Pallas (25 page)

And naturally, from the first day the new antenna had been oper
a
tional, the Ngu Departure Company had run advertisements offering jobs to anyone—but especially to Project peasants—willing to train and work hard for an honest day’s payment in cold, hard cash. All they had to do was find a way out the front gate (or some other convenient exit) and down the five miles of road—at an average of one-tenth of a
gravity, that was practically next door—separating
the two establishments. Tran
s
portation would eventually be provided, in the form of even more “lu
n
chbox specials,” but Emerson didn’t advertise that.

Nor did he add that permanent defections would be rewarded as his own had been, with warmth and friendship and as much help as possible toward starting a new life on the Outside.

It wasn’t a plan that could be concealed for very long, nor had it been calculated to please the Chief Administrator of the Greeley Utopian Memorial Project, which was why Emerson wasn’t surprised to be hearing, just about now, from Aloysius. It seemed a long time since he’d struggled so hard to understand that, in a free world anyway, kindness and good business amounted to the same thing. It was natural for any Outsider to sympathize with the Project’s victims, to cheer when they broke free, and to welcome them as new neighbors. New neighbors, of course, were new customers, as well, as long as they became self-sufficient (and if they didn’t, they wouldn’t last long, but would have to whimper their way back into the Senator’s good graces). For the most part, everybody won—if not a full-fledged example of Adam Smith’s “invisible hand” at work, it was, at least, a sign from one of its friendlier fingers.

With Mrs. Singh behind him, he pushed through the open door of his tiny, cluttered office, leaned his flying yoke against a bookcase, and sat down at his desk.

Aloysius and the Senator were already there, in electronic spirit, man
i
festing themselves in the middle of his blotter as a pair of six-inch lepr
e
chauns.

“What can I do you for, Aloysius?”

A tiny, not-quite-transparent three-dimensional replica of Emerson stood at the center of Brody’s corner table in the Nimrod. Bent over it were Brody himself and Gibson Altman, both of whom were similarly displayed to Emerson, three hundred miles away, thanks to the equivalent electronics at his end of the conversation. Brody suspected that his old friend Henrietta was there, too, somewhere in the background, but the narrowly focused device wasn’t picking up her image.

“Not a thing fer me, but fer the Senator here, me boy.”
The tavern keeper turned over a broad, hairy hand, indicating Altman. He was trying hard not to appear to be taking sides, but it was difficult. “I’m afraid he’s after suin’
ye
agin.”

Emerson’s miniature image turned, as if he’d been occupied with other matters until just this moment and was only giving them his full attention now. Perhaps Henrietta had said something to him. He looked the Senator in the eye and smiled, his unshaven upper lip making him look even younger than he was,

“What for this time?”

“I have just traveled four hundred miserable kilometers, young man,” Altman complained, “in a good-faith attempt to accomplish things in the manner you people seem to regard as customary. The least you can do is to expend an equal effort. I expect—no, I
demand
—to see you here in this...er, courtroom, immediately.”

Emerson smiled again. The picture of Gibson Altman being stuck overnight in a town he hated, among people he hated, with the prospect of an equally arduous return voyage ahead of him—all for nothing, if it could possibly be arranged—appealed to the boy. “Now let me get this straight, Senator: you actually believe that wasting your time and energy in a stupid gesture that was entirely your own idea creates some sort of obligation on my part to—”

“A moment, if y’please.”

Brody had held up a hand, interrupting Emerson before things went too far. He turned to Altman.

“It’s a long way indeed from there to here, Senator
darlin
’, as ye yerself can attest. It’s also possible that this matter can be resolved here an’ now. Young Mr. Ngu could give up without a fight, simply t’save himself the inconvenience. Why
don’t y’let
me read him this here bill of particulars that y’brought along with ye, and we’ll see what’s what before we formally summon him.”

Both parties knew that Brody, as an adjudicator under the Stein C
o
venant, had no power to coerce. He was not like an Earthside magistrate in that respect. But among Pallatians, in a dispute of real substance, the failure to appear in court to answer a charge could result in lost business, even in ostracism.

Altman nodded grudgingly. “Very well, but if—”

“Now let’s just look...” Brody settled his glasses on the end of his nose and held Altman’s sheaf of paper up before them at arm’s length, shuffling through the many pages. “Ah, here it is. Emerson, the good Senator here wants ye t’stop all radio broadcastin’ into the Greeley Utopian Memorial Project, as he asserts that this violates the privacy of the inhabitants therein.”

Emerson said nothing. The assertion and the accusation were so a
b
surd that he probably didn’t know what to say. Brody didn’t either, at first. Finally, he turned again to the other man, squinting at him over his spectacle rims. “Now it seems t’me that ye’ll
be needin’
t’take that up with the proprietors of KCUF, Senator darlin’. But we’ll let it pass fer the moment an’ get on.”

All three knew what the station owners would have to say to Altman, if he were foolish enough to confront them. The Stein Covenant strictly forbade any interference with the right to free speech, and, unlike the native country of all three, on Pallas that right extended to broadcast media, which required no license to operate. Altman had nothing either to offer them or threaten them with.

To Emerson: “He also wants
ye
t’stop transmittin’ private or co
m
mercial messages to the Project inhabitants intended, as it says here, to incite their disaffection.”

The tiny simulacrum shrugged. “I haven’t broadcast any personal messages yet—although it’s a good idea and I’ll certainly give it due consideration.
Anything else, Aloysius?”

“Indeed.” Brody sighed and shook his head. “He demands that ye r
e
frain immediately an’ henceforward from employin’ the inhabitants of the Greeley Utopian Memorial Project at occupations unauthorized by said Project’s Chief Administrator...”

Emerson grinned.

“Particularly,” the innkeeper continued, “manufacturin’ by what he calls the exploitive, wasteful, an’ ecologically irresponsible process of mass produ
c
tion...”

Emerson chuckled.

“An’
most
particularly,” Brody plowed
onward,
“the manufacturin’ of clandestine communications devices, personal vehicles, an’ deadly weapons intended fer individual use.”

Emerson laughed out loud.

Brody sighed, feeling the mounting fury and frustration of the man beside him as a tangible force. “He further demands that ye refrain from sellin’, givin’ away, or allowin’ the Project’s
inhabitants
t’steal any an’ all such manufactured goods.”

“Excuse me, Your Honor,” interjected Altman. The man was barely under control, speaking between clenched teeth. “That’s a bit more ge
n
eral than I intended. For the time being, I only ask that he keep these things out of the hands of my people.”

“There y’have it,” Brody finished.

“I see,” Emerson replied.

Shall we debate
it,
does a girl have to be stirred before she’ll let a man take her?
Of course not.
Some of them are, but only a minority; most of them let the apron up because they’ve been curious about it
so long...curiosity is often so strong that no man or woman can resist it.

—Rex Stout,
Death of a Dude

“W
hat,” asked Emerson, “am I supposed to do now, Alo—Your Honor?”

Brody massaged his beard in thought. “Well, I told the Senator here y’might be willin’ t’give in without botherin’ t’travel all the long two hundred miles—pardon me, three hundred sixty kilometers—t’Curringer. Otherwise, he wants a public hearin’ like before.”

Emerson laughed and shook his head. Brody had watched the boy mature and become increasingly self-possessed since the
Ngu
Departure Company had been created, but something else was elevating his spirit today. “Not
exactly
like before, I’ll bet.”

Altman waved Brody aside. “See here, young man, this is a serious business. I demand that you treat it—and me—with the respect it d
e
serves!”

“You’re just full of demands, aren’t you, Senator?” Emerson shrugged. “But that’s what I’m
doing,
believe me, giving this bus
i
ness—and you—all the respect they deserve.”

“Talk to him, Brody!” Altman’s hands shook and he sprayed little gobbets of spit as he hissed the words between his teeth.
Another half hour of this,
Brody calculated,
and Emerson won’t have any legal pro
b
lems because the plaintiff
will have keeled over.

Before he could intervene, Emerson asked, “What’s the
matter,
has KCUF’s antenna made it wasteful and ecologically irresponsible to jam their signals the way you did when I was one of your serfs?”

Altman was stiff with fury. Idly watching a vein pulse on the man’s forehead, Brody decided that Henrietta must have left the room, forcing Emerson to fend for himself. He’d never known her to remain quiet when an argument was going on.

“I’ve been doing some reading,” Emerson told Altman, visibly di
z
zying the man with the change of subject. “Reading you’d never have authorized. We could argue all day over freedom of communication, or the individual right to the means of self-defense, but I doubt it would get us anywhere. So let’s discuss something else.”

“Such as?”
The Senator was wary. Brody had watched him recover in only a few seconds and was impressed. The cost would be high—blood pressure, gastric problems, perhaps ultimately cancer—but it was nothing short of miraculous. No wonder he’d been successful, up to a point, in politics. The tavern keeper remained silent. This was not a formal hea
r
ing, and if it came to that, Altman was going to accuse him again of conflict of interest. It was true enough, his interests were in conflict. And this time, as a principal investor and director of Emerson’s company, he doubted whether he could shrug it off—or wanted to.

He was aware that, to one degree or another, everything Emerson did these days was motivated by a long-held, deeply felt desire for retrib
u
tion. On the other hand, the boy was within his rights and if anyone ever deserved to exact retribution...The Senator wasn’t just wrong in each of his nasty little authoritarian demands, he was wrongheaded—all of which, naturally enough, disqualified Brody as an impartial adjudicator. Perhaps the best thing was to let them talk it out.

“Such as the flying yoke you seem to resent so much, even before it’s on the market, and the fact that your former country and mine started with the most efficient mass-transport system in history—the private aut
o
mobile—which took the individual from precisely where he happened to be to precisely where he wanted to go, at precisely any time he wished, in comfort, privacy, and comparative safety.”

Altman started to reply, but Emerson didn’t let him.

“That didn’t suit people like you, Senator, politicians and planners who nurture a profound, unwavering hatred for private transportation because they see individual comfort and privacy as a threat—and pe
r
sonal safety as a lamentable lack of opportunity. It didn’t give you the control you wanted and needed so badly.”

That hadn’t sounded like Emerson at all. The phrasing and vocabulary were wrong. Brody suspected that Henrietta was still beside him after all, silently coaching him.

“What can you possibly know about it?” the Senator demanded. “You were only a child—you’re still only a child! The nation wanted and needed public transportation! The people voted for it time and time again!
The private automobile was selfish, wasteful,
dirty
—and the highways were falling apart!”

“Eventually you believed your own propaganda.” Emerson shook his head. “And the results of the endless referenda you rigged so carefully. So you spent billions, maybe even trillions, of tax-extorted dollars on e
x
pensive, complicated, failure-prone systems that only shifted power consumption and pollution somewhere else—“

“It’s not true!”

Now Brody was certain Henrietta was helping, probably scribbling notes as fast as her fingers could fly. He’d heard her on this subject too many times to doubt it.

“Systems,” Emerson was saying, “that ran mostly empty because they were inconvenient, uncomfortable, and dangerous in terms of the crime they bred and the fact that hundreds, maybe even thousands, of innocents died whenever some bureaucrat, usually safe in his office or control booth, screwed up. The fact that it would actually have been cheaper to give everyone a car never told you that
you
were screwing up. Nor did it ever occur to you to use it to keep the roads repaired—or hand them over to private parties willing and able to do it.”

Altman clenched his fists on the table, fighting for calm. “What has any of this got to do—
”

Emerson anticipated him. “Because I know the Project was formed, among other things, to explore the forcible elimination of private tran
s
port back on Earth. It’s in your basic documentation, grant applications,
print
media that were sympathetic at the time. Which is why it especially galls you that your slaves may begin helping me to manufacture personal vehicles, despoiling your Utopian dream altogether.”

That sounded more like Emerson. Altman didn’t reply, although he seemed more relaxed, sitting with his shoulders slumped, which made Brody guess that Emerson’s accusation was true.

But the boy wasn’t finished with him: “Now I have a question, Mr. Chief Administrator. Did you even bother to
read
the Stein Covenant before you signed it for ten thousand other human beings? It’s only one page, you know, seven little paragraphs.”

“I—”

“Paragraph Two presupposes the right of each individual to listen to what he likes. If you don’t want KCUF, don’t tune it in. The same clause implies that people can go anywhere, any way they wish, and that you haven’t got a thing to say about it. Paragraph Three asserts the right of self-defense, I quote, by ‘whatever means prove necessary’—meaning fists, knives, guns, thermonuclear hand grenades—as long as it doesn’t violate any other provisions of the Covenant.”

“You’re not a lawyer, you’re hardly qualified—”

“Beggin’ yer pardon, Senator
darlin
’, neither am I.” He heard H
e
nrietta chuckle in the background.

“The Covenant belongs to those who’ve signed it,” Emerson conti
n
ued, “and to nobody else. Mirelle Stein put it in plain language expressly to eliminate the argument you just made.”

“But that’s
anarchy!
”

“
Organized
anarchy.”
Emerson nodded. “Now: we can fight this out in a public hearing, Senator, but if you insist on it, this time I’ll counter that the very
existence
of the Project violates the fourth, fifth, and sixth p
a
ragraphs of the Covenant.”

“And as the only local arbiter available, Senator darlin’,” Brody warned the man, “prejudiced or otherwise, I’d have no choice but t’rule that, under established hyperdemocratic doctrine, ye may not prohibit Project inhabitants either from acceptin’ outside work in their off hours—even in the privacy of their own homes—or from ownin’ radios, flyin’ machines, or weapons of self-defense.”

Emerson nodded agreement. “I don’t believe anyone on this asteroid has a desire to move in and shut you down, but that could change. There’s always the chance that I can recruit enough of your own victims to a
c
complish it from the inside.”

“You’re threatening me?”

“Senator, I’m only telling you what might happen as a result of a public hearing on the charges you’ve made. Now—and I mean this lite
r
ally—you want to try me?”

“Shit!”

Emerson threw his stylus down in disgust, blacking the display he was so tired of looking at.

He rubbed his weary eyes. He had to face it: the flying yoke worked, in its own crude fashion, but there was no way to get more altitude or speed out of it. The motors were as powerful as mass and energy-storage co
n
siderations allowed. Solar panels would make things worse. He was a
l
ready using the lightest, strongest materials available and his impellers were as efficient as the laws of physics and his manufacturing techniques permitted. The problem was the batteries, enormously heavy and neither very powerful nor long-lasting. There hadn’t been an advance in that area for decades, and he wasn’t the one to make it.

Would his potential customers be content with a top speed of fifty miles an hour, a range of four hundred miles, a maximum safe altitude (as opposed to what he’d tried this morning) of twenty-five hundred feet, and a carrying capacity of no more than three hundred Earth pounds? Or would they simply laugh him and his useless toy out of business?

He sat up from the hunched position he’d unconsciously assumed for hours, felt his back complain, and rubbed his eyes again. Ten o’clock—where had the time gone? He’d meant to call it a day after f
i
nishing with Aloysius and Altman, but there’d been one or two little things he’d wanted to look at first.

Now here he was, tired and sore and hungry, all for nothing.

And alone.

The few workers he’d already recruited had gone to their homes on the surrounding prairie. Through his window he saw lights twinkling sparsely in the distance. Mrs. Singh had returned to Curringer in the conveyance she’d driven here—her visit had been a surprise to show it off—a lightweight alloy frame suspended from what looked like three six-foot bicycle wheels, pushed by an even bigger propeller mounted in a cage behind the driver’s seat. With the huge wheels to smooth the road, the contraption, built to her design by Nails and Tyr May, could cover the distance from here to Curringer in
under
four hours.