A Desert Called Peace cl-1

by Tom Kratman

  Hands clasped behind his head, High Admiral Robinson turned his attention to the dull gray ceiling, thinking back on the Earth he had left so regretfully almost a dozen months before. Earth was such a paradise compared to the hellhole below, teeming with about twelve times more people than a world that size could indefinitely support. And most of those were poor, sometimes starving, and afflicted with more disease than one could find at home outside of a laboratory.

  Earth was peaceful, as well, and had been for more than three centuries. The structure ensured peace, with the half million or so Class Ones supervising perhaps three million Class Twos, who in turn supervised twenty or so million Class Threes, the entirety lording it over the half billion proles of Classes Four through Six. The proles didn't really matter, of course. They were nonpolitical now, living in peace, growing the food and obtaining what raw materials could not be gotten from recycling. They did the limited manufacturing still permitted and possible. They knew their place.

  Barring a few malcontents like Wallenstein, everyone on Earth knew his or her place now. We're not so foolish anymore as to leave decisions to the ignorant or the ambitious. Especially do we keep the proles out of things. What would they have to offer, anyway?

  Indeed, there was hardly any such thing as ambition anymore. One was born into a caste and stayed there. Only within the Peace Force was social mobility still seen as desirable, and even there it was highly constrained. The highly pneumatic Captain Wallenstein was unlikely ever to see Class One, for all the time she had spent in a long life servicing her betters.

  Whatever the drawbacks of the system, and Robinson knew them better than most, at least it was generally peaceful.

  The same could not be said for Terra Nova, which had become one huge slugfest, periods of peace intermittent, at best, between bouts of war, reprisal, massacre and genocide. Robinson shook his head with disgust.

  There was a knock on the door. "Come in," Robinson commanded, rising and throwing on a robe, walking to the main cabin, and ordering the door to his sleeping chamber to close.

  "Maintenance crew, Your Excellency," said the Class Three technician. "Got the replacement screen for your cabin. New stuff, Your Excellency, just brought up from Atlantis Base by shuttle. Be only a few minutes to install it."

  "Be at it, then," Robinson ordered. Then, since the installation was likely to prove noisy and bothersome, he retired back to his sleeping cabin and the captain. On the way he happened to notice the box the view screen came packaged in. Kurosawa Vision Solutions, 101 Imperial Way, Kamakura, Yamato, Terra Nova. Fragile: take special care when moving, the carton said.

  Kurosawa always took extra special care of the products it sold to the fleet.

  Special care or not, too much of the fleet is operating that way now. Earth sends so little, and the ships are growing so old.

  Indeed, of the twenty-seven ships in geosynchronous orbit around the planet, two of them were little more than husks with rotating skeleton crews aboard. The meat of the things had been cannibalized to keep up the rest of the fleet.

  And how many more will I have to order cannibalized to keep the fleet going? Robinson wondered, as he lay back down on his bunk. And how much can we continue to buy from below without arousing suspicions about our real status? Wouldn't those bastards in the FSC like to know they could nuke half my fleet now with impunity?

  Buying from the Terra Novans had its problems. For one thing, the fleet had little to offer in exchange. Food was impractical to export over interstellar distances despite the rift, which made personal travel in cryogenic suspension reasonable. Besides, the Novans who could pay for food didn't need to. Indeed, the fleet purchased all its food locally, along with the petrochemical fuel for the shuttles. This was explained to the Novans as simple economics; cheaper to buy locally than to import. This wouldn't have hurt Robinson so deeply if it had been the only reason. The fact was that Earth could not send food or petrochemicals even if the Consensus wanted to.

  There were only four worthwhile and practical things to trade to the Novans to keep the fleet running. Technology was one, but it was under ban by the Council and had been for centuries. Besides, what Earth had wasn't all that far ahead of what the Novans were capable of making for themselves now. Gold? Half the gold of Earth was already on Terra Nova; same for the silver, platinum, palladium and rhodium. There were plenty of proles to trade as slaves, but the Novans, most of them, had little use for slaves. And the Moslems, and especially the Salafis, who did have use for slaves, only wanted pretty young girls and boys. Since there was a strong market for those on Earth as well, saleable slaves were a tight commodity. Moreover, you never really could tell what the proles knew. If they were questioned, and the Novans realized what Earth had become, it could be a disaster for the fleet as well as the Earth.

  Art, Robinson sighed. I am reduced to selling Earth's artistic patrimony to keep in being the fleet that keeps Earth from being overrun in a hundred years or less and looted of, among other things, its art.

  Ah well, I should be grateful I was able to talk the caliph into turning over to me so much of the contents of the Vatican's cellars. Fortunate, too, that he valued them so little. Then again, with even the followers of Islam so few, and most of those barbarians in the reverted areas back home who could care less about the caliph, I suppose he needed the credit as well.

  Robinson closed his eyes and dozed fitfully. He was awakened, sometime later, by the same technician who had come to install the new view screen. "We're done, Your Excellency. Also, your aide, Baron Fiske, said to tell you the shuttle is ready to take you to Atlantis Base whenever you're ready."

  The shuttle itself was the same silvery color as the Peace Fleet ships. As the shuttle door split, it also split the blue and white symbol of United Earth. This was a map of the Earth, from the northern hemisphere with the southern hemisphere distorted out of scale, on which had been superimposed marks for longitude and latitude, the whole being almost surrounded by a laurel wreath. There was symbolism in that, with the poor south exaggerated in apparent importance but the white and European north still in the commanding center.

  The doors closed behind Robinson with a whoosh. He walked the few carpeted steps to his chair and buckled himself in. Even more than the ships, the shuttles needed replacing. Roughly a third were unfit for flight for lack of parts. Moreover, though the skins were the best product of Earth at the height of its technological achievements, the composite of which they were constructed was no longer produced. Terra Nova, specifically the FSC, produced something similar (in fact, the nose cones of the missiles it had aimed at the Peace Fleet were made of it), but that was unacceptable for any number of reasons.

  It was becoming a logistic burden as well. The shuttles that were still working had to be used overtime. This cut into their maintenance and led to even more failures. Moreover, though logistic effort had been saved with the skeletonization of the crews of the two cannibalized ships, and more by reducing the crews of others by a variable percentage, this put in danger the entire fleet.

  And I haven't a clue as to what to do about it, Robinson fumed. One problem's solution just creates another problem. If I'd known then what I know now, I doubt I'd ever have accepted this assignment.

  Instead of worrying about it, uselessly, the High Admiral stretched out in his chair and slept. He dreamt of the skiing, which he missed, north of the town of Atlanta, by the huge and growing Dahlonega Glacier.

  It was going to be one of those cocktail receptions, Robinson decided.

  "The FSC has become a rogue state," insisted the slender, well coiffed blonde. This was the intense-and, so Robinson thought, even more intensely vapid-commissioner for culture from the Tauran Union, one of the new supra-nationals coming to prominence on the planet. The commissioner was on Atlantis with special permission to bid for objets d'art for a consortium of TU museums. "Unni Wiglan," she had introduced herself as.

  Robinson considered her for what she was like
ly to be worth. As high admiral he could have his pick of the Novan women at the reception, of course. On the other hand, although he had a taste for blonde women (that hair color having become rather rare on Earth), she really seemed so earnestly dull that he wasn't quite sure that the no-doubt enjoyable use of her body could quite make up for the torment of having to listen to her talk afterwards. With mixed feelings, he decided, No, it really wouldn't be worth it.

  Robinson simply asked, "And what do you think we can do about it?"

  Which question ended that discussion, as well as short-circuited any discussions in the immediate future that might have been of a more pleasant nature.

  It was a good question, actually, the high admiral later reflected in his ashore quarters. What can I do about it? Options? Hmmm.

  A. I nuke the planet. It'll cost me the fleet and Atlantis Base-no big deal since I don't have a family here, and I could make sure I was safe and away before we struck-but at least I can still nuke them. Set them back… oh… maybe four or five hundred years. Then they come looking for Earth.

  B. Get the Novans to nuke each other. Not hard but they'll probably nuke my fleet, too, on general principle. The FSC would, for a certainty; bastards can hold a grudge. So they nuke each other and us. Sets them back also four or five hundred years. Then they build a fleet and come looking for Earth.

  C. Leave things alone. Within one hundred years my fleet is a worn- out ruin. Within one hundred years the Novans are more than capable of launching their own ships. Then they come looking for Earth.

  D. Change Earth. Not going to happen. Half the reason they sent me here, instead of leaving me home, was that I was even capable of thinking about changing Earth. History ended there and the Consensus doesn't want it to start up again. Besides, what would we do with half a billion educated, industrialized, militarized proles? Ugly thought, that is. And if the wretches started to actually think?

  E. Change Terra Nova. But how…

  The auction went well, a beneficiary of Terra Nova's cosmopolitan upper class's newfound fetish for the luxuries of Old Earth. With what the serfs on Atlantis could grow, Robinson had enough to feed his fleet for another few decades, and even to buy-under the table- most or even all of the parts and fuel he needed. It put him into rather a good mood, actually, an especially good mood when he considered the portion, twenty percent of the auction's proceeds, that was his by right as the high admiral of the fleet.

  So good was Robinson's mood that he was even willing to listen to Unni Wiglan, the commissioner for culture from the Tauran Union.

  "I was thinking about your question, High Admiral," the leggy blonde said between sips of champagne. "I admit, I was a little shocked at it. I am, all we cosmopolitan progressives are, so used to thinking of Earth-its advanced social development, technology and culture-as being so superior to what we have that it sometimes comes as a surprise that you are not omnipotent."

  Robinson shrugged. "Earth is very far down the road," he said, without mention of whether that road was the right one or not. From his point of view things were pretty good; worth upholding and defending, in any case. Would he have felt the same if he'd been born a prole, forced to eke out a living from the soil or burrow in its depths for ore or freeze on the fishing boats that dotted Earth's oceans? Would he still think so if, instead of his own potential five hundred or more year lifespan, he knew he would have been extraordinarily lucky to reach even an eighth of that? Would he think so if, instead of being able to bed lissome blondes like this one, he had to share his bed with some toothless prole crone? Somehow he doubted it.

  "Yes," Unni agreed. "That's precisely it. Earth is far down the road that Terra Nova should be on, but isn't. The reason we aren't is the damned Federated States. By looting the world, by taking a totally unfair share of its resources, by exploiting the poor, the Federated States are able to make a more proper system, one like Earth has, seem inefficient. So, other nations here-doesn't that word make you ill, High Admiral? 'Nations?' As if there could be any nation but the nation of Humanity-follow the FSC's lead. And we can't make any progress here on Terra Nova at all while the FSC stands in the way."

  "I am not sure what I can do about it though, my dear Unni." Sure. Why not make the slight effort to remember the bimbo's name? Costs nothing and might pay, as long as she doesn't insist on talking afterwards.

  "I can do something about it," interrupted a dark man who had slid up unnoticed.

  Robinson looked over at the newcomer. Then he looked up… and up.

  The man was tall, nearly two meters in height. In front was a long, untrimmed beard, half gone to gray, that hung to his waist. His head was covered with a checked cloth, held in place by a retaining band made of cylindrical beads interspersed with spherical ones of gold. Robinson thought the cylindrical beads might be of some precious stone, though he could not immediately identify it.

  "I can do something about it," the dark man repeated. "I am Mustafa ibn Mohamed ibn Salah, min Sa'ana, emir of the Ikhwan."

  "Oh, Mustafa, piss off, won't you?" said Unni. "You've tried that trick with the FSC so many times and nothing has come of it."

  "Silence, infidel houri," Mustafa commanded. "I lacked the means. The high admiral can give me those means."

  Wiglan stiffened under the insult. Robinson made a moue. He asked, "What "means?" And what is this Ikhwan of which you are… the leader?"

  "The Ikhwan is the Brotherhood, the Brotherhood of true believers," Mustafa answered. "What we need are nuclear weapons. Give me a dozen such and I will break the FSC."

  "That, I am afraid," Robinson answered, "will never happen. Our weapons are identifiable as ours. And, while we could-and did-use them on the FSC in past days, those days are long past."

  "Then help me in other ways."

  Interlude

  21 January, 2037, 51.716 AUs Out From Sol

  The trickiest part had been the sail. It had to resist tearing, or be self-repairing, or be otherwise repairable, while also avoiding becoming overly charged, electrically. It had also to be very lightweight and highly reflective; the amount of propulsion provided by photons from the Sun and other sources striking the sail being very low except in the aggregate.

  In the end, and after frightful expenditures, it was decided that self-repairing was too hard. The nanites that did effect repairs on the sail were not, strictly speaking, a part of it. They worked though, even in the vacuum of space and even while under bombardment by the sun's unfiltered rays. The sail was quite porous, the diameter of the pores being less than the wavelength of the light that forced the sails forward.

  The mechanism for setting the sail was simplicity itself. Instead of a complex mechanical operation to raise and lower it, a series of gastight tubes were sewn around the exterior and connected to the main ship by much thinner tubes. Gas was pumped into the tubes to set the sail, pumped out while thin filaments were retracted to furl it. Heating elements within the tubes kept the gas from freezing and collapsing in the cold of deep space.

  Other problems, microminiaturized electronics and an extremely lightweight spacecraft body, had been easier. Indeed, they had been almost natural outflows of ongoing, purely terrestrially oriented, research. It was a short step from nanotube body armor for soldiers to a nanotube spacecraft body, for example. The programming had been even easier if not precisely simpler.

  Not to say that the ship was cheap. It had eaten up almost all of the United States' National Aeronautics and Space Administration's somewhat constrained budget for the better part of two decades. The less said about the scandals, the overruns, the bribes from various foreign subcontractors, however, the better.

  The ship, if one could call a robot a ship, was named the Cristobal Colon. Many had held out for a different, generally more culturally sensitive and less eurocentric, name. These ranged from Saint Brendan and Leif Eriksson (obvious nonstarters) to Sinbad to Cheng Ho. Since the Americans were footing the bill, however, they got to choose. Moreover, they wer
e, at the time, going through one of their periodic bouts of extreme nationalism. "Cristobal Colon" seemed good to them and the rest of the world could lump it.

  The robot, or ship, was just under two meters in diameter and approximately nine long. Various projections-a radio telescope here, an antenna there-were attached to the outside. The computer that controlled it was deep inside, or as deep inside as one can get with a cylinder two meters across. The sail dwarfed the robot ship, though the sail massed very little and the ship several tons.

  The ship was very fast, as men reckoned such things. Boosted by lasers fixed to the moon and floating in space, by the time the ship reached the point it was at it was going a very appreciable fraction of c. Everything was operating normally, though there was a bit of trouble in the Number Thirty-three vent. There were nearly a hundred such, however, which allowed Mission Control or the robot to steer the thing a bit. Even with one such operating at suboptimal efficiency, there was no danger.

  Imagine the consternation at Mission Control, then, when the robot and sail seemed to wink out of existence completely…