"That is not a dumb question," Barbara said. "It's a human factors question -- something not for you to answer, Charles." Charles nodded politely. Sandra swallowed. Did the most famous married couple in America have domestic spats?
"That's your question, Peter. Or we could wait until we get back, and ask Fidelity Blake," Charles answered.
"That sweet little girl?" Gustafson mumbled. "You want her opinion on something political that happened before she was born? No. My answer... It goes back to the Incursion. Before the Incursion, American science was university based, supported by the government--yes, the Federal government. And it bought good science, too, though it had gotten much worse at it toward the end. See, Sandra, now I am being a corrupting influence, too, telling you that Federal-purchased science could be first-rate. Engineering was more company-based. But already, without the FEU barbarians raising a finger, there were troubles. The final list goes: Free Universities, incursion, immigration, boys, money."
"Free Universities? A problem?" a surprised Charles asked.
"Boys?" Sandra was almost shocked. MinuteBoys were a pain, but wrecking the Solar Navy?
"One at a time, please," Gustafson said. "Just as well Miss Professor Blake is absent. I would hurt her feelings. Go back before the Incursion. American universities were more and more under the thumb of their staffs. Anti-intellectuals. People who couldn't function as scholars. The administrators worked hard to get rid of real faculty, replacing them with electronic gadgets and cheap hired help, so they could bloat their salaries. But they forgot why universities exist. Probably they never understood. That's how we got the Free Universities: Faculty got rid of their administrators, replaced them with administrative support staff.
"Why universities? You work at one as a scholar, you have people to talk to. You have a pipeline full of research students. Above all, you have a library. Along came administrators, more and more of them. The Faculty part of the budget fell. Then along came computers, and the Library of Congress box. Suddenly, a historian didn't need a big school library. He needed this box under his desk, and an expense account. And someone figured this out, and launched a new university: administrator-free. Owned by Faculty. Rented classrooms. Students who ran their own fun and games. Oh, tuition under a quarter the tuition of the competition. That's the Free University of New Hampshire, and imitators.
"Except for one detail. That transition was lots rougher in the sciences. In the sciences, you need lab space, technicians,...and people were much poorer then. Incomes were a thousand-fold lower. Servots were special instruments and rare. Engineering schools stayed in the old model, getting into worse and worse shape.
"Then we had the Incursion. Disruption, death, devastation. The Constitution-- now Constitutional Restoration -- and Liberty -- Movimiento Moderate Central -- Parties replaced the Democratic Republicans. Both opposed government spending on science. So it didn't spend. Worse, the NonIntercourse Acts meant immigration stopped dead. Grad schools had long been filled with foreigners, because Americans had always been anti-intellectual. Boys were brought up that way. Of course, back then most scientists were men, believe it or not. So the pool of new scientists -- except biologists, they were women -- mostly dried up.
"Fortunately, antiagathics came along. Just in time. Some American scientists stayed around, rather than dying of old age. Until science restarted. Without old codgers like me -- I was teaching labs for a hundred years -- we would have been like Plato's Academy. Instead of doing science, we would have done quantum retroconsequentialist literary criticism, because you need to be taught how to do science by someone with a clue, but any idiot who plagiarizes enough au courant jargon is a brilliant quantum retroconsequentialist literary critic. Oh, money. Until we got rich, rich enough that wealthy amateurs could do good science on their own money, science stopped dead. So the EU got its technical lead."
"And he calls me subversive," Copperwright grumbled to no one in particular. She smiled at Sandra. "There is also a long version of the same answer. Book length, in fact. Says the same thing, though. I should know. I wrote it. You'll get a copy."
"Thank you!" Sandra blurted. That was not at all what she expected to hear.
"May we return to our other considerations?" Charles asked. "Someone might remind the Navy about Pontefract tubes? And how important Mercury North is? The same to the Coast Defense Artillery? Just in case? Thinking about civilian economies, after all, is not something the military does any more. I seem to recall national support base is something we've said before, with a list of vulnerabilities?"
"Yes, sir," Sandra answered. There had to be some way to keep the three old men focused on the task at hand. At least they were only using the games as examples, not arguing details of fictional campaigns they'd fought over the table.
"Go back to FEU," the Hexagon Lord said. "What are their victory conditions? What do they want? Other than our three young ladies here, of course. Charles and I can agree this is the most valuable goal imaginable for a European, albeit for different young ladies. What else do they want?" Barbara stared at the clouds. Copperwright shook her head. Sandra broke into a wide smile.
"Suppose they did the same financial analysis," Copperwright asked. "They'd see they were even, wouldn't they? And under no pressure to act? But they spoke of a mutual threat. What? Oversize national debts? Outbreaks of libertarian thinking in their children?"
"Wait! It's not even," Sandra said. "It only looks even. We're holding even with them in the hullweight ratio, staying at 10:1. They can't raise their taxes a lot, can they? But they grow 2% a year. We grow 6% a year. Very soon, they fall a lot behind." The Hexagon Lord extended a hand to her, thumb up. His compliment warmed her heart.
"Can they have a matching conversation? Do they see their situation?" asked Barbara. "They use surface roads, starfreighters, uncoded entertainment broadcasts. We don't. Not at all."
"You can see houses from orbit," Charles observed.
"House outsides are constant," noted Gustafson. "New Republic looks the same as a hundred years ago. The change is the armor plate, the defenses, the number of subbasement levels, the intricacies of the detailing and gardens. You can't see those from orbit. And houses under construction are tented -- convenience. But tents block spy satellites. Besides, more and more the USA is in other Solar systems. North America is emptying out. Soon, it will mostly be occupied by faiths that reject modern technology like electric lights and contragravity, except as they accept offers to receive an entire planet and be transported there."
"Barbara raises an interesting issue," the Hexagon Lord said. "Suppose the EU works out what Sandra understood, that being more understanding than you two will ever get." He gestured at his two friends. "In any game like Territories, at some point you realize you must fight now -- or be so far behind you can't win. The FEU is almost into that trap."
"But do they believe it?" Barbara asked. "That's a human issue, not economics or tactics. They can believe anything."
"If they believe it, they start a general war," the Hexagon Lord responded.
"I consult for game designers," Gustafson noted. "I plow through more intelligence corporation reports than you can shake a stick at, all to make games more real."
"Eeeuugh!" the Hexagon Lord groaned. "Historical realism! The tool of Satan!" Sandra looked carefully at Miller's two friends. From their faces, this was a very old argument, not quite taken seriously.
"Yes, but they pay me well, and it funds the House of Lost Dreams." Gustafson paused. "In any event, I have read these. The FEU knows they are way ahead. They have no doubt. National support base is not stylish. Style is weapons and ships and leaders."
"It didn't used to be that way," Charles said. "The Popular Army worried about its national support base."
"You did," Copperwright agreed. "And you were right. But that's you. Most people would rather not think about the topic. The intelligence corporations get half of their money from game companies, another third from enterta
inment producers -- Star Commando Jill may be silly, but her human enemies are as accurate as money can buy. But that's weapons, not logistics, let alone support bases."
"A people issue," Barbara announced. "We got rid of the government spy agencies, Goddess be thanked, and incidentally, Goddess not be thanked, got rid of the analysts who cared about national support bases. Now we don't have them."
"Don't have many," Sandra corrected. "There's SpyTexas."
"Who?" Barbara asked. "Tell me later. I want to know."
"So what are the FEU victory conditions?" the Hexagon Lord repeated. Experience told him that three or five repetitions of the right question would probably be enough to get people on topic.
"Do they know they're playing?" Gustafson challenged. "They think we're irrelevant, like Mongolia, Mozambique, and North Nigeria. They don't attack us because they think we're a joke -- those lines are dime a dozen on FEU entertainment broadcasts."
"Sandra and her friends mean we're a very expensive joke if they invade," Copperwright said, "as they learned at Jacksonville and Vladivostok." She smiled.
"Unfortunately, FEU Victory Conditions are probably not `invade America and rape women'," the Hexagon Lord observed sardonically. "Unless they are, Sandra and friends are not necessarily critical. Is this supposed to be a surprise to someone?" Sandra wished she could see all the faces all the time, but they were on the trail ahead of her.
"OK!" Barbara said. "The FEU. Alpha Centauri, and the FEU Ultimatum. Victory conditions we can identify. Victory conditions we can't identify, like that cat being an extreme biomorph project or from another planet. No Victory Conditions --- their threats are simply bureaucratic bumbling. Which?"
"Nothing like narrowing options," Copperwright said.
"FEU regularly proposes terms for regularizing relations," Gustafson said. "Sometimes I need them for sims with diplomatic segs. Their terms never change, and we never agree. Except, except their terms this time were totally different."
"Different how?" Charles asked. "Hadn't been watching hard, until now. These days I mostly watch my Mercury manufacturing firm. Megatechnology really has been the wave of the future."
"FEU wants us to be like Greater Europe," Gustafson said. "They always want us to take their model: High taxes. Social market system, not open market system. No real industrial competition. Womb to grave socialism. No Bill of Rights for social-reactionary dissenters. They never before demanded territory. They never before demanded we disarm citizens. This time, they wanted territory and disarmament, but left other customs in place."
"They know what happens if someone tries," Sandra interjected heatedly.
"Actually," Copperwright said, "they probably don't. Know, I mean. They didn't get it during the Incursion, starting with that Nazifrog General who read there were 250,000,000 rifles in private hands, and crossed out four zeros to perfect the report. Entertainment broadcasts -- their American jokes don't attack the fundamental freedom, they ignore it. They're blind on the topic."
"Now they want territory. Lots of it," Gustafson said. "Are they resource-poor? Hard to believe at 2% of our GNP. Is there something special about our planets? 50% rare-earth mineral beds? Plutonium boulders?" Sandra noted who had to stifle a giggle. The physically-impossible plutonium boulder was a staple of Star Commando Jill and three dozen holodrama imitations, but you only knew that if you watched such things.
"Why new victory conditions?" Charles asked. "There's no sign they're under internal strain. They've got better technology, and one percent or so of our GNP -- that's not a materials shortage. Their politics are as half-free as ever. They still shut down dissident TV stations and boycott liberal political parties. That's no different than what they did in the 1990s to Kosovo and Austria. With American help!"
"Their politicians -- what we hear of them -- are very ordinary. No charismatic nutcakes in sight," Barbara observed.
"Incursion VI, Advanced Game, includes all foreign powers," Gustafson said. "I helped with the design. No foreign nation, not even Taiping or Szechuan, is significant relative to the EU. The foreigners stay free through unity, but it's a totally defensive posture."
"It seems to me we face a bafflement," Charles said. "They haven't changed the sort of people they have running them. There are only incremental changes in our support bases. We haven't done anything that surprising -- well, perhaps they were upset that they hadn't known about Lincoln. Suddenly, they have totally new demands. Why the change?"
"Their tolerance of biosculpt seems to have changed, too," Sandra added. "A cat with the brains of a person, a person with the looks of a cat, whatever..."
"Sandra," the Hexagon Lord whispered, "save that for later. I'm accumulating data on your issue. You need a different audience."
"Charles," Copperwright said, "there's something being ignored." She waited for attention to turn to him. "By those not so senile as to have forgotten it."
"She means us, Peter," the Hexagon Lord announced.
"They told us why." Copperwright's face betrayed enormous self-satisfaction. "Remember?"
"They told us what? I am getting senile," Gustaphson announced. "I have these imaginary memories, Cheryl. That you once had a brain."
Sandra clenched her fists. The three of them were impossible. Did they ever take anything seriously? The FEU had told the USA why they wanted the other planets? Then recognition dawned. She almost stopped in her tracks. "Oh!" She and Barbara continued in unison. "Right!"
"Barbara, dearest," Charles said sweetly, "Is there something you've forgotten to tell me?"
"Charles. They said it out loud in the open. `We have mutual security concerns.' Remember? Perhaps even the Pi Musketeers remember?" Barbara asked.
"The what?" Sandra asked.
"Us," Copperwright announced. "Me. The Lord of the Hexagon. The Collector Supreme. We go back a very long way. And back then..."
"For perfectly sound theological reasons," Gustafson added.
"Barbara informed us that we were not the Three Musketeers, but the Pi Musketeers," Copperwright explained.
"Pi, for our rationality," the Hexagon Lord said.
"Pi isn't rational," Sandra whispered.
"Sure it is," Gustaphson said. "Pi equals 10. In the most perfect of all arithmetic bases. Base Pi. Everyone knows that."
"Moving right along," Charles said, "Let's focus on those concerns. The FEU said nothing about what the National Security concerns were. But that Article of the Azores Convention was your idea, dear."
"I put it in to reopen borders," Barbara said, "not as a pretext for a general war. But Cheryl is correct. The FEU did say they wanted to raise mutual security issues."
Sandra pressed her lips shut. An enormous amount of history, not what she'd learned in school, was passing by. Had she just heard the charges of a school of conspiracy theorists, that New Washington had been a puppet in the Azores negotiations, confirmed? Except the puppetmaster had been American, not FEU?
"Send them an amplification request," Copperwright announced. "'What mutual threat?' seems to cover things. Simple. To the point. Hard to imagine they have a sensible answer. And having answered every question, perhaps we can enjoy the climb."
Chapter 10
“…What do you mean, you Americans still let your civilians own guns? I thought you got rid of that nonsense twenty years ago. And this count of privately owned 1.27 cm. sniper rifles. It must have four extra zeros in its number. That’s the silliest thing I have read this year…”
Wilhelm Furchtegott, Federal European Union Special Military Liason to the American Special Security Council, remarks to aides, April 2039.
NATIONAL SECURITY COMMITTEE SUITE
BAOTOU, REPUBLIC OF INNER MONGOLIA
1330 6 MAY 2174
“We’re all here,” President Altantsetseg said. “Let’s get on with it. Mr. Secretary?” President Altantsetseg turned to her chief political opponent, the Republic’s long-serving Secretary of Defense.
“Friends,�
�� Secretary Chuluunbold opened, “We have been approached, entirely discretely, by the European Union. Well, by the Union Starfleet. Their ministries tend to pursue somewhat independent trajectories. Also, our friends in a certain foreign country have supplied us with a tape of the most recent Azores Negotiating session, the Europeans negotiating with the Americans. I wish I knew where to begin. However, even the largest meal can be consumed one bite at a time.” Her colleagues smiled. Secretary was noted for eating little and being an abstemious drinker.
“We watched the tape this morning. It appeared that the Europeans were threatening to reopen their war with America, an unattractive possibility for us, given that we share a planet with them. Also, that strange delegate. We looked at the tape of its walk and talk repeatedly. I can assure you that our intelligence services have studied it very carefully. The Union vehemently rejects biosculpt, as do their allies with interstellar ships. I can’t avoid the conclusion that the Europeans are in contact with another intelligent species from someplace across the universe, a detail they have so far not shared with us. What else could it be?
“Now we are, entirely indirectly, approached by the Union military. We are offered all sorts of trinkets. In exchange, we are to warm up our border with the Americans. We have enjoyed border quiet with the Americans for many decades. Quiet is just as well, given that our military must face south to defend against the Pekingese, and our Mongolian friends to the north look extremely negatively at any thought of border disturbances.”
“The Pekingese are totally crazy,” Secretary of State Shu Fang Shao interjected, looking down her long nose at the Secretary of Defense. “They’ve recreated all the worst excesses of the antique Mao Tse-Tsung regime, without the least hint of common sense.”
“Fortunately,” Chuluunbold said, “Everyone who borders on them, or has neighbors who border them – except the Americans – has come to the same conclusion. We all agree that if they attack any of us, the rest will join in against them. Having the backing of Outer Mongolia, whose investment policies made them truly wealthy, is very important. At least until the Pekingese decide that they are not afraid of suicide again. In any event, the Europeans want us to start staging incidents along the frontier with American Manchuria, incidents that will supposedly have a positive outcome, at least for the Europeans.”
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