by Neil Clarke
The RDCCF wasn’t a country. It was just one of many organisations for people who worked in space because there was nothing left for them on Earth. But to Euclid, meeting the Rt Hon Patience Bouscholte felt like meeting a Member of Parliament from the old days. Euclid was slightly intimidated, but he wasn’t going to show it. He put an arm casually over the empty seat beside him.
“They said you were far quieter in person than on stage. They were right.” Bouscholte held up a single finger before he could reply, and pointed to two women in all-black bulletproof suits who were busy scanning the room with small wands. They gave a thumbs up as Bouscholte cocked her head in their direction, and retreated to stand on either side of the entrance.
She turned back to Euclid. “Tell me, Mr. Slinger, how much have you heard about the Solar Development Charter and their plans for Earth?”
So it was true? He leaned toward her. “Why would they have any plans for Earth? I’ve heard they’re stretched thin enough building the Glitter Ring.”
“They are. They’re stretched more than thin. They’re functionally bankrupt. So the SDC is taking up a new tranche of preferred shares for a secondary redevelopment scheme. They want to ‘redevelop’ Earth, and that will not be to our benefit.”
“Well then.” Euclid folded his arms and leaned back. “And you thought you’d tell an old calypso singer that because . . . ?”
“Because I need your rhymes, Mr. Slinger.”
Euclid had done that before, in the days before his last long-sleep, when fame was high and money had not yet evaporated. Dishing out juicy new gossip to help Assembly contract negotiations. Leaking information to warn the workers all across the asteroid belt. Hard-working miners on contract, struggling to survive the long nights and longer sleeps. Sing them a song about how the SDC was planning to screw them over again. He knew that gig well.
He had thought that was why he’d been brought to see her, to get a little something to add extempo to a song tonight. Get the Belt all riled up. But if this was about Earth . . . ? Earth was a garbage dump. Humanity had sucked it dry like a vampire and left its husk to spiral toward death as people moved outward to bigger and better things.
“I don’t sing about Earth anymore. The cohorts don’t pay attention to the old stuff. Why should they care? It’s not going anywhere.”
Then she told him. Explained that the SDC was going to beautify Earth. Re-terraform it. Make it into a new garden of Eden for the rich and idle of Mars and Venus.
“How?” he asked, sceptical.
“Scorched Earth. They’re going to bomb the mother planet with comets. Full demolition. The last of us shipped into the Ring to form new cohorts, new generations of indentured servitude. A clean slate to redesign their brave new world. That is what I mean when I say not to our benefit.”
He exhaled slowly. “You think a few little lyrics can change any of that?” The wealth of Venus, Mars, and Jupiter dwarfed the cohorts in their hollowed out, empty old asteroids.
“One small course adjustment at the start can change an entire orbit by the end of a journey,” she said.
“So you want me to harass the big people up in power for you, now?”
Bouscholte shook her head. “We need you to be our emissary. We, the Assembly, the last representatives of the drowned lands and the dying islands, are calling upon you. Are you with us or not?”
Euclid thought back to the days of breezes and mango trees. “And if they don’t listen to us?”
Bouscholte leaned in close and touched his arm. “The majority of our cohort are indentured to the Solar Development Charter until the Glitter Ring is complete. But, Mr. Slinger, answer me this: where do you think that leaves us after we finish the Ring, the largest project humanity has ever attempted?”
Euclid knew. After the asteroid belt had been transformed into its new incarnation, a sun-girdling, sun-powered device for humanity’s next great leap, it would no longer be home.
There were few resources left in the Belt; the big planets had got there first and mined it all. Euclid had always known the hollow shells that had been left behind. The work on the Glitter Ring. The long-sleep so that they didn’t exhaust resources as they waited for pieces of the puzzle to slowly float from place to appointed place.
Bouscholte continued. “If we can’t go back to Earth, they’ll send us further out. Our cohorts will end up scattered to the cold, distant areas of the system, out to the Oort Cloud. And we’ll live long enough to see that.”
“You think you can stop that?”
“Maybe, Mr. Slinger. There is almost nothing we can broadcast that the big planets can’t listen to. When we go into long-sleep they can hack our communications, but they can’t keep us from talking, and they’ll never stop our songs.”
“It’s a good dream,” Euclid said softly, for the first time in the conversation looking up at the view over the skybox. He’d avoided looking at it. To Jeni it was a beautiful blue dot, but for Euclid all it did was remind him of what he’d lost. “But they won’t listen.”
“You must understand, you are just one piece in a much bigger game. Our people are in place, not just in the cohorts, but everywhere, all throughout the system. They’ll listen to your music and make the right moves at the right time. The SDC can’t move to destroy and rebuild Earth until the Glitter Ring is finished, but when it’s finished they’ll find they have underestimated us—as long as we coordinate in a way that no one suspects.”
“Using songs? Nah. Impossible,” he declared bluntly.
She shook her head, remarkably confident. “All you have to do is be the messenger. We’ll handle the tactics. You forget who you’re speaking to. The Bouscholte family tradition has always been about the long game. Who was my father? What positions do my sons hold, my granddaughters? Euclid Slinger . . . Babatunde . . . listen to me. How do you think an aging calypso star gets booked to do an expensive, multi-planetary tour to the capitals of the Solar System, the seats of power? By chance?”
She called him that name as if she were his friend, his inner-circle intimate. Kumi named him that years . . . decades ago. Too wise for your years. You were here before, he’d said. The Father returns, sent back for a reason. Was this the reason?
“I accept the mission,” he said.
Day. Me say Day-Oh. Earthrise come and me want go …
Euclid looked up, smiled. Let the chord go. He wouldn’t be so blatant as to wink at the VIP section, but he knew that there was a fellow Rock Devil out there, listening out for certain songs and recording Vega’s carefully assembled samples to strip for data and instructions in a safe location. Vega knew, of course. Had to, in order to put together the info packets. Dhaka knew a little but had begged not to know more, afraid she might say the wrong thing to the wrong person. Jeni was still, after her first long-sleep, nineteen in body and mind, so no, she did not know, and anyway how could he tell her when he was still dragging his feet on telling Kumi?
And there was Kumi, frowning at him after the end of the concert as they sprawled in the green room, taking a quick drink before the final packing up. “Baba, you on this nostalgia kick for real.”
“You don’t like it?” Euclid teased him. “All that sweet, sweet soca you grew up studying, all those kaiso legends you try to emulate?”
“That ain’t your sound, man.”
Euclid shrugged. “We can talk about that next time we’re in the studio. Now we got a party to be at!”
After twenty-five years of long-sleep, Euclid thought Mars looked much the same, except maybe a little greener, a little wetter. Perhaps that was why the Directors of the SDC-MME had chosen to host their bash in a gleaming biodome that overlooked a charming little lake. Indoor foliage matched to outer landscape in a lush canopy and artificial lights hovered in competition with the stars and satellites beyond.
“Damn show-offs,” Dhaka muttered. “Am I supposed to be impressed?”
“I am,” Jeni said shamelessly, selecting a stimulant cocktail
from an offered tray. Kumi smoothly took it from her and replaced it with another, milder option. She looked outraged.
“Keep a clear head, Zippy,” Vega said quietly. “We’re not among friends.”
That startled her out of her anger. Kumi looked a little puzzled himself, but he accepted Vega’s support without challenge.
Euclid listened with half his attention. He had just noticed an opportunity. “Kumi, all of you, come with me. Let’s greet the CEO and offer our thanks for this lovely party.”
Kumi came to his side. “What’s going on?”
Euclid lowered his voice. “Come, listen and find out.”
The CEO acknowledged them as they approached, but Euclid could sense from the body language that the busy executive would give them as much time as dictated by courtesy and not a bit more. No matter that Euclid was a credentialled ambassador for the RDCCF, authorised by the Assembly. He could already tell how this meeting would go.
“Thank you for hosting us, Mx Ashe,” Euclid said, donning a pleasant, grinning mask. “It’s always a pleasure to kick off a tour at the Mars Mining and Energy Megaplex.”
“Thank you,” the executive replied. “Your music is very popular with our hands.”
“Pardon?” Kumi enquired, looking in confusion at the executive’s fingers wrapped around an ornate cocktail glass.
“Our employees in the asteroid belt.”
Kumi looked unamused. Euclid moved on quickly. “Yes. You merged with the SDC . . . pardon me, we are still trying to catch up on twenty-five years of news . . . about ten years ago?”
A little pride leaked past the politeness. “Buyout, not merger. Only the name has survived, to maintain continuity and branding.”
Euclid saw Dhaka smirk and glance at Vega, who looked a little sour. He was still slightly bitter that his ex-husband had taken everything in the divorce except for the de la Vega surname, the name under which he had become famous and which Vega was forced to keep for the sake of convenience.
“But don’t worry,” the CEO continued. “The Glitter Ring was always conceptualised as a project that would be measured in generations. Corporations may rise and fall, but the work will go on. Everything remains on schedule and all the hands . . . all the—how do you say—cohorts are in no danger of losing their jobs.”
“So, the cohorts can return to Earth after the Ring is completed?” Euclid asked directly.
Mx Ashe took a careful sip of bright purple liquid before replying. “I did not say that.”
“But I thought the Earth development project was set up to get the SDC a secondary round of financing, to solve their financial situation,” Dhaka demanded, her brow creasing. “You’ve bought them out, so is that still necessary?”
Mx Ashe nodded calmly. “True, but we have a more complex vision for the Glitter Ring than the SDC envisioned, and so funding must be vastly increased. Besides, taking money for a planned redevelopment of Earth and then not doing it would, technically, be fraud. The SDC-MME will follow through. I won’t bore you with the details, but our expertise on geo-engineering is unparalleled.”
“You’ve been dropping comets on vast, uninhabited surfaces,” Dhaka said. “I understand the theory, but Earth isn’t Venus or Mars. There’s thousands of years of history and archeology. And there are still people living there. How are you going to move a billion people?”
Mx Ashe looked coldly at Dhaka. “We’re still in the middle of building a Ring around the sun, Mx Miriam. I’m sure my successors on the Board will have it all figured out by the next time we wake you up. We understand the concerns raised, but after all, people have invested trillions in this project. Our lawyers are in the process of responding to all requests and lawsuits, and we will stand by the final ruling of the courts.”
Euclid spoke quickly, blunt in his desperation. “Can’t you reconsider, find another project to invest in? Earth’s a mess, we all know it, but we always thought we’d have something to come back to.”
“I’m sure a man of your means could afford a plot on New Earth—” Mx Ashe began.
“I’ve seen the pricing,” Vega cut in dryly. “Musicians don’t make as much as you think.”
“What about the cohorts?” Jeni said sadly. “No-one in the cohorts will be able to afford to go back.”
Mx Ashe stepped back from the verbal bombardment. “This is all speculation. The cohorts are still under contract to work on the Glitter Ring. Once they have finished, negotiations about their relocation can begin. Now, if you will excuse me, have a good night and enjoy the party!”
Euclid watched despondently as the CEO walked away briskly. The Rovers stood silently around him, their faces sombre. Kumi was the first to speak. “Now I understand the nostalgia kick.”
The SDC, now with the MME
You and I both know
They don’t stand for you and me
There was still a tour to play. The band moved from Elysium City to Electris Station, then Achillis Fons, where they played in front of the Viking Museum.
The long-sleep on the way to Mars had been twenty-five years. Twenty-five years off, one year on. That was the shift the Rock Devils Cohort and Consociation Fusion had agreed to, the key clause in the contract Euclid had signed way-back-when in an office built into the old New York City sea wall.
That gave them a whole year on Mars. Mx Ashe may have shut them down, but Euclid wasn’t done yet. Not by a long shot.
Kumi started fretting barely a month in.
“Jeni stepping out with one of the VIPs,” he told Euclid.
“She’s nineteen. What you expecting? A celibate band member? I don’t see you ignoring anyone coming around when we breaking down.”
Kumi shook his head. “No Baba, that’s one thing. This is the same one she’s seeing. Over and over. Since we arrived here. She’s sticky sweet on him.”
“Kumi, we got bigger things to worry about.”
“Earth, I know. Man, look, I see why you’re upset.” Kumi grabbed his hand. “I miss it too. But we getting old, Baba. I just pass sixty. How much longer I could do this? Maybe we focus on the tour and invest the money so that we can afford to go back some day.”
“I can’t give it up that easy,” Euclid said to his oldest friend. “We going to have troubles?”
Back when Euclid was working the rocks, Kumi had taken him under his wing. Taught him how to sing the old songs while they moved their one-person pods into position to drill them out. Then they’d started singing at the start of shifts and soon that took off into a full career. They’d traveled all through the Belt, from big old Ceres to the tiniest cramped mining camps.
Kumi sucked his teeth. “That first time you went extempo back on Pallas, you went after that foreman who’d been skimping on airlock maintenance? You remember?”
Euclid laughed. “I was angry. The airlock blew out and I wet myself waiting for someone to come pick me up.”
“When you started singing different lyrics, making them up on the spot, I didn’t follow you at first. But you got the SDC to fire him when the video went viral. That’s why I called you Baba. So, no, you sing and I’ll find my way around your words. Always. But let me ask you—think about what Ashe said. You really believe this fight’s worth it?”
Euclid bit his lip.
“We have concerts to give in the Belt and Venus yet,” he told Kumi. “We’re not done yet.”
Five months in, the Martians began to turn. The concerts had been billed as cross-cultural events, paid for by the Pan-Human Solar Division of Cultural Affairs and the Martian University’s division of Inter-Human Musicology Studies school.
Euclid, on stage, hadn’t noticed at first. He’d been trying to find another way to match up MME with “screw me” and some lyrics in between. Then a comparison to Mars and its power, and the people left behind on Earth.
But he noticed when this crowd turned.
Euclid had grown used to the people of the big planets just sitting and listening to his music.
No one was moving about. No hands in the air. Even if you begged them, they weren’t throwing their hands out. No working, no grinding, no nothing. They sat in seats and appreciated.
He didn’t remember when they turned. He would see it on video later. Maybe it was when he called out the ‘rape’ of Earth with the ‘red tape’ of the SDC-MME and made a visual of ‘red’ Mars that tied to the ‘red’ tape, but suddenly those chair-sitting inter-cultural appreciators stood up.
And it wasn’t to jump.
The crowd started shouting back. The sound cut out. Security and the venue operators swept in and moved them off the stage.
Back in the green room, Jeni rounded on Euclid. “What the hell was that?” she shouted.
“Extempo,” Euclid said simply.
Kumi tried to step between them. “Zippy—”
“No!” She pushed him aside. Dhaka, in the corner of the room, started disassembling the Delirium, carefully putting the pieces away in a g-force protected aerogel case, carefully staying out of the brewing fight. Vega folded his arms and stood to a side, watching. “I damn well know what extempo is. I’m young, not ignorant.”
Everyone was tired. The heavy gravity, the months of touring already behind them. “This always happens. A fight always come halfway through,” Euclid said. “Talk to me.”
“You’re doing extempo like you’re in a small free concert in the Belt, on a small rock. But this isn’t going after some corrupt contractor,” Jeni snapped. “You’re calling out a whole planet now? All Martians? You crazy?”
“One person or many, you think I shouldn’t?”
Euclid understood. Jeni had been working pods like he had at the same age. Long, grueling shifts spent in a tiny bubble of plastic where you rebreathed your own stench so often you forgot what clean air tasted like. Getting into the band had been her way ‘off the rock.’ This was her big gamble out of tedium. His too, back in the day.