by L.H. Thomson
Chapter Three
The more knowledge to which we're exposed that contradicts a group belief, the more likely we are to eventually abandon that belief in favor of one that is more personally beneficial. – from the Handbook of Joshua, Chapter 2, Verse 12.
Clad in his favorite white silk suit and dark blue dress shirt, Vance Vega stood in the center of a plexinum room, each gigantic, 50-foot high wall projecting a separate angle from the cameras that dotted his various real estate holdings, offices and starships.
His favorite view was from four sat cams floating off the bow of his giant personnel cruiser, as it travelled the far reaches of Sol System. Stitched together, their images filled the walls completely, giving him the impression that he was floating in space, overlooking Pluto, G’Farg Station, the Caliade Asteroid field, and, floating by all of them, his 200-meter long pride and joy, The Mixed Blessing.
The Blessing was more than just a personnel ship; it was a galactic game-changer, the future of low-cost labor provision, and the reason for Vega’s near-incalculable fortune. Perhaps only Robert Cardale was worth more credits.
Vega didn’t care. On any level, he’d achieved his career objective long ago: as much power as he wished to exercise. In fact, standing in the middle of space was the only time he felt vulnerable any more, the seeming permanence of those huge celestial bodies towering over him, the stone debris of a million forgotten lifetimes drifting by.
Vega’s firm had officially turned the “Big Five” into the “Big Six” some thirty years earlier. The son of a wealthy intergalactic trader who was also one of the first Earthers to strike up a bartering agreement with the fair-trade based K’Laar Collective, Vega had a leg up in life.
He leveraged it into serious power by ruining the lives of others.
He’d surmised upon leaving college that people trapped on Earth due to multi-generational debt and MultiNet addiction might want a way out. So he offered them a contract: indentured servitude aboard The Mixed Blessing in exchange for passage off-world. Despite contract language that even the most wary lawyer would have had trouble examining, people lined up for blocks to join his waiting lists.
Had they read the fine print, of course, they would have realized that passage off world was free … but everything else came with an enormous price tag: little things like food and water, access to bathrooms, air…
By the time they’d been onboard for a few days, they were as enslaved to Vance Vega as they ever had been to their online employers. And unlike their virtual jobs on Earth, the environments were often anything but nice, from helping to building refining facilities in the molten heat of the Belonian Ore Fields, to digging graves for their malnourished co-workers in the ice mines of Forod.
On Earth, however, his reputation had changed little: Vega Personnel Inc. helped get people off-world, got them a job, gave them pride in supporting themselves.
That last bit made Vance smile. He’d written it himself. To Earthers, most of who weren’t even aware of K’Laar System’s existence, Vance Vega was a self-made man, the continuing proof that every man could make it on his own, rise above, join middle or upper management, create a business with real demand.
Vega’s view of the rest of humanity was somewhat more merciless.
A student of Joshua Cross’s “Handbook,” he’d reacted differently to the message than the Followers. Instead of seeing it as a rationale for balancing communal respect against self-interest, he merely saw it as a way to use the former to achieve the latter. As long as people felt secure, Cross preached, they would be happy. Groups made them feel secure.
So Vega created a business that involved group behavior, that gave people something to strive for together and gave them hope they wouldn’t die at a grotesquely premature age. And they swallowed it with the breathless acceptance of a poisoned man downing an antidote.
The ship was on its way to Avicus Prime, one of twin worlds in Deneleth System, on the other side of K’Laar System and some 3,112 light years away – or two hours, depending on the relatively dependable accuracy of the ship’s twin Jofari Psychic Cores. Vega enjoyed watching its progress, albeit delayed by nearly four hours due to transmission times.
He buzzed his assistant. “K-GIFF, what’s the status of our request to Resko G’Deevar?”
Though personal robots had long gone out of fashion, Vega continued to prefer them to human staff. They got the job done and were right down to the point – ever compliant, even if they didn’t quite grovel like a human assistant would.
K-GIFF was his personal secretary, biographer and valet, a pint-sized little robot with a head like a vacuum cleaner. He wheeled into place beside Vega. “Which request would that be, sir? Would that be the vaguely worded missive requesting a face-to-face with one of the busiest men in the universe? Or, as you so eloquently put it, ‘Hey Resko, let’s get coffee’?”
Vega looked strained, and pinched his nose. “K-GIFF …”
“Yes sir?”
“Just give me a status report.”
“Yes, oh surprisingly ambivalent one. Ambassador G’Deevar…”
“Ambassador is it now?”
“Well … yes, for about three months now, oh deviously inattentive one. He’s now the sole first contact for trading rights within K’Laar space.”
“You’re kind of pushing it today, you know that?”
“My apologies, sir. Anyhoo … Ambassador G’Deevar has a lunch spot open in his schedule next Friday and wonders if that would suit you, oh….”
The robot noticed Vega glaring at him. “…oh patient and benevolently brilliant one,” he said fawningly.
“Hmph. Better,” Vega said. “Pencil me in for the lunch, K-GIFF.”