Culture Shock

by Christopher Nuttall

“They’re not quite baseline humans,” Sondra admitted. “There are definite traces of long-term hackwork in their DNA. The medics believe that the original Forsakers probably had it somewhere in their family history, but made no attempt to remove it after ... after removing themselves from normal society. Some of the more recent converts had more up-to-date improvements. However, they don't seem to have spread through the commune as much as I would have expected.”

  “Of course not,” Troutman said. “They don’t get the chance to spread their genes.”

  Sondra ignored him. “Overall, there’s no great health risk,” she concluded. “And the genetic problems can be overcome, given time.”

  “If they accept treatment,” Troutman said.

  He smiled, rather humourlessly. “Do you realise just how much that will cost?”

  William met his eyes. “Enlighten me?”

  “A basic genetic improvements package costs nearly three hundred pounds,” Troutman said, dryly. “A package modified for a specific person’s genetic heritage can cost over a thousand pounds. And you’re talking about preparing such procedures for fifty thousand people. If they all have the cheapest package, Premier, it would cost fifteen million pounds. And if they all need a more advanced package ... well, that figure will rise rather steeply.”

  He paused. “I don’t think I need to remind you, by the by, that Parliament did not vote fifteen million pounds to support the refugees,” he added. “And I am pretty sure that a renewed vote would not go in your favour.”

  Of course not, William thought. The datanet didn't have a full account of what had happened at the spaceport, not yet. But some of the rumours were horrific. And he’d been too busy to do the sensible thing and put a statement online. You’ve had a golden opportunity to extract revenge and you’re going to take it.

  “Money isn't the only problem,” Damian Simpson said. The Minister of Health had been fiddling with a datapad. “I don’t think my department could produce fifty thousand genetic improvement packages, not in a hurry. We never felt that expanding our productive capability was a worthwhile investment.”

  Sondra coughed. “Can't you borrow civilian equipment?”

  “There’s very little such equipment on the planet,” Simpson said, bluntly. “My office has been looking at the matter since we realised there might be a problem. Frankly, our emergency plans are strikingly out of date. Several of the facilities we counted on have been closed down in the last five years.”

  He grimaced. “I don’t think we could produce more than a couple of thousand packages over the next year, assuming we gave it full priority,” he warned. “And ... well, building up our production capability will be a nightmare.”

  “A costly nightmare,” Troutman put in.

  “Yes,” Simpson agreed. “Premier, we would have to purchase supplies, equipment and know-how from off-world. Right now, that wouldn't come cheap.”

  “If at all,” Troutman said.

  “Right now, my very strong advice would be to warn the Forsakers to be a great deal more careful in their choice of marriage partners,” Simpson said. “We can do genetic work-ups for prospective parents, telling them who is a good partner, but ...”

  “They won’t like it,” Troutman said. “Having large families is important to them.”

  Sondra snorted. “And it isn't to you?”

  William silenced her with a look. “What do you mean?”

  “You will be telling young men, who have learned from the cradle that they will marry and have children, that they can do nothing of the sort,” Troutman said. “In some cases, you will be insisting on genetic tweaks; in others, you will be saying that they can't have children, based on something so small that it is invisible to the naked eye. And you expect them to accept it?”

  “It's good medical advice,” Simpson said.

  “They won’t believe you,” Troutman said. “Why should they?”

  “My staff are doctors,” Simpson said.

  “And they’re not particularly trusting of doctors,” Troutman said.

  “We will cross that bridge when we come to it,” William said, again.

  “You need a plan now,” Troutman insisted. “And you also need a plan for handling the current situation. Are you going to just let them sit in the spaceport indefinitely? Or eventually lose track of just who has been dumped on our world?”

  “They cannot be blamed for what happened to them,” Sondra snapped.

  “Really?” Troutman asked. “An entire community got picked up and deported from a class-one world. What does that tell you about them?”

  Sondra reddened. “That they were blamed for matters beyond their control?”

  “Just because someone gets the short end of the stick,” Troutman countered, “doesn't necessarily mean they’re the good guys.”

  He turned to look at Charles Van Houlton. “Is there any point in asking Admiral Caraway if he has marines we could borrow?”

  “Admiral Carlow,” Van Houlton corrected, shortly. He didn't sound annoyed, merely frustrated. “And I don’t believe he is willing to do anything beyond expediting the landings. His every communication with the Orbital Guard reeks of impatience. I don’t think he will react well to any suggestion that we delay the landings any further.”

  “Great,” Troutman said. “Just brilliant! Three fucking days, more or less, since the goddamned fuckers got dumped on our world. And we’re on the verge of total disaster!”

  “You exaggerate,” Sondra said, coldly.

  “I do not,” Troutman said. He ticked off points on his fingers as he spoke. “We cannot house them. We cannot feed them. We cannot find jobs for them. We cannot even provide the medical care they need to survive their own stupidity. And, apparently, we cannot hold them to account for their crimes either. They try to kidnap a girl and ... and what? We let them get away with it!”

  He let out a faint, bitter laugh. “Perhaps we should just drop KEWs on the spaceport,” he said, tiredly. “End the problem in one fell swoop.”

  “You are suggesting genocide,” Sondra snapped.

  “It’s them or us,” Troutman snapped back. “You know what? I think us comes first. And I am willing to bet that the voters would agree with me!”

  “Not yet,” William said.

  “It has only been three days,” Sondra said. She shrugged. “Weren’t there problems back when this world was first settled?”

  “Yes, there were,” Troutman said. “But the situation was different. The Forsakers - your ancestors - no longer wanted to forsake anything. Here ... they do. They think they can do what they like, on our world. And you don’t want to stop them.”

  “It will get better,” William said.

  Troutman shook his head. “I’ve met fanatics before,” he said. “They tend to have bullying personalities. If you give in to them on something, no matter how minor, they see it as a sign of weakness and double their demands. A single concession will simply lead to more demands. And every further concession makes it harder to resist the next one.”

  He leaned back in his chair. “So tell me,” he added. “How do you propose to resolve the crisis?”

  Sondra exchanged glances with William, then leaned forward. “We make it clear that we will not tolerate assaults on our personnel,” she said, firmly. “Whatever happens within their community is not our concern ...”

  Troutman blew a raspberry. “You’re already making concessions,” he said. “They are on our homeworld. Either they are subject to our laws or they are not.”

  “I believe the Freeholders were strongly against any expansion of government power to regulate farming and settlement,” Sondra said, sweetly.

  “And yet we would also be against a father who molested his children,” Troutman pointed out. “Or does that not count as a crime, because it takes place in the home?”

  “It does,” William said.

  “Then why aren't we applying the same principle to them?” Troutman asked. He tapped the da
tapad. “As of the last update, there were over a hundred potential cases of physical abuse noted by the aid workers. Or don’t you think Forsaker women are worthy of our protection?”

  “And if we start prying into Forsaker homes,” Sondra asked, “how long will it be before we start prying into Freeholder homes?”

  William rubbed his forehead as the argument started to rage. It was an old argument, one that predated both of them. The Freeholders bitterly opposed any expansion of government authority, pointing out that each new authority would inevitably be abused. A Freeholder’s freehold was his castle, as far as the law was concerned. But giving people complete independence inevitably produced its own problems. Who would step in to enforce the law if a freeholder was breaking it?

  He’d be lucky to survive, William thought. If the mob caught him, they’d lynch him.

  He shook his head. “Enough,” he said. “We have to cope with this crisis.”

  “We also have to prepare for the next,” Troutman snapped, sharply. “Arm the police; raise a posse. And whatever else we have to do to give ourselves teeth.”

  He turned the datapad over so they could see the spaceport. “There are around twenty thousand people crammed into that tiny space,” he said. “The fence is going to burst, sooner or later. Or we’ll run out of tents. And what happens then?”

  William scowled. The spaceport was large, easily the largest installation on Arthur’s Seat, but it had its limits. Director Melbourne had made it clear that the Forsakers were already overcrowding the tents. The weather was too cold for them, she’d said, and it would grow colder as winter approached. A more permanent solution was needed, urgently.

  “We’ll think of something,” he said, finally.

  “You better had,” Troutman said. He rose. “Because there are people on this planet who will not accept this ... this invasion without a fight.”

  William resisted the urge to make a childish gesture at Troutman’s back as he stalked out of the room. The bastard had a point. As much as William hated to admit it, he had a point.

  “We’ll discuss the remainder of the problem tomorrow,” he said, addressing the table as a whole. “For the moment, we need to sleep on it.”

  He watched the rest of the cabinet depart, leaving him alone with Sondra. None of them had tried to argue, he noted as Sally stepped into the room. He couldn't help wondering if that was a bad sign. The parliamentary vote had been alarmingly close. If a handful of MPs switched sides, William would be out of a job and his cabinet would have to look to their own political futures. They’d probably drop him the moment he turned into a liability.

  “The news isn't good,” Sally said, bluntly. “There are seven different stories currently trending on the datanet, all hugely exaggerated. But the absence of an official press release doesn’t help.”

  William rubbed his forehead. He’d never had to worry about staying ahead of the news cycle before. Arthur’s Seat wasn't a world where everything changed overnight. Getting a press release out within an hour of something happening wasn't desperately important. Or at least it hadn't been ...

  He looked up at her. “How bad is it?”

  “It’s never easy to be sure,” Sally said. “But I’d say that a goodly percentage of the population is having second thoughts about the refugees. I don’t know - of course - how it will translate into votes.”

  Troutman will push for a vote of no-confidence as soon as he thinks he can win it, William thought, grimly. The datanet wasn't always a reliable predictor of how things would go, not when only a third or so of the population used it regularly. But still ... a slide towards rejecting the refugees was troublesome. And even if he loses, my position will be undermined.

  He frowned. “Do you have any predictions?”

  “It depends,” Sally said. “We need to put out a truthful version of the story before it’s too late.”

  “We also need to solve the problem,” Sondra said. “And quietly.”

  “The datanet is insisting that the government is already covering up horror stories from the spaceport,” Sally warned, tiredly. She pulled a terminal out of her pocket and passed it to William. “Anything you do to keep this quiet may rebound badly on you.”

  “Quite,” William agreed.

  He looked at Sondra. If he could make her carry the can for anything that went wrong with the refugees ... it wasn't very charitable, but he wasn't feeling charitable. She was an ally, yet any half-decent politician knew there were times when one’s allies had to be thrown under the oncoming shuttle. And besides, she was their loudest advocate on the cabinet.

  “Deal with it quietly,” he ordered. “And make sure it stays quiet.”

  “Understood,” Sondra said, curtly. She closed her eyes for a long moment, then looked back at him. “I’ll speak to Valetta personally.”

  William nodded. Director Valetta Melbourne had been Sondra’s hatchet-woman for years, long before Sondra had risen to her current post. She'd understand what she was being told, without anything explicit needing to be said. And Sondra would understand, too, that her career rested on a quick end to the whole affair. If she got too hot to handle, William would have to dump her before it was too late.

  Because this could bring down the government, William thought. If enough MPs switched sides - or were recalled by their constituents - Troutman wouldn't need a vote of no-confidence to take control of the planet. And then the bastard will find a final solution to the problem.

  Chapter Seventeen

  This pattern repeated itself time and time again. Indeed, it only got worse under the Empire. Earth had millions of unwanted citizens, people who refused to abandon their customs even as the land was covered in giant megacities.

  - Professor Leo Caesius. Ethnic Streaming and the End of Empire.

  The meeting room was larger than Joel had expected, he noted, as he followed Konrad into the chamber. A table - it looked wooden, but there was something about it that suggested it wasn't made of wood - stood in the exact centre of the room, surrounded by a handful of comfy chairs. The whole arrangement spoke of a meeting between equals, rather than supplicants and superiors. It wasn't quite what he wanted - he would have preferred something that made it clear that he was the superior - but it would do.

  Weak, he thought.

  Konrad took his seat at the table as the two Outsiders entered from the other side of the room and strode towards them. Joel allowed himself a flicker of amusement, mingled with contempt. They’d sent Director Melbourne, her face strikingly unreadable, and a policeman, his face taut with anger. Weak. No one sent a woman to lay down the law. No, they wanted to negotiate. And, in doing so, they’d tacitly conceded far too much. He wondered, absently, if any of them knew it.

  Director Melbourne sat, resting her hands on the table. The policeman stood behind her, his stance suggested irritation and reluctance. Joel rather suspected, although there was no way to be sure, that the policeman hadn't been in favour of the meeting. But he’d clearly been overruled by his superiors. He still couldn't understand how any man could bring himself to take orders from a woman, particularly one outside the female sphere, but he had no qualms in taking advantage of it. A male opponent would be considerably more challenging.

  “I must lodge an official protest,” Konrad said, before Director Melbourne could open the conversation. “Seventeen of our people, including two children, were injured by your policemen.”

  Director Melbourne’s face tightened. “That is unfortunate,” she said, stiffly. Joel resisted the urge to cheer. He wouldn't have given a damn about people injured in the midst of a small riot, particularly if they’d been rioting. “Your people were attempting to kidnap one of our people.”

  “An unfortunate mistake,” Joel said, blandly. In truth, he wasn't sure what he would have done, if they’d kept the Outsider bitch with them. The police might have been pushed into doing something violent. “Your policemen did manage to injure the would-be kidnappers.”

&n
bsp; Director Melbourne relaxed, slightly. She was good at hiding her expressions, Joel noted, but he was better at reading them. He'd offered her a fig-leaf to calm the entire situation down, rather than make things worse by demanding their immediate surrender. Joel had no idea why she was so keen to end matters - she’d arranged the meeting at midnight, rather than waiting for a more civilised hour - but he was just as determined to quit while he was ahead.

  “That is good,” she said, slowly. “But I must warn you that any further kidnapping attempts will not be tolerated.”

  Konrad nodded. “I have already spoken quite sharply to my people,” he assured her. It was true enough, Joel knew, although Konrad hadn't understood what was really going on. “The whole affair started because of a misunderstanding. I hope it will not repeat itself in future.”