Visions of Liberty Part 22

"Take what? How?" Duggan asked guardedly.

"All of it."

"Zeeb, what, exactly, are you proposing?"

"This is were we stay and get rich; get a chance tobe somebodies."

"You mean jump s.h.i.+p? Stay behind when the mission leaves. Is that it?"

"Why not, Dug? I'm starting to believe what we've been seeing here-or not seeing. There's n.o.body to stop you." Stell gestured to indicate both of them. "You and me-" The amused look on Duggan's face checked him. "Hey, all that was another time and place, okay? We can leave it behind. There's a planet full of enough of everything to keep both of us happy."

"Well, that's an abrupt change of tune for you, Zeeb," Duggan said. "I thought you were going for the sub-supervisor slot when we get back. Brose seems to think so. He'll be disappointed. Who will he have to play carrot and stick games with now and boost himself up the ladder?"

Stell snorted. "Oh, don't tell me you're not as tired of all that c.r.a.p as I am. . . . Look, I'll let you in on a secret. I've rented a place in town to use as a kind of startup base, and already in one afternoon I've got enough stuff in there to fit out a penthouse. I'm telling you it's a steal, man. But you need someone of your own kind too, know what I mean? We could live like a couple of kings. What do you say, huh?"

"I'm not sure. Have you really figured it through as to how things are here?"

"What's there to figure, Dug? I'm telling you, you don't hit on a deal like this more than once in a lifetime." Stell's eyes were insistent in the light from the town, his expression intense. He clearly wasn't prepared to accept no as an answer.

"Okay, I'll think about it," Duggan promised.

Several days pa.s.sed by, during which more expeditions returned unsuccessful from different parts of Tharle. A flurry of impatient demands for reports on progress, and replies that the situation was more complicated than expected sizzled back and forth between theBarnet 's.h.i.+gher echelons and the supervisory directorate on Earth. Duggan filed a report on his visit to the Winteys, which was absorbed into Pearson Brose's growing collection without significant reaction or comment. Duggan took this to mean that those who knew best were too preoccupied with affairs more befitting of their rank and calling to be distracted by lower-echelon menials and their trivia. Being a conscientious department man, he did his best to help by staying out of their way and making the most of the opportunity that Brose's dispensation had opened up for him to follow up informally on possible local leads. Since Tawna had already shown herself to be a willing and capable guide, this coincidentally meant their spending more time with each other.

Through the early part of the evening, Duggan had watched a rehearsal for one of Tawna's shows. The Tharleans handled their personal affairs in the same way as their financial ones, he noticed: when asked for help, they gave more; when offered a favor, they settled for less. Afterward, he and Tawna joined a group from the cast and supporting staff for a dinner of salad and a taco-like dish of bread, meats, and spicy fillings at a cellar bar along the street. Then the company gradually broke up in ones and twos.

After staying to finish a bottle of one of the locality's wines-vaguely Rhonish, but with the ubiquitous Tharlean purple touch-Duggan and Tawna found themselves leaning on a parapet of the downtown riverbank among the nighttime strollers, staring out across the water toward the distant lights of the Strandside bridge. "I can't imagine it," Tawna said. "You mean they just try to keep on acc.u.mulating more and more, like the Winteys?" She searched for an a.n.a.logy. "That would be like eating all day.

Obviously, you need to have enough to keep you going. But once that's satisfied, other things in life become more important. You make it sound as if how much people own is the only measure of what they're worth. . . . Why, that would be as ridiculous as everybody being judged solely by weight and competing to be the heaviest!"

Financial obesity, Duggan thought to himself. Not a bad way to put it. It was hardly the first time in history for such an observation to be made; but the trouble with giving handouts to the ones inevitably left behind in the race had always been that it produced more and more free riders who eventually brought down the system. Somehow the Tharleans seemed to have solved the problem of restraining excess without perpetrating injustices or undermining initiative. How, then, did it work with power?

"So who makes judgments and decisions?" he asked. "You have to have disputes, the same as anyone else. Who has the final say when n.o.body involved can agree?"

"It's true. Somebody has to do it." Tawna made it sound like cleaning the sewers or defusing bombs.

"They have a kind of lottery, and the losers get appointed. It's only for a year-and people are sympathetic, so they try to be supportive."

"You mean it's a lousy job. n.o.body wants it?"

"Well, of course. Why would anyone . . ." Tawna stopped as she registered the astonishment in Duggan's voice. "You mean that on Earth . . ."

He nodded. "Having power over people is considered a big thing. They fight each other for it. Okay, now go ahead and tell me: you thought maybe it would be something like that."

Then he realized that she was giving him a long, contemplative look that held little real interest in such things just at the moment. He forgot about the subject and held her eye quizzically. "You're different from Lukki," she said. "He was like a child, never questioning anything. You do. You see things, and you think about them. It makes you . . . interesting." She slid closer along the rail of the parapet. Her fingertip traced over his arm. Duggan turned toward her. Her hair and skin shone softly golden in the light from the embankment lamps . . .

Beep . . . Beep . . . Beep . . . Beep . . .

Duggan cursed under his breath and tugged the compak from his s.h.i.+rt pocket. The caller was Brose's a.s.sistant aloft in theBarnet . All s.h.i.+p's personnel were recalled to base immediately. General Rhinde had finally gotten his way and announced plans to take over Ferrydock as a military demonstration. The occupation force had begun mobilizing aboard theBarnet and would descend from orbit at dawn.

Four flights of a.s.sault shuttles made synchronized landings at key points and deployed with alacrity to seize and secure the prime means of access and communications. Two task forces sealed the main highway and rail links north and south, another commandeered the airport, while the last took the Strandside bridge and sent a column into Ferrydock to occupy the broadcasting stations and news bureaus. Meanwhile, special details sped through the town to install military administrators and technicians in the offices responsible for transportation, power generation and distribution, and communications. By midday the operation was completed as per the timetable. At noon precisely, General Rhinde went on the air to inform the inhabitants of Ferrydock that their town was now under Terran military jurisdiction and subject to the laws of its governing council. Communications and public services were under control of a colonial administration reporting to an appointed governor, and regulations concerning the conduct of business and finance would be announced shortly.

The townspeople seemed to think it was a great idea. An enthusiastic crowd in the central square greeted the news, relayed through their personal phones or from loudspeakers set up for the occasion, and by early afternoon representatives from the sanitation, harbor facilities, and water supply services were appearing at the governor's downtown headquarters offering their organizations for takeover too.

Meanwhile, the management at places the Terrans had declared themselves to be in control of were resigning or taking a holiday to disappear to the beaches at Strandside, visit with grandchildren, or spend time on their hobbies. By next morning, the town was in chaos. Half the communications were down, the airport was barely functioning, and services languished as employees took breaks to line up enthusiastically in hundreds to be issued newly introduced permits and licenses. In the end, Rhinde's officers were forced to send out squads to track down essential professionals and bring them back at gunpoint to carry out tasks which until yesterday they had performed readily and willingly. That was when Duggan began getting his first strong intuition that this wasn't going to work out in the way that had been envisaged.

When all-out war failed to materialize, the restrictions confining non-occupation personnel to base were eased. Duggan was standing on a street corner with Tawna, watching two troopers shouldering a.s.sault rifles and clad in riot gear, posted to protect the Munic.i.p.al Services Building from a gaggle of curious onlookers, when Zeebron Stell called from the office suite he'd rented as a trading base. He sounded agitated.

"Dug, where are you?"

"A few blocks away from you on Johannes Street. You know, Zeeb, I think Gilbert and Sullivan could have done a lot with this."

"Is Tawna with you?"

"Yes, she is. What's up?"

"I've got problems. People here don't seem to understand that I'm running a business, not a thrift store.

Can you get over? Maybe she'd be able to do a better job of getting the message across."

"It's Zeeb, from his emporium," Duggan murmured to Tawna. "He's having some kind of trouble with the locals. Wants us over there to see if you can maybe talk to them. Is that okay with you?"

"Sure."

"We're on our way, Zeeb."

A miscellany of vehicles was parked outside the building in which Stell had his premises, including a beat-up truck. Inside, they found him remonstrating with a dowdily dressed woman who seemed interested in some toilet preparations that he had ama.s.sed a stack of in one of the rooms. Elsewhere, a couple with two small children were examining a shelf of electronics appliances, while a small, bespectacled, bearded man, wearing a tweed jacket with deerstalker-like hat and waving a list of some kind, hopped about, trying to get Stell's attention. "No!You're outta your mind," Stell told the woman.

"How is that supposed to be doing me a favor? It's not even what I paid." Then, to the man, "Look, I told you I'm not interested. I don't even know who any of those people are. How in h.e.l.l do you figure you're helpingme ?" Another man appeared in a doorway at the rear, smiling and holding an elaborate wrist unit of some kind that had a miniature screen. Stell groaned, then caught sight of Duggan and Tawna and steered them gratefully back into the entrance hallway.

"There's some kind of victimization conspiracy," he told them. "With each other, they're real generous. I know. I watched 'em. But when they come here, they try and rip me off with pennies and b.u.t.tons. It's almost like they think Iowe them. And Sherlock Holmes's brother back there keeps pestering me with every hard-luck story in town. One guy's house got flattened in a mudslide. Somebody else's baby needs surgery. I even had a lady in earlier, asking if I wanted to put something into an education fund. What's going on?"

Tawna nodded. "Of course. These are people who really doneed help . . ."

"But they're talking about helpingme! " Stell protested.

"Well, yes . . . that too." Tawna obviously still couldn't see anything strange.

"How do they figure that?" Stell demanded.

"Well . . ." Tawna hesitated in the way of somebody reluctant to spell out what should have been clear.

"To enjoy pride and self-esteem, the way everyone wants to," she said. "The more wealth and material things you acquire, the more you can make things easier for those going through hard times. Once you're reasonably comfortable yourself, it starts to mean more, right?" She glanced at Duggan. "It's like what we were saying the other day about eating all day. Beyond a certain point, any more doesn't make sense."

Stell's eyes bulged. "You mean they'll ha.s.sle me like this forever here?"

"Oh, no. Only until you learn to judge for yourself what share to put back in, like everyone else. Since you don't know how it works yet, they're probably just trying to help. It might take a little time."

"Well, suppose I don't want them telling me. What if I put my own guards on the place and keep 'em away?"

"That would be up to you, of course. . . . But why would anyone want to?" She looked at Duggan again and caught the resigned expression on his face. "Okay, don't tell me, Paul. Back home they're all like that. Yes?"

General Rhinde's measures weren't having the intended effect. In a closed-door meeting of the political and military chiefs aboard theBarnet , it was agreed that the citizens of Ferrydock were undergoing too little violation of their freedoms and rights to provoke whoever was supposed to defend them into coming out and doing so. Accordingly, since there was no set precedent at Tharle to say how far these things should be taken, the governor was instructed to issue a declaration stating that to facilitate improved control and efficiency, the Terran administration now owned everything in the name of everybody and was taking charge of manufacture, distribution, employment, and other services directly.

But the populace seemed happy to let them take it. A mood of festivity spread as virtually the whole of Ferrydock shut up stores and offices and took to the boulevards or sat back in the sun to await decisions and directions. Very soon, surface landers were shuttling frantically between theBarnet and Base 1, bringing extra details of planners and controllers to relieve the harried supervisory offices, now working around the clock. Meanwhile, ostensibly to bolster the security of all by setting up a centrally managed disaster relief agency-in reality, to get faster results through imposed austerity-huge stocks of food, fuel, clothing, materials, and other supplies were impounded and locked up in a large warehouse near the airport requisitioned for the purpose and officially renamed the "Federal Emergency Relief Repository."

(Use of the word "federal" was a bit premature since as of yet there were no political ent.i.ties other than Ferrydock to federate with it, but the planners were already shaping up grand schemes and visions of the future.) The repository was duly furnished with a ten-foot wire fence, traffic barrier and checkpoint at the gate, and a billet of armed guards.

However, the hara.s.sed Terran administrators were like innocents in a Casbah bazaar before the demands of Tharleans taking them at their word that they were now responsible for everything, and in a short s.p.a.ce of time just about everything of utility or value had vanished from the stores and the streets.

By the terms under which the Repository had been established, the circ.u.mstances qualified as a disaster deserving of relief, and the officer in charge dutifully commenced handing back to the town, at enormous cost in overhead and added effort, the goods that had been confiscated at comparable cost in the first place. Eager to help Terran officialdom find satisfaction and self-esteem by the terms of their own morality, the Tharleans didn't take long to exhaust the stocks completely. Since there was nothing in the regulations that said otherwise, the guards continued, befuddled but doggedly, patrolling outside to protect the contents of the empty warehouse. The only threatening incident they had to deal with, however, was when a small procession of trucks from some outlying farms arrived full of vegetables and other produce that the growers didn't know what else to do with-only to be turned away again because there were no orders for dealing with anyone trying to bring thingsin .

By this time, the political opponents of the mission's inc.u.mbent regime, seeing ammunition here to unseat their rivals, formed a dissident faction to fire off a joint protest to Earth, giving all the facts and details. A directive from Colonial Affairs Administration terminating theBarnet 's mission and recalling the s.h.i.+p forthwith arrived within forty-eight hours.

* * *G G G.

Base 1 was an abandoned sh.e.l.l, unsightly with the litter left by departing military anywhere. Children in makes.h.i.+ft helmets and carrying roughly fas.h.i.+oned imitation rifles marched each other to stations at the main gate guard posts. Duggan stood with his arm around Tawna's waist among a crowd watching the last shuttle out climb at the top of a pillar of light through scattered, purple-edged clouds. If the figure he'd heard was correct, he was one of forty-six who would have been unaccounted for when the muster lists were checked, and whose compaks hadn't answered calls or returned a location fix.

"No reservations or second thoughts, Dug?" she asked him. "No last-minute changes about everything, like Zeeb? I hope not. It would be a bit late now." Stell hadn't been among them at the end, after all.

Driven to distraction under the pressures of trying to give things away, he had turned a complete about-face and stormed back up to the s.h.i.+p, berating anyone who would listen that he couldn't get back to Earth fast enough.

Duggan shook his head. "Not me." He gave her a squeeze, savoring the touch of her body through the light dress she was wearing. "My future's cut out right here. Everything I want."

"So Zeeb will probably get that promotion you told me about. I hope he'll be pleased."

"Oh, I'm sure he'll fit right back in," Duggan said. Brose had as good as come out and said that he favored Duggan for the subsection supervisor position and would back him. Duggan had seen it as a pretty transparent ploy to recruit support in the political maelstrom that Brose knew they'd be heading back to, and had no doubt that Brose had told Zeeb the same thing, and for the same reason. It felt like a reprieve from a life sentence to know he was out of all that. "In any case," Duggan added, "I wouldn't have gotten the job. The screening application that Brose made me put through was turned down." Brose had been as stunned as Duggan was pleased when the a.s.sessment back from Earth read:Doesn't display the compet.i.tiveness and aggressiveness that success in this appointment would require. It meant that Duggan had done something right.

"I'm surprised," Tawna said, sounding defensive on his behalf. "I'd have thought that even if you decided . . ." She caught the amused twist of his mouth. "Dug, what happened? What did you do?"

"I filled it in the Tharlean way," he told her.

"What way's that?"

"Ihave to tellyou ?" Duggan frowned in mock reproach. "I said I didn't need as much pay as they were offering, and I told them I could do more than they were stipulating. I guess they couldn't hack it." He shrugged. "But Zeeb will do okay. He, Brose, and the System are made for each other."

Tawna pulled close and nuzzled the side of her face against his shoulder. "And you'll do just fine here too," she promised.

For that was the simple principle that underlay the entire Tharlean worldview and way of life:Give a little more; take a little less . At least, with those who reciprocated. Anyone who didn't play by the rules wasn't treated by the rules. That was how they curbed excess. But how did a Tharleanknow when enough was enough? By being a part of the culture they had evolved and absorbing its ways and its values from the time they first learned to look at the world, walk around in it, listen and talk.

Every one of them.

That was why n.o.body from Earth had had any success finding lawmakers-at least, if what they were looking for was a few making rules to be forcibly imposed on the many. The government had been there all along, everywhere, staring them in the face. For on Tharle,all made the law, and all enforced it. Every one of them, therefore, was government.

Now Duggan would learn to become a member of a planetary government too. And that sounded a much better promotion to him than anything the Colonial Affairs Administration was likely to come up with, even if he were to carry on fighting and clawing his way up the ladder for the next hundred years.

About the Authors

Dr. Lloyd Biggle, Jr., Ph.D., (19232002)was a musician, author, and internationally known oral historian. He began writing professionally in 1955, and became a full-time writer with the publication of his novel,All the Colors of Darkness , in 1963, a profession that he followed until his death. Both Dr.

Biggle's science fiction and mystery stories have received international acclaim. He was celebrated in science fiction circles as the author who introduced aesthetics into a literature known for its scientific and technological complications. He published two dozen books as well as magazine stories and articles beyond count. His most recent novel wasThe Chronicide Mission . He was writing almost to the moment of his death. "I can write them faster than the magazines can publish them," he once said, with the result that even though his writing has been stilled, his publications will continue until his backlog of stories is exhausted.

Robert J. Sawyerwon the Nebula Award for best novel of 1995 forThe Terminal Experiment ; he's also been nominated six times for the Hugo Award. He has twice won j.a.pan's top SF award, the Seiun, and twice won Spain's top SF award, the Premio UPC de Ciencia Ficcion. His twelfth novel, Calculating G.o.d , hit number one on the bestsellers' list published byLocus: The Newspaper of the Science Fiction Field , and was also a top-ten national mainstream bestseller in Sawyer's native Canada. His latest novel,Hominids , a June 2002 hardcover, was the third of Sawyer's novels to be serialized ina.n.a.log , the world's number-one bestselling SF magazine. Visit Rob's website at sfwriter.com.

Mike Resnickworked anonymously from 1964 through 1976, selling more than 200 novels, 300 short stories and 2,000 articles, almost all of them under pseudonyms. After a more than ten-year hiatus to pursue a career in dog breeding and exhibiting, he returned to fiction writing. His first novel in this "second career" wasThe Soul Eater . His breakthrough novel was the international bestsellerSantiago , published by Tor in 1986. Tor has since published eleven more of Mike's novels and the collectionWill the Last Person to Leave the Planet Please Shut Off the Sun ? Mike's most recent novel isThe Return of Santiago for Tor Books. His work has garnered fans around the world, and has been translated into twenty-two languages. Since 1989, Mike has won four Hugo Awards, a Nebula Award, a Seiun-sho, a Prix Tour Eiffel (French), two Prix Ozones (French), 10 Homer Awards, an Alexander Award, a Golden PaG.o.da Award, a Hayakawa SF Award (j.a.panese), a Locus Award, an Ignotus Award (Spanish), a Futura Award (Croatian), an El Melocoton Mechanico (Spanish), two Sfinks Awards (Polish), and a Fantastyka Award (Polish). In 1993 he was awarded the Skylark Award for Lifetime Achievement in Science Fiction.

Tobias S. Buckellis a Caribbean born speculative fiction writer who now lives (through many odd twists of fate and strangely enough to him) in Ohio with his wife Emily. He has published in various magazines and anthologies. He is a Clarion graduate, Writers of the Future winner, and Campbell Award for Best New SF Writer Finalist. His work has received Honorable Mentions in the Year's Best Fantasy and Horror. His first novel, Crystal Rain, will be out from Tor Books in July of 2005. You can visit www.TobiasBuckell.com for more information.

Brad Linaweaverhas worked frequently in the alternate history subgenre, producing stories such as "Destination: Indies," an alternate telling of Christopher Columbus's journey across the Atlantic, and "Unmerited Favor" which takes a more militant approach to the story of Jesus Christ's life. He is also the author of the booksMoon of Ice ,Clownface ,The Land Beyond Summer , andSliders: The Novel ; and was a co-editor ofFree s.p.a.ce , a collection of original libertarian SF short stories. Winner of the Prometheus Award in 1989, he lives and works in Los Angeles, California.

Michael A. Stackpoleis the author of eightNew York Times bestsellingStar Wars novels. He's the author of thirty-seven novels, includingFortress Draconis , the second novel in theDragonCrown War Cycle of fantasy novels. "According to Their Need" is the fifth story set in hisPurgatory Station universe.

New Zealand has held a special place inJane Lindskold 's heart since she visited there some years ago.

The opportunity to celebrate that lush green land along with its interesting and varied people gave her the setting of this story. Currently, Lindskold resides in New Mexico, a place unlike New Zealand in every way except in its variety. She is the author of a dozen or so novels, including The Firekeeper's saga, beginning withThrough Wolf's Eyes andThe Buried Pyramid, along with fifty-some short stories. She is at work on another novel.

Jack Williamsonhas been writing science fiction since 1928, with more than fifty novels published. The most recent isTerraforming Earth . One section of it, "The Ultimate Earth," received the 2000 Hugo Award as the best novella. He lives in New Mexico, where he arrived with his parents and siblings in a covered wagon when he was seven years old. He is still writing, as well as teaching occasional courses at Eastern New Mexico University, his hometown school. His new novel,The Stonehenge Gate , will be published in the spring of 2005.