SpaceCorp (13 page)

The end of the acting congressman from Alabama’s impromptu speech was punctuated by loud murmuring among the members. 

“Hey, Aloysius, how come he gets to talk like he’s on the news feed but I don’t?”

“Cause he’s better at it than you are, Jimmy. Now hush up.

“Congressman Carroll,” Senator Pitstick continued, “thank you for your articulate reminder of what we already know. Now let me remind you that in spite of our control of the vote and our virtual voting districts, the RSRD does
not
have a guaranteed majority. In fact we only maintain control of twenty percent of the voters throughout Dixie. The GOP is still numerically dominated by a bunch of die-hard RINOs who only pay attention to us because they need our votes to defeat them pesky Yankee-crats what keeps pushing their damn liberal agenda.”

Pitstick paused to read a note passed to him by Oswald. He smiled gratefully and passed the note back to Oswald.

“My boy Oswald here tells me that just last week in your very own District 5 of Northern Alabama—

“Beg pardon, sir, but we prefer to call our district Upper Alabama.”

“Duly noted, Congressman. But be that as it may, just last week did you not suffer the indignity of a write-in campaign with the name ‘Isaac Newton’ as a candidate? Tell me, Congressman, how many votes did Mr. Newton get?”

“Five percent. But that was mostly a bunch of renegades around Huntsville. They still blame us for the Federal Government selling off the Marshall Space Flight Center.”

“Exactly, Congressman. That was fifty years ago—half a damn century—and that damn bunch of propeller heads still hadn’t been properly assimilated into the political machinery!”

“But, sir, what would you have us do? There are write-in campaigns all over Dixie. Even in your fine state of Mississippi.”

“That’s right, Congressman. The RSRD does not dominate
Dixie
and it only dominates the
GOP
to the extent that they need us to keep the Yankee-crat agenda at bay. Do you see my point, Congressman?”

“Please enlighten me, sir.”

“We, that is the RSRD party,
need
the Yankee-crats. Without them and the threat of their bringing about the ruination of our way of life, the GOP would not listen to us at all. They’d have no call to. They’d treat us like just any other looney-bin fringe group that keeps putting up goof ball write-in candidates. And I’ll tell you a little secret, young man.” He leaned into the camera and placed the back of his hand to the side of his mouth, then whispered, “If there were no write-in campaigns, we have to start some.”

Senator Pitstick paused to let that soak in.

“I’m beginning to take your point, sir.”

“Good, good. I’m glad you can see reason. Oh, and I might add, the political mechanics we are forced to abide by in Dixie… well, the
exact
same situation exists with our Mormon allies in Promised Land—what is publicly known as the great states of Nevada, Utah, Arizona, Colorado, and New Mexico. Yes, my boy, though it breaks my heart to say so, the RSRD party is
not
strong enough to force a secession vote and win.

“Okay,” Senator Pitstick said as he pressed his gavel button, “I am hereby closing this meeting. Ya’ll go on home now and try not to get shot.”

After everyone had signed off, Senator Pitstick leaned to his assistant, “Set up a meeting of the Secessionist Committee, Oswald. Two days from now. Make sure the line is super secure. Oh, and make sure that Carroll fellow is invited too.”

“Yeah, sir.”

“Oh, and Oswald? I want you to vet that acting congressman. See if he’s really our kind.”

“And if he is not, sir?”

“Well then, we’ll just have to uninvite him!”

September 2070

Virtual Meeting Closed Session (Two Days Later)

Safe in his home in Tupelo, Mississippi, Senator Pitstick poured himself a bourbon over ice and spring water. He would have offered Oswald the same except that for some reason Oswald was a teetotaler—something to do with his mother dying of alcoholism and making him swear on her death bed to lay off liquor and spirits for life. Seemed a bit melodramatic, but hey, every boy loves his mama. He’d forgiven that minor foible since Oswald came with other unique charms.

“Oswald, you got that dial-in set up yet?”

“Yeah, sir, just comin’ up now. We have Senator Kershaw from South Carolina, Congressman Robert Carroll from Alabama, Senator Wilson Pike from Georgia, Senator Joseph Young from Utah, Senator Packwood from Arizona in attendance, plus Reverend Screven for the Southern Baptists and Bishop Lorenzo Frost for the Fundamentalist Mormons.”

“That Carroll fellow check out?”

“Yes, sir. I spoke with the Governor himself. He said Mr. Carroll’s family was one of the last to give up their slaves after the Civil… I mean the War of Northern Aggression. They had slaves working their family plantations and factories as late as 1959.”

“Do tell! How’d they swing that, I wonder?”

“According to the governor, the Carroll family had an arrangement with a number of county jails throughout Alabama. They saw to it that each family that worked for them as share croppers or factory workers always had several of its members in jail at any one time—they used them on chain gangs mostly. The jailers pocketed the wages the prisoners were supposed to earn so they were quite happy to hold anybody the Carrolls put up for them. Vagrancy laws were pretty loose back then. Meanwhile, back at the plantations and factories, the prisoners’ families were told if they didn’t keep to their work, their sons and daughters would not get good treatment at the jails. ‘Good treatment’ according to the governor meant you would not be hanged. Whenever an inmate was hung, his family was given the option to retrieve his body and bring it home for a proper funeral. The Carrolls used to sponsor a big wake party for those funerals—they saw it as good advertising to keep the other families in line.”

“Fascinating! What finally shut them down?”

“Combination of things—the Supreme Court was pretty liberal back then, not civilized like they are today. Back then they held that vagrancy laws were too
vague
, get it,
vagrancy?
Anyway, then there was the Civil Rights Act of 1964, followed by the president takin’ over the State’s National Guard units, and race riots, and Black Panthers... bunch of stuff. Just got too hot for the jailers to hold anybody didn’t have proper paperwork. Sharecropper and factory worker families started movin’ away anywhere they pleased.”

“What happened to the Carrolls? They aren’t what you’d call poor today.”

“No, but they had a pretty rough go up until somewhere in 1980 or 90—Governor wasn’t exactly sure. Anyway that’s when they got heavy into offshoring their textile and apparel factories. Bought up a bunch of congressmen and senators, got a bunch of laws passed to make sure all imports had to pass through them. They made a heap more money and with a lot less fuss with offshoring than they ever did trying to keep up their own labor… You better come to the desk, sir. Your meeting is ready to start.”

“One more thing… what are they into today?”

“Biding their time. They’re mostly outta offshoring so to speak… what with a lot of their cheap labor from Southeast Asia getting flooded out with sea level rise and all. Governor says the Carrolls and a bunch of other families are looking to bring manufacturing back to the mainland. Says they got high ground here ought to be worth something if they can get their labor supply back like it was in the old days.”

“Good work, Oswald. The main thing is Carroll—is he good people?”

“Yes sir, good people.”

“Trustworthy?”

“Well, you never know about that, sir.”

Oswald rose from the desk chair where he’d been working at the computer display. The electronics weren’t as fancy as the ones at the Senate Office building, but this one was more secure.

“The Committee of Natural Causes is hereby in session,” Senator Pitstick said, then paused for the chuckles to die down. “For those of you who weren’t at the open session Monday, we got a new development might get us out of this stalemate. As you recall, our esteemed colleague from Tennessee told us that if the president dies in office, the Speaker will
not
accept an appointment to succeed him. This is a new development and, as with all new developments, brings new opportunities.”

“Senator Kershaw, what’s the latest on the Iranians?”

“Our source says they plan to shoot down that new SpaceCorp space station as soon as it goes operational,” Senator Kershaw said.

“And have you learned any more about their motivation?” Senator Pitstick asked.

“My source says their president is highly insulted at the SpaceCorp decision to withhold space station instrument data and communication services from the Iranians. They feel they own those instruments and transmitters. SpaceCorp claims that
they
own the equipment and only lease it to their customers. Moreover, they cite a standard clause in the contract saying that they may revoke any lease for just cause. Apparently, they regard the destruction of the
Von Braun
as just cause.”

“What about their Supreme Leader—ain’t he the one calls the shots over there?”

“He does indeed, Senator Pitstick. But he’s mostly upset about the overflights. Don’t like people lookin’ up at ‘em all the time.”

“Thank you, Senator Kershaw,” Senator Pitstick said. “So the way I see it, we have to pull off Operation Natural Causes a few days prior to that space station going down. We need the press to see a strong coincidence between the demise of the president and the shoot-down of the space station. It will be an easy conclusion to blame both acts on the Iranians. The press will be running around with their hair on fire calling for a formal declaration of war. They won’t bother with our role in starting it.

“Congressman Carroll, you out there?” Senator Pitstick asked.

Congressman Carroll’s image moved into the foreground of his monitor. “I’m here.”

“You okay with where this conversation is going? About the president and all?”

“Sounds like you fellas are fixin’ to take him out. Sounds like
natural
causes is not quite what you had in mind.”

“Okay, and how do you feel about that? Say, if the president could be enticed out into the open where he might run into a bullet or three… assassinations bein’ so common and all these days.”

“I feel like it’s about damn time, that’s how I feel about it!”

“You sure about that now? Don’t want you gettin’ cold feet when things start happening, and we mean for them to start happening soon.”

“The Carroll family is known for men of action, and you need not worry about the temperature of our feet.”

“Okay then. Back to the topic of the space station shoot-down, Reverend Screven, can you play off that with your faithful?”

“Sure, how you want us to play it? We can vilify the Iranians or make out the space stations as ‘abominations not meant to be.’”

“Hmm... let me study on that some. We been overdoing that abomination thing lately... might need to freshen it up some.”

“Iran’s a long way from us,” Bishop Frost said. “But as you know we prefer the sanctity of isolation, the simple pastoral life, without prying eyes from above making a mockery of our way of life.”

“Translate?” Senator Pitstick asked.

“We’d have an easier time with God striking down the ‘abomination from above.’ I mean you can see the damn things every time they fly over. Scares the cattle. Little children start getting’ big ideas about being space men and such.  We don’t need that, no sir, we do
not
need that at all!”

“So you guys are pushing for yet another abomination story?” Senator Pitstick asked.

“That’s just a word,” Bishop Frost said. “Part of a specious slogan. We make up new specious slogans all the time—that’s our job. But I think what we both agree on is that we don’t need anymore ‘science fantasy land voodoo’ to upset everybody’s about the oceans rising up and flooding them out.”

Senator Pitstick nodded. “I feel you. ‘Sides, that flood thing’s been done already.”

“Precisely!” Bishop Frost said. “And look what happened the first time—some fool went off and built himself an ark.”

“Didn’t God command him to?” Senator Pitstick asked.

“That’s not the point,” the reverend said. “We don’t want anybody building any arks unless
we
tell them to, not God.
We
tell them what God wants. That’s been the way of the priest class since the dawn of religion. Can’t mess with that. Can’t mess with what works.”

“When the faithful begin to interpret God’s intentions all by themselves, they start getting wild ideas...
all by themselves
,” the bishop said.

Senator Pitstick nodded again. “I feel you, I really do, but we gotta go with vilifying the Iranians. We need to convince the nation we’re under attack. We need to give the nation the wild idea that downing the space station and the assassination of the president are linked. If we just go with the space station shoot-down, it could just be seen as a random act of terrorism. No, we need an assassination at the highest level to go with it. We need to show that 24 years of the current administration have left us weak and vulnerable. He can’t even protect hisself, let alone a space station. And if he can’t protect a space station flying 500 miles up in the sky, how are your people and their families supposed to feel safe in their homes? See what I’m sayin’?”

“We do, sir. We do indeed!” Reverend Screven said.

“Oh yes! ‘
Safe in their homes
,’ yes sir, we can work with that,” Bishop Frost said.

“Speaking of wild ideas, Wilson, what about your sniper folks?” Senator Pitstick asked.

“Got three 5-man teams—each team has two members to set up the weapon and three for security,” Senator Wilson Pike said. “They’ll be packing Anzio 20 mm rifles. They can reliably hit a man center of mass at 5000 yards if he’s holdin’ still—that’s almost three miles.”