But so far, so good. Rangi Tauroa, Ngaio’s father, had officiated at the wedding. Bruce had had to be reminded that Rangi was a celebrant, a lay minister in the Ratana Church which held regular services in the Chapel.
It was only natural that Ngaio's father should officiate at the wedding. Mavis might have wanted something different, but she and Cecelia Tauroa had eventually come to an understanding and split the responsibility for the official and celebratory sections of the day.
While the histrionics had continued when discussing the shade of the wedding dress, the selection of the photographer, the videographer, and the DJ, to everyone’s relief, there had been no dispute over the venue for the reception. It was logical it would be held at the local hall given most of the guests were drawn from the local community, even if many of them had moved away over the years.
Bruce cracked open another bottle. The day was going well, he decided, turning into the kind of wedding celebration he had always wanted.
There were still a few loose ends to address, which had somehow fallen through the cracks. Technically, Bruce was a bigamist, though he didn’t think Sue, his ex, was about to complain. Her father, if he found out, might be another matter. Luckily, the old coot lived half a world away. Sue, for someone normally so voluble, with an opinion about everything and driven by a strong sense of entitlement, was strangely silent about the situation.
She had embarked on a new relationship of her own with Trev, well before he and Ngaio had thought about getting hitched, which was a strong signal that Sue wasn’t particularly bothered by the situation. However, the part of Bruce that strove for order and process really wanted this ticked off at some stage.
Ngaio knew the whole story and was sympathetic to Sue’s plight. At some point, Sue was going to have to front up to her own family and admit their misgivings about her marriage to some wild-looking white guy from the end of the world had been proved correct. To make matters worse, she was about to add insult to injury by taking up with a man who was on a watch-list and couldn’t enter the United States by normal means, even if he wanted to.
One of the difficulties he Bruce had was the challenge of divorcing someone who literally didn’t live on the same planet most of the time, so it would take a while to resolve. Bruce was pretty sure his old man knew what was going on, but he didn’t seem to care. The old boy was becoming far more liberal and open-minded as he got older. Maybe he had always been, and Bruce had never really noticed.
Myfair pulled up at the beach Ngaio wanted some photos taken, and the cars carrying the photographer and other hangers-on swung in behind them.
Myfair had been the best man, and another Skidian refugee, Leaf, had been the chief bridesmaid. Leaf was also helping to look after Little Bruce while his usual carer indulged herself. Little Bruce, already the size of a small hobbit, with a wit and intelligence to match, had been the ring bearer. He was the only other official member of the bridal party, but Mike Wisneski, Shelly Shaw, and Dick Todd had tagged along to the photo session too.
Bruce climbed out of the ute and was annoyed to find someone else had parked there. If they were locals, he would just tell them to piss off. But they couldn't be local, because the locals were all up the road, drinking the beer he and his old man had paid for...
“It's Mummy!” Little Bruce exclaimed and trotted off down the slope to the beach on his stubby little legs.
“Surprise!” hooted Sue.
“Fuck, that’s all I need,” Bruce muttered under his breath. Sue had decided not to attend the ceremony on religious grounds, or so she claimed. Her objections obviously didn’t extend to the either the photo session or the reception.
“Don’t be so ungracious, Bruce, Sue is only doing what she thinks is right.”
Twenty-Seven
In breaking news this hour..
Naval and coast guard vessels patrolling the routes used by people smugglers to ship migrants and illegals into Europe from North Africa have encountered an increasing number of deserted vessels. This is a puzzling evolution in the refugee crisis gripping the region.
No one knows how and why these vessels have been abandoned. Some are stationary, their engines dead or out of fuel. Others are still steaming directly for the European coastline. Most of them are completely empty and only a few survivors, mostly crew members, and a few bewildered passengers have been discovered. It is suspected many ships may have already foundered in a recent patch of rough weather. To date, none of the survivors have been able to shed any light on the missing passengers and crew.
The details, such as they are, are consistent. The ships were headed toward their intended destination, crammed with refugees, then almost everyone disappeared instantaneously, leaving most of their luggage behind.
Authorities are at a loss to explain the situation. It is reminiscent of the discovery last month by the Italian Coast Guard of a capsized trawler floating off the North African coastline with a lone survivor clinging to the hull. Omar Ali, a small-time thief with a history of drug use, was also later identified as a low-level member of a small Libyan terror group. A routine medical check found traces of a powerful hallucinogenic drug in his bloodstream. This led to his initial testimony being discredited, and he has been held in a detention centre in Italy prior to being deported back to North Africa.
Because of these latest disappearances, a further investigation into his claims will be undertaken. Ali maintains he was held in a special detention centre along with other people from the trawler but was ejected after starting a peaceful protest to demand they be dealt with by the legal authorities rather than be held incommunicado. Ali also rejects the suggestion he was part of a terrorist group or criminal gang, allegations he alleges were fabricated to ensure he is sent back to Libya.
Ali implied the detention centre had been established on the asteroid Automedon, and authorities were shipping refugees to the asteroid, instead of accommodating them on the European mainland, which is currently required by international law. He fabricated this part of his testimony in the hope that this would help him make a case for being given full refugee status.
Due to this leaked testimony, there have been renewed calls for governments to explain why they have been unable to conduct a full investigation into the asteroid’s appearance, how it came to enter a stable orbit around the earth, and why they have been unable to mount a successful mission to interdict and explore it, given its relative proximity.
Commentators have suggested that the MFY program be engaged to mount an expedition to explore the asteroid, as it is evident they have the necessary resource to do so. It is unlikely any of the major government-funded space agencies would have the appetite to work with the MFY program, as this would be interpreted as a major loss of face. Given the prestige involved, governments are likely to prefer working with other state agencies rather than a private organisation.
No one from the Martian Reality Group or the MFY program was available for comment.
Today, at his regular weekly news conference, President Chump was asked about the likelihood of an American mission to Automedon. He said the American space industry was making “very great steps indeed” to develop the capability to visit Automedon, and to investigate the new lunar and Martian colonies. He committed to a manned mission being launched within the month and was quoted as saying; ‘This would be a tremendous, very great American achievement’.
In further news, a vast number of refugees have vanished without trace from camps and low security detention centres across Europe. It is not known if the disappearances are linked to the empty ships on the Mediterranean, but there are certain similarities. Some camps are completely empty, while in other areas at least part of the population remains.
Chump took the opportunity to use this information to support his proposed immigration ban. Chump maintains the missing refugees are likely to set Europe alight and terrorise law-abiding citizens. However, reports from the camps indicate that, despite unsubstantiated
claims by the President and various conservative commentators, all refugees lacking reliable documentation, and anyone suspected of terrorist or criminal activity remain in custody.
Agencies are working on various lines of enquiry to locate the refugees and find out how they were able to leave the camps without being challenged by security teams.
We will update you about these developing stories when more information becomes available.
In other news today, the Martian Reality Group, the parent company behind the Martian Reality Show and the Mars for You program, have indicated it will begin to wind down its operations in Australia.
A spokesperson for the media conglomerate said planned re-supply missions to lunar and Martian settlements would continue as scheduled, but the MFY program would start to utilise third-party operators to deliver payloads, which would build resilience into the supply chain. The Martian Reality Group would share its technological capability with these organisations. There was no indication how these agreements would be structured at this time.
Crews of astronauts currently in training would complete their scheduled missions. However, no new mission teams will be prepared at this time. This news will come as a blow to those seeking an opportunity to go into space who are not qualified to join other space agencies. The MFY group also confirmed it had concluded there was no value in continuing the lunar settlement and it would be decommissioned. All colonists would be transferred to Mars when lift capability was made available. This last move had been signalled some months ago, the spokesperson confirmed, and the lunar settlement would be made available to international space agencies.
There are an estimated forty thousand people involved in the Mars for You program, mostly accommodated in the large campus in the South Australian desert. Most of these people will now to return to their homes and former lives.
The spokesman thanked all MFYers for their ongoing support and maintained the settlers on the moon and Mars were not in any danger and were thriving. This was something everyone who tuned into the Martian Reality Show could see for themselves.
The reality show - the most successful, most watched show in history - would now shift emphasis to focus almost entirely on the Martian settlements and the transition of colonists from the moon to Mars.
In related news, a congressional enquiry established to determine how an organisation with no track record in the industry has been able to send men and women to Mars has yet to report its findings. The enquiry is designed to determine how an immature organisation could plan and execute a Martian colony settlement when the combined expertise of NASA and the United States military, with billions of dollars available for space-related exploration, is unable to mount a successful mission to an object orbiting not far from the moon.
Governments around the world are asking similar questions of their space agencies and analysing the information coming out of the MFY operation. The MFY program has yet to divulge any of the design material related to their propulsion and environmental management systems, which appear to be at least a generation ahead of current global standards. In light of these investigations, the MFY team has reiterated its commitment to make all documentation and innovative technology available via open-source platforms. It has not yet provided a timeline for this release of information.
In Australia, a Royal Enquiry is also underway to determine how a private organisation was able to lease part of a sensitive military installation and develop a spaceport under the nose of the federal authorities, without any due diligence being undertaken by the Defence Department.
The enquiry is struggling to obtain any useful information. The ownership structure of the Martian Reality Group is opaque, and repeated attempts to penetrate it have been re-buffed. Currently, the investigation centres around the awarding of ninety-nine-year leases on the South Australian site. Consent was given for the development of a rocket-proving ground, rather than a space port from which hundreds of launches have now been made.
Local authorities gleaned little information when they have visited the complex and have requested extra investigatory powers from the Federal Government.
Coming up next, all the latest in sports..
Bruce’s office often resembled the command centre of a small naval vessel with digital feeds from a variety of sources projected onto the walls. One moment he could keep an eye on a closed session of the UN Security Council. The next he could have a ringside seat as the latest world leader threw a fit about having their wings clipped by an emissary of General Smith. He could also call up any television channel he wanted, which was bloody handy when he got bored and wanted to relax with a few beers, and watch some rugby or cricket.
This morning he had already enjoyed witnessing Chump squirm and throw a hissy fit after a barrage of awkward questions had been fired at him by reporters sensing blood as he fronted up to a news conference. Chump had bullied his way through life, but now he had encountered someone who had a bigger stick. He was learning sometimes you just had to take some things on the chin, and accept you had no control over your life. Now he was watching the General ram a few realities home.
“I can’t go on national television and inform my constituents that I am now a convert to climate change. I won’t be able to show my face in a large chunk of America again if I go down this track.”
“Mr President,” General Smith reminded him, “there are large parts of the country you can’t visit now and expect to return unscathed.”
“Yes, this is a tremendous problem for me. How can I lead the government of this great nation of ours if no one trusts me?”
“Mr President, let’s get one thing clear, once again. You don’t govern. We got you elected and we will develop the policies you will implement and champion and reject those you will not. We will also write your speeches and control your social media. We have explained the situation to you repeatedly. Do I make myself clear?”
“Yes, I understand. You don’t have to tell me again.” Secretly Chump didn’t mind being told what to do. He hated being forced to make decisions, especially if they were unpopular ones, but this time, he really did think the General was going too far. If he announced he had decided to pursue policies aimed at reducing the impact of man’s activities on climate and the environment, a substantial number of people would be very pissed off. He was now supposed to be a champion of solar power over the coal and gas industries. This might increase costs and it would certainly reduce the profits of some of his financial backers from the mining industry, but it would please some of the new technology people out west who had previously scorned him and ridiculed his policies. It was a funny old world sometimes.
Just about everyone in the country was confused about what he stood for these days, and how he now tended to side with people who were once his sworn ideological enemies. But Chump was President in name only and his every move was carefully stage managed for the maximum impact.
General Smith must have delegated the management of Chump for a while to someone else because his digital image materialised on Bruce's screen.
Bruce took the call.
“Good afternoon.”
“How is it going?” Bruce asked.
“Fine, things are going well here. As we predicted, the disappearing refugees have created a lot of confusion. The governments of France and Italy in particular are under pressure from civil liberties groups to explain these disappearances and nobody has any answers. Another glitch,” The General continued, “is a filter seems to have been applied to the hoovering up process. Instead of everyone on the ships or the camps being uploaded and streamed or assessed at Automedon according to the agreed process, a front-end operation is in place which rejects some passengers and leaves them on the boats. This is causing all kinds of confusion and is creating a bit of noise and means we need to generate messaging for social networks to rebut the stories of the people left behind. It’s not the end of the world, but it is a pain in the ass.”
“Yea
h, the Transcendents have been hounding me to speed up the entire process, so I authorised this change.”
The General grimaced and Bruce could hear someone off-camera whispering to him.
“Bruce, you can’t keep doing things like this. We have an agreed design and we need to keep to it. If you think a change should be made, you have to use the appropriate change process.”
“Look, mate,” Bruce decided he needed to put the General in his place, gently, because he was doing an excellent job with Chump. “This isn’t a democracy, you know. We promised the Transcendents their quota of bodies, and we put together a plan to supply them, in a timely fashion with the least impact. We need to start delivering, otherwise they’re just going to ride rough-shod over us and hoover people up indiscriminately. We don't want that: the impact would be catastrophic and could lead to a complete global breakdown in law and order. Every lunatic under the sun will take this as a sign the end of the world is upon us, and my betting is we’d be hard pressed to keep things under control.”
“OK. Your call. I still don’t think it is a great idea to leave the mad and bad behind on the boats without conditioning them, it just plays into the hands of the constituency who believe the camps and the refugee ships are full of terrorists and criminals attempting to sneak into Europe and the States. We have evidence only a tiny percentage of them are crazy or are delinquent, but we don’t want to play into the hands of the nutcases out there if we don’t have to.”
“I know that. I even agree with the sentiment, but we have more urgent issues to deal with for the moment.
There were so many things to do and so many loose ends to tidy up, it made Bruce’s head hurt just to think about them, even with his enhanced neural capacity and personal AI on tap. All he wanted the General to do was to keep Chump under control, and away from his Twitter account. OK, he conceded to himself, it wasn’t quite that simple, but Bruce knew he had more on his plate than the General.
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