Sentience 1: Storm Clouds Gathering

by Gibson Michaels

  “They accordingly claim their current economic difficulties are the direct result of these trade restrictions imposed upon them by the federal government. While passage of the Alliance First Act received broad bipartisan support across party lines, it was the first piece of major legislation in the history of the Alliance that was passed totally along sectional lines, as not a single Southern senator nor representative voted in favor of the bill. This fact did not go unnoticed by the Southerners and it immediately produced a deep and lingering resentment towards the federal government, in which they feel they no longer have a voice, nor have they forgotten that the Alliance First Act they so detest was heavily promoted and endorsed by the Consortium.”

  Noreen paused a moment to allow her audience time to absorb what she’d said, and to take a sip from her water glass before continuing.

  “A subsequent result of this legislation appeared in the form of a drastic lowering of prices within the Industrial Commodities market, causing stock prices for many Southern mining companies to plummet, as investors rearranged their portfolios toward more profitable holdings. These falling stock prices left many of the Southern companies running short of working capital, which prompted massive layoffs to avoid insolvency. In addition, the low stock prices allowed for a majority of Southern mining companies to be taken over at a small fraction of their actual value by corporations based outside the region, many of which are members of the Consortium.

  “Corresponding resentment toward both the federal government and the Consortium gave rise to the Separatist Movement, which advocates complete planetary autonomy by secession from the Alliance. While considered merely a vocal minority of malcontents in 3854, high unemployment throughout the South produced an environment in which the Separatist Movement grew into a recognized political party on virtually every Southern planet in 3855 and won approximately 20 percent of the seats in Southern planetary legislatures in the election of 3856. After the midterm elections of 3858, the Separatists had increased their numbers to almost 38 percent as a whole, but are considerably stronger on five or six individual planets.

  “Political analysts hired by the Consortium agree with those in the media in their belief that continued economic recession in the South, in contrast with the current economic boom in the North, will generate continued growth for the Separatists. They predict significant Separatist gains in Southern planetary legislatures in this year’s 3860 election. But they all doubt their ability to achieve a clear majority in any Southern planetary legislature. They do warn, however, that computer modeling suggests that if the current trend is not mitigated or constrained in some fashion, there is a high probability of a complete Separatist victory throughout the South after the 3868 elections, with the possibility of a Separatist majority occurring on three individual Southern planets after the 3864 elections.

  “As this meeting is intended to formulate a strategy for dealing with the current political crisis in the South, our analysts have compiled a list of steps which might be implemented to reduce tensions and help defuse the volatile political situation there. As there are 216 specific recommendations in total, I won’t read them all, but they are available for your review in the data package there in front of you.

  “From our political analysts’ projections, it would appear we have adequate time to address this problem. But I have doubts about the validity and reliability of their projections, so I’d like to interject a personal observation here, if I may.”

  Noreen took another sip of water and steeled herself to say what these people really needed to hear, if they were truly serious about solving the coming crisis.

  “It needs to be considered that both the media’s political analysts and our own are judging this situation from a completely Northern perspective. Lifestyles in the South are quite different from those in the North. Their values are different. Their entire mindset is different. Here in the North, we are much more communally-oriented, but in the South, they are very individualistic and family-oriented.

  “I went to Socar recently to visit my best friend from college and I was absolutely stunned at the virtual hatred that consistently flared in people’s eyes whenever she introduced me as her friend from Nork. I wasn’t a fellow citizen of the Alliance to them. I was a Damned Yankee... an ENEMY! Socar is a seething cauldron of hate towards the federal government in general and the Consortium in particular.

  “Our analysts’ projections are based on a linear increase in Separatist support, assuming a relatively constant rate of change over time, but when such strong human emotions become involved, things are likely to change suddenly and exponentially. Our analysts are not factoring in the Southern mindset because they don’t understand it. They haven’t lived it. They haven’t personally seethed in frustration as their children go to bed hungry because Daddy doesn’t have a job anymore, or because Daddy had to accept a massive pay cut just to enjoy the privilege of working a lot longer hours in order to bring home a lot less money than he did before the Northern-controlled federal government made a virtual slave out of him.

  “Ladies and gentlemen, the people in the South have legitimate grievances. Our promotion of the Alliance First bill helped create the economic crisis in the South, which has since blossomed into the current political crisis we’re discussing here today. We helped create this problem and we need to shoulder our fair share of the responsibility for redressing it.

  “In summation, I think we would all agree that to wake up one morning to find that all of our Southern holdings are suddenly within a separate, sovereign nation, and subject to whatever the locals decide to do with them, would be a financial disaster of cataclysmic proportions. Therefore I strongly encourage this board to take prompt and decisive steps to avert such an unthinkable scenario.”

  “Noreen is quite a little crusader, isn’t she,” remarked Howard Bledsoe, CEO of BuiltWell Engineering, a major player in the field of in-space construction. Six members of the Consortium Executive Board were sinking deeply into the plush, red carpeting as they meandered slowly down the hall between the meeting room they had just exited and the Executive Lounge, where the less formal meeting-after-the-meeting was held. This second gathering consisted solely of the longest sitting members of the Executive Board and was where the real hammering-out of decisions took place.

  “Sounded like she really believes that catering to the rabble down there is the best way to approach this situation,” noted J.P. Aneke.

  “Yes, but she means well,” agreed Aline McCauley. “She just hasn’t played in the big leagues long enough to have figured out the score yet.”

  As the Executive Board members filed into the lounge, a virtual army of valets wearing red jackets with black slacks scurried around them, taking jackets and relieving them of other unnecessary articles. The unspoken rule was to discuss no business in front of the hired help, regardless of how trustworthy they might have proven themselves to be in the past, so they automatically broke into small talk as drink and food orders were taken.

  “Damned shame about Ted’s accident,” remarked Daniel Simmington, CEO of Cheyenne Metals Corporation. “We could sure use him on this.”

  “Ted always did know when to disappear,” remarked Ruby Demedicci, President and Chief Operations Officer of Reynolds Consolidated Manufacturing, one of the largest producers of consumer goods and appliances. “Seems like every time he goes off on vacation, it’s always just before the shit hits the fan. Is he clairvoyant or something?”

  “Nope,” intoned Bob Eastman, “crystal ball.”

  “I sure wish I knew where he keeps it,” laughed Ruby. “I could sure use a peek at that thing sometimes.”

  “Well,” Eastman replied, “you might ask Glenda, his secretary. She seems to keep pretty good track of all his others.”

  “Robert!” snapped Ruby. “Behave yourself before I have to slap you around.”

  “Promises, promises...”

  “Bobby boy,” advised Howard, “that’s no way
to win the favor of a lady.”

  “Speak for yourself, Howard,” snapped Ruby. “At my age, I appreciate all of the sexual harassment I can get.”

  “Howard was speaking for himself, Ruby.” Eastman elicited a titter of laughter, even from Howard.

  Each of these giants of industry and business arranged themselves around their traditional large table and continued with small talk until the scarlet-clad valets had finished serving the food and drink and all withdrew from the room. J.P. Aneke then activated the security screen, which effectively isolated them from the rest of the universe with the finest equipment that money could buy.

  “Okay,” said Aneke after the security monitor finally flashed green. “What do we really want to do about this mess? Anyone have any bright ideas?”

  “If you don’t mind me saying ‘I told you so,’” admonished Rainey the banker, “I’d like to point out that I warned all of you about this kind of potential backlash back in ’54 when everyone was pushing that Alliance First bullshit down Congress’ throat. If you’d taken my advice back then, you wouldn’t be having this situation rearing its ugly head, ready to bite you in the ass right now.”

  “Don’t act so damned smug, Morgan,” cautioned McCauley. “We all made mountains of money off of that idea and most of it ended up in your bank, so don’t go playing all high and mighty on us about it now.”

  “The fact remains,” observed Dan, “we’ve all got a hell of a lot of money invested down South right now, especially since we just finished building so many defense plants, smelters and space-docks recently, to reduce shipping costs of raw materials and take advantage of the cheap labor.”

  “None of which are making us a goddamned dime since Buchwald fucked us on the Fleet rejuvenation and expansion program!” roared Aneke. “Normally we could go around him through Congress, but the bastard actually used his Commander-in-Chief position recently to order over one-quarter of the active Fleet into Fleet Reserve status, as a supposed ‘cost-cutting’ measure.”

  “Yes, even the Northern public and media would sit up and take notice if Congress were to suddenly start spending money building new Fleet ships, right after Buchwald shit-canned so many perfectly good ones,” agreed McCauley. “Damn the man!”

  “And he’s certainly not warmed to our idea of annexing Sextus, so we can get our hands on all those lovely riches,” cooed Howard.

  “The normal persuasions won’t work on Buchwald, since he decided not to run for another term,” noted Morgan.

  “What we need are a few bent-noses to remind him that he should pay a bit more attention to the welfare of his family and friends,” said Ruby ominously.

  “Let me worry about Buchwald,” said Aneke. “Let’s get back to what we do about these Separatist bastards.”

  “Noreen was right about one thing,” observed Eastman. “We need to do something to stabilize the situation down there dammed quick, before it blows up in our faces.”

  “Surely you’re not talking about actually using any of those 200 suggestions that Noreen threw at us earlier, are you, Bob?” asked Ruby.

  “No, I doubt even Holier-than-Thou Morgan over there would support giving all that money back, now that we’ve gone to all the trouble and expense of legally stealing it,” cracked Eastman.

  “Well, I, for one, don’t buy into Noreen’s old college friend on Socar and her ‘they all hate us down there’ story,” Simmington remarked. “Did anyone else get all misty-eyed during the ‘hungry children’ part?”

  Ruby snorted. The rest chuckled appreciatively.

  “From the best information available, the bomb isn’t set to go off until ’64 at the earliest and probably not until ’68,” mused McCauley. “So, with a few precautionary measures we should be able to keep the lid on for a while longer.”

  “Precautionary measures?” asked Rainey. “As in money?”

  “Of course,” agreed McCauley. “We simply provide our friends who are up for election, especially those down South, with a bit more firepower than usual.

  “What about all those nasty little ABI people and the potential legal problems created by those governmental limitations on corporate campaign donations?” asked Ruby.

  “Didn’t stop us in any of the last four elections,” observed Eastman. “There are a number of our congressional allies still regularly receiving deposits into those numbered bank accounts that Morgan set up for them outside the country, where the locals are too happy to see it coming in to be overly concerned with trivial matters like names and such.”

  “That’s fine when we’re working in the long term, but how are we going to get that kind of money into the hands of this many people, when they all need to use it quickly to get their campaigns off the ground and they’ve all got the ABI auditing their campaign contributions and expenditures?” argued Simmington.

  “The ABI doesn’t audit planetary elections, only the federal,” explained Bledsoe. “We shouldn’t have any problems with the local yokels.”

  “That right, J.P.?” asked Ruby. “You’re the legal genius around here.”

  “Actually, it’s both yes and no,” explained Aneke. “While the ABI does not normally audit local and planetary election campaigns, they can become involved at the request of planetary governments whenever local authorities have established evidence their local election laws have been violated by an off-planet corporation, group or individual.”

  “Well,” said Eastman, “it looks like we’ll just have to make sure they don’t find any evidence, doesn’t it?”

  “Quite.”

  “What’s wrong with those people?” wailed Noreen Lucado. “They call this ‘emergency’ meeting to decide what to do about the Separatist situation in the South and they end up doing nothing at all.”

  Bill Harwick, Director of Public Relations for Keystone Mining & Exploration, said nothing. He’d witnessed Noreen’s frustration with the big shots before and knew when to just let her blow. She had a tendency to pace when she vented, and appeared to be well on her way to creating a discernible wear pattern in the carpet beside Bill's desk.

  “With everything else I have on my plate,” Noreen continued, “I have to suddenly drop everything and put together this extremely important presentation, so Mr. Theodore ‘priorities’ Wentworth can run off and go skiing. If that presentation was so damned important, why wasn’t he here doing his damned job, instead of running off to Meath on holiday?

  “So, being the good little trooper that I am, I spend a week of 18-hour days putting that damned presentation together for him and then he goes and gets himself all busted up. So then I have to go fill in for him at the ivory tower and present the damned thing for those Consortium zombies he likes to hang out with so much.”

  “Noreen, calm down,” Hardwick advised. “I know you hate it when Ted treats you like a gofer, but the title Senior Vice President doesn’t really carry very much weight to a guy with Chairman of the Board and Chief Executive Officer, on his business card.”

  “I know that, Bill,” Noreen replied. “You know I love working for Ted, it’s just...” Noreen stopped her pacing and shook her head sadly. “I just really hate having anything to do with those Consortium zombies. They give me the creeps. I gave them that presentation that I’d put my heart and soul into and I even told them about my trip to Socar and about all the anger and suffering that I’d personally observed down there. Do you know what their reaction was?

  “Nothing. No visible reaction at all! Even the women were totally cold fish. I bet they’d react stronger to a broken nail than they do to the plight of those people down South. They don’t give a diddly-damn about people suffering, as long as they’re making money.”

  “That’s what they’re in business to do, Noreen. They have a responsibility to their stockholders...”

  “Don’t talk to me about the stockholders! I know all about stockholders. Yes, of course they have to earn profits for their stockholders, but that doesn’t give them free license
to rape and plunder a dozen planets, does it?”

  “Rape and plunder? Now you’re exaggerating just because you’re upset.”

  “You’re damned right I’m upset! I’ve seen more business ethics in a swarm of locusts than in those Consortium bastards. Why aren’t a lot more people upset?”

  “They are. They’re just all down South, that’s all.”

  After all of the other Executive Board members had left the lounge, Aline McCauley and J.P. Aneke sat alone. “So, in the interests of having a long-term, alternative Plan-B,” asked McCauley, “what do we do if the chickens really do come home to roost and those shit-sticks down South end up seceding from the Alliance?”

  “If the chickens do come home to roost,” replied Aneke, “we definitely will have to have something prepared to greet them with.

  “And?”

  “Which do you think would be less expensive... a new hen house, or a frying pan?”

  “Ted’s not like them. I don’t understand why he associates with those people.”

  “It’s more than just mere association, Noreen. Ted is on the Consortium’s Executive Board, remember?”

  “Yes, and I hate it. Why did we slash salaries by 20 percent after we took over those three Southern mining companies we bought out for peanuts four years ago?”

  Bill Harwick rolled his eyes. “Noreen, those companies were all on the verge of bankruptcy and would have been liquidated, if we hadn’t snapped them up. Those people would have been out of jobs altogether, if we hadn’t intervened. They should be grateful they have jobs at all.”

  “So we cut salaries 20 percent to make the locals grateful that we had them over a barrel? And just why were those companies we bought up on the verge of bankruptcy, Bill?”

  “That’s immaterial. The fact is, they were and we saved their ass.”

  “Immaterial? The fact is they were all prospering until congress passed the Alliance First Act in ’54. And it’s all over the South. That bill bankrupted multiple planets.”