The Lion in Paradise

by Brindle, Nathan C.

  "We were aware. So, what is your solution?" challenged Bisset. "I suppose you think you can do it faster?"

  Ariela smiled. "I have a solution, but until you're read in, I can't explain it to you in depth. Suffice to say, we do have a much faster method available to us. My projection is, with your data and placement programme for the wells, we can bring the water up in a little less than two hundred years, without a significant change to the current planetary day or tilt – thousandths or ten-thousandths of a percent at most. Of course the surface gravitational constant will shift slightly, but there's nothing to be done about that, since we're moving mass 'up'. On the other hand, that will be offset by mass on the other side of the planet, not much differently than the situation today."

  "And the weather will change," observed Dr. Smith.

  "Of course," nodded Ariela. "Which is not a major issue anywhere other than, perhaps, in the city, which while it sits close to the equator, is nevertheless well-inland and up on the plateau in any case, so major tropical systems will be unlikely to affect them. Besides which, they are on the east coast of the large ocean we presume will exist in the equatorial zone.

  "But they will have two hundred years to retrofit storm drains, street gutters, retention ponds, and other civil engineering works – which will be expensive, but which in turn can be paid for from the mine at Kanz al-Sultan." She smiled again. "This will, of course, create a huge jobs programme and hopefully keep the population from becoming restive. I'm sure we can find a way of insisting that the wages for such a project be reasonably high, or at least, the take-home portion can be sufficient while a part goes into mandatory old-age gold-backed savings or what have you. As with the bringing of the water, the bringing of widespread middle-class wealth must be managed carefully; we don't want high-percentage inflation to ruin prosperity, and we do want people to consider the future. But I am not an economist; I can see this only in the abstract, or as an economist might say, in macro."

  Bisset sniffed. "Meddling with economies rarely produces a positive result."

  "Ah," said Ariela, "but that is the genius of a small-ell libertarian way of looking at things; take control, make liberal – that is to say, Hayekian/Friedmanian, or classical liberal – changes such as zeroing out onerous taxes on income, capital gains, and so forth, in order to allow people to keep their hard-earned money, then sit back and leave the system ruthlessly alone."

  "You seem to know more about economics than you care to let on," laughed Smith.

  "I had a good teacher," admitted Ariela. "But he taught history and moral philosophy, not economics."

  "Ah."

  "The difference being," Ariela went on, "economics can teach you how the system works, but it does not pass judgement on whether or not the system is morally or ethically correct. In an H&MP class, at least at the level at which I last studied, different systems are laid out for examination and the morality and ethics of each is clearly pointed out." She grinned. "I got an 'A+', which was not particularly surprising, given my parentage."

  "But H&MP is not graded," protested Bisset. "Required, yes, originally at the secondary and now also at the university levels, taught by specially-accredited Heinlein Scholars, but not graded."

  Ariela winked. "It didn't exist till long after I was out of school, and I was direct-commissioned into SFM without formally going through Basic, but I took it at OCS when I finally got there. It's the first course you take at OCS, before they waste any other time on you, and you have to get at least a B to pass. Anything less, you do it again until either you get a B, or resign the service; and after three sub-B attempts, usually you're invited to resign. Those who earn a B get supplemental courses and/or tutoring concentrating on the areas they had trouble understanding. A students just move on."

  "Hmm." The corners of Bisset's mouth actually quirked upward. "I see. I think I knew that, years ago, but had forgotten."

  "Did you ever serve, professor?" Ariela asked, quite cordially, and non-confrontationally; it was phrased simply as a friendly question.

  "I did, actually," replied Bisset. "I did three hitches in the U.S. Navy when I was a boy, and ended up a CPO. Thought about going for officer but didn't have any college, so I got out and went to Case, and, well," he grinned for the first time in her memory, somewhat wryly, "this is where I ended up."

  "Equivalent to a Gunnery Sergeant in the Marines," noted Ariela. "Like my dad when he got out the first time."

  Bisset coughed. "Well, Colonel," he said, "unlike your father, I didn't see any action, and certainly didn't get wounded, decorated, and end up in a hospital for months." Noting her look of surprise, he nodded, and continued, "I think just about every spacer knows your father's story, or at least the outline. And I've talked with a few of them on our trips out and back, eh, George?"

  "The chiefs always invite him to their mess on our interstellar jaunts," confirmed Smith. "I guess once a chief, always a chief."

  Ariela laughed. "That's true enough; it's something of a fraternity within the sailing services. There's a Master Chief who works aboard the Constellation of whom I'm quite fond."

  "Believe I know him," said Bisset. "He's the Captain's steward, correct? And that job requires an E-9 because of security concerns, as I recall."

  "Master Chief Thomas Charles," nodded Ariela.

  "That's the man." Bisset mopped his forehead again. "Colonel, thank you. You have opened my eyes – quite literally – to something I would never have suspected. I look forward to being 'read in', if that is indeed going to happen; but for now, at least, I think I need to get back inside and get a drink of cool water." And with a wave, he was off, heading for the sensing station's nearby hatch.

  "You'd think the old fool would have worn a hat," mused Smith, who himself was wearing what looked like an old USMC boonie hat against the unrelenting rays of al-Saḥra's sun. He grinned. "But at least you surprised him sufficiently to make him treat you in a more pleasant manner than before."

  Ariela cocked her head. "I don't consider him an old fool," she replied. "I think he let the laurels of academia blind him to an understanding that there are people who aren't academics who know as much or more than he does, in certain aspects of his field. Reminding him he once was a chief, and a junior one at that, as well as bringing him to the ability to see the Mesh, seem to have dampened his, hmm, irascibility, down more than a little. As he says, his eyes have been opened to new possibilities." She looked at Smith. "I suspect he may be easier to work with in the future."

  The man shrugged. "Possibly. I'll believe it when I see it, but in the meantime, we have work to do, you and I." He pointed down. "You may want to shut your water feature off, though."

  "Oh!" Ariela concentrated for a moment, and the little sprinkler she'd made, which in turn had created a puddle about three feet in diameter while they talked, dwindled down and disappeared. The puddle followed quickly in the dry desert air, partly evaporating and partly soaking into the hardpan surface. "Thanks for reminding me."

  Smith chuckled. "I'm sure you would have seen it before you left. But thank you for the opportunity to see that happen in the first place. And if the good Professor is easier to work with from today, well, thank you for that, too." He touched a finger to the brim of his hat, and followed Bisset back to the station hatch.

  "You do that quite well," said Beam, behind her.

  "Damn it!" seethed Ariela, who'd nearly jumped out of her skin. "Why do you do that?" She turned to face the avatar. "What are you doing here?"

  "I came to give you the latest results of the computations you asked me to make," he said, handing her a large sheaf of paper bound into a report cover, and a human systems-compatible data chip. "I know your General Buford prefers physical reports, which I can produce without the necessity of killing trees." He grinned.

  "They're grown as a crop on plantations," said Ariela, absently, as she paged through the executive summary. "One hundred percent sustainable."

  "I am aware, but I
felt I needed to make you laugh."

  Ariela looked up, and smiled. "Thank you. I always forget I need to thank you for these things."

  Beam looked quizzical. "I am but a machine, you know."

  "A sentient one, Beam. At some level you have feelings that can be hurt, I'm sure. And we need to show you more gratitude than we have done in the past."

  "I see. It is pleasant to hear such things, but unnecessary. However, as with the Guardians, I shall not ignore such pleasantries from humans when offered, and will simply say, you're welcome, which I believe is the correct response."

  "That's right."

  "I must also tell you, you have a call from your daughter Delaney."

  Ariela rolled her eyes. "Damn it. I left my comm in the pinnace. I'll go and get it now."

  "Do," counselled Beam. "It is quite important."

  She looked at him. "Maybe you could just tell me what it's about?"

  "I think you had best talk to Delaney."

  "Okay . . . well . . . thanks, Beam." She struck off for her pinnace, which was sitting about a hundred yards away.

  "You're welcome," came from behind her. She rolled her eyes again, but grinned.

  Regaining the cool air of Tumtum, she walked forward to the control console, and plucked her comm off the navigator's chair where she'd left it. She'd come out to First Water by herself for this conversation, Fred having other duties to tend to as battalion Sergeant-Major, and she missed him a little.

  She had no idea how much she was going to miss him in about five minutes.

  "Delaney? Hi, it's Mom. What's up?"

  "Mom! Thank God! Are you aboard Tumtum?"

  "Yes . . . "

  "Stay there! In fact, take off, get the hell off the ground! You've got incoming insurgents and they're armed to the teeth!"

  "What?"

  "We raided another weapons cache. It was empty. We buttonholed some locals and found out they'd left to carry out a raid on First Water."

  Ariela was sure the use of the word "buttonholed" had much more context than was coming through – probably "arrested and truth-juiced them" was more to the point. "What's their strength?" she asked, calmly, as she started flipping switches and heard the fusion burner ramp up to full power. "How much transport do they have, and when will they be arriving?"

  "If it's only the group from the one cache," said Delaney, "it's about a hundred, hundred and a half. But more groups may be involved, similar in size, similarly-armed. We could be looking at anywhere from five hundred to a thousand insurgents."

  "What's the mullah have to say?"

  "He's near to having a conniption. He says he had no idea the hardcores had hidden so many weapons, and he swears he's going to find out where they got them. My personal guess is the South Chinese, but who knows, they could have another source of supply. The weapons we recovered at the first cache all look American, but who knows where they came from. Or when." Delaney paused for breath. "I also talked to Bahadur, who said he would call out the militia if you need it, and he's letting the USMC know, too."

  "I'd have him call them out, but use them for local defense," said Ariela, thinking furiously. "He may need to supplement the city police. And the USMC are split between the mining complex at Kanz al-Sultan and the area around Jadida – too far away and too important to garrison those areas in any case, so while they won't like it, they'll demur. Anyway, I need you to tell your dad to get the 1/1 headed this way. Or more to the point, he needs to pass the order to my XO to get them headed this way. In the meantime, I'm lifting off to do some recon."

  She could tell Delaney was scribbling furiously on a holotab. "Mom, what about the Fleet?"

  "What do we have in orbit?"

  "The United States and the President are on picket. They exchanged the other day with Constitution and Constellation. Congress and Chesapeake are in refit at Clarke. The 1/1 mostly came out on an Aurora-class transport borrowed from the USMC," Delaney reminded her. "All of the 1/1 that's aboard the frigates is the dropships and their crews assigned to those frigates. Everybody else is on the ground."

  She grimaced. "Crazy man Farage and that stone bitch Green. We'll leave them out of the loop for the moment. Listen, I'm going to rotate to Earth and see if I can get either Dad or Uncle Chris to come out and help me fight Tumtum. I can't do it by myself, and Greg will need Fred." ("Greg" being her XO, Lt. Col. Gregory Sherman.) "And then I'll do recon."

  "You know they'll want to bring the Bandersnatch."

  "Then I'll find someone else to navigate and shoot the guns."

  "Mom, just come get me and FTSA1. We can man the guns."

  Ariela shook her head. "There are only two gun positions and none of you can navigate this thing. I'll—"

  "Then come get me and Harb!" insisted Delaney. "We'll point your guns. You can pilot a pinnace without a nav, I've seen you do it!"

  Ariela sighed. "Let me go get your Grumpaw first. But I'll take a look and see how far out the insurgents are first, and let you know."

  "It doesn't make me happy, but I'll live with it," came from Delaney.

  "Stay on the line. I'm lifting now."

  Ariela set the comm on the navigator's seat again, and played with the console. The Tumtum lifted smoothly off the ground and headed back toward Jadida. It wasn't long before she saw a pillar of dust in the air, clearly marking the insurgents' line of march.

  "Delaney," she said, "they're about fifty miles out. Most of them on foot. I don't see aircraft; makes sense, the ROE is to shoot down anything without a valid IFF without warning. But they do have some armored personnel carriers . . . some Humvees . . . and, oh good Lord, some pickup trucks with mounted artillery." She sighed. "Technicals on al-Saḥra', what the hell next?"

  She saw some flashes from the convoy, then, and "pulled back on the stick" to gain altitude. "Taking some fire, but it's not actually reaching me," she said.

  "Get out of there!" yelled Delaney.

  "No, seriously, hon, they're nowhere near hitting the ship."

  "Oh." Delaney sighed. "So, just the usual 'happy fire'."

  "Yep. Look, they'll be at least six more hours getting to First Water, if not more; they have a lot of people marching, and I can't imagine they'll attack at night. They probably won't even be there by nightfall. So I'm going to rotate home and do what I said. Then I will come back and pick up you and Harb." She paused a moment, then went pale. "Oh, shit! Hon, call the research station and give them a heads-up. They need to stay buttoned up in the station and not leave for any reason. The thing is covered in hullmetal and the ports are all aliglass, so it's unlikely anything the insurgents have, short of a nuke, is going to get through."

  "Aye, aye, Colonel. We'll get it done."

  "Very well, Major. Keep your powder dry and I'll be back as soon as I can."

  "Love you, Mom . . . Semper Fi."

  "Love you too, Delaney. And the same back at ya."

  Ariela reached over to the navigator's controls, looked for the presets, and found the one marked "HOME". She pushed it, and the board lit up with coordinates and other status indicators. Everything was green, so she nodded, raised her arms, flipped the safeties off the big red switches, and purely out of habit, intoned:

  "Rotation in three, two, one . . . "

  She snapped the switches. The Tumtum disappeared from the air over al-Saḥra'.

  Chapter 7

  Then The Airborne Space Marines Arrived

  The USSF Tumtum reappeared on Earth, in a large barn out back of Ariela's home on the Wolff estate. The barn was appointed in a similar fashion to that of the one just over the hill, next to the home of John and Kat Wolff, which normally held the RV Frumious Bandersnatch. As the pinnace reappeared, Ariela could see the various flashing lights and signs ("SHIP INBOUND") flash off, as the sound of the raucous warning horn died away.

  Ariela wasn't planning to get off the ship. She lifted her comm again and speed-dialed her father.

  "Dad? It's Ariela. Say, how would you li
ke to get some of yours back on the RIFs on al-Saḥra'?"

  She listened to profane growling coming from the other end of the line, and grinned.

  "Well, in case you hadn't figured it out already, I'm back in my hangar with Tumtum, and we've got a situation at First Water. I need you and Uncle Chris to fight my ship. There are about a grand of insurgents incoming, planning to make a mess of the sensing station. Well-armed insurgents, I should note. Interested?"

  "Where's your husband?" growled Wolff.

  "He's with the 1/1. I had a meeting at the station, so I hopped over by myself. He's busy with Greg Sherman, moving them out; they're about a hundred miles away on maneuvers."

  "Can you get someone else to fight the ship?"

  Ariela sighed. "Delaney said you'd want to bring the Bandersnatch."

  "Oh, hells yeah, I want to bring the Bandersnatch," replied Wolff, with an evil laugh. "I've wanted some of my own back on those fuckers for a century and a half. Can you nav back to al-Saḥra' and pick up Delaney? And Harb? Or are they out with the 1/1, too?"

  "No, they're in Jadida. They're raiding some arms caches we just found out about, and they found one empty, and all indications were the RIFs were on the march. Turned out to be correct, they're about fifty miles from the station right now. But yes, I can nav back to the residence on al-Saḥra', it's a preset just like this place."

  "Good. Okay, Chris and I will be on our way, what? Oh. Chris and I and General Buford will be on our way as soon as we can port back to Indiana. We were in a meeting at the Pentagon." He chuckled, wryly. "Apparently Buford wants a piece of the action. We'll let him shoot the side guns."

  "Dad! Is that wise?"

  "No. But neither is Chris and me coming out to play, either. So y'all head back to al-Saḥra', Colonel, and we'll be along momentarily."

  "Aye, aye, sir," replied Ariela, not entirely convinced. But she clicked the comm off, laid it back on the seat, reached over to the nav position, and clicked on the preset for her residence in Jadida. "Green board," she muttered, reaching up to flip the safeties and the big red switches. "Rotation, in three, two, one . . . "