“We’d take anyone who was willing to accept the rights and responsibilities of citizenship,” Steve Stuart said. “If you wanted to be based here, you would be welcome. But I did have a different job offer in mind for you. I think I’ll need a press secretary.”
Gunter shook his head, quickly. “I hate dealing with the press,” he said. “Sorry.”
Rochester snorted. “You are the press.”
“And that’s why I hate it,” Gunter said. “Being a reporter can be fun, being someone who has to handle the reporters is far less ... interesting. But I would definitely like to move here.”
“We’ll let you know as soon as the first apartment blocks are up and running,” Rochester assured him. “Now, if you’d like to see the aliens ...?”
***
“Mr. Komura passed the test with flying colours,” Kevin said, when Steve returned to the starship. “He was something of an idealist when he joined the United Nations, but he isn't any longer. Apparently, actually dealing with the politicians and diplomats is bad for one’s hero-worship.”
“I’m not surprised,” Steve said. “Does he have any divided loyalties?”
“He’d probably have something to say about it if we moved against Japan,” Kevin said. “Other than that, he will be loyal enough to us, as long as he isn't mistreated. I explained the rules on working for us and he accepted them.”
Steve blinked. “We have rules?”
“He’s the first employee of our new State Department,” Kevin reminded him. “I would prefer not to start building a monster like the old State Department, one full of bureaucrats, leakers and people who know nothing taking the lead.”
He shrugged. “Anyway, most of the Western Governments are prepared to recognise us as being an independent state provided we share fusion technology and a handful of other technological advances with them,” he continued. “They’ve also agreed not to stand in our way as we recruit, but they’ve requested that we don’t go after serving military personnel. And they want us to buy supplies from them in bulk.”
“We’d have to do that anyway,” Steve pointed out, as he took a cup of coffee from the food producer. It tasted just right for him, but he knew there had already been plenty of complaints from civilians who were not used to military coffee. “Don’t they know that?”
“Of course they do,” Kevin said. “This is just their way of saving face. They can't stop us from doing whatever the hell we like, so they ask us for concessions we intend to give them anyway ...”
Steve rolled his eyes. “So it’s all playacting for the media,” he said. “Wonderful.”
“I seem to recall mom smacking you for deciding you didn't need manners any longer,” Kevin said, snidely. “Or have you forgotten her lecture?”
Steve felt his cheeks heat. Their mother had been strict, homeschooling her children in-between the hours they worked on the farm. Steve still recalled the thrashing she’d given him after he’d been unjustifiably rude to one of her guests ... and how she’d explained, afterwards, that manners were the lubricant that kept society together. If everyone said what they meant, all the time, society would break down. Or so she’d said. It hadn't been until he’d joined the Marines that Steve had truly understood what she’d meant.
“It's the same basic idea,” Kevin explained. “They ask for concessions, we grant them ... and it looks as though they got something out of the deal. It will soothe their pride.”
He paused. “I did have a set of private conversations with the President,” he added. “He’s having problems with the Senate. None of them are very happy about us just ... taking the starship and setting up on our own. A few have even threatened to revoke our citizenships.”
“Fuck them,” Steve said, sharply.
“It's a valid point,” Kevin said. “You might want to consider renouncing yours anyway, along with the rest of us. Just by being American, we cause problems for the American government, which gets the blame for our existence.”
Steve snorted. “I’m sure the British didn't get the blame for anything George Washington did after independence,” he countered.
“Washington was President of an independent America,” Kevin said. “He was no longer even remotely connected to Britain.”
He sighed. “Overall, the President thinks we’ll get recognition, as long as the US clearly benefits from the arrangement, but he would like a couple of other concessions.”
Steve rolled his eyes. “What does he want?”
“First, he wants us to continue the antiterrorist program,” Kevin said. “We would have done that anyway, I think, but this will make it official. Second, he wants us to send medics to the United States, armed with alien medical technology. If we helped people who needed it, we would build up a lot of goodwill.”
Steve made a mental note to check who the President wanted them to help, then nodded. “I think Mariko would chop off my balls if I refused,” he said. “Very well. We will give the President his bones.”
“An excellent decision,” Kevin said.
Steve eyed him darkly.
“The bad news,” Kevin continued, “is that almost all of the non-democratic states have been less keen to recognise us. China and Russia are taking the lead, but much of the Middle East is united in its disapproval and, between them, they might be able to delay formal UN recognition. The bigger nations are worried about the effects of the dongles, the smaller nations are worried about losing oil revenues. And then there’s the request for asylum we received.”
Steve blinked. “Asylum?”
“There’s a Christian in Egypt who is facing official displeasure,” Kevin said. “He wants out. And he won't be the last one, either. There are millions of people around the world who would want to get out of non-democratic states.”
“I see,” Steve said. “And they won’t let them go?”
“Not without being pushed,” Kevin agreed. “You will need to worry about that, Steve.”
They both looked up as the hatch hissed open, revealing a tired-looking Wilhelm.
“Good news,” Wilhelm said. “We’re in business.”
Steve smiled. “We are?”
“So far, we’ve got over two hundred companies, mainly small technological and computing companies like my own, applying to set up shop on the lunar surface,” Wilhelm said. “Some of them are actually quite big, really; placing their factories on the moon would give us a growing industrial base. A number of bigger corporations have also expressed interest in moving some of their operations to the moon, but they want more details of what we can offer them first. I think they’ll expect first glance at any unlocked alien technology.”
He paused. “But many of the smaller companies have hundreds of brilliant people working for them,” he added. “Some of those people are even on the list of people I want to recruit.”
Steve had to smile. “It will still take months to get them to the moon,” he pointed out. “And what about their personnel?”
“Oh, nothing is finalised yet,” Wilhelm said. “But they’re quite keen to move ahead.”
He hesitated, noticeably. “We’ve also had literally thousands of requests for server space,” he continued. “As the alien servers are capable of holding billions upon billions of terabytes, this isn't a problem. But it’s raised a whole new problem – two of them, in fact.”
Kevin smirked. “How many of those requests come from pornographic sites?”
“I’m shocked you could imagine using the internet for porn,” Wilhelm said. He looked down at the deck, irked. “Half of them, as it happens.”
Kevin’s smirk grew wider. “We could have some fun sampling it.”
Steve had a more practical concern. “Is this likely to prove a problem?”
“We have become, to all intents and purposes, a data haven,” Wilhelm said. “Quite apart from the porn, what happens when someone stores criminal or terrorist information on our servers?”
He shrugged. “I’ve copie
d the user guidelines from the servers I used to run in Switzerland,” he added. “Child pornography is completely banned. All other pornographic material is to be stored in one particular subset of the servers, so they can be excluded from search results fairly easily. Some of what we’ve been offered is ... sickening.”
Steve wasn't surprised. He’d served in Iraq and seen Iraqi businessmen offering American and British soldiers pornography that would have been shocking in America, let alone in what was meant to be a strictly Islamic country. There hadn't been anything remotely tasteful about it, insofar as porn could ever be tasteful. He’d never been sure if the Iraqis genuinely did like watching men having sex with animals or if someone was trying to sneer at the outsiders by selling them disgusting porn.
“Criminal operations – and I include mass spamming in this – and terrorist operations are completely banned,” Wilhelm added. “I’d prefer not to get into a legal tussle over what defines a criminal act, particularly as we don't have a working legal code yet, so everyone who sets up a website on one of our servers has to accept the user guidelines. Anyone who breaks them afterwards can get a hammer dropped on him.”
“Good work,” Steve said. “What else do we need to know?”
“There are millions of requests for lunar accommodation, if not citizenship,” Wilhelm said. “I’ve had to hire new staff just to work my way through them. So far, anyone who might be useful to help build the colony has been forwarded to Charles, while everyone else is being examined on a case-by-case basis. We’ve got several hundred requests from authors who wish to live on the moon and work there – and they can, as long as they have access to the internet. Once we have the accommodation blocks up and running ...”
“Quarters won’t be very nice, at least for a few years,” Kevin commented.
Wilhelm shrugged. “I don't think that matters,” he countered. “They want to be part of something great. And they also want to get their foot in on the ground floor.”
He smiled. “Speaking of which, we have several hundred thousand requests for tours of the Apollo landing sites,” he added. “If we charged them each ten thousand dollars, we’d have much more cash to spend on Earth. Hell, give us a few months and we would probably drag the world economy back out of the dumps.”
Steve understood. He hadn't been able to resist the temptation to go take a look at where Neil Armstrong had set foot on the lunar surface either. The human tech looked primitive, compared to the technology they’d captured from the Horde, but it had been built without alien assistance. That, according to the databanks, wasn't entirely common in the galaxy. A large number of races had bought or stolen spacefaring technology from other races. Not all of them had mastered it for themselves.
Us too, I suppose, he thought. But we will figure out how the technology works and how to improve it.
“Keep working on it,” he said. “Maybe we can detail a shuttle to transporting tourists to the moon.”
“We should,” Wilhelm said. “We need ready cash, Steve. Right now, we don’t have as much as we will need in the future.”
Steve rolled his eyes. By any standards, his government was the most powerful one in the entire solar system. But they were also among the poorest, at least for the moment.
“Kevin, I want you to work on Captain Perry,” he said. They’d renamed one of the captured starships, as its original name sounded thoroughly absurd to human ears. “Ideally, I want you ready to depart within the week.”
“I understand,” Kevin said. He sounded both excited and terrified. Steve couldn't blame him. Neil Armstrong had stepped onto the moon, but Kevin would be flying well outside the edges of the solar system. “I won’t let you down.”
“Just remember that you’re representing humanity,” Steve warned. “Don’t let any of us down.”
Chapter Twenty-One
Captain Perry, Earth Orbit
“You don’t look a bit like Captain Kirk,” Carolyn Harper said.
Kevin rolled his eyes. A week of hard labour had cleaned out most of the starship and allowed the human crew to move in, leaving them all tired and irritable. Edward Romford and his men would provide a security team, but Carolyn and her fellow scientists had their own role to play. If they were lucky, they might be able to understand the theoretical basis of the alien FTL drive and then start working out how to duplicate it.
“That’s good to hear,” he said. “Who do I look like?”
Carolyn considered him for a long moment. “Truthfully, I'd be hard put to say just who you looked like,” she said, finally. “That fake Native American from Voyager?”
“Thank you,” Kevin said, crossly. He’d only watched a handful of Voyager episodes, the ones that had featured the Borg. Discovering that alien technology could easily create something like the Borg Collective had led to a few sleepless nights. “I don’t want to act like him.”
He snorted, then pretended to examine Carolyn. “You look like ...”
“Shut up,” Carolyn said, without heat. “I’m not the one playing starship commander.”
Kevin had to smile. Carolyn looked, in no particular order, young, pretty and nerdy. Her blonde hair was tied up in a shapeless bun, but he had the distinct impression that she would clean up nicely if she ever let her hair down. But from what he'd read of her file, she’d probably deliberately cultivated the nerdy look to ensure she was taken seriously at her former company. Like most of the others, she’d had one look at the alien technology and practically begged to join the team. It was the opportunity of a lifetime.
“I suppose,” he said. Perhaps, during the month they would be spending in transit, he would make a pass at her, just to see how she responded. Or maybe it would be unprofessional. It wasn't as if they didn't have plenty of other entertainments. “But you’re playing Mr. Spock.”
The banter came to an end as Commander Rodney Jackson entered the bridge. He was a Royal Navy submarine commander, recently retired after thirty years in the navy. Kevin, looking for someone with experience of long voyages in completely isolated ships, had snapped him up like a shot. Once Jackson had checked with the British Government, he'd accepted the post of XO without hesitation. It too was the opportunity of a lifetime.
“We have everything stowed onboard, sir,” he said. If he resented reporting to someone who wasn’t even a naval officer he kept it to himself. Like most submariners Kevin had met, he was short, stocky and permanently calm. “And the starship appears ready for departure.”
Kevin nodded. Like Shadow Warrior, Captain Perry’s systems were largely controlled through the interface, but there were also command consoles on the bridge. It was astonishing just how many training programs there were, programs that had allowed the human crew to practice operating the ship time and time again until they were far more capable than the Horde’s pilots. Kevin had long since lost his astonishment at just how ignorant the Horde really was of such matters. But it was an advantage the human race desperately needed. The Horde still possessed far more starships than their human enemies.
“Very good,” he said.
Choosing potential trade goods had been tricky. The alien captive – currently in a cabin on the lower decks – had recommended weapons, particularly ones that could be reconfigured for non-human hands, so Kevin had loaded the starship with hundreds of different weapon designs. They had also picked several items of human technology, various movies that might be worth selling and a handful of food and drinks. And they’d even taken several bottles of maple syrup.
But there was no way to know what, if anything, they’d be able to sell them for.
They had recovered some galactic currency from the Horde, but it was difficult to say just how much it was actually worth. The alien rate of exchange fluctuated constantly, while the more isolated planets seemed to prefer trade goods to currency that might be worthless by the time it was shipped to somewhere it could actually be spent. Kevin knew that, if they failed to make some sales, they might have to star
t offering human mercenaries, purely to build up a stockpile of galactic currency. But that offered its own risks. What if one alien power chose to take its irritation with the mercenaries out on Earth?
He grinned as his crew took their places. “Open hailing frequencies,” he ordered. “I want to speak to Shadow Warrior.”
It was nearly two minutes before Steve’s holographic face appeared in front of him. “Kevin,” he said. “Are you ready to depart?”
“Yes,” Kevin said, flatly. A week of intensive effort had left them all exhausted, but they would have a month to recover while the starship was in transit. According to the databanks, the risk of interception was very low. “We’ve said our last goodbyes, written our last letters ... we’re ready, sir.”
He sobered. Never, not since radio had been invented, had a human crew been so far out of touch. Sailing in a wooden ship had run the risk of simply never being seen again, but modern technology had removed most of those risks, even as it made it possible for politicians and bureaucrats to peer over the ship’s commander’s shoulder. It was quite possible, he knew, that Captain Perry could set out on her epic voyage and never be seen again. There were pirates out there as well as interstellar terrorists and great powers waging outright war against their opponents.
A Learning Experience Page 21