.”

“If it’s political, sir, then I’d just as soon pass.”

“Well, it is definitely political.  Tell me, Captain Gilly, what should the rules be when someone discovers a habitable planet?  Does full ownership go to whoever orbits it first?  To whoever lands first, flag in hand?  Some other criteria?  What happens if someone claims a planet, leaves, and someone comes along behind them with fifty thousand colonists?  Possession is nine-tenths of the law and all that.”

“You’re right about that being political, sir.  I’d say you should consult Congress, consult our international partners and maybe the UN.”

“Captain Gilly, the last time the US seriously consulted with the UN was on North Korea, Iran and Darfur, during the last half of the previous decade.  The UN, the Europeans, Russians and Chinese dithered or obstructed right up until the Iranians tested their first weapon, two and a half years before anyone expected them to.  There are no more black Muslims in southern Darfur; the people there were all slaughtered or expelled.  The World Court trials for ‘crimes against humanity’ are expected to start in the next few years, and will go for ten to twenty years after that.  As usual, most of the defendants will die of old age before any of those trials conclude.

“The UN and our so-called allies said, ‘Oops!  Can’t do anything about Iran’s nuclear weapons now!  Overkill, Mutually Assured Destruction and all that.  Containment worked on the Soviet Union, it will work on Iran.  Pity about those black Muslims in the Sudan.’  Now, every self-respecting country in the Middle East, the Balkans and Northern Africa have nuclear weapons programs.  Need I go on, Captain?”

“No, sir, you don’t.  The UN is an empty, corrupt husk.”

“Professor Kinsella has another idea entirely.  As you may have noticed, she has a different way of looking at things.  She sees problems in advance and works to deal with them in ways that politicians could never dream up themselves.  The sovereignty thing bothered her from almost the first.  So she made a proposal to me about that.

“Quite frankly, I have no intention of allowing colonial beachheads by any of a number of nations.  Iran, Syria, North Korea, Libya, Cuba, Venezuela, to name the ones at the top of the list.  I have already issued an Executive Order.  We will have a vehicle that is interstellar capable in a month or so.  It will be followed by others.  If we detect a colonial attempt by any of the nations on that list, I have given orders that they are to be intercepted and the colonial vehicle destroyed.”

John Gilly’s jaw dropped.  “You’d kill hundreds of innocent people?”

“Yes.  Hundreds, or thousands or perhaps even tens of thousands.  Those nations are cancers; they are blights on the body politic.  They cannot be permitted to metastasize off this planet under any circumstance... at least if they are under the thumb of the government that sent them.”

“Give such an order and you’d be impeached.  I’m not sure but what they’d be right.”

“I know.  Still, we believe it’s a while away.  The only sort of people who are likely to be successful colonists are their best and brightest... and who are the most likely the most disloyal.  So, for the time being, we go about spreading misinformation — even resorting to old-fashioned sabotage of their Benko-Chang research.”

John turned to Stephanie.  “And you had a hand in this?”

“Yes,” she said quietly.  “John, I have no more desire to engage in mass murder than you do.  I came up with my plan with the intention of avoiding as much of that as possible.  But frankly, it’s only a matter of time before one of the moonbat governments fires off something nuclear, just to show how big and tough they are.

“John, the President and I were slightly remiss in our description of that Iranian missile a while ago.  I described the trajectory as it flew.  Move the launch site twelve hundred miles northwest, still in Iran, along the same great circle path the missile followed and that missile would have come down on Paris.”

“That’s our thinking about what will be their first target,” the President told John.  “The country least likely to retaliate... from their point of view.”

“That’s insane!  The French just talk about multiculturalism and multilateralism.  But when the rubber hits the road, they are like any other nation state.  If the Iranians drop a nuke on Paris, the French will turn two dozen Iranian cities into glowing craters thirty minutes later.”

“Faith!” Stephanie said sarcastically.  “Can you imagine that?  A country that mistakes their enemy’s resolve!  That’s never happened before!”

Which, of course, was the usual reason wars started.

“And Stephanie has a plan?”

“Yes, a two-fold plan.  First, of course, in defense of the basic patent.  Where we threaten to shoot down any Benko-Chang powered vehicle attempting to leave a country on the ban list — that is those countries we feel are cheating on license fees.”

“Those would likely be civilian vehicles, or at least claimed to be civilian.”

“And more likely they would be at least quasi-military.  After the first time we shoot one down, the number of non-military passengers on such trips will decline greatly.  Somebody over at MIT has come up with a gravity wave detector that detects Benko-Chang turbines out to about a thousand miles with sufficient resolution; they are improving those detectors just about every day.”

“Still, I don’t believe anyone has ever enforced a patent with lethal force before.”

“The news release of the shoot-down order will contain pictures of the aircraft impacting the World Trade Center towers, the day they came down.  I do believe that people will understand.  At least the Americans will.  Perhaps we’ll throw in a few pictures of blown-up subway cars, getting the Spanish, the British, the Indians and the Japanese on our side.”

“Stephanie?”

“John, I said once before that I thought we should use police armed with weapons commensurate with the risk.  There is no purpose for those weapons unless there is a credible belief they will be employed.  Actually employing them will make for a very credible threat.”

“Mr. President, I’m not a bleeding heart liberal, or progressive or whatever they are calling themselves this year.  But this will cause a lot of trouble,” John told his boss.

“So?” the President said, his voice bitter.  “The threat of nuclear weapons carried on Benko-Chang platforms are an existential threat for countries like Israel.  They are a dire threat to the cities of the rest of the world’s democracies.  To the cities and people of the United States.  I took an oath to defend them and I intend to abide by that oath.

“It’s taken ten years more or less, for the rest of the western world to come to its senses about the jihadis, and even then, it’s still not everyone,” the President added.  “But, as usual, Professor Kinsella has an idea.  An attractive idea, once again coming from an angle that will take everyone by surprise.”

“What angle?” Captain Gilly asked.

“We go back to off-planet sovereignty.  Let’s face it; the colonial nations back in the pre-twentieth century deserved their bad rap.  They were exploitive; they were oppressive.

“The United States and our new partner, Australia, are the main western countries who were founded as colonies, and who prospered anyway.”

“I’m not sure I’d call Australia a new ally,” John observed.

“Partner, not ally.”

“The fifty-first state?  That would go over like a dull thud, both here and down there in Oz.”

“Partner,” the President repeated acidly.  “Three days after
Ad Astra
returns we’ll call an international conference.  An RSVP, invitation only, conference.  The US will convene the conference; the Australians will host it.  Only democracies get an invitation.  First thing on the agenda will be the formation of a ‘Federation of Democracies.’”

“Another UN?”

“Well, sort of.  Except dictatorships, oligarchies and kleptocracies need not apply.  Singapore, for instance, won’t be on the list.  The People’s Republic of China won’t be, but Taiwan will be.  Russia hasn’t had a fair election in ten years — they won’t make the list, either.”