by Dani Kollin
the unincorporated WAR
Tor Books by Dani Kollin and Eytan Kollin
The Unincorporated Man
The Unincorporated War
the unincorporated WAR
Dani Kollin and Eytan Kollin
A Tom Doherty Associates Book
new york
This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the authors’ imaginations or are used fictitiously.
THE UNINCORPORATED WAR
Copyright © 2010 by Dani Kollin and Eytan Kollin
All rights reserved.
A Tor Book
Published by Tom Doherty Associates, LLC
175 Fifth Avenue
New York, NY 10010
www.tor-forge.com
Tor® is a registered trademark of Tom Doherty Associates, LLC.
ISBN 978-0-7653-1900-5
First Edition: May 2010
Printed in the United States of America
0 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Dedicated to
Sgt. Eric M. Holke of the California Army National Guard
7/11/76–7/15/07
Wish you were here.
Acknowledgments
Believing in yourself can get you only so far. It’s others believing in you that truly makes the difference.
Ours:
Imma—For first giving us life and then for teaching us how to embrace it.
Abba—For teaching us to question everything.
Howard Deutsch—For the unenviable job of filtering us and, by extension, ensuring we live to write another day.
David G. Hartwell—For your stewardship, patience, and insight … and patience.
Stacy Hague-Hill—For the skill with which you’ve kept us on track, not to mention the unforgettable adventures in dining.
Patty Garcia—For working so hard on getting us out there.
Amber Hopkins—For helping to keep us there.
Edwin Rivera—For giving us a chance.
Robert Sawyer—For all the advice, insight, and support.
Alec Schram—For ensuring that our science is sound, and saving Ceres from near-certain catastrophe (nano-carbon Bucky scaffolding?—you genius, you!).
Richard Mueller of 3232design.com—For allowing us to use a majority of his talent for a minority share of our future earnings.
Larry Carlin—For making this book better.
Facebook, LiveJournal, and Twitter readers—For keeping us going through the ups and downs, wild road trips, and never-ending search for the next NBG!
Dani’s:
Deborah—For eighteen years of holding hands, sharing dreams, and being my song of songs.
Eliana, Yonatan, and Gavriel—For always keeping me on my toes.
Carrie Bleiweiss—For ultimate dooberatiousness, apricot leaves, and so many wonderfully lost hours.
Insomniyakkers, Wolverines, and the Magnificent Seven—For helping me to set the bar on words and ideas hopefully equal to your intelligence, wit, and curiosity.
Eytan’s:
Doctor Miles Morgan—An ardent believer in socialism, he taught me what it means to be a true gentleman by giving me the books of Rand, Hayek, and Friedman. “If you’re going to be a capitalist, you may as well be an informed capitalist.” You did not have to give me the tools to defend my beliefs. You chose to, (freely).
Dalia Taft—For the gift of reading, which no other person in the world seemed to be able to teach me, and for having the patience to deal with a younger brother who has all the grace, social skill, and subtlety of a gorilla falling from orbit.
PART ONE
1 Calm Before the Storm
Justin Cord drifted on his back, arms clasped loosely behind his head, admiring the delicate mist moving slowly above. It was through these thin wisps of vapor and the eerily warm water flowing quietly beneath him that he would, on that rare occasion, find solace in a lake so big he would have called it a sea. He’d long gotten used to the fact that the horizon line curved upwards instead of down and that instead of a clear blue sky his vista was that of a magnificent mountain range above.
The inverse horizon was just one of the many oddities he’d had to struggle with by virtue of his forced exile to the belt. He couldn’t help it. When he thought “asteroid,” “small” came to mind. After all, Ceres was only a quarter the size of Earth’s Moon. What he failed to realize was just how huge the Moon actually was. Of course Ceres had changed quite a bit as a result of the planetoid’s first meddlesome settlers. Its orbit had been altered to match that of Mars in order to bring it into the elliptic plane along with all the other major bodies in the solar system. On top of that, the Cerians had dug down deep and were still digging. They’d hollowed out a two-mile-wide cylindrical hole through the center and then gave the rock spin for gravity. The early inhabitants had also taken abundant advantage of the fact that their home had miles of frozen water spread evenly beneath its surface. In fact, it had more H20 than all the freshwater on Earth. This meant that Ceres had lakes, lots of them, with some as big as seas.
And so drifting aimlessly a hundred meters from shore, staring down into the planet, Justin Cord could almost forget that there was a ceiling “behind” him holding in the massive body of water and that the power of centrifugal force ensured that it stayed that way.
For most born in the belt and accustomed to subterranean life, the idea of a sky was unnerving to say the least. Justin had heard stories of some belt-born with agoraphobia so severe that they wouldn’t dare venture outside on Earth unless they were safely confined within the sterile-aired, cumbersome embrace of a space suit. Since he’d never seen such a thing, he chalked it up to talk. Still, after being on Ceres for a little over a year he could certainly relate. In space you weren’t safe until you had a secure roof over your head, and even then you’d always check for leaks. For an off-worlder visiting Earth for the first time, the whole damned planet leaked.
With the new President of the Outer Alliance, the feeling was just the opposite. Try as he might, Justin couldn’t help but feel closed in. He hid it as best he could and took long walks in the great city parks where the “roof” was far enough overhead that he wouldn’t notice the absent sky. Time permitting, he’d sometimes wander into the forest where the trees were so tall and crowns so thick that he could imagine he was in a forest somewhere on Earth. But the thing Justin best loved to do was swim. He could forget where he was, forget all his problems as well as everyone else’s. Arm over arm, head back, Justin would sometimes think that if there were a heaven it had to be an endless ocean he could spend eternity swimming in.
But as usual, heaven would have to wait. Justin could make out the all-too-familiar hum of a hover disk approaching in the distance. It was a sound that elicited an almost Pavlovian response. The President sighed, continued his poor backstroke, and waited patiently to open his eyes until the craft was practically on top of him. It had gotten to the point that he no longer bothered to swim back to shore. He knew something would always happen that would necessitate a disk being sent out to get him. One day, he decided, there would be no emergency at all, no crisis, no feathers to be unruffled, and on that day he would probably drown. But that day was not today. After another hundred yards of backstroking to put off the inevitable, he gave up, stopped, and opened his eyes.
Omad was smiling down on him.
“You know I wouldn’t have come out if—”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah. Let me guess,” said Justin. “They found a monolith floating around Jupiter. Alien contact perhaps, no, maybe Mars revolted and joined the Outer Alliance.”
“No monoliths,” answered Omad, “not for lac
k of looking, mind you, but none yet. And any aliens smart enough to get into this neck of the galaxy would probably be smart enough to get out. And if Mars decided to join us,” Omad said, looking out into the distance, “it wouldn’t make sense to call us the Outer Alliance then, would it?” He then looked back down to Justin. “We would just be the Alliance, don’t you think? Mars is a core world after all.”
“Not in my day.”
“You’re a really old fart, Justin. Nothing is from your day.”
Justin laughed. “OK, Omad,” said the President, noticing his friend’s pained expression. “What is it this time?”
“It’s Eris, friend. Everyone’s waiting back at Cliff House.”
Justin was suddenly tired in a way that had nothing to do with the miles he’d just logged in swimming.
“Crap.”
Omad nodded sympathetically and then extended his hand, first making sure to get a good grip on the strap in the center of the disk. The machine tilted slightly as Justin got on, but no more than three or four degrees. Omad tossed his friend a towel and without another word sped off toward the shore, where the world Justin had only recently created sat waiting.
“OK, listeners, this is The Clara Roberts Show coming to you live from Ceres for the first day of the provisional congress. By mutual agreement, no press or recording devices are allowed into the actual hall, but the delegates are always coming and going. Why, here’s Tyler Sadma of the Eris Colony about to enter the hall. Let me see if I can just ask him to talk to us…. Mr. Sadma … Mr. Sadma! A few words for the … Mr. Sadma …”
“No comment.”
“I am sorry, loyal listeners, but he pushed right past me. Seems his reputation is well deserved. Wait a minute … here comes Karen Cho of the Titan Colony. Miss Cho!”
“Hello, Clara, love your show. We listen to it on Saturn all the time.”
“Thanks for the plug.”
“Well sure, you guys always have a good slant about news from the corporate core. Lots of facts without all the Terran propaganda.”
“We try to keep the truth broadcasting for all to hear. You could help my listeners by telling me what’s going on behind the closed doors of power.”
“Clara, before we could have that power we’d all have to agree.”
“Agree on what?”
“Anything; I’m not sure we can even order lunch as a congress without calling a committee of the whole, and by the time we do agree it would be time for breakfast!”
“And I thought my job was tough! Miss Cho, got time for another question?”
“Sure.”
“Any chance the First Free will show up on opening day?”
“He says he doesn’t want to interfere with the formation of the legislative branch until we’re all settled in and invite him. And surely, Miss Roberts, you know the provisional President does not encourage the use of that nickname.”
“It’s what all my listeners call him. Who am I to argue?”
“Well, just don’t say it to his face. I heard a Plutonian tried that once and got stink eyed out of the reception.”
“Thanks for the advice. So beware, listeners; the President does not like the distinction of being called the First Free. Apparently he feels it’s not appropriate for a leader of free people. So no one say it in his company! Wait till he’s not around. Thank you for your time, Miss Cho. If it’s true you’re being appointed the governor of the colonies of Saturn, good luck with it.”
“One job at a time, Miss Roberts, and keep up the good work.”
“Will do. This is Clara Roberts outside the newly completed congressional hall. We’ll be back after this message from the Gedretar ship works. Remember, if you can’t get a new booster from the corporate enslavers of the core planets, have yours refurbished—good as new—at Gedretar.”
—From The Clara Roberts Show
AIR (Asteroid belt Information Radio) Network
Justin stood on a high terrace overlooking Smith Thoroughfare, one of three large, cavernous arteries carved deep into Ceres. Each one of the thoroughfares was a lifeblood of commerce and activity within the planetoid. Traffic, Justin could see, was unusually brisk. The first meeting of the Provisional Congress had brought the usual slew of bureaucrats, press, and hangers-on. Added to that were cadres of tourists who wanted to be a part of history. The streets were packed and the air above them was no different. All manner of hovercraft, drone, and person could be seen zipping to and fro. Justin’s balcony was officially in a no-fly zone, but that never seemed to stop the more tenacious of media outlets.
The overhang he currently found himself standing on was attached to a living complex that was, like almost every other abode on the planetoid, dug deep into the rock. The apartment had three floors and forty rooms in its current configuration. Justin had initially rejected the place, feeling it was entirely too large and pretentious. But when he was made to realize just how disparate in both ideology and function the various belt bodies he was meant to lead were, he’d acceded and moved in. The move proved prescient in that he’d already had to add onto both sides of the ever-growing presidential suite now being called by most, the Cliff House.
Ultimately it had been the terrace that had become Justin’s favorite “room” for the simple reason that it was the least closed-in space in the entire complex. Though he’d never admit that simple fact to anyone, anyone at all, because it belied a greater feeling that he saw as a failing in the man who was the provisional President of the Outer Alliance. Only his long swims in the great lakes of Ceres might have given anyone the slightest clue as to their President’s true feelings—Justin was sick of space.
He’d last left Earth in a hurry, anxious to re unite with the woman he thought he’d lost forever, Dr. Neela Harper. Had he known then, before his ill-fated encounter with the now-deceased Chairman, that that meeting would take up his last precious few hours on Earth he might have done things differently. He might have looked up to the sky one last time, taken in the splendor of Victoria Falls, or plunged himself into the cold, salty embrace of the Atlantic. But instead he’d left that fateful meeting and immediately rocketed off into space at almost inhuman speeds without ever looking back.
And now, in almost Sisyphean fashion, he was being forced to repeat that one impulsive act in a dizzying array of takeoffs from one asteroid to another throughout the O.A. Each and every trip, much like that first one, had been spent pinned to an acceleration couch in order to take advantage of maximum g-force. All the trips had one purpose in mind—to solidify support for the O.A. If they could have figured out a way to get him to the outer planets—on the other side of the belt—and back in less than four months he would have gone there as well. But the only planet close enough to get to, given the size of the solar system and the limits of human propulsion, was Jupiter. However, if he visited one planetary system the others would have been insulted. Expecting Justin to visit absolutely every one made no sense given the laws of physics, but it made perfect sense given the laws of politics.
Although the fledgling President’s domain contained only a tenth of the human race, it stretched from the asteroid belt to the Oort Cloud. And that tenth contained a little under four billion people, with about two billion in the asteroid belt itself. It was a surprisingly rural population. The largest settlement was in Ceres, with over forty million souls. That was followed by Eris, with thirty-five million, and Titan with a little over thirty. Justin would have expected these settlements, cities in his mind, to have much larger populations. After all, Ceres had the land area of Pennsylvania to work with once the tunnels had been dug. It could have easily held another one hundred million people. But, he’d learned, people in the belt usually wanted to stretch out and get their own asteroids to mine. Once away from the regimentation of corporate life they were not eager to re-create it. This attracted more settlers and miners of similar bent, and over the centuries all sorts of communities found rocks, hollowed them out, paid for the orbital
slots, and lived life on the edge. Over time what had emerged was a powerfully independent and resourceful humanity but, as Justin was now discovering, a tiresome one to weld together into a cohesive Political unit. “Like herding cats,” he’d often told his sympathetic wife.
On a positive note—for Justin at least—everyone had agreed to the basic principles of the first new experiment in governance in over three centuries: unity, of a sort, with Political and economic liberty, which meant vastly different things to different people, and a government strong enough to protect the Outer Alliance yet not so strong as to imperil those very liberties that it was supposed to protect. Previous to this newly formed government the territories that would make up the O.A. had been operating pretty much on their own, because the central government operating from the corporate core had no real means to enforce its rule. This had certainly been good for the colonists’ self-sufficiency but lousy for unity. It took the corporate core government’s expedited Psyche Audit Act to truly bring the O.A. together. Up until that moment psyche audits had only been used to repair damaged minds—deviants, perverts, and pedophiles. But the old government’s new and desperate act had not only widened the criteria to include rebellious or disgruntled colonists but also nearly eliminated due process. What once could be dragged on for months with appeals and counterappeals now took mere hours. And it had been from that rash move that the fires of revolution had been fanned and from which Justin Cord had found himself a new job.