Belinda shook her head. Every independent shipper was one bad cargo away from bankruptcy.
But even if that wasn't a problem, the nine remaining orbital stations had no slack left; they couldn't start absorbing the flow that should have gone to Orbital Station Seven. It was possible, she suspected, that one of the other orbital stations could be adapted to replace Seven, at least for a few months or years, but eventually the station would have to be replaced. Technically, the freighters could dock at the orbital towers, but she doubted that the Grand Senate would permit it. Losing an orbital tower would be far worse than losing any of the orbital stations. The thought of a tower collapsing onto Earth ... the entire planet would be rendered uninhabitable.
“We shall hope that your precautions work, Admiral,” Roland said. “Lawson, if you please?”
Belinda unhooked the palace terminal from her belt, inserted the Grand Senate’s datachip and watched as the Admiral’s commission appeared on the screen.
“Your Highness,” she said, passing it to Roland. At least the Prince could read, although he had problems with some of the longer words. “It appears to be in order.”
Roland read it slowly. “You will assume command of every military force in the solar system,” he said to the Admiral. “Are you sure that you are up to the challenge?”
Belinda realised, in a moment of horror, just what the Grand Senate had intended all along. Every military force in the solar system would include the Marine Corps, which was allowed to operate quasi-independently as long as Roland was in his minority. Roland’s confirmation would give the Grand Senate’s chosen Admiral command over the Marines, at least the ones deployed in the solar system, or an excuse to bring heavy pressure to bear against the Commandant. She needed time to think – and bring it to the attention of her superiors – but there was no time. Roland couldn't avoid signing the orders.
“Yes, Your Highness,” Valentine said. He sounded confident, at least. Belinda would have been more reassured if she hadn't known that Valentine was a military incompetent. To think that competent officers were pushed out of the service while incompetent officers with powerful patrons were allowed to remain in high positions ... she shook her head in disgust. Was the Empire even worth saving? “I will save your world.”
“Then I grant you my confirmation,” Roland said, and pressed his thumb against the sensor. It automatically scanned his thumbprint and took a tiny sample of his DNA, confirming his identity. “See to it that food supplies are restored as quickly as possible, Admiral. Our citizens need their daily bread.”
Belinda escorted the Admiral out of the receiving room and down to where the Senate Security team was waiting for him. She watched the Admiral climb into his aircar and depart, then gave the officer in charge a through chewing out for allowing the Admiral to keep his pistol. The officer looked rather surprised at her tirade, but promised to do better next time. Belinda gave him a detailed description of precisely what she would do to him – or anyone else – if it happened again and then stormed off, back to Roland’s bedroom. The Prince had already managed to shuck his regal clothes and get into something more comfortable.
“I could feel his tongue on my ass,” he said, after the maids had been waved out. “He was disgusting.”
“That's a mental image I didn't need,” Belinda said, tightly. She needed to contact the Commandant and warn him about the Grand Senate’s trick. Who knew how many other plans the Grand Senate had in mind? “What did you make of him, apart from being oily?”
“He smiled too much,” Roland said. “I wanted to kick him right in the face.”
“An understandable impulse,” Belinda said. She would have given her hind teeth to have a chance to meet Admiral Valentine in a dark alleyway. So many soldiers and Marines had died under his command – as well as innumerable citizens of Han, caught in the middle of the war he’d commanded – that it would have been a pleasure. “Get into your tennis outfit. A game of tennis will make you feel better.”
Roland snorted, but nodded as Belinda withdrew to the room she'd taken over for herself. It was very simple, despite the offers of fantastic luxury from the maids, who seemed to credit her with Roland’s reformation. Once inside, she composed a report with her implants while undressing and changing into her tennis outfit, then transmitted it to the Commandant’s personal communications code. He'd have to see what he could do to head the Grand Senate’s plan off at the pass.
“You look great,” Roland said, when she returned to his bedroom. His eyes flitted over her and then looked away. At least he’d stopped making crude passes. “When do we start learning to fight?”
“Soon,” Belinda said. The last medical report had said that Roland was improving, but he really needed two more weeks of intensive treatment before starting anything more strenuous. He really had no idea just how lucky he was. A person without the genetic enhancements spliced into his bloodline would have killed himself by now, or spent years recovering – if permanent damage was avoided. “But once you start learning, you’ll also start suffering.”
“Pain is weakness leaving the body,” Roland parroted back.
Belinda couldn't help herself. She laughed.
Chapter Sixteen
Once order was restored, the task of policing the suppressed worlds was handed over to the Civil Guard. These were, at least on paper, local defence forces that could nip future trouble in the bud. In reality, most Civil Guardsmen were recruited from the dregs of society and tended to be grossly abusive to the local population. (A handful were better trained and led, but they were very much the exception.). Unsurprisingly, the Civil Guards actually encouraged future rebellions - and also proved unable to cope when the explosion finally came. On Han, for example, no Civil Guard unit remained in existence three days after the uprising began.
-Professor Leo Caesius, The End of Empire
“What happened to our food?”
Amethyst heard the question echoing through the university as the students discussed the fall of Orbit Station Seven. It said something about how shocking the disaster was – and the sudden rise in food prices – that few seemed to believe the official story. The government claimed that it had been a terrible accident, but that seemed unlikely, not when food prices had already started to rise. Matters hadn't been helped by the story changing several times, moving from blaming the disaster on Nihilist terrorists to insisting that it was nothing more than an accident. The inability to agree on a story made it easy for rumours to spread, each one more outrageous than the last.
Like all students, Amethyst was entitled to a Basic Living Allowance, a stipend from the government that allowed her to broaden her diet – or spend on drugs and alcohol, if she saw fit. She’d often used hers to buy imported food, sharing the costs with several other students so they could enjoy proper meals. They’d had to pay the cooks too; the university’s safety rules forbade them to cook for themselves, even in hired apartments. Apparently, it was a health risk for students to cook on their own. But her last visit to a food superstore had revealed that prices for almost everything had doubled or tripled. Buying a single chicken breast, imported from the farms on Terra Nova, would consume a third of her BLA.
The students might have been ignorant – it still shocked her to realise how little she had known about the Empire, or how carefully she and the others had been prevented from learning anything useful – but they could do the maths. If prices continued to skyrocket, they wouldn't be able to eat anything, apart from algae bars. And that assumed that the prices for algae bars wouldn't start rising too. The government had officially banned hoarding – and there were limits to how much one could buy with a credit chip – but somehow she doubted that many people were going to listen. There were other ways to buy food.
But the students were angry – and they weren't alone. Amethyst walked through her classes and listened to the grumbling from other students, all firm in the belief that they should still have access to cheap food. Some
one had started a rumour that Orbit Station Seven hadn't been destroyed at all; the corporations had decided to raise food prices and had invented the story about the station’s destruction to provide justification. Another student had pointed out that they’d all seen pieces of debris falling through the atmosphere, but he’d been shouted down; those pieces of debris could be anything from litter to lunar rock bought in to create the impression that something had been destroyed.
Amethyst rolled her eyes as she heard one young female student bragging about what she’d done to secure food supplies – apparently, she’d offered her body to the storekeeper in exchange for some off-the-record supplies – and headed out of the main building. It was clear that there would be no learning today, just like yesterday and every other day since Orbit Station Seven had been destroyed. The entire student body was, for the first time, worried about its future.
She couldn't help noticing that there were more university cops on the streets as she walked back to her apartment block. The cops were normally only there to provide directions and deal with students who were too drunk to stagger home, but there were more of them now. Absently, she wondered what that meant, before pushing the issue aside. There were other problems to deal with. As soon as she got home, she checked her home terminal and discovered a message from her parents, asking if she was alright. She sighed – her parents never seemed to quite realise that she was a grown woman – and briefly composed a reply, informing them that she was fine.
Her handcom buzzed. Hooking it off her belt, Amethyst glanced at it and saw a message inviting her to visit yet another nightclub. It looked just like one of the thousands of spam messages that floated through the datanet – apparently, blocking them was illegal – but she'd been warned to keep an eye out for any messages from this particular source. Richard wanted a meeting within the hour. Grinning, Amethyst changed into something a little more suitable for clubbing – she had to look as if she was just a normal student – and headed out of the door. She couldn't help looking forward to seeing Richard again.
The university cops tossed her odd, unreadable glances as she walked past them into the nightclub district. Amethyst frowned, puzzled; she knew what it was like to attract the admiring gaze of male admirers and it didn't feel like that. Instead, the stares felt almost hostile. Certainly, she knew better than to trust the Civil Guard – her parents had hammered that lesson into her head – but the university cops had almost seemed friendly. Feeling their gazes following her, she hurried into the nightclub and found the stairs leading up to Richard’s latest meeting place. By now, she knew to put all of her electronic devices in a sealed box before entering the meeting room. Richard still ran the scanner over her before relaxing slightly and motioning for her to join the others.
“The nightclub is desperate to attract newcomers,” he said, as soon as the door was closed and locked. “They’ve actually started bringing in alcohol from the Undercity so be careful what you drink. And, for what matter, be careful what they ask in return.”
Amethyst frowned. The Undercity dwellers had their own ways of producing alcohol, but the single glass she’d tasted had been thoroughly awful – and strong enough to leave her feeling dizzy after a few sips. Who would want to drink it when they could get proper drinks from the nightclubs? But if food prices continued to skyrocket, would the price of alcoholic drinks also go upwards? The Professor’s book certainly seemed to imply that they would.
“I hate that stuff,” one of the others said. “What do they want in return?”
“Everything from trade goods to sex,” Richard said. He shrugged, then smiled grimly. “And, believe it or not, there is a point to me bringing it up. How long do you think it will be before food prices return to normal?”
No one answered.
“They won’t return to normal,” Richard said. “Right now, they are discovering that they can increase prices without facing any backlash from the population. Even after they build a replacement for Orbit Station Seven, they are still going to keep the prices high. Why should they not?”
Amethyst shuddered at the thought of spending the rest of her life eating nothing but algae bars. They might have been healthy, yet they also tasted awful, unless one spent extra on flavourings. The price of flavourings was probably also going to go up, she guessed. They were imported from off-world too.
“But there are two other issues that should be of equally great concern,” Richard continued. “Do you know why the disaster in orbit was so bad?”
“No,” Amethyst said. She knew nothing about space technology, apart from what she’d seen on entertainment flicks. Watching starships explode was fun, but it didn't actually tell her anything useful. “What happened?”
Richard shrugged. “The short version of the story is that a freighter rammed the orbital station,” he said. “That’s true, as far as I can tell. He was desperate, you see; his debts had overwhelmed him to the point where he chose to lash out rather than accept defeat and a return to the megacities. How many other people have debts that they can never pay off?”
Amethyst considered it. She’d taken out a student loan, of course, when she’d gone to the university. There had been no choice; her parents couldn't have paid for her to go without it, nor could she have earned the money to go on her own. She’d assumed that she would have no trouble finding a job afterwards that would have allowed her to pay off the debt quickly, but there were few jobs to be had. The debt would just keep mounting up until she spent the rest of her life paying it off, if she was lucky. If not ... it would haunt her children and grandchildren.
There were millions of students on Earth. How many of them were in the same boat?
“But even that isn't the worst of it,” Richard added. “Why did the loss of the orbital station cause food prices to rise?”
“Because supplies on the station were destroyed?” One of the others guessed. “Or because shipping them to Earth was suddenly more expensive?”
“Both of those,” Richard said. “And more. You see, the distribution companies invested money in the destroyed foodstuffs. Because they were destroyed, the companies cannot pay their debts by selling the foodstuffs onwards to consumers. Food prices are going up because the supply is suddenly more limited, but also because those companies need to raise money quickly to pay off their debts before their creditors catch up with them. But those creditors are going to need money themselves, so they will demand it from everyone who owes them money ...”
He shook his head. “I’ll spare you the full details, but we – my superiors – believe that a number of smaller corporations and businesses are going to collapse within the month,” he concluded. “They have debts that simply can’t be paid. When they can't pay, they will be forced to fold ...”
One of the girls leaned forward. “So what?” She demanded. “Those ... pigs overcharge for everything, anyway!”
Richard scowled at her. “Think about it,” he said. “Each of those businesses employs thousands of workers, who will suddenly be unemployed. The job market, already awash with people in desperate need of employment, will suddenly become saturated. In the meantime, those suddenly-unemployed workers will be unable to pay their debts. Their creditors will find themselves in serious trouble.”
Amethyst had a sudden vision of a series of dominos falling, one after the other, until the entire economic structure underpinning the Empire lay in ruins. The Professor’s book had warned about the debt crisis and what it was doing to the economy, but she hadn't really understood what he meant until now. It had only taken a random accident to start the dominos falling ... and God alone knew where it would end.
She grimaced as she put two and two together – and realised that they had barely scratched the surface of the looming disaster. “How long can they afford to keep handing out the BLA for us students?”
Richard winked at her, leaving her feeling oddly pleased with herself. “Good question,” he said. “How many people does the government gi
ve money to?”
Amethyst did the maths. Giving a single person money – even at the highest rate of BLA – would barely be noticed in the sheer immensity of the government’s funds. But it would mount up rapidly as more and more people were added to the scheme. Officially, if she recalled correctly, nearly two-thirds of Earth’s population were entitled to claim the BLA. A hundred credits for a student became ... maths weren't her strong point, but she thought it was somewhere around three hundred billion credits, a sum so vast that she couldn't even begin to comprehend it. And that assumed that there were no other expenses.
But there were other expenses. The government had to spend money on maintaining the basic infrastructure on Earth, paying the army of bureaucrats who kept the whole system running, paying the military who defended the Empire and imposed the Grand Senate’s will on rebellious planets ... the costs would just skyrocket. And if millions more were suddenly forced to claim the BLA ...
“Shit,” she said, numbly.
“I do love lectures on basic economics,” one of the others said. He had a thin nasal voice; Amethyst wouldn't have given him a second glance if she’d met him anywhere else. “But you promised us direct action. What are we going to do?”
“One final question,” Richard said, holding up a hand. “How many of you have heard of the Protest Coordinating Committee?”
Amethyst blinked in surprise, but nodded. The PCC was responsible for organising protest marches and coordinating them with the Civil Guard. She’d sometimes thought about trying to run for election to the committee, although it had really seemed too much like hard work. Besides, the committee had to work closely with the university staff and she knew that she would have disliked that.
The Empire's Corps: Book 03 - When The Bough Breaks Page 15