Star Corps

by Ian Douglas

  Camara chuckled. “Mightn’t the abos have something to say about that?”

  Buckner made a dismissive gesture. “That’s what the American Marines are for,” he replied. “The human slavery issue has all of North America ready to kick the Ahannu where it hurts most.”

  “What do you mean?” Koslonova, of Ukraine, said. “You’re saying the Marines are going to wipe out the Ahannu?”

  Buckner smiled at her. “That, of course, would be the ideal.”

  Pelligrini, one of the other Euro-Union representatives, looked shocked. “Signor Buckner! You are talking about annihilating the population of a planet!”

  “Calm yourself, Aberto. I said that would be the ideal, from our perspective, but we are realists. The MIEU will only have about a thousand Marines or so, and Ishtar is a world, a damned big place. They wouldn’t be able to wipe out something like ten million aborigines all at once. Hell, even if they could, public reaction back on home would be…counterproductive.

  “But we do see the game playing out like this: we all know they won’t find any of our people alive when they get there, not after ten years. The Marines will have to assault the Legation compound and, of course, secure the Pyramid of the Eye to reestablish real-time communication with Earth. The Frogs, the abos, are practically stone age, but they’re tenacious little bastards. They’ll put up a fight. The Marines will have to smash them down pretty hard in order to regain control.

  “Once the local government is forced to see reason, our people will form an advisory council and oversee the creation of a new abo government. We can expect the defeat of the current government to result in the surfacing of lots of new factions, and we’ll selectively help those factions who go along with our plans for Ishtar. Within two years, three at the most, we should have a functioning Ahannu government in place, one completely friendly to PanTerran interests and compliant to the directions of our representatives. And, of course, the Marines will be there to provide the stick behind PanTerra’s carrot.”

  “The gwailos of the western world followed a similar policy once on the shores of the Middle Kingdom,” Chieu said quietly. “The end result was revolution, economic ruin, the collapse of empires, and unspeakable human suffering. Do you really expect your policies on Ishtar to have any different outcome?”

  Buckner wasn’t sure at first what Chieu was talking about. He thought-clicked through some download references, pausing just long enough to confirm that the Hegemony’s representative was referring to the virtual land rush in China during the nineteenth century. Hong Kong. Macao. The Opium Wars. The Boxer Rebellion. A dozen nations had staked claims to various trading ports along the Chinese coast, intervening in Chinese affairs, forcing China to trade with the foreigners and on the foreigners’ terms.

  “Mr. Chieu, PanTerra has already invested heavily in the development of our franchise on Ishtar. We wish only to see a return on that investment. Frankly, when Ishtar ceases to be a profitable venture, we will be quite happy to return full control of Ishtaran affairs back to the Ahannu. In the meantime, we offer the aborigines peace, technical advancement, the advantages of technic civilization in so far as they’re able to handle them, and stability. Think of it! Ahannu culture has advanced scarcely at all since the collapse of their interstellar empire ten thousand years ago. Within a few generations, they could undergo an industrial revolution and even contemplate a return to space.”

  “It’s not like PanTerra to encourage potential competitors,” Camara said. His smile robbed the words of their edge.

  “Not competitors,” Buckner said. “Trade partners. Business partners. The point is, all of that won’t happen for a century or two. We don’t need to worry about it. All we need do is think about the money we’re going to make from this one investment!”

  “Yes,” Haddad said. “Money. A return on your investment. I believe I speak for a number of us here when I say that your scheme for using the human slaves on Ishtar as an additional return on your investment…this has a very foul smell to it. Am I to understand that PanTerra intends to import slaves, human slaves, from Ishtar? That you intend—if I understand this correctly—to use a campaign to free those slaves, only to ship them back to Earth for use as slaves here?”

  “Please, Mr. Haddad,” Buckner said with a pained expression. “We prefer the word ‘domestics.’ Not ‘slaves.’ There are entirely too many negative connotations to that word.”

  “Whatever you choose to call it,” Haddad said, pressing on, “the concept is neither moral nor economically viable.”

  “Representative Haddad has a point,” Chieu said. “The population of Earth would never accept such a moral outrage.”

  Buckner scowled at the assembly. “You want to lecture me on morality? You, Haddad—when for at least the past two hundred years or more your upper classes have imported domestic servants from various parts of Asia and Pacifica and paid them so poorly they cannot return home if they wish? When pockets of outright slavery still exist throughout the KOA in places like Sudan and Oman, and when women still have fewer rights than male slaves?”

  “We are all slaves of Allah—” Haddad began.

  “Can the sermon. I worship at a different church, the Church of the Almighty Newdollar.” Haddad bristled, but Buckner raised a hand. “Please. I mean no disrespect to anyone here. But it does give me a tremendous pain when people start making a major bleeding poor-mouth about moral outrages when it’s their comfort and their security and their wealth that they’re really concerned about. I don’t like hypocrisy.”

  “According to the report you’ve uploaded to us,” Raychaudhuri said evenly, “you plan to partly defray PanTerra’s development costs on Ishtar by bringing freed human Sagura back to Earth and selling them as servants. If that, sir, is not hypocrisy—”

  “And in your country, Raychaudhuri, a poor man can still sell his daughters,” Buckner said. “But that’s not the point, is it? Everything depends on how it is packaged. You’ve seen PanTerra’s reports…in particular, the reports on these Saguras. For ten thousand years they’ve been raised, been bred, as slaves to the Ahannu. They think of the Ahannu as gods…would no more think about disobeying them than you, Mr. Haddad, would think about disobeying Allah. They are conditioned from birth to accept the living reality of gods who direct every part of their lives.

  “And now, we’re going to arrive there, backed up by the Marines, and stand their world on its ear. What do you think would happen if we just walked in, gathered up all the Sagura, and said, ‘Congratulations, guys. You’re free.’ Hell, they’d starve to death in a month! They don’t even have a word in their vocabulary that means ‘freedom’! Like Orwell pointed out a couple of centuries ago, you can’t think about something if you don’t have a word for it.

  “At the same time, we have half the people on Earth clamoring for their release. ‘Humans being held in slavery by horrible aliens! Oh, no!…We must set things right, must free those poor, wronged innocents from their bondage!’

  “So PanTerra is proposing a social program that will satisfy the people of Earth, help the Ishtaran humans, and, just incidentally, help PanTerra recover what we’ve put into this project. As we send interstellar transports filled with Marines, scientists, and researchers out to Ishtar, we will begin bringing back transport loads of ex-slaves. They will be reintegrated slowly and carefully into human society. They do not understand the concept of ‘money’ or ‘payment’ or ‘salary,’ so they will be hired out to people willing to provide them with room and board in exchange for their domestic services.

  “Status, my friends, is an important coin in human relations. The upper classes on Earth of nearly every culture still derive considerable status from the employment of human servants. And, as they used to say, good servants are so hard to find. Well, PanTerra has found the mother lode of domestic servants. Happy, healthy, beautiful people conditioned to take orders and provide service because that’s the way they were raised, because that’s the only th
ing they know. And those Sag-ura who are shipped back to Earth, I might add, will derive considerable status from the mere fact of being chosen to return to the fabled home planet. And they will have the chance to slowly assimilate into Earth-human culture.

  “And if PanTerra charges for providing this service…what of it? People, don’t you see? Everybody wins! You. The Sag-ura. And PanTerra.”

  “Mr. Buckner,” Chieu said, “I thought PanTerra’s sole interest in Ishtar was the possibility of acquiring alien technology?”

  Buckner nodded. “It’s our interest, certainly. Not our sole interest, but an important one. We expect to reap enormous profits from our research on Ishtar. The greatest profits of all may well come from aspects of their history and technology and biology and culture yet to be uncovered, things that we’re not even aware of yet. But that is all so speculative at this point, it would be insane to count on that to balance the accounts. We know we will make a profit by bringing a few thousand Sag-ura back to Earth and acting as agents on their behalf. Anything else is, as they say, gravy.”

  The French representative, Xarla Fortier, folded her arms, radiating disapproval. “What arrogant assumption, monsieur, gives you the right to dictate this way to us? Ishtar, its wealth and its lost knowledge, should be the inheritance of all of humanity, not the playground of a single corporate entity! What you propose is nothing less than the wholesale rape of an inhabited world, to your benefit.”

  “Worse, Madame Fortier,” Raychaudhuri said, “he proposes to let us watch but not participate. PanTerra intends nothing less than a complete monopoly over Ishtar and all her products, subsidized by the United Federal Republic and backed by the muscle of the U.S. Marines. I, for one, protest.”

  “Tell us, Mr. Buckner,” Chieu said, eyes narrowing to hard, cold slits, “what happens if the population of Earth at large gets wind of this scheme of yours? You realize, of course, that any one of us here could upset your plans simply by net-publishing your report.”

  “Is that a threat, Mr. Chieu?” Buckner sighed. “I’d thought better of you. Each and every one of you answers to your own corporate interests. You will need to consult with them before taking such an irretrievably drastic step…one, I might add, that would reveal your own complicity in these deliberations. PanTerra would respond as necessary to minimize the damage, to put a good spin on things. We would emphasize the benevolent nature of our business dealings on Ishtar, the great public good we were providing. Even slavery, you see, can be presented as good, as a social or an economic or a religious necessity, if there is a carefully nurtured will to believe…. Am I correct, Mr. Haddad? True, our profits might be adversely impacted to some degree, but I doubt there would be major problems in the long run.

  “Of course, whoever leaks that information would find their corporate interests cut off from the deal. My God…we’re not leaving you out. We’re making you our partners! Secrecy, you see, is more in your interests than in ours. Play along, and each of you becomes the sole agent for the distribution of what we bring back from Ishtar to your own countries. New science. New knowledge. New medicines, perhaps, or new outlooks on the universe. And, of course, the chance to offer Ishtaran domestics to the upper strata of your populations, at a very healthy profit for yourselves.

  “Mr. Chieu, why would you possibly want to jeopardize that for yourself or the people of the Chinese People’s Hegemony?” He shrugged. “You all can discuss it as much as you want. Take it up with the Confederation Council, if you like. The simple fact is, PanTerra will be at Ishtar six months before the joint multinational expedition gets there. And I happen to know that the Marines will have orders not only to safeguard human interests on the planet, but to safeguard Confederation interests as well…and that means UFR interests, ladies and gentlemen. PanTerran interests. I tell you this in the hope that we can avoid any expensive confrontations, either here or on Ishtar.” He spread his hands, pouring sincerity into his voice. “Believe me when I say we want a reasonable return on our investment—no more. PanTerra is not the evil ogre you seem to believe it is. We are happy to share—for a fair and equitable price. Ishtar is a planet, a world, with all of the resources, wonders, and riches that a planet has to offer, with fortunes to be made from the exchange of culture, philosophy, history, knowledge.”

  “And if anyone can put a price tag on that knowledge,” Haddad said wryly, “PanTerra can. Friends, I think we have little alternative, at least for now.”

  “I agree,” Fortier said. “Reluctantly. We don’t have to like it….”

  “We understand the need for secrecy, Señor Buckner,” Dom Camara said. “But how can you guarantee that word of this—this plan of yours will not leak anyway? You can threaten to cut us off from our contracts with you…but not the Marines. Or the scientists.” Camara cocked his head to one side. “This civilian expert you’ve hired…Dr. Hanson? Suppose she doesn’t go along with your ideas of charity and enlightenment for the Sag-ura?”

  “Dr. Hanson is, quite frankly, the best in the field there is. We brought her on board to help us identify and acquire xenotechnoarcheological artifacts that may be of interest. She is a PanTerran employee. If she doesn’t do her job to our satisfaction, we will terminate her contract.”

  He didn’t elaborate. There was no reason to share with these people the darker aspects of some of the long meetings he’d held here in New Chicago with other PanTerran executives. The truth of it was that anyone who got in PanTerra’s way on this deal would be terminated.

  One way or another.

  “And the Marines?” Camara wanted to know.

  “They work for the FR/US government, of course, and are not, as such, directly under our control. They will do what they are sent out there to do, however. And we have taken…certain steps to ensure that our wishes are heard and respected.

  “Believe me, people, we are not monsters. We are not some evil empire bent on dominating Earth’s economy. What we at PanTerra are simply doing is ensuring that there is not a mad scramble for Ishtar’s resources.” He cocked an eye at Chieu. “We certainly do not want an unfortunate repeat of what happened in China three centuries ago, with half the civilized world snapping like dogs at a carcass. We propose order, an equitable distribution of the profits, and, most important, profits for everyone.”

  “Including the Ahannu, Mr. Buckner?” Chieu asked.

  “If they choose to accept civilization,” Buckner replied, “of course. They cannot wall off the universe forever. But as they adopt a less hidebound form of government, a freer philosophy, they will benefit as our partners and as our friends.” He was quite sincere as he spoke.

  He almost meant everything he said.

  12

  2 SEPTEMBER 2138

  Combat Center, IST Derna

  Orbital Construction Facility 1, L-4

  0810 hours Zulu

  “Maybe we should get up,” Ramsey said. “The day’s half over.”

  “And just what,” Ricia Anderson asked, “do you mean by up?”

  “Insubordinate bitch!” he said playfully. “You know what I mean!”

  In fact, there was no up, no down, no sense of direction save the words neatly stenciled across one bulkhead: THIS END DOWN DURING ACCELERATION.

  “Bitch,” Ricia said, cheerful. “That’s me. Beautiful…intelligent…talented…creative…and hard to please.”

  He chuckled. “Hard to please? You didn’t sound hard to please a little while ago.”

  She snuggled closer. “Mmm. That’s because you’re rather talented and creative yourself.”

  They floated together, naked, still surrounded by tiny glistening drops of perspiration and other body fluids adrift in microgravity. The compartment they occupied was small, only a couple of meters across in its narrowest dimension, an equipment storage space and access tunnel to the Derna’s logic centers. The electronics housing the various AIs running on board—including Cassius and the Derna’s own artificial intelligence—lay just beyond an array
of palm panels on the “ceiling” and one bulkhead. Tool lockers and storage bins took up most of the remaining surfaces, with a narrow, circular hatch in the deck leading aft to the centrifuge collar. Ramsey could hear the gentle, grinding rumble of the centrifuge beyond the hatch.

  “Yeah, well,” he said, ripping open the Velcro closure on the body harness joining them. “If somebody comes up forward through that hatch to check on the logic circuits, we’ll have some explaining to do.”

  He pulled the harness off their hips and they drifted apart, reluctantly. Ricia rotated in space, plucking from the air behind her a towel she’d brought for the purpose, and began sopping up the floating secretions. Ramsey grabbed his T-shirt and helped, taking special care to wipe down the gleaming surfaces of the storage bins and lockers around them. He knew that every Marine on board must know what went on in there, even those who didn’t use it for recreational purposes, but it wouldn’t do to leave behind such obvious evidence of their tryst. The Derna’s Navy crew could get testy about the grunts and the messes they made.

  Getting dressed together in those close confines was almost as much fun as getting undressed earlier. It was easier when they helped one another, since there was hardly room enough to bend over. It would be nice, Ramsey thought with wry amusement, if the people who designed these ships would acknowledge that people needed sex, and included sufficient space for the purpose—maybe a compartment with padded bulkheads and conveniently placed hand-and footholds—not to mention locker space for clothing and perhaps a viewall for a romantic panorama of a blue-and-white-marbled Earth hanging against a backdrop of stars.

  But unfortunately, that just made too damned much sense.

  The Derna, first of a first generation of interstellar military transports, was designed with efficiency of space, mass, and consumable stores in mind, not the erotic frolickings of her passengers. She had to keep thirteen hundred people alive for a voyage lasting years, even with relativistic effects, which meant that every cubic centimeter was carefully planned for and generally allotted to more than one purpose.