The Human Division (48 page)

The
Clarke
turned, and a planet rolled into view.

The Earth.

“Hello, gorgeous,” Wilson said, through the porthole. “I missed you.”

“How does it feel to be home?” Schmidt asked.

“Like I never left,” Wilson said, and then lapsed into silence.

Schmidt gave him a few moments and then tapped him on the shoulder. “Okay, my turn,” he said.

“Go look at a display,” Wilson said.

Schmidt smiled. “Come on, Harry,” he said. “You know it’s not the same.”

II.

“This is a bad idea,” Colonel Abel Rigney said to Colonel Liz Egan over pasta.

“I agree,” Egan said. “I wanted Thai.”

“One, you know that it was my turn to pick,” Rigney said. “Two, you know that’s not what I’m talking about.”

“We’re talking yet again about the summit between us and the Earthlings at Earth Station,” Egan said.

“Yes,” Rigney said.

“Is this an official thing?” Egan asked. “Are you, Colonel Rigney, communicating to me, the Colonial Defense Forces liaison to the Department of State, a statement from your superiors that I will be obliged to deliver to the secretary?”

“Don’t be like that, Liz,” Rigney said.

“So, no,” Egan said. “It’s not an official communication and you’re just taking advantage of our lunchtime to kvetch again in my general direction.”

“I’m not comfortable with that assessment of the situation,” Rigney said. “But yes, that’s basically correct.”

“Are you opposed to the summit?” Egan said, twirling her pasta on a fork. “Have you joined the ranks of those in the CDF who think we need to go to Earth with guns blazing and try to take over the place? Because
that
will be an adventure, I have to tell you.”

“I think the summit is likely to be a waste of time,” Rigney admitted. “There are still too many people pissed at the CDF down there on Earth. Then there are the people who are pissed at the Earth governments for not letting them emigrate or enlist before they die. Then there’s the fact there are still a couple hundred sovereign states on that planet, none of which wants to agree with anyone else, except on the subject of being unhappy with us. It will all end up with yelling and screaming and time being wasted, time that neither we nor the Earth really have. So, yes, waste of time.”

“If the summit were to go off as originally planned, I would agree,” Egan said. “Although the alternative—no summit, the Earth turning away from the Colonial Union, the Conclave waiting in the wings to sweep it up as a member—is considerably worse. Engagement is key, even if nothing gets done, which it won’t.”

“That’s not my actual concern,” Rigney said. “If our diplomats and theirs want to talk until they are blue in the face, then I wish them joy. I have problems with the setup.”

“You mean having it on Earth Station,” Egan said.

“Right,” Rigney said. “It’d be better to have it here at Phoenix Station.”

“Because there’s no environment the Earthlings will find
less
intimidating than the single largest object humanity’s ever built,” Egan said. “Which incidentally will also serve to remind them just how bottled up we’ve kept them for the last two hundred years or so.” She stuffed pasta into her mouth.

“You may have a point,” Rigney said, after a second of consideration.

“I
may,
” Egan said, around her pasta, and then swallowed. “We can’t have the summit here, for the reasons I just enumerated. We can’t have the summit on Earth because there’s nowhere on the planet short of the Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station where there wouldn’t be riots, either by the people who hate the Colonial Union or by the people who want us to get them off that rock. The
Conclave,
of all people, offered to host the summit as a quote unquote neutral third party at their own administrative rock, which I will remind you is an order of magnitude or two larger than Phoenix Station. We definitely don’t want the Earthlings to make any inferences off of
that
. So what are we left with?”

“Earth Station,” Rigney said.

“Earth Station indeed,” Egan said. “Which we own, even though it’s above Earth. And that is in fact going to be a negotiating point.”

Rigney furrowed his brow. “What do you mean?” he said.

“We’re offering to lease it,” Egan said. “The lease strategy was approved this morning, in fact.”

“No one told
me
about it,” Rigney said.

“No offense, Abel, but why would anyone tell you?” Egan said. “You’re a colonel, not a general.”

Rigney pulled at the collar of his uniform. “Stab me again, why don’t you, Liz,” he said.

“That’s not what I meant,” Egan said. “I wouldn’t know about it, either, except that I’m the liaison, and State needed the CDF to sign off on this. This is an agreement far above both of our pay grades. But it really is a masterstroke, if you think about it.”

“Us losing our sole outpost above Earth is a masterstroke?” Rigney said.

“We’re not going to lose it,” Egan said. “We’ll still own it, and mooring rights will be part of any deal. It’s a masterstroke because it changes the nature of the game. Right now Earth has no egress into space. We locked up the planet for so long that there’s no infrastructure for space travel. They have no stations. They have no spaceports. They hardly have
spaceships,
for God’s sake. It will take them years and a few multiples of their yearly global output to gear up. Now we’re offering up the one way into space that’s already there. Whoever controls it will control trade, will control space travel, will control the destiny of Earth, at least until everyone else on the planet gets their act together. And you know what that means.”

“It means we make someone
else
the target and take the heat off of us,” Rigney said.

“For starters,” Egan said. “And in the immediate time frame also disrupts any united front they may have had going. You said it yourself, Abel. The nations of Earth can’t agree about anything except being angry with us. In a single stroke we look apologetic and reasonable, they start fighting among themselves and scrambling to make alliances and deals—”

“And we can pick and choose among the players, play them off against each other and work deals to our advantage,” Rigney finished.

“Exactly so,” Egan said. “It changes the entire dynamic of the summit.”

“Unless they all decide to put aside their petty differences and focus in on us,” Rigney said.

“Seems unlikely,” Egan said. “I know you and I left Earth fifteen years ago, but I don’t think planetary international relations on Earth have reached the ‘join hands and sing songs’ stage in that time, do you?”

“I guess the right answer here is, ‘Let’s hope not,’” Rigney said.

Egan nodded. “So now you see why Earth Station is in fact the very best place for the summit to take place,” she said. “We’re not just discussing Earth and Colonial Union issues, we’ll also be walking the showroom with the floor model.”

“Do your diplomats know they’ve been reassigned to be salespeople?” Rigney asked.

“I believe they’re finding out right about now,” Egan said. She speared some more pasta.

*   *   *

“They’re going to hate this,” Rae Sarles said, at the hastily-convened diplomatic staff meeting on the
Clarke
. “We were supposed to be here to have a frank discussion about other matters entirely, and we’re changing the agenda literally hours before we’re supposed to be under way. This isn’t how it’s supposed to be done.”

Wilson, standing in the back, glanced over to Abumwe and wondered just how the ambassador would step on this particular recalcitrant underling’s head.

“I see,” Abumwe said. “And will you be making that observation to the secretary herself? Or the leadership of the Colonial Defense Forces, who signed off on this plan? Or to the heads of every other Colonial Union department involved in this policy change?”

“No, ma’am,” Sarles began.

“No,” Abumwe said. “Well, then I would suggest that you don’t spend any additional time on how things are supposed to be done, and spend a little more time on what we have to do now. The representatives from the various Earth governments may indeed be surprised that we are now open to leasing Earth Station. But our job, Ms. Sarles, is to make them be happy by the change of events. I trust you might be able to manage this.”

“Yes, Ambassador,” Sarles said.

Wilson smiled.
Head squished,
he thought.

“Beyond this, fundamentally,
our
role has not changed,” Abumwe continued. “We have been assigned a series of discussions with smaller and non-aligned countries on Earth. These are third-tier nations in terms of power and influence on Earth, but the Colonial Union is not in a position to ignore or discount any of them, and there is some potential for significant advantages for us…” Abumwe picked up her PDA to send her underlings their updated mission roles. Each of them picked up their own PDAs as if they were in church, following the lead of their pastor.

Half an hour later, the room emptied of underlings, leaving Abumwe and Wilson. “I have a special assignment for you,” Abumwe said.

“Will I be meeting with Micronesia?” Wilson said.

“No, I will,” Abumwe said. “As it happens, I am supposed to speak with them about the possibility of establishing a base on Kapingamarangi. It’s a negotiation of no small importance, or so I have been assured by the secretary herself. So if you’re done condescending to me and my team regarding our assignments, let’s continue.”

“Sorry,” Wilson said.

“Since the Perry incident, the Earth has demanded that no Colonial Union military ships or personnel come to or be stationed on Earth Station or on the planet,” Abumwe said. “Outside of an occasional high-ranking individual or two, the Colonial Union has honored that request.”

“Oh, boy,” Wilson said. “This is where you tell me that my assignment is to guard the
Clarke
’s rivets, isn’t it.”

“Keep interrupting me and it will be,” Abumwe said.

“Sorry,” Wilson said again.

“And no,” Abumwe said. “Leaving aside anything else, it would be cruel to bring you this close to Earth and keep you confined to the ship. And beyond that, you continue to prove yourself useful.”

“Thank you, Ambassador.” Wilson said.

“You’re still a pain in my ass,” Abumwe said.

“Understood,” Wilson said.

“The CDF continues to have no formal role in these negotiations,” Abumwe said. “However, it also sees your presence as an opportunity to reach out to military organizations on Earth. In particular, we know that the United States will have a small military unit present at the summit. We’ve alerted them to your presence, and they are receptive to meeting with you. So your assignment has two parts. The first part is simply to make yourself available to them.”

“Available in what way?” Wilson asked.

“Whatever way they want,” Abumwe said. “If they want you to talk to them about life in the CDF, do that. If they want to talk about CDF military strength and tactics, you can do that as well, so long as you don’t reveal any classified information. If they want to drink beer and arm wrestle, do that.”

“And while I’m doing that, am I drawing out information from them as well?” Wilson asked.

“If you can,” Abumwe said. “You’re of low enough rank that the members of that military detail should be comfortable with you as a person. Capitalize on that.”

“What’s the second part of the assignment?” Wilson asked.

Abumwe smiled. “The CDF wants you to go skydiving.”

“Come again?” Wilson said.

“The U.S. military brass heard rumors that the CDF will occasionally drop soldiers onto a planet from a low orbit,” Abumwe said. “They want to see it happen.”

“Swell,” Wilson said.

“You’ve done it before,” Abumwe said. “At least, when I got the assignment for you, it noted that you had done it before.”

Wilson nodded. “I did it once,” he said. “It doesn’t mean I
liked
it. Falling into an atmosphere at supersonic speeds and trusting a thin, fluid layer of nanobots to keep you from turning into a smeary black friction burn across half the sky is not my idea of a fun time.”

“I sympathize,” Abumwe said. “But inasmuch as it’s an actual order, I don’t think you have much of a choice.”

“There is the minor problem that while I have a standard-issue CDF combat unitard, I don’t have the getup for a skyfall,” Wilson said.

“The CDF is sending a cargo drone with two,” Abumwe said. “One for you and one for whoever jumps with you.”

“Someone’s jumping with me?” Wilson asked.

“Apparently one of the military detail at the summit has experience with aerial drops and wants to try something more exotic,” Abumwe said.

“They understand that the drop suits are controlled by a BrainPal, right?” Wilson said. “Which this other guy won’t have. First he’ll asphyxiate, then he’ll burn up, and then the tiny parts of him will eventually fall to earth as raindrop nuclei. It’s not a good plan.”

“You will be controlling the deployment of both suits,” Abumwe said.

“So if he dies during the jump, it’ll be my fault,” Wilson said.

“If he dies during the jump, I would suggest it would be politic for you to follow him,” Abumwe said.

“I liked this assignment better when all I had to do was drink beer and arm wrestle,” Wilson said.

“There is the fact that when you complete your skydive, you will be on Earth once again,” Abumwe pointed out. “Which is something you were told would never happen.”

“There is that,” Wilson admitted. “I can’t say I’m not looking forward to that. On the other hand, Earth Station is connected to the planet by way of a space elevator. I would much rather go that way. Much less dramatic, but also much safer.”

Abumwe smiled. “The good news is that you will indeed be taking the beanstalk,” she said, referring to the space elevator by its less formal name. “The bad news is that you’ll be taking it
up,
back from Earth, almost immediately after you land.”

“I’ll try to enjoy it until then,” Wilson said. “What about you, Ambassador? You’re originally from Earth. Any interest in going down to the surface?”