Chapter 9: Press Conference II
Pete walked onto the podium of the press center. There were fewer reporters there now. With nearly half their population evacuated to other worlds the number of reporters accredited to the Evacuation Command had been going down. There were still a great many who were accredited with Kingdom of Trena news gathering organizations, a greater number were from interstellar organizations. Most of them would be here to the end and was waiting for the thing to fall apart for there to be riots at the space port and embarkation areas. They had heard rumors of problems popping up here and there all over the planet. So far they had only been rumors. They thought they were seeing the end game being played out. It wasn’t.
“I have your weekly brief,” Pete said. “We are now three months from impact. To date we have evacuated roughly a little over a quarter of our people. We are right where we thought we would be at this time. The pace of the evacuations will be picking up as we now have the things and equipment in place to make this happen. Where and when we can we’re moving people to the capital. We’re resolving some other issues both legal and societal. Home’s population is now around seventeen million spread out over the main continent I know we have said over half of our 75 million souls have been evacuated. Almost half of that 25 million people have found homes on the worlds of our friends and neighbors. Some have gone back to the nation of their birth. Some have become tier two colonists on worlds like Lafferty’s Other Place, Spider, Brown, and Taylor. Some have taken off world employment with large firms like Bechtel and Lockheed. In the next couple of weeks we will be shutting down places like Boeing SpaceWorks as the last of the landing craft are made and we haven’t enough human help to do the things that humans have a better hand at. I will take some of your questions now.”
“What about the enclave we’ve been hearing about?” A reporter asked after Pete pointed to him. The enclave were small compounds on the other side of the planet away from the first initial impacts of the asteroids that rich people were building to protect their families and some of their business associates.
“What about them,” the Evacuation Command’s Public information officer asked.
“Is the Marshal going to force them to be evacuated,” The reporter asked. This had come to light a few weeks ago. The people who were building the enclave thought that the impacts wouldn’t be that bad, and that the event was survivable. The Crown and the Evacuation command had discussed this at length. They asked had they missed something in the data, and were they wrong. Were they spending resources in the wrong way? Could they protect their people by lifting them to the other side of the planet to underground shelters? After a second review of the data they had come up with the still inescapable fact that once the two or three really big asteroids hit a nuclear winter would be created. The evidence still predicted that within six or seven months a new ice age would start on Trena. There was no way that people could survive the oncoming bombardment. It wasn’t just the nuclear winter that would kill everything off, it was the bombardment itself. A couple of bigger rocks that we’re going to hit were several hundred cubic miles in size and weighed several billion tons. They would do serious planetary damage. Some thought one or two of them could even cause a piece of Trena to be lopped off. There had been talk of trying to destroy a couple of the bigger ones; but the simulations didn’t look good. Depending on when the action took place it could cause more of the asteroid belt to become unstable. Or become a major unpredictable navigation hazard. No one knew how long that it would take for the planet to be livable again. Maybe millions of years.
“The Marshal has talked with the enclave, but no plan has been fomented at this time to do anything about them.” Pete answered the reporter question. Although not completely truthful it wasn’t really a lie either, the evacuation command did not have a consensus as to how to handle the enclave. “Next.”
“What about the AI suite.” another asked knowing Pete would not say another word on the subject of the enclaves and if pressed he would just walk off the podium.
“Well it was settled a couple of weeks ago.” Pete said, “We are providing a method for all AI’s to leave Trena. Some AI will be transported to Home to be part of Home’s industry and planetary infrastructure. Others who can be employed on other planets or in other industries will be transported to where they can be used. Others have said simply they will stay behind and try to report what is happening to Trena as long as they can, others have chosen to be turned off.”
“Suicide,” Someone remarked.
“Yeah you could call it that,” Pete said, “before any AI is turned off a probate court panel will examine the AI to make sure that it is doing so under its own control and it understands what might be the result of the shut down.”
“Might be?” a reporter asked. “Won’t they be dead?”
“Well it is possible that some of these souls could be in a protected spot that allows their physical backup and such not to be harmed. There will be parts of our world that could survive the asteroid impacts. Now hold on. I am not saying that this event is survivable! Only that like many things we have discovered from prehistory have survived being buried in tombs, and ruble for centuries. Some of the equipment that holds the AIs personalities could survive as an artifact. Look around you. In a couple of centuries archeologist will have a field day here.”
The crowd of reporters became quiet for a while as this sank in. Then one near the back of the room asked, “Has the crown or the Marshal taken steps to leave monuments to our people on Trena. Something that will tell future historians who we were, and why we left this world?”
“I haven’t heard anything,” Pete said making a note. It was good thing to pass on to the Queen, “Next question!”
“My organization has been researching the back ground of Marshal Wilson and his wife.” a reporter from Earth said, “The galaxy wants to know what sort of person is this Marshal Wilson. We’ve read the official biography of Lord Wilson. But there is nothing official on his family.”
“The Marshal has said in no uncertain terms that his family is off limits to the press.” Pete said getting ready to wrap this up. Wilson was very protective of his family. His family not only included Lady Wilson, his daughters, his mother, but quite a few of his personal staff. “You guys know that.”
“Pete,” The reporter said carefully, “There are a couple of reports that have come to light about Lady Wilson.”
“What type of reports,” Pete asked now even more ready to kill the event.
“Good reports really,” the man responded still very carefully, “Mostly about her kindness, and charity. The cloning community has known for years that she was instrumental in some incidents that rescued clones. They talk about an event fifteen or so years ago where she managed to redirect a shipment of clones from Pleasure. All five thousand of them were around thirteen fourteen years old and she kept them from being used as sex toys on Pleasure.”
Pete breathed a sigh of relief. He had heard about that story, and he had interviewed Lisa at length about her activities. It had surprised him what this kind and gentle woman had done when she had been on the run from the company. She didn’t talk about the people he suspected she had killed, but he suspected that there were some dark stories that Lisa would prefer not to see the light of day. This one though was one she had shared.
“Sir,” one of the other reported said a clone from Trenaport Daily, “He’s right on that one. But there are a few others. All good stories. We heard about how she looks out after her protective detail. I heard that one of the agents little girls was sick and Lady Wilson made a point of dropping by to look in after the girl.”
Pete was aware of this, and more. “She is one special lady.”
“We know that sir,” the original reporter asked. “Right before I came here today I was told by one of our photographers, that Life Interstellar has published her photos on the first evacuees in the magazine and has
one on the cover of this month’s edition. The guy said that a few of them were recommending her for a Pulitzer.”
“She’s as much a news story as the evacuation is.” A woman commented, “And Pete think, about it. We know a lot about Marshal Wilson. He has not hid his past from us at all.” there were nods and murmurs of agreement, “But you know he says that it is his family that keeps him from cracking up, in particular Lady Wilson. The people of Trena would like to know more about her. Is it possible for us to meet with her and interview her?”
“I don’t know,” Pete said, “The Marshal is very protective of her, more so since she’s pregnant.”
Francine who was wandering by on an errand for Lisa stopped and listened to the conversation. She didn’t know that Lady Wilson would consent to an interview or not. She was about the only one on the team who hadn’t been interviewed. The palace staff and the evacuation command were very protective of Mom Wilson. Francine thought it funny at times how the protective agents drew straws to be on her detail if one of her regular people were off sick. She walked back to the residence wondering how to bring it up to her mistress. She didn’t need to.
“Francine,” The Queen said as she entered the small family room where Lisa was sitting with the Queen, “join us for a minute will you.”
“Yes majesty,” Francine replied taking a seat on the sofa across from the two women.
“Francine,” Lisa turned to her assistant, “The Queen seems to think that I should be interviewed by the press.”
“They did ask for you this morning.” Francine went on to relate her observations to the two women.
“I don’t know,” Lisa said, “Mike definitely doesn’t want any of us out there. Although he is proud as hell of Jill; he cringes at all the media attention she and the Corps is getting. I am not certain what good it would do for me to be interviewed. I have spent most of my life on the run. Being on the run up to a few years ago taught me the value of staying away from those protectors of the truth.”
“Lisa,” Lady Hawthorne had joined the Queen and Lady Wilson for lunch, “have you thought that if you grant an interview you can let people know what you think, and if not defend yourself; but at least get your side of the story out.”
Lisa nodded at that and commented, “Pete has his tame reporters.”
“We can also set the rules in advance.” The Queen replied.
“I don’t want to talk about my on the run days,” Lisa said flatly. Although she had shared with Michael most of her on the run days, she hadn’t told him all of the things she done. He knew she had avenged the colonel, but he didn’t know of the really dark things she had done. Stuff she tried to forget about. She was neither proud of or nor ashamed of them, she just didn’t want to discuss them. Some of the darker ones gave her nightmares.
“My Lady,” Francine commented, “A couple of the things you did while on the run should be made public.”
Lisa glared at her secretary.
Francine didn’t react to her mistress’ glare; she just returned her intense glare with an unemotional look at her mistress. Francine had heard all of the Lisa stories, either from her lady’s own mouth or from witnesses who had seen her in action first hand. She simply said, “What about the time on a Theocracy ship where there were what a couple hundred pregnant women who did not have proper mid wives, and prenatal care. You brought nearly a hundred and ten children into the world. You lost only one mother who refused to let you help her, but you brought her baby into the world. Then there was that time on Hogshead where there was that neo chicken pox outbreak and you managed to get the Interstellar Rescue Service to bring in one of their epidemiological containment teams and helped to end it. Oh and what about that little young man who you were a governess to on Rico? You know the young man who is now the ruler of that world. You did see the letter he sent you the other day didn’t you?”
Lisa looked at Francine, not knowing what to say to her. Lady Hawthorne looked open mouth at her friend. She had known that there was something about Lisa. It just oozed out of the woman. Lisa wasn’t just competent, there was something about the tasks Lisa took on or the opportunities she made for others that not only helped them; but made things better for the people she helped.
“Of course,” Joyce had walked into the room with a cup of coffee and sheaf of papers. She was going over the plan for the new Wilson estate on Home. “Wasn’t there an incident on Lewis Center where a business man was controlling a whole farming community through his control of the medical services people? You came in and opened a free clinic for the area. I understand that several of my IRS buddies had helped you get your supplies.”
Lisa shook her head and said finally, “Okay, okay, yes there is some stuff that might be worthy of sharing. Francine you set it up with Cleo at the Trenaport Ledger. She’s been around for a while. Also she’s an emancipated clone. She may ask the questions, but she also has the background.”
Francine nodded and left the room.
Every Last Mother's Child Page 168