“Tonight, I’m going to talk about trust,” Baldwin continued. “Who do you trust?”
He smiled at us all, then went on. “Trust is the glue that binds society together,” he said, briskly. “If you are able to trust someone to keep their word, you can rely on them; if you can’t, you cannot rely on them. By now, I believe most of you will have learned that you have to rely on your comrades to get through Boot Camp. Can you trust them?”
I nodded, slowly. I didn't trust Viper, but I trusted the others. Two months of intensive training had broken down the barriers between us as we were forced to work together. Some of the tests were simply impossible to pass unless we worked together.
“A cynic might assert that trust is based on being able to get someone for breaking trust,” Baldwin continued. “It would be more accurate to say that trust is based on reputation. A person who breaks trust, for whatever reason, is unlikely to be trusted in future. This is so true that a person who might have a good reason to break trust is still going to be tainted.”
He took a breath. “In early human societies, trust only really existed between families. It was possible to trust your parents, or your siblings, but not someone outside them. Later, as societies became more sophisticated, trust extended to one’s social group. It became possible to trust someone who shared your race, or religion, yet not someone who didn’t. This happened because the group tended to exclude or punish anyone who broke trust.
“You will discover, if you graduate, that that applies to us too. A marine is far more trustworthy, you will believe, than anyone else.”
I frowned. No one in their right mind trusted anyone in the Undercity, not even their own family. I’d known that Trevor would happily sell out the rest of us, if it made him wealthy and powerful. Others had sold their siblings to the gangs, or preyed on their schoolmates, or raped and murdered their partners. To put your life in someone else’s hands was asking for trouble. But I’d learned differently at Boot Camp.
“The development of certain human societies reflected the development of trust,” Baldwin said. “Societies that managed to forge trusted links became wealthy and powerful; societies that didn’t, for whatever reason, tended to stagnate. For example, aristocrats were willing to make and honour promises to other aristocrats, but not to honour promises made to those they considered their inferiors. By breaking those promises, often made for tactical advantage, they proved themselves to be untrustworthy, which undermined the very basis of their society and eventually led to their destruction. The true test of a society lay in how it would handle the issue of trust between different groups. This eventually led to the development of contract law and neutral courts.”
He smiled, rather humourlessly. “A contract, at base, is an agreement between two people,” he continued. “I could sign a contract with you to provide a service, in exchange for payment, and - on that level - there would be very little difference between a written contract and a verbal agreement. The importance of contact law, however, lies in the fact that there would be an enforcement mechanism. Should I fail to uphold my side of the contract, you could take me to court.
“It is difficult to exaggerate the importance of this development. Historically, humans tended to support their own tribe, even when their comrade was clearly in the wrong. An outsider could be cheated at will, which placed limits on just how far trust - and hence society - could spread. The development of legal courts that looked at contracts - and only the contracts, instead of other factors - allowed trust to expand beyond a given group. It was this trust that allowed for the development of far more complicated - and enduring - societies.”
I had a feeling he was right, although it was hard to put it into words. There hadn't been anything permanent in the Undercity. The gangs were held together by the strongest, who lost their positions when they were challenged and beaten by their rivals. Nor did anyone place any faith in the courts, or schools, or doctors ... there had been no trust. And who in their right mind would have trusted anyone? It was always wise to keep one eye on the door, just in case it might be time to make a run for it.
“So you might ask,” Baldwin said, “why is society so fucked up today?”
There were some chuckles. He waited for us to finish, then went on.
“It didn't take long for the new system of contract law - the system that binds the Empire together - to get undermined,” he warned. “A very basic contract, like the one I suggested earlier, might be no more than a single page. However, a contract detailing something vastly more complex might run to hundreds of pages, which no human could hope to read, let alone comprehend. There might even be a section that completely invalidated the rest of the contract, or insisted on one party meeting impossible conditions to cancel the contract, or even honest confusion about the measuring system. I have seen legal cases where one party clung to a single section of the contract, while the other pointed to a different section or started arguing about the precise meaning of several words.
“Furthermore, the courts themselves tended to become undermined. Money talked. So did political influence. Right now, contracts between colony worlds and interstellar corporations tend to have a clause stipulating that any disputes between the two parties have to be settled in the Galactic Supreme Court, which is based on Earth. The corporations, which have a vast amount of influence on Earth, are therefore able to influence the Galactic Supreme Court to rule in their favour. And, as these rulings give a legal basis for military intervention if necessary, the decisions are often enforced. It isn't unknown for a corporation to deliberately provoke an incident just so they can get military support.”
He peered down at us for a long moment. “It is no exaggeration to suggest that there is no trust in the Empire today,” he stated, bluntly. “And many of the problems you will have to deal with come from that lack of trust.
“No one in their right mind would expect the Galactic Supreme Court to rule in favour of a colony world, when that colony world is facing a major corporation. Nor would anyone expect the Grand Senate to do anything about the situation. A corporation can even convince the Grand Senate, the source of all authority and power within the Empire, to make a ruling that places legal authority over a colony world into the hands of a corporation, if there is the tiniest of fig leaves to justify it. And then they act all surprised when the colonists rebel, when they decide they would prefer to fight rather than bend over for the corporations.”
I nodded in understanding. No one would have expected anything more in the Undercity. A person with power and influence would use that power and influence to get more, at least until they grew old and were replaced by someone even nastier. The corporations had the same issue, on a much larger scale; the only major difference, as far as I could tell, was that people actually rebelled against them. It took me years to realise that the gangs had been up close and personal in the Undercity, while the corporations were often a distant threat.
“Humans do not appreciate acts of blatant unfairness,” Baldwin noted. “A colonist who is emotionally invested in his farm will not like losing it because someone thousands of light years away has made a decision. He will fight - and so will hundreds of others. A person who faces legal discrimination on a regular basis will rapidly lose all respect for the law - and why should he respect it, when it is biased against him? Their unwillingness to submit to outside arbitration will eventually lead to social collapse. Indeed, I was once on a planet where the victors in a legal dispute would always be the ones who laid on the biggest feast for the outsiders. Would you be surprised to hear that their opponents often refused to accept the rulings against them?”
There was another point right there, I noted silently. No one in the Undercity had been emotionally invested in anything. We had been given the apartment, rather than paying for it ourselves; we were given prizes at school, even if we hadn't earned them. Finding a partner, having children ... even they were stripped of all feeling. But if someone had mocked my
time at Boot Camp, I would have been furious. Because, in the end, I’d worked hard to get as far as I had. We’d all worked hard.
“You will discover, as you start your careers, that the marine corps is one of the few institutions left to hold any public trust,” Baldwin added. “Despite those awful flicks, despite the fact we’re summoned to deal with problems caused by political misjudgements, we are still trusted. We are regarded as being tough, but fair. We must struggle, constantly, to live up to the trust they place in us.”
I nodded. We’d been told there were lines we must never cross, regardless of the situation. It was a far cry from the Undercity, where there had been no lines, but I understood. A reputation for looting, raping and burning our way through civilian towns would undermine their trust in us at terrifying speed. We’d wind up as just another bunch of thugs, as unreliable as the Civil Guard.
“That won’t be easy,” Baldwin concluded. His voice was suddenly very cold. “Once, the Empire was held together by trust, by faith in its government. Now, there is no trust and no faith in government, or the courts, or the military. Most of the problems you will have to tackle are caused, directly or indirectly, by that lack of faith. There may come a time when the weight of that distrust pulls the Empire down around our ears.”
That was, in hindsight, the first time I heard a suggestion that the Empire was falling apart. It wasn't something I wanted to hear, not really. I liked the thought of being able to go somewhere else, somewhere better. But, the more I came to grapple with the realities of Empire, the more I realised that Baldwin had - if anything - understated the case. No one trusted anyone ...
... And, because of it, the Empire was gravely weakened.
Everywhere might end up like the Undercity, I thought. It was a terrifying prospect. No law ... nothing, but the rule of the strong, forever. Gangs taking territory, only to lose it again when their leaders died or their enemies made common cause long enough to prune them back, with countless civilians caught in the middle. Everything we built might be lost.
It wasn't a comforting thought.
From then onwards, we were given one lecture a week, covering dozens of different subjects that touched on future issues. We looked forward to them, because they were a chance to sit down and relax; they also made us think, for the first time, of just what it was like to operate in the midst of a civilian population. It wasn't something we’d encountered in the simulations. We’d only had to worry about defeating the other squads without being defeated ourselves.
Naturally, that changed shortly afterwards.
Chapter Fifteen
If anything, as Colonel Stalker noted, Professor Baldwin understated the problem. The lack of trust was everywhere. No one trusted the law courts, true, but no one trusted the schools, or the universities, or the media, or anything else. Indeed, education was so badly out of shape because teachers weren't trusted to use their common sense. Instead, they were expected to follow a specific learning plan, even when the plan didn't fit the situation. A teacher who tried to do otherwise, who taught the kids the truth, could expect to be fired in short order.
-Professor Leo Caesius
“All right,” Nordstrom said, when we had assembled at the RV point. “It's time for something a little more challenging.”
We winced, inwardly. Weeks of training had introduced us to everything from simulated IEDs to simulated mortar fire. We’d learned, very rapidly, how to lay traps for the enemy and, at the same time, what to watch for when advancing towards the enemy position. It hadn't been easy. I’d lost my ‘life’ during one particularly embarrassing exercise when I’d located a poorly-hidden sensor, only to discover - too late - that some smartass on the other side had placed an IED underneath, just waiting for someone to come along and try to take the sensor. Nordstrom had been quite sarcastic about the whole affair.
“A gang of terrorist scumbags have taken over the local village,” Nordstrom continued, darkly. “Your task is to liberate the village, free the hostages and capture or kill as many of the terrorists as possible. There are no other units in the vicinity, so everything rests on you.”
No artillery, I thought, sourly. Not that I wanted to pound the village into bedrock - that would kill hostages and terrorists alike - but it would have been nice to know that some big guns were on hand. And we won’t have any specialised snipers either.
Nordstrom looked us up and down. “Viper will be in command, this time,” he said. “Try not to fuck up.”
He took a step backwards, making it clear that he was now nothing more than an observer. I cursed under my breath as Viper unfurled the map and peered down at the village; we'd all been given opportunities to command, but none of us particularly trusted Viper. How could we? I suppose that was what Baldwin had meant, when he’d talked about how the loss of trust undermined society. Our lack of trust in him made him an ineffective commander at best, an outright failure at worst.
“This is how we’re going to do it,” he said, pointing to the map. “Joker and Stalker have the best eyes, so I want you to crawl to here” - he tapped a location on the map - “and observe the village from a distance. Locate the terrorists and report back to me. The rest of us will proceed to here” - another location, closer to the village - “and make more detailed plans based on their reports.”
I glanced at the map, making sure I knew where to go. Our first exercises in map-reading had taught us precisely why one of the most dangerous things in the world is a junior officer with a map - we got rather badly lost, which led to more sarcasm from the Drill Instructors - but we'd managed to get a great deal better with practice. In theory, Viper was right; the position he’d selected should allow us to peer down at the village without being seen, provided we approached with care. There shouldn't be any villagers in the fields, not if they were being held hostage, but smart terrorists would watch for approaching trouble.
And as the terrorists are being played by a senior platoon, I thought, they'd know the tricks and the terrain already.
“It doesn't sound like a bad plan,” Joker muttered, as we slipped away from the platoon. “I expected something worse.”
I frowned. Viper hadn't done badly, so far, but I still didn't trust him. I kept that thought to myself as we approached the fields, keeping low, then started to crawl up the hill overlooking the village. There were no sensors watching for trouble, as far as we could tell, but we took precautions anyway. It wasn't until we were halfway up the hill that we ran straight into a watching terrorist, half-hidden under a bush. We blinked at him for a second, then charged before he could raise his gun. We didn't dare shoot him - the sound would have alerted his friends - so we crashed into him, battering the bastard to the ground. He fought back viciously until Joker pushed his unopened Ka-Bar into his neck.
“You’re dead, asshole,” he muttered.
“Fuck it,” the ‘terrorist’ muttered back.
I keyed my radio. “Viper, Stalker,” I said, subvocalising the words so they couldn’t be overhead by anyone without access to the radio net. “One tango located and neutralised; I say again, one tango located and neutralised. Proceeding.”
There was a pause before he replied. “Did he get an alert out?”
“Unknown, but probably not,” I said. “Proceeding.”
Viper, thankfully, didn't ask anything else as we reached the ridge and peered down at the village. It was, I’d been assured, a typical farming hamlet; a general store, a church, a school, a handful of houses and very little else. I wouldn't have considered it particularly important, but I supposed the locals thought it the centre of their universe. We peered down, searching for targets, and saw nothing. The entire village looked deserted.
I frowned. “Could they have moved the hostages out of the village?”
“It wasn't included in the briefing,” Joker pointed out.
That meant nothing, I knew. Briefings covered the bare facts and little else; sometimes, the facts were wrong, just to keep us on
our toes. If I’d been taking hostages, I might have considered moving them elsewhere, just to make life interesting for any would-be rescuers. But then, it would really depend on my long-term objectives. Just what did the terrorists actually want?
Something moved. I tensed as I saw someone sneaking through the village, carrying a rifle in one hand. It had to be one of the terrorists. We’d been told that some terrorists were downright idiotic - videos of bomb-making classes blowing themselves up had made us all laugh - but it wasn't something to take for granted. I peered down at him, watching closely as he walked over to the school. Two more armed men appeared, both looking grim. If there were others, they had to be inside the building.
Unless they’re turning the place into a fortress, I thought. Given our lack of heavy weapons, they could slow us down considerably if they decided to fight for every building. But do they have the numbers to do that?
I keyed my radio, again. “Viper, Stalker; the tangos appear to have occupied the schoolhouse. I say again, the tangos appear to have occupied the schoolhouse. No other buildings appear to be occupied. I say again, no other buildings appear to be occupied.”
First To Fight (The Empire's Corps Book 11) Page 14