by Bob Blanton
“We dedicate thirty percent of the area in a city to open space,” Catie said.
“I wish we’d done that. But in the previous industrial cycle, they were so focused on utilizing the space efficiently to minimize resource consumption that I think we overdid it. We need to find a way to break these cycles, and I think spreading people out a bit will help.”
“Why would that help?”
“If people can get away from everyone else for a bit, I think it will take away the pressure to conform. Then people might be more comfortable with the variations in society and the variations in wealth.”
“I’m not sure about that. People on Earth are very nonconformist and they’re not happy about the disparity in wealth.”
“But you people take it too far,” the president said. “We would never allow the level of poverty that you do. No, Paraxeans would never accept that. Now you can just see the new city over there.”
The president asked the pilot to circle the city before they landed. Catie found it interesting. There was a nice, two-lane highway going into the city from the direction they’d come from. No other roads left the city, making it look a bit like a lollipop stuck out from the main city.
“How far is this from the capital?”
“It is three hundred twenty kilometers from the capital. Long ago there was another city here, but previous generations reclaimed all the resources from it and returned it to nature.”
“Why?”
“Efficiency. They were using up all of our resources and couldn’t afford to have cities all around the planet. They had to concentrate everything into supercities to accommodate the population and maintain their standard of living. Of course, now that we have interstellar trade, we can make different choices. And our population has continued to shrink, so we’re not taxing the planet so heavily.
“Here, now we’re landing. I hope you’re as excited as I am to see this new wonder,” the president said as he undid his restraints and prepared to deplane.
As Catie followed the president with Kasper on her heels, she got the sense that she was in Delphi City. The layout was eerily similar. The airport was connected to the city on the same corner. Like Delphi City, there was a large warehouse district, although no wharves. Then the city grew as you looked past the warehouses. There were a few tall buildings but most of them were on the order of eight stories like Delphi City. But instead of being surrounded by an ocean, it was surrounded by a sea of grass.
“Our welcoming committee,” the president said. “The one on the right is the mayor, a nice fellow. The one on the left is the governor of this province; he’s a suck-up. I like that word your people have, suck-up.”
“President Plaxmar, welcome to Dermarxia, and you as well, Princess Catherine,” the governor said as he greeted them with a slight bow.
“I wanted to show the princess how we were using the Delphinean design here to build this community,” the president said as he led Catie past the governor and to the open car waiting for them. Kasper and Morgan hurried after them and made it clear that they would be in the car with Catie, which left the governor having to grab a seat in the next car. The mayor decided he would drive, so he managed a seat next to the president.
“We’ve adopted your design of cargo delivery,” the mayor said. “Much more efficient than putting it on the subway or having trucks deliver it. They would just clog up the street. The people here walk fifty percent more than the people at the capital. It’s much healthier.”
“We see the same thing,” Catie said. “When the streets aren’t crowded, people like to walk. Also quite a few ride bicycles. We’re having to figure out how to manage that, the bicyclists are almost as dangerous as the cars.”
“I can see that. We don’t have many people willing to ride a bicycle. I guess Paraxeans don’t trust themselves on two wheels.”
The mayor wandered around the city showing off some of the important buildings. He provided a commentary on the progress as well as the significance of each of the decisions they’d made. Finally, he pulled into a parking lot in the center of the city.
“And here is our biggest luxury.” The mayor led them into the large central park. Catie could just see the sail of a sailboat over the hill.
“You have a big lake?”
“Yes, it is a favorite place for young people to come and spend time. The children love to play on the beach. We didn’t put in a wave machine like yours because we wanted it to be friendly for boating. Of course, you have all that ocean around for boating, so the wave machine makes more sense.”
“They’ve got a large lake in Orion as well,” Catie said. “Of course, the city still has to grow around it.”
“Yes, it takes longer to bring in colonists to a planet than it does here. People just book passage on the bus and have their belongings shipped out. They can complete a move in just one week.”
“Wow, that is fast.”
“Yes, we’ve been growing quickly,” the mayor said proudly.
“How big a city are you planning?”
“We are targeting three hundred thousand via our planned migration. We should reach that in another year. Then we expect the city to grow to about one million over the next ten years. We’ll try to stabilize it there.”
“How will you stabilize it?” Kasper asked.
“We’ll start another city,” the governor said.
“Is this the only one so far?” Catie asked.
“We have started one on each of our four continents,” the president said. “Eventually each province will have one. We’ll have to see how it goes after that. Of course, by then we’ll have a new president and it will be their problem to work out the details.”
Catie caught Morgan deftly cutting off a Paraxean who was rushing to join the group. The woman was forced to slow down and go around Morgan, which took her to the governor instead of Catie.
“President Plaxmar, can we get a statement?”
“I’ll let the governor and mayor answer any questions, I’m on an unofficial break with our guest,” the president said as he headed back toward the cars. “The press, we have not found a solution for them. You wouldn’t have discovered one, would you?”
“Nope, they’re a necessary evil,” Catie said.
“Yes, yes, free press and all that, but I wish they would just stick to attending the press conferences. We’ll leave those two to it and have a driver take us back.”
“Thanks for the tour,” Catie said. “It was interesting and relaxing.”
“Just what we needed. Now we need to go back and make an appearance at the negotiations. It will encourage the ministers to make progress. Of course, I understand your Ambassador Newman doesn’t require much encouragement. My people tell me that she’s quite tenacious.”
“She is that.”
Chapter 16
The Galaxy Keeps Spinning
“The Fazullans have sent a probe through the wormhole,” Blake announced once everyone had joined the meeting.
“And?” Marc asked.
“We destroyed it as it emerged.”
“How did you destroy it?”
“Plasma cannon,” Blake said. “We wanted to avoid any debris passing back through the wormhole.”
“That might buy some time,” Catie said. “They might just assume it wasn’t at a good location yet. They’re not going to expect anyone to be all the way out at the fringe.”
“We’ll have to just wait and see.”
“The Paraxeans have agreed to send two carriers,” Marc said.
“Does that mean they’re ready to sign the treaty?” Catie asked.
“Not quite,” Marc said.
“Daddy, you cannot keep me and the Roebuck here. I know you want to, but it’s not fair. It’s bad leadership to leave a critical asset off the table.”
“The Roebuck is not that critical.”
“Yes it is, you only have two jump capable ships, the Sakira and the Roebuck. Who knows how vital th
at might turn out to be?”
“Sam?” Marc asked.
“I’m sure we’re close enough to a final agreement, and the Paraxeans understand the situation,” Samantha said.
“Okay,” Marc said, he clearly hadn’t gotten the answer he wanted. “You can head back tomorrow.”
◆ ◆ ◆
“Governor, we have a situation,” Mayor Mallory messaged Marc.
“Marc here, what kind of situation?”
“One of our citizens has started building a home in the middle of the land we’ve designated for a future resort. He says he’s going to claim the land for his allotment next year.”
Marc laughed then sighed, “And you can’t deal with it?”
“I could, but I’d have to use force. He refuses to listen to reason.”
“And you think I can do better?”
“I hope you can. I think he will at least listen to you.”
“Alright, I’ll be there in an hour,” Marc said. “Melinda,” he called his assistant.
“Yes sir.”
“I need a chopper to take me to the coast.”
“When?”
“Right away.”
“I’ll have one here in five minutes,” Melinda said.
“Thanks.”
An hour later Marc was landing at the fishing village they’d established at the coast. Mayor Mallory was waiting for him.
“I’m sorry about this, but we need to deal with it before he gets too established. Others are already talking about staking their claims.”
“Where did they get the idea that they could arbitrarily pick out their allotment?”
“Who knows how their minds work.”
“Okay, lead the way,” Marc said.
He and Mayor Mallory got into a jeep and the driver started off. Marc’s security detail followed in another jeep.
“I hope you don’t have to deal with him like you did O’Brian,” the mayor said. She was referring to the time Marc had knocked O’Brian down when the big Aussie foreman had decided that Marc should step aside and let the real men figure out how to run the colony.
“Why? That worked out okay,” Marc said with a chuckle. “Don’t worry, I think we’re beyond that.”
“Good,” the mayor said. “Here we are.”
They’d driven off-road to a spot on the cliffs overlooking the bay. It was a beautiful location, which is why they’d set it aside to develop a resort community in the future.
“Mr. Haggasey, I’m sure you recognize our governor, Marc McCormack.”
“Yeah, I sure do.”
“Mr. Haggasey, you do know that you’re not allowed to just pick your allotment, much less do it a year early,” Marc said.
“Sure I do. But we had that problem with those new colonists you guys sent over here. Didn’t have a place to put them, so I said I’d give up my condo and start building me ‘ome. Seemed like a good solution.”
“And why did you pick this spot?”
“‘Cause it’s close to the village and it has a nice view, reminds me of me ‘ome in Kent.”
“Did you know this area is allocated for a resort village?”
“The mayor told me that, but why should they get the best spots? They’re not even here yet. We’re the ones doing all the work.”
“Because that’s how we’re funding the colony,” Marc said. “We’re selling land for development, and giving allotments to those like you who help. But we can’t allow you to just pick your lots on your own.”
“Why not? First-come, first-served is what I says.”
Marc laughed and shook his head. “If that’s what you think, then the first to come was MacKenzie Discoveries, over one year ago. We mapped out the planet and set aside various locations for colonists and for future development. This was one of the areas we allocated to future development.”
“Well it don’t seem fair, you guys grabbing all the best locations.”
“Isn’t that what you’re doing? You’re grabbing this spot a year before anyone is allowed to pick their allotment. And claiming a farmstead in a place designated as residential seems a bit much.”
“Maybe, but what will I do? It looks just like me old ‘ome. If I wait, then it won’t be here. I’d be willing to settle on just a town lot. I guess a farmstead was me being greedy.”
“How about this? You can pick out a lot on the community plot and when we develop this area, you can trade your allotment for it.”
“You’d do that?”
“But it’s just one lot, and it can’t be one of the front row ones. Row eight or farther back.”
“That seems fair. I could agree with that.”
“Okay, the mayor will take care of you tomorrow. You have my word.”
Marc and the mayor walked back to the jeep. “What am I to do if everyone wants to do that?”
“Let them. Not everyone is going to want to live in a community where you barely have a yard. If we have the front eight rows, that’ll be enough to pto make what we were planning to gain from the resort.”
“It’s your land.”
◆ ◆ ◆
Once they got back to the mayor’s office, Marc asked, “Mayor, how did we get into a situation where we had colonists without a place to stay?”
Mayor Mallory sighed. “It’s quite a complicated story. But the bottom line was, one of our guys drove his excavator into the corner of the new condo building. It’s taken us a month to repair the damage.”
“Why didn’t the autopilot take over and prevent that?”
“He’d disabled the autopilot. It seems the autopilot refused to let him take the shortcut he liked to use. Of course, the shortcut took him by the condo building. We’ve changed the protocol so that it takes a supervisor’s approval to disable the autopilot.”
“What happened to cause him to lose control?”
“One of those wasp things got into the cab, he panicked and tried to swat it away before it stung him. He momentarily forgot he was driving a twenty-ton excavator.”
“He does know that if he gets the sting treated the same day, there’s no problem.”
“He does now, and probably did then, but those things are nasty looking. One can understand his panic.”
“So what are you doing with him?”
“The community’s taking care of that. Many of our big, burly guys have suddenly developed a phobia about those wasps. Usually, they panic right when he’s standing next to them. He’s had three trips to the ER in the last month. And he did give up his condo to a family with small children. His bar tab for the month is probably bigger than his wages as he’s trying to make up for it.”
“Is he going to be alright?”
“We’ll see. I think they’re starting to lighten up on him. If it doesn’t get better, we’ll have to look at moving him to another area.”
“Okay,” Marc sighed. “The things we have to deal with. Now I need to get back and see what’s happening with our war.”
“War?!”
“Oh, we think we have it under control, but remember the aliens that were coming here? They’re threatening another system.”
“I’m sorry to have bothered you with this.”
“The galaxy doesn’t stop turning just because some idiots decide they want to start a fight.”
◆ ◆ ◆
“Have you talked with Tracey lately?” Catie asked Morgan as they were circling the mat. They were doing a type of sparring where you couldn’t use kicks or hand strikes. It was a mix of Aikido and Tai Chi. Liz and Catie always chatted when they did it. It taught you to recognize opportunities subconsciously. She and Morgan had just started sparring that way.
“Are you trying to distract me?”
“No, just curious if you’ve forgiven her for punching you.”
“Oh, we laughed that off over beers the next night.”
“Good, so have you talked to her lately? You know you can use the quantum relays.”
“It’s a privilege I
try not to abuse. But I talked to her a couple of days ago.”
“How’s she doing?”
“She’s up on Delphi Station. Her team is training on ship boarding using that partial ship Kal had made.”
“Does she like it?”
“She says she’s loving it. She just got promoted to squad leader so she’s pretty excited.”
Catie took a small opening and pulled on Morgan’s forearms as she slid in, turning sideways so her shoulder caught Morgan’s solar plexus and her right foot slid under Morgan's right thigh, her knee connecting and pushing Morgan to the side.
Morgan hit the mat rolling. She sprang back to her feet rubbing her solar plexus.
“Nice move.”
“Thanks. Are you and Tracey going to do anything special when you get back?”
“Tough to plan that since I don’t know when we’ll be back. Let’s talk about your love life.”
“What love life? All the guys I know are either in my chain of command or are put off by the Princess Catie thing.”
“That’s just an excuse. You’re just not interested.”
“I am too!”
“Oh, I heard that Miguel Cordova got your juices running. Why didn’t you hit on him?”
“He’s too old for me. Besides, I’m pretty sure Liz is hitting on him.”
“Oh, you know something? Spill.”
“I’m not sure, but by triangulating on their locations the week when Miguel was on Delphi Station, I’m pretty sure they spent three or four nights together.”
“What do you mean triangulating on their locations?”
“Liz invoked the privacy protocol, so I wasn’t able to ask ADI, but I could ask about some other things. Based on some deduction, I determined that they must be in Liz’s cabin.”
“ADI couldn’t just tell you?”
“No, I could not,” ADI said. “I respect everyone’s privacy.”
“So how did you figure it out?”
“Liz ordered room service.”