Armored Tears

by Mark Kalina

  "Well," Aran said, shaking his head, "that's the thing. There are no social services. Or not from the government. Some private charities run medical centers for people who can't afford to pay for medical care. Same for shelter and food. And education. There's a coherent system for all of them. Academic credits, grades, medical records, all that sort of thing is pretty well organized... But none of them are run by the Arcadian government."

  "So what does the government do for the people?" Ulla asked.

  "A few things. They run the Defense Force, like I said, and there's a thing called the Office of Standards, but all that does is offer reports on the performance of private service providers. It has no actual authority over them, though. There's a very basic justice system, with courts for dispute resolution and some police for criminal investigations. And that's about it...

  "And there's no taxes," he added, with a smile at his colleague's probable response.

  "That's... not possible... is it? This place is insane!" Ulla said, visibly upset.

  "There are Government fees on some services," Aran explained. "A Defense Force fee, and a Police and Courts fee. They're easy to avoid, but most people make a point of paying them. And the government accepts donations. And the crazy part is, they get them.

  "Their government is democratic, mind you," Aran went on, "after a fashion. And disturbing. Most things here are. Anyone can vote, so long as they've served in the Arcadian Defense Force. That's the only requirement, and just about everybody serves. It's not really conscription, though. There's no law forcing people to serve, though I understand that there's a lot of social pressure. And a lot of the private social services won't deal with you if you avoid serving."

  "So non-violent people are disenfranchised and shunned? That's barbaric!"

  "Well, they say that Defense Force service isn't always military per se. Lots of infrastructure work," Aran said.

  "Oh. Well, that makes sense," Ulla said. "Social work obligations."

  "Not the way you'd think, though."

  "Yes," she smiled, "I'm beginning to expect that. But the whole thing sounds insane."

  "Yes," Aran agreed. "But like I said, somehow they make it work. And that's what I'm here to get the story on. The how."

  "Yes," she agreed. "I'm glad my job is simpler. Just two interviews with biotech leaders."

  "I have to wonder, though," she told him a few minutes later, as they walked into a long concourse where automated luggage handlers were unloading the arriving train cars, "why the Arcadians put up with this government of theirs. Why don't they demand... I don't know, civilized norms and proper social services?"

  "Well..." Aran said. "I asked some Arcadians the same thing, last time I was here. If anything, though, they think their government does too much. Some of them think it should just run the Defense Force, and let the rest be handled by private industries. And a few of them want the Defense Force run privately as well."

  Ulla only stared.

  "How much of their history do you know?" Aran asked. "And for that matter, how much do you want me to bore you with?"

  "Believe me, Aran," Ulla said, smiling again, "you're not boring me."

  He smiled back.

  "As for history," she went on, "I did some reading. I know the first exploration gate to Arcadia was opened in 2039, and that the surface gate was established in 2047. Then there was the incident in 2061, when the Arcadians slaughtered a bunch of refugees. And the war with the UEN in 2070, when they captured the gate."

  "Right. Well, the Arcadians have a different view of it."

  "Oh, right, of course," Ulla said, glancing up with a slightly nervous expression. "I'm sorry. I should be more careful with what I..."

  "No. Nothing like that. We can talk freely. No monitoring at all. And no laws about what we say, either. Almost no rules at all, really. The amazing thing is, even with no rules, most Arcadians I've met are polite."

  Ulla frowned and furrowed her brow.

  "But as for history," Aran went on, "well, keep in mind that most of the initial colonists, more than half, came from the Federal States of North America after the Emergency Constitutional Amendments of 2047... or was it still the 'United States of America,' back then? Anyway, I guess it was good timing for them, since the Arcadia gate opened that year in the Mojave.

  "A lot of the others came from... well, from all over; anti-Euro-Federation types from England, national independence hold-outs from Poland, people with anti-unification family ties from Taiwan, Indian subcontinent separatists... and probably a bunch more I'm forgetting. But all of them were the same basic sort.

  "The people who went to Arcadia were the sort who were so desperate to get away from... well, pretty much from what we would call modern life... that they were willing to live on a new world that had nothing much except sand, rocks and breathable air. Everything that we take for granted... government-managed medical care, social behavior laws, universal public security surveillance, government-supervised economics... they were trying to get away from it. I doubt any of them could have passed a current mandatory mental stability test.

  "You have to figure, people like that aren't going to be asking for more government programs."

  The hotel room's furnishings were a bit spare, and there were water-cost meters on the shower and sinks, but it was still, Aran thought, quite nice enough; scrupulously clean, spacious and with a comfortable bed. Which was a good thing.

  It was hot, though, even inside, with climate control. He remembered that it had been hot last time too. Still, it was no worse than Northern Australia or Jakarta. Ulla was probably going to feel it more. Frankfurt wasn't known for its hot weather.

  "Mein Gott, it's warm," Ulla said, from the bed. "I'm not sure I even want to get dressed again."

  Aran smiled. "Well, please don't on my account," he said.

  Ulla grinned, an expression that stirred Aran, even more than her nakedness did.

  "You planned to get me into bed from the first, didn't you," she asked, getting up and walking, naked, up to him.

  "Well, yes," he admitted.

  "Good," she said.

  From the hotel to the Government Mall was only a couple of kilometers, but neither of them wanted to walk. Ulla had an appointment to speak with the first of her biotech contacts that afternoon, and with time on her hands, she'd asked to come along with Aran to help his research, and even offered to help. He'd taken her up on that, of course.

  Downtown Redstone was nothing like a major city back home, but it was recognizably a city of sorts, with an estimated population approaching half-a-million. It showed no real signs of urban planning, but none the less managed to look fairly tidy, in a sprawled-out manner. Oddly, it had no visible slums.

  The buildings tended to be a mix. Some were low and sprawling "malls," acting, to all intents and purposes, like indoor streets, each one with many individual shops, houses or offices. Others were simple, smaller, isolated structures, with the slightly round-edged look of rammed-earth construction. Almost all of the buildings were painted a brilliant white and roofed with solar power arrays. Very few buildings were more than two stories tall, and from his previous visit, Aran knew that a house was more likely to have an underground level than a second floor.

  Shade palms and acacia trees —what he would have called wattle trees, back in Australia— lined the streets, along with borders of bright, colorful flowers, often planted in structures that looked like fountains, save that they had sprays of flowers instead of water.

  The streets themselves weren't paved in any conventional sense. Instead they looked to have been made by grinding shallow routes into the exposed, reddish-colored bedrock on which the town stood. The result was smooth and even, but looked odd. Aran suspected that red color of the bedrock stone probably explained the city's name.

  There were a fair number of cars; mostly off-road electrics of an older vintage, but some alcohol burners as well; the sort of vehicles you'd expect to see in Africa or Centra
l Asia, though these looked to be much better condition than he'd expect to see in places like that; few looked new and many looked hard-used, but none looked dilapidated.

  And it was hot. The orange-red sun —Ravi, the locals called it, after a Hindu solar deity— loomed vast overhead and the air felt like a blow-torch.

  "Mein Gott, es ist wie ein Ofen," Ulla hissed, as the outside heat struck them.

  Both reporters were wearing loose shirts and shorts, and broad sun hats, but even so the heat was like a hammer.

  They made it to a taxi stand, an open-sided structure with a solar-panel roof that gave welcome shade, and looked for a call button or an interface call-code for their wrist-phones. As Aran had half-expected, there was none, but a knobby-wheeled car —a little, white Toyota styled like something out of the 2030s and not in any way marked as a taxi— pulled up almost immediately.

  "Where are you heading?" asked the driver, a pretty, freckle-faced young woman with short red hair, dressed in shorts and a halter-top. Aran couldn't help but notice the vivid hazel eyes, or that her body was toned like an athlete's and marked with several extensive tattoos.

  Ulla seemed to notice him noticing, which made him wince a bit behind his smile, but the German reporter's gaze suddenly snapped to what the red-head had in a rack between the two front seats of her car; a short but bulky looking gun, with a military-style look to it.

  Ulla's eyes went wide.

  "Hey," the woman asked again, "where are you headed? Do you two need a lift or not?"

  "You have a gun," Ulla managed to say.

  "Oh, the zipper? Yeah. You two must be Earthers, huh? Well, if it makes you feel better, I'm in the Defense Force," the redhead said, which seemed to relax Ulla a bit.

  "Now, do you need a lift or not?"

  "Name's Bernie," the red-head girl said as they climbed into the back seats. "Sergeant Bernadette Polawski, if you want to get all formal. I was going to ask standard taxi rates, but since you're Earthers, I figure you're kinda like guests. Besides which, I'm headed for the Government Mall myself. So, no charge."

  "But, you're not a taxi, are you?" Ulla asked.

  "I am now," Bernadette —Bernie— replied with a grin as the car pulled away.

  9.

  General Bannerman nodded as one of his aides handed him the code-stick and he plugged it in to his data tablet. Everything about this operation was secret and as secure as the UEN Peace Force could make it, and that meant reports came on discreet code-sticks and not through the data-cloud, no matter how good the security was supposed to be.

  A quick look through the report made him smile. For once, at least one part of the plan was on schedule. All twenty-five of the requested heavy lift vehicles had been handed over by the Chinese, and for a wonder, twenty-four of them checked out in working condition. Since the plan needed a minimum of twenty-two launchers, he was two ahead.

  His mind recoiled a bit from the shear cost of launching twenty-four of the huge Chinese cargo-rockets. But that cost was no business of his. He had his orders.

  The loading operation would be tricky, he mused. The Peace Force troops selected for the operation were not going to be bringing their own equipment. Instead, they'd be using equipment from stock-piles closer to the launch sites in China. But Bannerman knew that, even if he used as much equipment as he could from stockpiles in China, a substantial overseas transfer of equipment would still be needed. Another factor that would have to be hidden from prying eyes. Surprise was going to be utterly, utterly crucial if the mission was to have any chance of success.

  The UEN Aerospace Command would, of course, be in charge of the launches and orbital maneuvers. For that matter, one of their precious "orbital security vehicles" —space warships in all but name— would be going along on the mission.

  If the mission succeeded, Bannerman mused, it would be one of the greatest military operations in history. The chance to command it was something that no military man worth his salt would pass up. If it failed, he knew, he'd be dead. One way or another. At this level of endeavor, the Permanent Oversight Council of the UEN was simply not going to accept a living scape-goat.

  And the plan was already inexorably in motion. The reinforcement divisions had been relocated to the FSNA and the cover of training exercises was not going last long. And special operations troops had already been infiltrated among the refugees, putting the irregular forces portion of the plan into motion in a way that would be almost impossible to call back.

  Bannerman wondered briefly what this operation would come to be called, when it was written down in the history books. The formal name, Project Marble, was meaningless and without feeling. If it worked, Bannerman thought... or even if it didn't... a proper name might well be something like "The First Interstellar War."

  10.

  Bernie parked her car and stepped out into the pleasantly stinging heat of the winter day along with the two Earthers. They hadn't said much, except that they were reporters, which made her both curious and suspicious.

  She sometimes read articles from Earth news services. Articles on technology or entertainment could be OK, though there were always the obligatory nods to whatever political correctness was being enforced that week. Articles on society or politics tended to be indistinguishable from UEN propaganda.

  On the other hand, the man, Aran, he was called, was from the Pacific Alliance, a group that was, if not an ally, then at least on speaking terms with Arcadia. Since its member nations were still part of the UEN, the Pacific Alliance couldn't formally recognize Arcadia, but informally, there was trade and even diplomatic contacts... in the guise of "academic envoys" and "private trade representatives."

  The woman, on the other hand, was from Germany, in Federal Europe, a place that refused to recognize Arcadia's existence at all.

  Not that it mattered. Bernie had a pretty simple job to do at the Government Mall, before she reported back to her infantry unit for another month of refugee camp patrols and operational training. She was there to pick up the latest Diplomatic Branch briefing for the latest political situation among the southern refugee camps. As was the usual practice in the Defense Force, the data was hard-copy only; the UEN's info-warfare resources and technology were taken very seriously in the Defense Force.

  Given that fact, the sudden appearance of two Earther "reporters" seemed more than a bit suspicious to her. The Diplomatic Branch operative she spoke to agreed.

  "Very well, Sergeant. Good work bringing me this. I'm not in your chain of command, but if you'll take a suggestion, I'd like to make one," the man said.

  "Sure, sir," Bernie replied. "I can listen, anyway."

  "Right," the man smiled. He was white-haired, but still not bad looking. Too old for her, she judged, but not by so much as to make his obvious appreciation of her looks unpleasant or insulting.

  "What I'd like to suggest is, you keep these two 'reporters' under observation. Offer to drive them around. I'll have this briefing sent over to your commanding officer by someone else. And I'll have my messenger tell your C.O. about why you're late, too."

  "You want me to play spy?" Bernie asked.

  "Yes," the man replied, looking not the least embarrassed. "It's pure luck, but you're in the right place at the right time. Make friends with these two. Show them around. You said the German was reporting on biotech? Fine. Drive her to whatever biotech-company offices she wants. But keep them away from the Government Mall, and keep an eye on who they talk to."

  "I've got zero training as a spy, you know," Bernie replied

  "Understood," the old man said. "But you're in the right place at the right time, and that's worth everything in this sort of game. Besides which, they might not even be UEN agents. They could just be reporters."

  "And you'll clear it with my C.O.?" Bernie asked dubiously.

  "Yes. For that matter, you mentioned that the Australian was doing a story on Arcadian society? Well, you can offer to show him the social influence of the Defense Force on o
ur way of life. That might spark his interest. I'll have my messenger warn your C.O. to expect foreign civilian 'guests,' and you can take both of them with you into the field. If they are spies, I doubt they came here to spy on an Infantry Corps framer company."

  Bernie took a deep breath. She could, she knew, tell this Diplomatic Branch operative to take a hike. But... well, she'd joined the Defense Force to protect Arcadia. Some recruits joined just because it was the thing to do, or because they wanted to avoid the shame of being an opt-out, but for her, protecting Arcadia meant something. Unlike most Arcadians, she'd been born on Earth. Her family had made it over by means of guile and bribery, and had never looked back. Arcadia had given her family freedom, and she saw her service in the Defense Force as a chance to give something back. Which meant, if this spy-game bullshit was what needed doing....

  "OK," she said. "I'll do it. But you'd better square this with my commanding officer. I worked damn hard to earn my stripes, and I don't want to be busted down a rank for missing a deployment order."

  "It's no trouble," the Arcadian woman told them, when she offered to drive Ulla to the biotech companies. "It turns out I have some leave time, and a chance to play tour guide is kinda cool. Besides, we don't get many Earthers visiting here like this. And people on Earth have all kinds of crazy ideas about Arcadia. So, it's actually pretty cool if I get a chance to show you around. Maybe explain some things. It's not much like back on Earth, and people who aren't used to it can misunderstand stuff real easy."

  "Are you from Earth?" Aran asked, picking up a hint in the redhead's words.

  "Yeah, originally. But I was a kid when my family left. I've grown up Arcadian. On the other hand, I remember Earth. Poland, actually. Krakow. So I can maybe be sorta like a translator, or something."

  "That's very kind of you, Miss... I mean Sergeant Polawski, but..." Ulla started to say.