Counterweight (34 page)

They tied the sheets to the weights and carried them out
onto the central bridge. “Spread out,” Cal told the warriors as he handed out
the messages. “We want to increase our chances of someone finding this in
time.”

“And wait till you hear me fire two bursts from my G-23
before you drop them,” Rick added. “We don’t want the magisters getting wise and
trying to shoot at the messages. Chances of them hitting anything are slim but
we’re not going to take chances.”

It would take a while for the messengers to reach their
positions, so Rick left his G-23 slung for the time being. He looked over at
Cal, following his gaze up to what he had assumed to be a box-shaped beam,
running along the underside of the central bridge. It went into the station on
one side but not on the other.

Could it be there were dedicated shunts for some of the
stations?

He laughed at the agent’s response but asked the question
anyway. “Are you thinking what I’m thinking?”

“I dunno,” Cal muttered. “Are you thinking
Oh shit, those
company executives are still locked inside the administrative block with no air
supply. I bet they’re all dead?
”

“No,” Rick admitted. “You’d rather keep them alive?”

A nod. “When I dropped that restaurant a few days ago, I
made sure we’d still have enough of them left to manage payroll and material
flow.” He looked over at Rick. “We’re gonna take this city but we
still
need
to feed and pay twenty million people so, yeah, I’d like to find some of those
guys alive.”

Rick waited until Cal looked toward the office block before
swinging his G-23 around and firing two short bursts into the open door of the
emptied magisters’ station. He kept a straight face, though he’d enjoyed the
Human agent’s startled twitch. Payback for the blast…

“No sense waiting around here,” Rick declared. “Let’s go see
if we’re out of company men.”

Tsekoh, Capital of Chaco Benthic

F
reya
and Rick walked out to the middle of the uppermost bridge. There was still a
large chunk missing where the bridge branching off to the fallen restaurant had
been torn loose. They stood at the jagged edge, Freya to the east and Rick to
the west. The city’s systems were targeting the spot for voice pick-up.

It had been a busy week – putting the few surviving company
staff to work at their administrative duties had been the easiest task.
Placating the newly freed public had been far more difficult.

Many were clamoring for an immediate reduction in the exit
price. Some were even demanding free transport back to their home worlds. It
didn’t take a genius to realize how quickly a trickle of emigrants would turn
into a mass exodus.

Still, that argument would have little impact on those who
wanted out.

Cal had given new marching orders to his followers. They’d
spent most of the week travelling the city, talking to prominent citizens.
Give
us a year
was one of the prominent catch phrases that had quickly spread
through the crowded city.

Everywhere they went, the victorious insurgents were asked
about the steady flow of rock coming out of the city’s flanks. With the
on-going effort to build
new
markets for the city’s mineral products,
many mining staff had been asked to accept temporary cut-backs in their hours.
The majority of those miners had been put back to work on the new excavations
and many had agreed to trade their labor for a stake in the project.

They were creating space for housing and the rumor had
spread faster than any official proclamation ever could. Nobody would have to
sleep on the street.

After a week of working the grapevine, Cal had decided the
time was right and he called a general assembly. The citizens crowded the
atrial walkways, gathering around the various holoscreens, and the open atrium
was filled with the white noise of millions of voices.

Cal took his place at the edge between Rick and Freya.
Behind him, Thorstein lifted a huge five-foot-long mace and brought the butt
down onto the concrete. A deep, sonorous boom echoed through the open atrium,
reaching the two kilometers to both ends thanks to the sound units built into
the thousands of holo emitters.

He brought the staff down twice more, silencing the last of
the crowd noise.

Freya took a deep breath. “Citizens of Tsekoh, your great
struggle has won you the freedom to chart your own destiny!” She paused to let
the roar of the mob build to a crescendo. They were cheering their
own
achievements but it never hurt to keep the crowd as happy as possible. She was
speaking and the citizens were cheering. You’d have to be an idiot to miss the
upside of that.

Finally, she raised her hand and three more booms echoed
through the atrium, bouncing back on them in increasing tempo, as though
someone had suddenly started playing taiko drums.

“Though we are grateful for the chance to fight by your
side, the time for us to leave the surface is fast approaching. The last of the
magister stations has surrendered to us.” She paused again. This time, more of
the cheering was for the Midgaard who’d helped to expedite the surrender of the
magisters. It had taken most of the week and the storming of two more stations.

Seeing their fellow lawmen being wiped out by blades had
convinced them to surrender and take ship for Dactar. The
Firm Resolve
had taken them aboard and was already en-route for the Dactari home world. That
left thirty thousand fewer mouths to feed and forty empty atrial stations as
well as a host of dispersed patrol bases.

This time when she raised her hand, the noise began to
subside far more quickly and Thorstein kept the mace still.

“We need only a few thousand more volunteers for the city’s
very first
professional
police force and, when they’re in place in your
neighborhoods, we will withdraw to orbit and leave the running of this world to
you. That is when our
real
work will begin but I think it best if C’Al
tells you the rest of the plan.”

More cheering greeted Cal. He played the politician –
smiling, waving and pointing to random spots in the hazy distance as though
recognizing citizens who’d won special distinction in the fight for freedom.

Rick raised an eyebrow but he held his tongue. He’d seen
enough Earth movies to know what Cal was doing. It was no coincidence that the
terms ‘honest politician’ and ‘repeat term’ had never been used in the same
sentence anywhere in the known universe.

They needed to get this world back on its feet as quickly as
possible and that meant a stable, reliable government. Cal had to engage these people
and fire their imaginations. A world fresh from revolution needed a good solid
dose of responsible government to settle them back down.

If Cal had to engage in a bit of theater to get the job
done, then so be it.

“Tsekoans,” he called, spreading his hands out to the sides,
“the city is yours!” He let them scream their approval for a long interval. One
of his senior followers caught his attention and he waved him over, the roar of
the crowd increasing as he approached.

Cal lowered his head, listening to the Oaxian’s pre-planned
message before nodding gravely and slapping him on the back. The Oaxian, having
delivered his
message
, took off at a brisk trot.

The whole thing had been a bit of stagecraft, reminding the
crowd that he was constantly busy on their behalf, coordinating with the
Alliance worlds to bring in food and supplies, keeping the electricity flowing…

He raised his hands again and the crowd began to grow quiet
but many kept up the din. Thorstein hammered his mace again.

“Many Alliance worlds have committed to short-term support.
There will be enough food to get us through the transition from an unregistered
company mine to a full member world of the Alliance. Our Midgaard friends have
been reaching out to their contacts and they’ve already managed to find enough
market demand to justify sixty percent of our mineral output.”

A rough wave of cheering ran through the atrium at this but
he kept going. “By year’s end, they expect to find takers for the full output.”
He indicated Rick and Freya, extending his hands toward them. “That’s one of
the great strengths of the ancient Warlord contract of the Oaxians. The
warlords are entitled to the standard tax revenue that would otherwise go to
the Republic. If we accept their service, they’ll spare no effort in support of
our economy.

“And they’ve already indicated their intent to return half
of that revenue to the city budget for the first year. Revenue we can use to
refurbish half of those central magister stations.” He grinned. “We don’t need
so many police for a free city, so many of those stations are going to be
restructured to attract monastic orders. So far, five different orders have met
with our representatives on Weirfall and Tauhento and they’ve signed letters of
intent agreeing to establish cells here.”

The cheering broke out again and he let it run until it
showed signs of abating. “This is unprecedented,” he shouted. “For centuries,
the old Imperial laws prevented economic diversity and the monastic orders were
subject to those rules. The planets were kept reliant on each other and the
orders came to guard their turf with lethal intensity.

“But now there’s a new world where no order can claim
primacy. All will be welcome here, provided they leave their intrigues behind
before riding down that elevator. In time, every major order will realize they
have to open a cell here or miss out on the
one
planet where all of the
others are represented.

“Your children will be free to pledge to any order they want
and they won’t even need to leave home to do it. In removing the barriers to
education, we’ll be able to nurture brilliance and usher in a golden age for
Chaco Benthic.”

He looked to the side, catching the eye of one of his
followers. He nodded to her, holding up an index finger as though asking her to
wait a moment. “One further thing before we get back to work,” he announced.

“In one year’s time, we will hold an election to choose this
world’s satrap. The basic Alliance system is similar to that of the Republic,
though our satraps are chosen by the people rather than appointed.

“Any citizen may put their name forward. The link to the
candidate database is on your screens and they’ll be prominently displayed
throughout the city for the next year.”

He held up a hand. “We’re not going to see an election where
twenty million citizens are all voting for themselves.” He continued over the
rumble of laughter. “Anyone can enter their name for candidacy but each must
collect ten thousand endorsements from fellow citizens in order to stand in the
actual election.

“Each citizen has only one endorsement, so consider
carefully before you throw your support behind a particular candidate.
Beginning one year from now and repeating every five years, we will elect a
satrap from among those who’ve managed to collect the endorsements of ten
thousand fellow citizens.”

He looked at a holo-screen to his left and chuckled. “I see
we already have more than seven hundred candidates – you can see why we insist
on citizen endorsement!”

The crowd roared in mixed approval, anger and laughter, and
the candidate list shot above the thousand mark in a matter of heartbeats.

He held up his hands and Thorstein hammered his mace three
more times.

“This all starts with one question. Will we accept the
services of these two Midgaard as our warlords?” It wasn’t much of a question,
when you thought about it, and Cal had encouraged such thought over the
preceding week. His resistance fighters had been spreading the message at every
public house and streetcorner.

Without the Midgaard, Chaco Benthic was hopelessly
vulnerable, not only to a Republic task force, but also to any well-organized
raiders who might want to seize the counterweight and starve the city into
submission.

Though there were many angry voices of dissent, the
overwhelming majority understood the need for protection and they out-shouted
the nay-sayers.

Rick and Freya each held a hand out toward him palm up and
Cal waved his hands over theirs. “On behalf of the citizens of Chaco Benthic,”
he intoned solemnly, “I accept your service as our warlords.”

Lychensee, capital of Weirfall

“
L
evel
twenty-five is an excellent choice, Brother Yo’Haled,” Rick enthused. “I
believe the Carbon Fellowship consumes more coffee than any other order? The
station on twenty-five is only fifteen cubits away from one of Tsekoh’s two
Moonsilver franchises.”

Brother Yo’Haled smiled, tilting his head to the side. “The
mysteries of carbon are somewhat less exotic than those of quantum tunneling.
Our acolytes must be kept awake somehow.”

They were meeting in the residence Shelby kept on Weirfall.
Members of the family often had to travel to the Alliance capital and it was
important to show they had a strong presence in Lychensee. The apartment was
directly under one of the rooftop wildife habitats and the seven-meter-high
ceiling of the great room had a large glazed panel set into the center, giving
a view of the aquatic species that had once roamed the planet’s small seas.

They were sitting out on the deck to take advantage of the
late summer sunset and Rick was constantly aware of the complete lack of any
railings at the edge. He was both awed and terrified by his wife’s typical
Midgaard nonchalance with heights.

She had rolled her eyes as he pulled the deck furniture away
from the edge but she said nothing. He’d also moved the spicewood chairs, taken
from Fletcher’s old quarters, closer to the windows.