Picking Up The Pieces (Martial Law)

by Christopher Nuttall

  “That’s something that people have been arguing for hundreds of years without ever resolving,” I explained. “Let me start by giving you some history.

  “Originally, wars were fought between nations on Earth,” I started. “By the time the industrial age began, the nations had evolved various codes of conduct for wars, even the most savage. There were few significant terrorist groups in those days and they lacked the ability to make a real impact. As nationalism evolved, occupying armies discovered that they were harassed from behind their lines by civilians and reacted harshly. The civilian insurgent wore no uniform. He blended into the population and only emerged from his cloak when the fighting began. He was, in short, a nightmare.

  “And so it became legal to shoot insurgents on sight,” I continued. “There might have been laws to protect soldiers who were captured – although not all of them were honoured – but insurgents received no legal protection. This actually became more of an issue during the early Space Age, when insurgents who operated on a global scale waged war against the various nations and later the United Nations. The insurgents hid in nations that provided shelter, forcing their enemies to invade or bomb those nations, causing massive civilian casualties. One reason why the laws are so merciless towards insurgents is that their actions always cause innocents to die.

  “And yet, as you say, they have little choice,” I said. “So, what is the difference between a resistance fighter on Heinlein, or here, fighting against the UN…and one of the Communists who you just fought?”

  “The UN forces were the bad guys?” Elsa asked. “We’re the good guys?”

  There were some chuckles. “That’s not a complete answer,” I said. “You’re right – we were the good guys, yet they didn’t agree with that. The Communists thought that we were all out to crush and oppress the working class. What makes their answer any less valid than yours?”

  “We won,” Jörgen said.

  I smiled. “It’s true that any question of what is legal or not is commonly settled by the victor, who gets to write the history books,” I said. “However, the real answer is more fundamental than yours.”

  “They could have voted the government out of power,” one of the Captains said, slowly. “They could have attempted to get elected into power, yet they choose to rise up against the government instead. They didn’t act within the constitution.”

  “Bingo,” I said. “They had the ability to get their people elected; hell, Daniel Singh was elected to the last Council. They could have tried to convince people to vote for them, but instead they chose to rise up and overthrow the government by force. There was no choice, but to slap them down as hard as possible.

  “On Heinlein, by contrast, the UN had removed the government and was ruling the planet directly,” I added. “It had closed businesses and shops, harassed people in the streets and generally caused vast damage even without the ongoing insurgency. Heinlein couldn’t – wouldn’t – give the UN what it wanted to loot from the planet. There was no choice left, but to resist.

  “Answer me another question,” I continued. “Three hundred years ago, the Government of the United States of America faded away and handed over effective power to the United Nations. During the final years of American independence, with tens of thousands fleeing the planet for New Washington, Kennedy and Austin Star – the American-ethnic worlds – some of their army leaders considered a coup to remove a government they regarded as corrupt and treacherous. Later events proved them right, but they didn’t move. Were they right?

  “On one hand, there was the fact that they were sworn to uphold the American constitution, yet they were seeing their country falling apart right in front of them. The brain drain was taking all of the Americans who might have rebuilt the country’s infrastructure and moving them to other planets, rioting was spreading through the cities, soldiers and policemen were being attacked in the streets, money was worthless and no one believed in America any longer.

  “On the other hand, they were sworn to uphold the Constitution and the government in power had been legally elected according to the rules. There were no legal grounds for removing the government, even though it was treacherous, corrupt and far worse. The only thing they could have done would have been to send troops to the White House and Congress, arrest the Congressmen and assume power for themselves, yet their forces might not obey such blatantly illegal orders. If they tried and succeeded, they’d have to fix the mess; if they failed, they’d disgrace their institutions.

  “They did nothing, and America fell. Did they do the right thing?”

  I held up a hand before any of them could answer. “I won’t expect you to answer that question now,” I said. “I will expect each of you to think about the issue I raised, read round the subject – after all, you can’t trust what I told you – and then present me with an answer next week, when we next meet. You may want to bear in mind that no one knew for sure what was coming, or why. They lacked the hindsight we have hundreds of years in the future.

  “Any questions?”

  “Something I was wondering about,” Elsa said. “Why is it permitted to drink, but not to take drugs?”

  I smiled. “An interesting change in subject,” I said. “It’s quite simple. If someone renders themselves unfit for duty they also render themselves a stay in the guardhouse. A man can drink some alcohol without affecting his judgement, but hard drugs are something different…and, in a combat situation, even alcohol would be banned.

  “I hope to see some interesting answers next week,” I added. “Dismissed!”

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  There are as many different political points of view as there are fish in the sea. It is therefore obvious that what one political party may believe to be just, or necessary, isn’t what all of the other parties will believe is right. This becomes more pronounced during times of crisis, where the governing party will attempt to solve the crisis in line with its ideology.

  -Army Manual, Heinlein

  “We have a crisis on our hands,” Frida Holmqvist said, as the new Council settled into their seats. I watched with some concern from the public bench. Frida had invited me as an observer, but it was clear that I wasn’t the only one. There were a dozen reporters and several known celebrities in the audience, the former probably under the impression that the latter supported the government. “We have thousands of people out of work and starving in the streets. We have an infrastructure that has been badly damaged and needs to be rebuilt. We have massive shortages of almost everything we need. We are, in short, in serious trouble.”

  My eyes swept the Council as she continued to speak. Frida’s Council now numbered eleven after a handful of emergency elections had been held. The remainder had represented areas that were now torn and devastated by the fighting, the population so hopelessly scrambled that elections would be impossible – or at least that was the excuse. I couldn’t help, but notice that the newly-elected Councillors were all Progressive Party candidates, and that the other areas might well vote against a Progressive candidate. It wasn’t too surprising, either; a month after the insurrection had been ended, the Progressive Government had failed to improve their condition. Frida had to find that intolerable. It was quite possible that she was stalling long enough to make major changes as, with eleven Councillors, she had a quorum.

  On the other hand, I decided, four of the Councillors were hardly Progressive Party. Two of them were Conservatives, a third was from the Independence Party – which effectively represented the Mountain Men – and a fourth was an independent. The Liberty Party had lost all of its candidates and, with the President injured and out of the picture, might well collapse completely. If they fell, where would their remaining voters go? They might go to either of the two main parties…but it might not matter. Frida had near-absolute power in her hands.

  “Desperate times require desperate measures,” she continued, speaking for the crowd. No one on the Council looked cheerful, but some looke
d happier than others. The Conservatives, in particular, were looking wary. I guessed that no one had told them what was about to happen. “Our planet is on the verge of collapse. It therefore behoves us to take a good look at what we need to do and then do it, regardless of our sensibilities. There are few choices and none of them are good.”

  She went on in that vein for nearly twenty minutes before getting to the point. “First, we have millions – yes, millions – of starving citizens,” she said. “The price of food is rising astronomically and the starving men and women are starting to die. That is unacceptable. I am therefore proposing a government-organised cap on the price of food so that it is priced at a level the poor and dispossessed can afford. This cap will be defined by a committee and all farmers will be bound by its decision.

  “Second, we have to rebuild a vast amount of our industry,” she continued. “The shortage of trained personnel has made it harder to rebuild, therefore I am proposing that we conscript trained personnel into a pool that will allow them to be focused on the most vital parts of our economy. The vast shortages in farming equipment, vehicles, transport systems and mining gear must be solved, the sooner the better. The only way to do that is to rebuild our industry. Further, the trained personnel will impart their skills to others as quickly as possible, by serving as instructors of their disciplines.

  “Third, we need to boost our off-world currency reserves in order to purchase items we require to rebuild our industry and develop an indigenous hydrogen cloud-scooping industry,” Frida concluded. “Towards that end, I am requesting that the mines double their output of rare metals and other items we can sell to obtain off-world currency.

  “Finally, in order to give the dispossessed masses something to do, I am creating a massive job-creation scheme that will ensure that everyone who wants a job can have one,” she concluded. “We have much that needs to be done to rebuild and the dispossessed will aid in that rebuilding. We will provide training and guidance for those who want to seek a job, while creating a security blanket for those who are unable to find a position. No one will starve on our world. Svergie is a rich world and there is more than enough for us all. We will create programs that will ensure that everyone gets their fair share.”

  There was a long pause. “I hope that you will do the right thing and ensure that these proposals are signed into law as soon as possible,” Frida added. “There is no time to waste.”

  I watched the Councillors carefully. The Conservatives didn’t look happy now that the hammer had fallen and the Independence Party candidate looked furious. I wondered who would be the first to speak as I turned my attention to the reporters…and realised, for the first time, that Frida had sewn it all up neatly. The reporters were known friends and allies of the Progressive Party and would present her proposals in the best possible light. I doubted that it would be so easy to actually implement them. Svergie’s problem was that it had too many untrained people and not enough trained people. She might be right about trying to train others, but I doubted that they could train enough to make a significant difference.

  Frida herself looked confident, and I understood why. As Acting President and a Progressive Party Councillor, she could be certain of getting the legislation through the government and into law. In a very real sense, she’d be giving herself the legislation to sign. Her supporters would back her up, of course, while her detractors wouldn’t be able to raise the votes to stop her. On the face of it, her plan looked workable, but I knew better. It was likely to be a disaster. The complex economic problems facing Svergie couldn’t be solved by seemingly-simple measures.

  “I would like to speak against the…proposals,” Councillor Erik Henriksson said, finally. His voice was almost a hiss. The Independence Party would not take the proposals lying down. “I will focus on the mining issue. The mines are producing as much as they can produce and have been doing so for years, even before the UN left. We lack the heavy equipment required to expand the mines and even if we had it, it would be hard to expand them without causing a major ecological disaster.

  “And then there is another issue,” he continued. “Your proposals are simple; you propose that the miners work harder and you city-dwellers get all the profit. You propose the same for the farmers. You may even propose the same for those who try to keep the sprawling cities running. You are asking us to do the impossible. We barely benefit from what we do now. Our benefits will not increase if we increase production, will they? We simply don’t have the manpower or the equipment to do as you request.

  “You may suggest training up more men for the mines,” he concluded. “You should know better than that. It takes months to train a newcomer so that he doesn’t kill himself the first time he goes down the mines. Training is individualistic and very hard. We reject hundreds of men and women for working in the mines. We could not train miners on an assembly line. You are, again, asking the impossible. We cannot give you what you want.”

  I shivered, despite myself. The last time I had heard anyone speaking in that tone of voice, people had died. The tribal leader on Botany had intended to wipe the UN garrison – which I had commanded at the time – off the face of the planet and had come damn close to succeeding. Councillor Erik Henriksson had the same tone…and the name of his Party was not the Independence Party for nothing. I had a nasty suspicion that all hell was about to break loose.

  “And yet we must feed our population,” Frida pointed out, “or would you have them starve for lack of food and prosperity.”

  “We did not ask for them to be dumped here,” Erik snapped, angrily. “We did not ask for them to be forced on us when we were weak and could barely feed ourselves. We did not ask for people who were culturally and socially very different to us to be dropped on this planet and then allowed to mooch rather than work for a living. We are unable to provide more ore for you and all the political buzz-words in the universe will not change that!”

  “Racist,” someone hissed in the background.

  Erik’s face purpled dangerously. “We should have insisted that the poor and dispossessed work for a living,” he snapped. “When the UN pulled out, we could have moved quickly to force them to work – or starve. Instead, we waited until it was too late and the Communists – your former Party – used them to wreck vast amounts of our industry. We will not beggar ourselves for people who are unwilling to do whatever they have to do to earn money and a living. We will not work ourselves into the ground for you.”

  He stood up and picked up his briefcase. “I cast my vote, as futile as it seems, against your proposals,” he snapped. “They will bring us all to rack and ruin.”

  I watched him march out of the room, his back bent as if there was a colossal weight pushing him down, and winced. Neither of them had left any room for compromise. I thought about keying my earpiece, about ordering his assassination before he could leave the city, but there would have been no point. Erik wasn't the only member of the Independence Party and assassinating him would have convinced the others to rebel sooner rather than later.

  And, if he were right, there was going to be a war.

  “These proposals are unconstitutional,” Councillor Albin Arvidsson said, flatly. The Conservative looked over at Frida, his eyes hooded and wary. “The Government is specifically forbidden from meddling in private industry, apart from guaranteeing public safety…”

  “And what, exactly, is ensuring that people don’t starve, apart from public safety?” Frida demanded. Her lips tightened noticeably as she addressed the problem. “The food exists, Councillor; we have nothing, but a distribution problem, one that must be solved. As prices and inflation rise, we face the prospect of mass starvation, a problem that must be avoided at all costs.”

  Her face tightened. “I have obtained an emergency ruling from the High Court,” she added. “They have decided that our measures are barely constitutional and can be used, purely on an emergency basis. The measures will be reviewed every year – and, of course, t
he next election will be based around public confidence in the success, or failures, of our measures. You may argue, as the racist did, that the UN caused the problem, but we have a duty to fix it. I will not stand by and allow thousands of people to starve to death on my watch.”

  “And if you make it impossible for the farmers and miners to meet your demands, what is going to happen then?” Albin demanded. “The whole area was unstable before you came up with these…half-baked measures. It’s going to explode now, and the results will be disastrous, or are you so confident that the army can handle a second uprising? What will you do if the farmers start refusing to send you food outright?”