A12 Who Can Own the Stars?

by Mackey Chandler

  If the social secretary program she used failed, at least she had nobody to blame but herself. It was not an artificial stupid and it most particularly did not have any learning ability built-in. She had key words set that would allow a message from anyone to pop to the top of her queue.

  Even though she got a news and intelligence summary almost daily from Chen she still browsed Home gossip sites and Earthie news channels herself every few days. She wanted news from Chen but realized he was a filter too. Even if it was nothing conscious, everyone had some bias from their own life experience.

  Her snitching for solars network had a report that three different shipbuilders were buying a lot of titanium and platinum metals. They added that seemed to indicate they were planning on building landers. She knew they were, because of contracts they had with Jeff, but that was just the sort of thing she liked to have reported. The same person made several other reports, and wouldn’t know for which he was being paid, so she sent him five bits as encouragement.

  A small article in “What’s Happening” said a very successful small band that was an early leader in the resurgence of the style known as the New Mellow Sound announced they would be emigrating to Home. They had previously removed from North America to Australia after being heavily censored and still found the environment in Australia too restrictive. Besides prohibited pronouns, the fact they had one female singer and four young men in the group was regarded as suggestive by government watchdogs. It probably didn’t help their cause that the spox for the group superficially agreed, saying, “Yes, singing is sexy”.

  That was interesting enough for April to pay a bit to hear some of their music. She saved it in a folder for the next time she needed something to lull her to sleep. It was odd, the woman did sing actual lyrics, but as far as April could detect the men all seemed to just vocalize deep and soothing sounds.

  “What’s Happening” had an occasional column called “Sightings”. April saw herself on it sometimes. The owner never allowed intrusive or snarky comments like some of the trashy gossip sites. Anyone who showed a little flash and style might have their latest appearance commented on. What caught April’s eye was Lindsey Pennington was remarked upon as accompanying Sylvia Anderson to the Quiet Retreat. But it was Lindsey who was named as an artist and described as “looking good”. She had been voted her adulthood, and certainly wasn’t a little girl anymore. This was just the first time April had seen her treated as a public figure.

  Checking North American news, Arkansas passed a law that any citizen who was cited for failing to carry their phone in public three times in a month had to wear a public tracking bracelet like a child. Police expected the measure to reduce crime.

  New York passed legislation adding having red hair to the list of protected groups after a series of attacks on gingers. Crimes against them would automatically be presumed hate crimes.

  Disney news wasn’t heavily slanted to European commentary, but there was an article that the next supply mission to the Mars colony was in financial trouble and might not make the optimum launch date. None of the private donors would discuss why they were withdrawing support. April did a search of that article and some others, but there was still nothing about the refugees.

  Still, April wondered if Joel had leaked her report to enough of his people to trigger this behavior? He’d been strongly warned that leaking the Martian’s secret might end up provoking conflict between Earth and Home. She was still conflicted over whether she’d done the right thing. Sometimes there is no clear course of action that will produce the best outcome, and once you pick what to do and execute it, you’ll never know if one of the other courses of action would have produced a better result. Jeff would tell her it serves no purpose to agonize over it after the fact. She’d mention it to her partners.

  Chen’s morning report did have an article about problems with the Mars mission from a direct European source. April’s eyebrows shot up in surprise. He added a note that there was an Interpol notice listing the Mars government spox as a wanted person, with a European Union arrest warrant for conversion. Whatever that meant… One more thing to look up.

  Amy had to be in because April could smell sausage cooking. It wasn’t long before she delivered a muffin with sausage and egg for April to “Get you started.” All three of them had boosted metabolisms and hearty appetites. The odor quickly roused Jeff who came out with his hair in disarray and Heather a little later with her hair wet from the shower.

  “Any war or disaster?” Heather asked seeing April reading the news.

  “Neither for us. There’s always a few of both going on down below. There is one minor disaster for the Martians. The private foundation that bought the Sandman seems to have run out of enthusiasm. They put a delay on sending the next supply mission by withdrawing funds. If they do send it, they will be past the best launch window and have an extended voyage. Do you think my telling Joel the truth about the Martians precipitated that? Are the French or other Europeans quietly shutting down their Earthside support?”

  Heather managed to look guilty, something that she wasn’t given to doing easily. It was so obvious even Jeff picked up on it and was staring at her.

  “I didn’t know if he’d take my suggestion,” Heather said all flustered. “I should have said something to you. We got to doing other things, and I kind of forgot about it until now. Of course, I’d have remembered to tell you if we’d started talking about going to Mars again, though that’s in doubt now.”

  “Back up. To whom did you suggest anything and why would it matter?” Jeff asked.

  “DeWalt. He called me a few days back and informed me there was a coup in progress on Mars and he’d been ordered to stand down as spox for the Martians. To do nothing until they got it sorted out and got back to him. He seemed to feel he might not have much of a future, being associated with the previous regime. It was a kindness to tell us we would not be dealing with the same people as before if we did a third trip.

  “He did indicate he had extensive power to act on their behalf, signing agreements, and doing banking. I pointed out he might be the only remnant of the previous Martian government left and no telling how he’d be treated if he returned to Mars and was completely at their mercy.”

  “He’d be lucky if they didn’t pitch him out the nearest airlock,” Jeff said.

  “Indeed, so I encouraged him to convert everything he could to portable forms and get out of Europe while the getting was good. He said he would, but one never knows,” Heather said. “People aren’t very good at taking free advice.”

  “So he embezzled all the Martians’ money and headed for a tropical isle somewhere?” Jeff asked.

  “Someplace without extradition certainly. I suggested that to him,” Heather said. “He might have been spox for a creeping criminal government, but he never appeared to be stupid.”

  “No, no. Embezzled is such an ugly word,” April said. “The news said he was wanted for conversion.”

  “I’m afraid that is a nit-picking distinction only lawyers are going to care about,” Jeff said.

  “It may not be the best time to do another artifact pick-up,” April decided. “I didn’t trust the Martians before. If they have an entirely new leadership, we know nothing about, I wouldn’t count on it being less extreme, more friendly, and open to us. Especially if they have any clue Heather suggested their boy abscond with all the loot. No wonder their donors don’t want to kick in twice to bail them out. They already paid big to have special status and they probably wonder if they still retain the special status, even if they contribute twice.”

  “Why didn’t Chen tell us about this?” Jeff wondered.

  “It was a direct call. I never told Chen about it,” Heather admitted. “He’d have no way to know.”

  “Well, at least we know Chen isn’t listening in on your calls,” Jeff said. “If he was, he’d find a plausible way of feeding that information to us to look on top of everything.”

  “
Oh, let me tell Chen, please,” April asked.

  “Why?” Heather asked, not understanding at all.

  “You are too nice and would explain the whole thing like you just did for us,” April explained. “Being mysterious and unpredictable is one of my few currencies with Chen. I’ll just tell him there was a coup and their spox took off with all the cash. I won’t explain how I found out. I never do, and he’s too proud to beg. It keeps him humble.”

  “That’s positively evil,” Jeff said. He seemed to mean it as a compliment.

  “I’ll use the data to update Joel and bind him a little closer to us. Then I’ll use the occasion to tell Irwin too, since he knows the story, and make sure he knows things are OK between us now.”

  “Good. Good stuff all of it,” Jeff said, and went off to take his shower. He needed to think about when he could get back to Home to do some business.

  * * *

  “Thank you for the information, April,” Chen said. “I’ll add it to my situation sheets.”

  She informed Irwin with the same brevity as Chen. “And I’m sorry I yelled at you. I had no reason to do that,” April allowed.

  “No, you had plenty of reason,” Irwin admitted. “If you have forgiven me, I’m glad.”

  Both of those went well. She checked the time. Joel shouldn’t be eating or anything, so she called him.

  “Really?” said Joel. “Well, that was silly of them to start ordering the previous regime’s man around when they had no handle on him, wasn’t it? I wonder if they understood just how much authority he’d been granted. We have persuaded several of the refugees from Mars to accept French residence. I hope they are a resource if we have continuing trouble with Mars. You can count them as your resource too since you’ve been so supportive.”

  “Thank you, Joel. We’d hoped to get more information and artifacts from them, but all that is in jeopardy. It may just be too dangerous to land there for us. I don’t know if anybody will fund the Sandman making another voyage to Mars, but it may be the only rescue for the rest of them.”

  “I know the Martians are not your favorite people. Did you three perhaps have a larger hand in this coup than you are telling me?”

  “Honest, Joel, the first clue I had about it was a piece on Disney news, not even a European source, and nothing from our intelligence sources. I just got through informing them. My honest opinion is that it is unlikely to result in a more reasonable Mars command, easier to deal with.”

  “Alright, thank you. We shall avoid being sucked into some ill-conceived rescue with the rest of the Union, based on false premises. We continue to hold your secret close,” Joel promised.

  “Thanks again. If we are informed of developments outside the public eye, I’ll share them,” April promised him, and disconnected.

  Joel looked at the last part of their recorded conversation with the veracity software running. The program informed him April believed her initial source of the information was Disney news with over 98% probability. She had informed her people and believed what she said about it not being an improvement by approximately the same percentage. It also said there was a 99% probability of there being much more to the story left undisclosed, by the small tells and twitches. Every time she decided not to say something there was some small spike. Joel wondered what the real point of the software was when a reasonably bright ten-year-old could have told him the same thing?

  * * *

  “I’m shocked,” Milly avowed. “I have five inquiries about Camelot already. I have yet to be certain they are all qualified buyers but at least two are, unless they are impersonators spoofing identities.”

  “There are almost as many trillionaires worldwide as residents of Home,” Jeff pointed out. “Even though some countries have decided it’s just not acceptable to let an individual control that much wealth. Although even then, there are ways to control it without actually owning it upfront. It was an impossible sum for an individual to be worth not all that long before I was born.”

  “They’ve all asked information. I’ve sent off what I knew and am researching others,” Milly said. “Your governor, Annette, is a treasure helping me. A very level headed young woman.”

  “So I’ve been told,” Jeff agreed.

  * * *

  Vic got a text message on the satellite phone, that was the cheaper way to communicate and he was glad the pilot, Cal DeWitt remembered to use it.

  Vic – I have your first bicycle at O’Neil’s. I hope to have the other two by the end of the month. There is a lot of pent up demand from over the winter and I’m making two flights a week favoring light items first.

  That was good of Cal to give him some notice so he could plan a trip to O’Neil’s. By the end of the month, it wouldn’t be into the heat of summer yet. Their long walk should be fairly comfortable.

  * * *

  “Jeff, do you have a minute?” Eric asked onscreen.

  “I wouldn’t have answered if I didn’t,” Jeff said bluntly.

  Eric nodded. He sometimes forgot Jeff didn’t have the same social responses he expected in others. He wasn’t trying to be rude. His ladies had made a lot of headway on that problem. Even with being much younger, Eric had more gracious social skills.

  “I’m wondering if we should run off a bunch of five and ten-gram solars?” Eric said.

  “Why?” Jeff asked. “Nobody liked them and complained they wanted quarter and half solars rather than gram denominations. We had to pay to have more dies made and it took a long time to use up what we’d already coined, except the one gram. They still like the one-gram. I have no idea how people decide these things.”

  “I was just looking at personal ads in “What’s Happening”. There is an ad for two ten-gram solars for sale for a full solar. It made me search and I found other five-gram and ten-gram solars being offered for a premium. Now that you can’t walk in Irwin’s and ask for them, it seems they are becoming collectibles,” Eric explained.

  “People want whatever they can’t have,” Jeff said, amazed.

  “Well sure. Value depends on scarcity a lot. But how do you feel about that? Do you want solars to trade over face value?” Eric asked. “If we make more it will nip that in the bud.”

  Jeff looked abstracted, thinking about it.

  “It never seems beneficial to destroy value, even if we inadvertently created it. What have these people done to harm us that we should devalue their coin, legitimately obtained? No, what I would suggest is this. Next time you schedule some production, have a hundred each of five and ten-gram coins run off. Our coins are not dated, so these will be entirely authentic. If you will agree with me not to sell them off for a reasonable period, say ten years minimum, we’ll split the run and hold them to let them appreciate significantly. Is that agreeable?”

  “That’s brilliant,” Eric said. “I’m entirely agreeable to that.”

  “Oh, and Eric?”

  “Yes, Jeff?”

  “I’m not entirely familiar with the numismatic culture. I vaguely remember there are special coins issued for anniversaries and events. If you would, look into that for us. Perhaps there is an added value worth tapping there.”

  “I’ll look into it and issue a report with suggestions,” Eric promised.

  * * *

  “Mr. President, before there is any more extensive discussion, I need to make clear from the very onset that France is unalterably opposed to the Union resuming support for the Martian endeavor. We speak for at least one other Council member that this should never progress to being an ‘A’ item on our agenda. We are prepared to withhold financial support in proportion to whatever the Parliament might eventually approve, and we are prepared with our partner to embargo the continued support of several critical systems made in France that the Sandman needs,” Joel threatened.

  Fabian Reg looked at Joel, shocked. He hadn’t anticipated there would be any opposition to the proposal. For a certainty, not opposition with such vehemence.

  “I
understand many were offended that the Martians decided to separate themselves from us politically,” Reg admitted. “But the majority to whom I have spoken still see them as sharing a cultural heritage with us. The spirit of discovery is honored and many hate to throw everything invested away in a snit over who is credited. They are seen as serving not just Europe, but the human race, and there is compassion for the fact the mission has the aspect of a rescue now. It is less than a two billion euromarks to preserve the trillions invested in the entire project. It may cost that all over again if we fail to rescue them.”

  “If you wish to run a rescue for them, structure it that way,” Joel suggested, “bringing those in danger back from Mars, not continuing their presence there. It will take another mission every two years to maintain them with no assurance they will ever resume the burden of their support. This will be a continuing burden.

  “Indeed it is over a lack of cultural continuity that we withdraw our support. The Martians have hired transport from the Kingdom of Central and ousted a considerable number of the researchers whose work was the entire basis of their continuing presence. Despite naming themselves a republic, we have testimony from those expelled that Mars is now run with a complete lack of democracy by leaders who simply dictate to their population. Many of them accepted being removed in fear of their lives after the supposedly vital research that was the reason for the facility’s existence was canceled. In short, their private supporters were not arbitrary. They had this and other reasons to withdraw their support.

  “If they wish to continue on that path let some other government or private individuals pay for it. France has no desire to lend our name or treasure to their support,” Joel finished.