The Unincorporated Future (61 page)

“Actually, Mosh, I believe you’re the best of us.”

“Really?” answered Mosh, skepticism clear in his voice.

“All of us did things in this war we’ll never be proud of. We acted on dubious orders and condoned with our words, actions, or even worse, our silence one atrocity after another. In the name of victory, we murdered children in their homes, unleashed VR into the mainstream—”

“That was our side, Sam, much to my shame.”

“That’s what I’m talking about, Mosh. When I say ‘we,’ I mean all of us, the entire human race—certainly those with the power to influence events. When it comes to our abhorrent behavior, humanity is sadly united in failure. All except for you and Joshua Sinclair,” said Trang, looking at Mosh with a level of respect that Mosh had not seen in a long time. “You voted against every attempt to make the war worse. You spoke with force and conviction that there are some victories too costly to win, and you were right. When it came time to oppose the wholesale destruction of entire peoples, you did so. You did not succeed—and maybe it was better that you didn’t in the end—but you stood up to the tide of opinion and power and the nature of history itself to attempt what you felt was right. For you, it was about people—
all
people. Don’t think that that is not known and appreciated in the USF.”

Mosh let out a self-deprecating laugh. “You’re making me sound pretty good there, friend.”

“That’s because you are. You and Joshua Sinclair may be the only good men to come out of this war. Which is why in six years, when the Belter League is officially absorbed into the USF, you’re going to campaign with me as my Vice Presidential running mate.” Trang held up his hand to forestall Mosh’s comment. “And in twelve years, with my full support, you’ll run for and win the Presidency of the USF.”

“Awful confident, aren’t you?”

“In this, yes.”

“Then by your standards, Joshua is just as good a man as I am.”

“You mean the man who’ll be grand admiral of all USF forces in six years’ time? I completely agree. What better way to help reassure those once oppressed by the UHF than having one of their own
commanding
the USF? In fact, I can’t think of a better grand admiral than the one who is known systemwide for his refusal to take innocent lives both in the Spicer Ring affair and the murder of Mars.”

“How will the people of the USF feel, knowing that its top two positions are held by former traitors.”

“Any other two, I agree, total disaster. But you two will help unite the solar system as only you two can.”

Mosh spent a few moments regarding the man he’d loathed for so long.

“You realize I feel strongly that the laws of incorporation need to be changed. They were deeply flawed to have allowed so much control over someone’s individual liberty, to have created a veritable race of indentured servants and ultimately to have set a course on so much death and destruction.”

“I agree,” said Trang, taking another draw of his bourbon, “and now’s the time to begin that change. With your input, we can correct the flaws of incorporation and unite the solar system. We can make this a safe, secure, profitable, and happy home for humanity again.”

“So much for the job in Boulder.”

“C’mon, Mosh. You had to know you weren’t done yet.”

Mosh thought for a moment and then sighed. “I guess I’m not, Sam.” Then he had another thought. “What about my wife?”

“What about her? I thought she went back to using her maiden name?”

“She did, but we’re not divorced, just separated.”

“Didn’t she put a shoot-on-sight order out on you if you returned to Alliance space?”

“That was a—” Mosh paused. “—misunderstanding.”

“I heard she hired bounty hunters.”

“An exaggeration—they were process servers.” Mosh winked. “Like I said, we’re not divorced.”

“Isn’t she going with the Exodus?”

“She may very well be, but if she doesn’t, I’ll take her back.”

“Despite everything she’s done and said.”

“She’s my wife, Sam. Despite everything, I still love her. I always have, and I always will. If that means I can’t be President after you, then that’s what it means.”

“I don’t think it’ll come to that. Yours is not the only family that has been divided by war and Exodus. A lot of people in the system understand what you’re dealing with. If anything, it makes you better suited to lead.”

As they sat in companionable silence, sipping their drinks, Mosh decided to throw one more wrench into the spokes to see if Trang still wanted him. “You’re wrong about me, you know. I’m not the only one who refused to yield to the pressure. Justin Cord was the greatest of us. He was the one who chose Josh because Josh had refused an unjust order. Justin refused categorically to unleash a VR plague on the UHF. He would never have allowed the bombardment of Mars. I didn’t like him at first. In fact, I blamed him for everything in the beginning. But in the end, the bastard was proved right; it was not Justin Cord, but incorporation that was flawed. All those actions of mine that you praised, I learned by his example.”

“On that, you and I will have to disagree, but I wouldn’t suggest you make that a major plank in your campaign.”

Mosh laughed, raised his glass slightly, and made a toast. “To the future.”

Trang lifted his glass as well. “To our future.”

Oh, yes,
thought Trang
, I can trust you Mosh, soon to be ex-Chancellor and future President. You can’t help being good. Your wife made you that way by one of the very first shadow audits. And though I have had that data destroyed and had the few people still alive who helped create it eliminated, I will make use of it in you. Is that wrong of me?
Trang considered that for the hundredth time and came back with the same answer.
Yes, it is. But I don’t care. We are going to need Presidents we can trust until we can repair the system to the point where Presidents won’t matter again. So I will use the evil that made you to do what good I can.
And with that, he saluted with his glass the shadow of a man in front of him and Mosh, misunderstanding the gesture, happily raised his glass in return.

Ceres
High orbit around Eris

Janet Delgado Black, looking dignified in her gray formal work suit, entered the Triangle Office. Though J.D.’s face and hand had been repaired and her original beauty restored, Sandra sometimes found it difficult to look at her. But if Janet ever had any doubts about the change, they did not show. Katy was happy with it, and that was good enough for her mother.

“Welcome to the Triangle Office, Madam Vice President,” Sandra said with clear jubilation. Sandra came around the desk to give Janet a hug.

“I’ve been in here practically every day for the last two years, Madam President,” Janet replied stiffly, still uncomfortable with hugs and tolerating them only from her President and her daughter.

“Ah, but this is the first time you’re here as the Veep.”

“If you say so, Madam President,” agreed Janet with no agreement in her voice. “Shall we get to work?”

And so the two women sat near the coffee table and began their comfortable and daily routine.

“Phase one of Exodus will proceed in two days, Madam President.”

Phase one consisted of seeding the proposed route with sufficient resources for the coming waves of colonists. As such, the OA would be launching an enormous amount of ice, asteroids of all mineral compositions, frozen blocks of hydrogen and other gases, along with a few hundred thousand technicians on specially rebuilt settlements. The entire hodgepodge would be going a little slower than the later launches, and if everything was timed properly, they should all reach Alpha Centauri at roughly the same time. The tremendous amount of ice was also, in effect, a large plow, clearing the route that the rest of the colonists were going to take. If something went wrong in the next six months, this spearhead group would discover it and let those set to follow know well in advance. Also if during the long journey, some large amount of resources were needed in the larger asteroids to follow, it would be relatively easy just to slow down the resources needed and have them waiting along the route. All in all, phase one should provide the flexibility and warning signs to make the journey safer for the rest.

Phase two would take place in six months and consist of the launching of Ceres and a host of settlements with recently built and engineered for maximum reliability propulsion units. There were going to be 250 million children, women, and men in that wave containing much of the leadership and industrial capacity of the Outer Alliance. After that, another wave would launch once every six months as the resources could be made. If all went according to plan, the last Exodus colonization fleet would leave the solar system in ten years. But if something went wrong—and something always went wrong—they had another three years under the terms of the Treaty of Luna to fix it.

The final phase would take place thirteen years from the present date, when the final fleet would leave, regardless of how well the earlier phases went. That would be the “last call” fleet. With its departure, the human race would be severed forever between those who went and those who stayed.

J.D. and Sandra’s cursory review had been just that. Between the two of them, there just wasn’t that much to do. The important decisions had been made months ago, and they were just granny-checking to make sure all was as it should be.

They spent more time on the avatar issues. Those were proving to be more difficult. Not all humans and avatars in the Alliance were happy with the new state of affairs. But rather than these throwbacks being a problem, they ironically proved to be the easiest to deal with. Humans who didn’t want to deal with avatars were given avatar-free settlements to populate. There weren’t that many of them—only 200 million or so—and they were relatively content to leave the rest of the Alliance to its foolishness. A number of asteroids were created with pure data nodes for those avatars who wanted little or nothing to do with the human race. They also didn’t number that much—500 million or so—and were content to live their lives pretty much as they always had, except now they didn’t have any humans to look after.

The real problems were what to do with the humans and avatars who actually
liked
living together. Avatar suffrage was a huge issue in the Alliance, and it was not going to be solved quickly. As it stood, most humans in the Alliance were comfortable with avatars being given the vote, but were remarkably uncomfortable with allowing them to hold elective office. Many avatars were patient, but not by any means all. Sandra and Janet were not willing to push an issue that they knew would evolve itself to total integration in a hundred years or so. Anyone who studied history would know that at some point, someone was going to need avatar votes to win an election, and when that day happened, full voting rights would follow.

But that was nothing compared to the Virtual Reality Dictates issue. How would or even
could
the VR Dictates apply to a civilization where fully one-third of its citizens were virtual? Almost everyone, human and avatar alike, agreed that they needed the VR Dictates, but were unsure as to how they could be applied when the two groups were constantly visiting each other in both physical and virtual space. Not to mention the horrible problem of ghosting.

Soon after the war ended, some therapists came up with a radical and controversial therapy for those who could not accept the permanent deaths of loved ones. Over the strenuous objection of many of their peers, they had avatars familiar with the deceased assume their form holographically. With their intimate knowledge of the deceased, the avatars were able to make completely convincing replicas of a loved one no longer living. Thus ghosting was born and simultaneously condemned by many avatars and humans alike as a puerile way of avoiding loss. The problem was that many avatars were willing to help the loved ones of humans they’d known from birth and didn’t really care if it was a near perfect form of denial.

Did it violate the VR Dictates? Mostly yes, but not entirely. Could it be banned outright? If it was, how to punish and whom? How did this affect the avatar–human marriage movement?

Of course, the Constitutional Convention was finally meeting on Ceres in a specially carved hall for the occasion. Unlike the American version done in secret centuries ago, this one was being done in public. The result was that every item was being debated and counterdebated and amended and discarded and brought back. Sandra’s only requirement was that the document produced should be understandable by a competent graduate of any preparation school and be no more than ten pages of standard-sized script, single sided. It was not a rule, but was considered a good idea by the population at large. They did not want to start their new government with a document so complicated, hardly any of them would have the time or knowledge to read it with comprehension.

The end result was that the convention had met for months now and was not even close to coming up with a document. The government was muddling along under its provisional charter, which was essentially unchanged since the beginning of the war.