by Mary Carmen
The Action Starts
A month after Len met with Mr. Mipdomp, the conflict between the two groups of districts began in earnest.
The government of Mr. Mipdomp, referred to as the Assemblage, ran an outpost that straddled the border between two districts, one that had seceded and one that had not. This outpost was not very large, and it had served to briefly house government personnel traveling between the districts.
In April of 2081, when the Assemblage sent its usual trains of supplies to the outpost, Gosv Tunves, the seceded district decided its territory had been invaded. It opened fire, with ammunition developed to alarm but not kill. After about twelve hours of firing, the supply trains were still in place, waiting for the goods to be unloaded. At that point, the seceded district began to fire with weapons that would knock down the Gosv Tunves buildings. The trains, their crews, and the personnel of Gosv Tunves departed quickly, back into the Assemblage district. The buildings at Gosv Tunves were reduced to rubble.
The news spread quickly throughout New Philadelphia. I hurried home to Anna and Franklin, now housed along with Miss Gasnes in our wedding gift.
“Should we make plans to return to Earth?” Anna asked. “I don’t care about Daddy’s deal. I just care about my little family.”
I was not sure of the best thing to do. Gosv Tunves was nearly two thousand miles from New Philadelphia, and I believed we were safer in our grand house than we would be anywhere, even on Earth.
“The seceded district nearest to New Philadelphia is over two hundred miles from here,” I said. “Surely the fighting will stop at the borders. Your father will be able to help with supplies, and the Assemblage will be able to exist on its own.”
Anna was not happy. She told me what I already knew.
“We have another baby on the way, Tony, and I want her to be healthy. Soon the doctor will imprison me in this house and we will be unable to move.”
Indeed, Anna was soon confined to her room. Louella and Miss Gasnes found extra staff to take care of little Franklin, now just over one year of age, and my Anna. The house was full of help night and day. I spent my evenings with Anna, and Len and Louella came often to play cards.
“Don’t worry about anything, honey,” Len told Anna. “I have found suppliers for most of the items on Mipdomp’s list, and he has started to pay for deliveries. We are rolling in cash.”
The Alliance Organizes
My hopes the seceded districts would come to their senses and return to the fold were quickly dashed. Right after the attack on Gosv Tunves, the eleven seceded districts, calling themselves the Alliance, held a constitutional convention in the district most remote from New Philadelphia.
Using the constitution of the Assemblage, the group created a second country on Octula, elected a president, and started to set up separate departments for governmental operations. Of course, the law conscripting anybody to any profession was not part of the new constitution. Indeed, many of the Assemblage’s laws that gave power to the central government were changed in favor of laws that held these same powers in each district.
The new Alliance constitution was ratified in June, 2081, by all eleven districts.
Residents of a large section of one Alliance district contiguous to the lands of the Assemblage wanted to remain part of the Assemblage. Debates were held in all areas of that section, and the residents voted almost overwhelmingly in late June, 2081, to form a separate district and become part, again, of the Assemblage. This district became the twenty-seventh district and remained a separate district after the country reunited.
Len continued to control much of the changes in imports and exports. He found new markets for the platinum that is found several thousand miles north of the Octulian equator, and he was able to find new sources for the grains the Alliance had always provided for all districts. These activities kept him away from home, traveling to other planets in the same star system and, occasionally, to planets in nearby star systems to buy and sell. I noted that Len and Louella were frequently invited to social functions at Mr. Mipdomp’s mansion, and when Len was at home they always went.
My own work certainly redoubled. I helped with the gathering of statistics about each district’s productivity, and I prepared a daily report about the weather and how it affected various crops.
Helen was due on November 26, 2081, and Anna stayed in her room and, later, in her bed, just as the doctor had advised. I spent every evening with her, and Miss Gasnes came for an hour or so with Franklin so we could play with him. Anna talked to him in English, and Miss Gasnes talked to him in Octulan. He was a large baby, but he was not, in 2081, speaking any word in either language.
On October 25 Anna went to the hospital for the final weeks of her pregnancy, and Len postponed his trips so he could visit every day. Then, on November 28, the doctor performed the caesarian.
Helen was very small, and she died the next day. We all were sad, but Len was inconsolable.
Like Job, you must mourn for your dead child. Remember that God will find a healthier body for your child’s spirit, God’s own spirit. Perhaps that spirit will become another of your children or the child of one of your friends. God wants to feel, through you, that most unhappy of losses, the death of a child.
The War Begins
My work with the Commerce Department allowed me to see, as early as February of 2082, the slow but steady depletion of the Assemblage’s stocks of food.
Len continued to try to find additional food, but he did not attempt to buy anything from the Alliance. Stories from the capital of the Alliance’s government leaked out, though, and we were aware their citizens were burning crops because they could not consume all the food they raised.
The Alliance, itself, was very short of fuel. The heavy snows that allowed water to be used to generate electricity were not nearly as common in the districts of the Alliance as they were in those of the Assemblage. In addition, the raw ingredients used to create nuclear power were not available in the districts of the Alliance.
On February 5, 2082, Len and my client attended a large meeting at Mr. Mipdomp’s mansion to discuss the situation with the food.
Len told us afterward, “Very few places have food to sell. They are just about covering their own requirements, and in some places famine is commonplace. No planet’s rulers are willing to starve their own people just so they can make money selling food to Octula.”
Anna asked, “How about Earth, Daddy? Can’t we find food there and import it?”
“Yes, sweetheart, Earth is very willing to sell food for the materials to produce energy, but it takes too long to make the round trip. We need to find a source closer to Octula.”
The answer appeared to be obvious, even to me. The Assemblage needed to conquer one or more districts of the Alliance and put their farms and farmers under its control.
Finding more inhabited land on Octula was not an option. The planet was very large, but it was covered almost entirely by water and ice. The only land on the entire planet was the large island containing the districts of the Assemblage and the Alliance.
On February 7, 2082, I was given an additional assignment, to estimate each Alliance district’s annual output of four grains and seven vegetables. I worked nonstop for a week, reading all the farming statistics from prior years and comparing these to the weather reports from those years. Then I found weather reports for the days since the districts of the Alliance seceded and estimated the impact of this weather on each crop. I prepared a draft of my report, placed it on the client’s desk, and went home to sleep.
The telephone rang almost immediately, awaking Anna but not me. She was told I was to return within an hour to present the report, without change, to Mr. Mipdomp and his cabinet.
Anna drove me to the office in her two-seater. When I entered our conference room, I saw my report’s major chart printed on a large roll of paper, filling one wall. This chart showed each district of the Alliance on a map, with colors indicating the v
arious crops.
Many people I did not know filed into the room. I was one of two Americans, and Len was the other. Everything I had found out was in the report, and most of this information was on the large chart that dominated the conversation.
After four hours, including about forty-five minutes of the usual introductions, the meeting concluded. The large chart, with a few extra marks made during the meeting, was rolled up and taken away by Mr. Mipdomp’s secretary. I had answered a few questions, mostly ones about the location of data in the report. We were all thanked and clearly dismissed. Len, with a nod toward me, walked out with the President’s staff and appeared to head toward Mr. Mipdomp’s mansion.
I walked the two miles to our house. I knew the discussions would continue but the topic would change from “what are the facts” to “what do we do now.” I was anxious to tell Anna about the meeting, and I was even more anxious to get more sleep.
Anna was waiting for me. In the time it had taken me to talk home from the office, the decision to declare war on the Alliance had been made and had been announced on the radio. Mr. Mipdomp’s government had given the rationale for the war as the breach of the contract by the seceded districts to provide for the common defense.
The First Action
Until that point in its history, Octula had never initiated a war. The training for military officers concentrated only on fending off invasions of the planet and putting down the occasional minor internal uprising. The military commanders were used to tattoos and dress parades and salutes with swords. The scientists assigned to the military were used to developing the latest weapons in laboratories and never actually seeing them in action.
On the evening of the meeting in our offices, Anna and I watched Mr. Mipdomp as he talked to the nation. I recorded the speech and I listened to it several times so I could make sure I knew every word. Behind Mr. Mipdomp on the television screen was my map, printed this time without the text. The colors were there that showed each crop, but Mr. Mipdomp did not describe the meanings of these colors. The speech reinforced the idea broadcasted earlier that the war was being waged to collect damages for the breach of the contract that was the ratified constitution of the Assemblage. Each seceded district had ratified that constitution, agreeing to provide for the common defense. Mr. Mipdomp did not discuss the fact that no threat requiring a defense had been made. He certainly did not bring up, in that speech or in any later speech, the certainty that the people of the Assemblage were about eight months away from starvation.
The most senior of the military people, General Xipgiemf Tdovv, was determined to initiate some kind of an offensive, even though his troops were ready for the parade ground and not much else. In addition, the citizens had become enthusiastic supporters of the war after Mr. Mipdomp’s eloquent, logical, and emotional speech. Something needed to happen soon, and General Tdovv decided to move a small armored division with three brigades to a location just south of the border between the Assemblage and the Alliance, about two hundred miles from New Philadelphia.
On March 3, 2082, the division left during the night and went directly to a small town, Cumm Sup, at a junction of three main roads. Here the Assemblage division met a small unit of Alliance troops and quickly disarmed them. The Alliance immediately sent reinforcements, and these additional troops caused the Assemblage to retreat to New Philadelphia. Very few shots were fired and no troops were killed, but the retreat was disorganized at best.
General Tdovv’s arrival in New Philadelphia was disheartening. The division drove to an armory north of the city, attracting a crowd of cheerless bystanders on the street.
On March 8, 2082, Mr. Mipdomp delivered an address on the radio after the division’s arrival, urging the citizens to believe in an eventual victory. Anna and I watched with heavy hearts, knowing the country to be just at the start of a long and expensive campaign.
Eliza Arrives
We had more reasons to worry on that day. Anna was expecting another child, much too soon after the birth of Helen.
Len was determined to insist the doctor take up residence in the compound. He was feeling, just then, his position with the war effort would allow him to request and be granted nearly any favor. He went to see the doctor and returned with some concessions.
“She is willing to come here once every week for the first five months, and then every other day after that,” he said with a satisfied smile.
“What will be different, Daddy?” Anna asked. “I followed her instructions to the letter with both Franklin and Helen.”
Anna and I held each other after Len went home. I had known we should not have allowed ourselves to conceive a child until at least another three months had gone by, but we had been so sad and so anxious that we found our only happiness in lovemaking. It was our tranquilizer.
Anna was more resigned to the confinement this time, though. She played with Franklin and read books. We visited every evening, but I longed to have her back in my bed.
Eliza was born on November 18, 2082. She was healthy from the start, and we knew after only a few days we would be able to take her home after the half year in the hospital. Len attributed her vitality to his insisting on more service from the doctor, and we were in no position to argue with him. She looked so much like my beloved grandmother that I became quite attached to her.
Everything happens at the right time. God has planned your life and the lives of others so events come at the moments they were destined to occur.
A child does not come too early. The moment a life starts and the moment a life ends are known to God from the beginning of time.
More Job Changes
While we were waiting for Eliza, my role in Mr. Mipdomp’s administration changed.
When I started my work on Octula, my client was a middle manager with not much expertise about finance. We worked well together, and I appreciated his support.
After the meeting with Mr. Mipdomp, I was reassigned to report directly to the Secretary of Commerce. I still worked with my former client on a daily basis, but we were now colleagues.
After hearing about this change, I immediately wrote to my manager in Pittsburgh. He had been expecting my engagement on Octula to last for no longer than five years, but the fifth anniversary of the day I left Earth for Octula was just a couple of months away. I explained my new assignment and the uncertainty of actually completing the original work in the near future.
My manager in Pittsburgh immediately wrote to the Octulian Secretary and asked for approval of an extension. The Secretary wrote back that an open-ended contract was more appropriate since the government had declared war. The Secretary sent my manager a transfer order for platinum to cover another five years of my services.
My manager agreed to extend the engagement at the same rate, and he agreed to pay me the same salary and per-diem charge. We did not discuss a time for me to return to Earth.
I did not write to Maude to tell her about the lengthened assignment. Half my salary still went to her, and half of it went to my savings account. As for my per-diem funds, I gave them to Anna and drew pocket money from the change in Anna’s china creamer in the kitchen.
In my new job I found myself creating more reports for presentation to Mr. Mipdomp. I reported on imports of food, sales of grain and vegetables, and sales of food at the retail outlets. I also prepared weekly graphs that showed how the grains in reserve silos were being depleted.
Each week there was less food in reserve. For the first few weeks after the declaration of war, it appeared that entities were hoarding. After that, the silos showed a steady decline in the volumes of grains and legumes.
I knew Len and Louella were hoarding. The basements of the several houses in the compound were filled with non-perishables, certainly enough to feed the family and the hired help for three years. Each time Len returned from a buying trip, more food was taken to the basement shelves.
The Secretary of Commerce used my maps to determine which Alliance dis
tricts to approach to find food for sale. We had little luck, but the food we bought from Alliance farmers accounted for about ten percent of the total imports. I believe this small amount was the reason nobody starved during the war. Since the Alliance was so very short of energy during this time, we traded fuel for food. The farmers were able to run their machinery and we took a portion of the harvest. It would not surprise me, today, to learn the Alliance government was aware of this.