Another Word for Magic

by Mackey Chandler

  “I think he’ll be happy to hear that,” Jeff said back. “Relaying that to the station. Please inform me what I should ask next.”

  “See if you can ascertain the current situation on the planet.” Gordon requested.

  “Providence Station, could you please describe the situation below? My people out system wonder if the planet is calm and business proceeding as normal?” Jeff inquired.

  “Calm? There aren’t any mobs in the street with torches, and I doubt if there is a pitchfork on the whole planet. However, the words are getting pretty heated with the planetary manager claiming emergency powers that aren’t written into anybody’s contracts. He’s ordering people he considers essential to report to work when they have been told they are laid off by their real supervisors who can’t pay them.

  “And normal? No. The last messenger drone that came in carried news of the… conflict. There weren’t even any real details about that. It didn’t have any bank transfers or market reports. It didn’t have international news. Not even business or personal correspondence. We don’t know if family and friends are safe, and they probably have no idea about us.

  “We’re completely cut off from the normal flow of information. People aren’t issuing payments for wages or goods because they can’t prove they have funds on account to pay, or if they would be issuing fraudulent instruments. They just get enough to cover until the next drone comes in. Nobody keeps extra funds available locally, so we need bookkeeping reports from Earth at least weekly. There should have been an actual ship arrive with supplies also, but the lack of information is worse. It’s a mess,” Ed said.

  “So, people stopped working because they weren’t getting paid?” Jeff asked. “Did they stop growing food and have to shut off the utilities?” He’d seen all sorts of stupidity but was having a hard time imagining everyone having the things at hand they needed to feed and take care of themselves and just stopping.

  “Laid off more like,” Ed said. “They just stopped scheduling work because they couldn’t pay and had no credit set up if the bank transfers didn’t come in on time. Not everybody. I haven’t been paid, but here I sit like a fool, working even though there is no work schedule posted. The station-master hasn’t complained about me being here or locked me out. It beats sitting in my tiny room staring at the bulkheads. The cafeteria is still serving me so the cooks must be doing the same as me. I’m super polite and thank them, too. I suspect I wouldn’t be treated very well if I decided to go down to the surface where I have no assigned apartment and no food service card. If there is an evacuation, I’ll be much more likely to get a slot assigned if I’m on the station than if they have to haul me back up from the planet.”

  “Is that the rumor, that there might be an evacuation?” Jeff asked.

  “Not officially. There really haven’t been any official announcements about what might happen. They only refer to it as a temporary disruption. I suspect they don’t have any more clue than me what’s going on. They heard the same stuff from the Syracuse. People worry if things are disrupted badly enough back home that they can’t keep in contact with us, the whole process of developing the planet might be over. We might have to go back home or struggle to survive on our own. I’m not sure how that would work. Not very well I’d guess. How do you proceed, when we can’t make electronics and have no fabricators capable of making heavy equipment? Do we even have enough people to fill all the specialties we need to make stuff now? I’m pretty sure we’d run out of drugs before we could synthesize all the different sorts people need. I don’t think there is a green coffee bean on the planet and I can name a few who’d go back home if they thought they’d never have a cup of coffee again. Can you give us any news about what is happening back at Earth?”

  “A moment. I’m sending your statement to my ships in the outer system. Now… We seem to be in conflict with your administration. To us, the USNA was the tail that wagged the Claims Commission dog, so being at war with North America we feel is the same as war with the Commission. If I tell you our version of events, how can you believe it with any certainty?” Jeff asked.

  “If you say you are at war with them, I can believe that,” the controller said. “It doesn’t take two to agree to have a war. One side can force that just fine. Tell us the rest and it’s up to us to believe or not. But nobody else is telling us anything.”

  “OK. Here’s the abbreviated version,” Jeff said. “The USNA got tired of asking our leave to take armed military vessels out of the Solar System. They refused to ask transit clearance for a vessel and it was destroyed.”

  “Oh, bad,” the controller said.

  “Yes. The USNA then announced the trio of Home habitats had to surrender by a deadline or be destroyed. They set up a barrage of gravel clouds to do just that timed right at the deadline. So, it was a false deadline. They had the attack in motion long before the opportunity to surrender had passed. Interestingly, they didn’t try to challenge Central, just the habs. Even though they knew we were all allies.”

  “Oh crap, did they succeed? Is there blood to be avenged?” the controller asked.

  “No, they were not aware we could move the habitats to other star systems. They were snatched away to safe locations.”

  “Have there been strikes at the Earth? Were they bombarded?”

  “The Sovereign of Central has declared North America can no longer have access to the heavens. By way of enforcing it, she has systematically destroyed or disabled every orbital capable launch site in North America. Given their apparent independence, she hasn’t acted against Mexico, but they are on notice not to aid their northern neighbor. North America will be allowed a port on each coast for international air travel but not launches.

  “A campaign was initiated to remove all USNA heavy warships not only around Earth but in distant bases. As you heard, the order provided that small vessels not be destroyed to allow evacuation home. That offer was rescinded after a Central vessel was ambushed and destroyed at a USNA forward base. Our directive is now to remove all North American warships without quarter.

  “There has been no general bombardment of population centers or vital infrastructure on Earth. I don’t anticipate that happening unless they are stupid enough to strike Central again with nukes.”

  “Again?” the controller asked.

  “China did so in the past. Not North America. Your pardon, I tend to lump Earthies all together easily. Central is of course still there,” Jeff pointed out.

  “I wasn’t aware of that,” the man said.

  “News on Earth is carefully controlled and sanitized,” Jeff said.

  The man didn’t challenge that or any of Jeff’s other statements.

  “Are you passing that information on to the planetary administration?” Jeff asked.

  “Hell, no. I’m doing this gratis. I’ve already copied it to everybody I know below. If I send it to just the big boss, he’s playing turtle. He’s not going to share it with anybody. But I don’t have him on my contacts list anyway and the public net directory is down. What’s he going to do to me?” Ed asked. “He’s the planetary manager. He and my boss here long ago had it out over territory. The station is a separate authority with its own charter and contracts. If I were being paid, he couldn’t dock me. Just another reason to stay up here.”

  “Indeed, I appreciate your candor,” Jeff said. “I’m going to release some drones to observe the planet. There will be a message carrier popping in and out to relay their observations. It would be taken as a token of goodwill if you refrain from destroying them. I’m going to go consult with my friends and will return and speak with you again.”

  “OK, I don’t think anybody has the means to destroy them with the Bolton gone. But that would be pretty stupid for us to do at this point,” Ed agreed. “I’ve been answering your questions to the best of my ability can you tell us what you intend to do here?”

  “Oh, my bad for not making that clear,” Jeff apologized. “Central has allied
with the discoverers of the planet. Who were cut off from being paid. The Commission defaulted on their contract. Lee Anderson is here to repossess the planet and add it to the registry she implemented on Derfhome to replace the defunct Commission. Ms. Anderson intends to seek new contracts and agreements with the leaseholders and contractors on planet.”

  Jeff didn’t insult him by pointing out how common “pretty stupid” was. Ed didn’t seem to be afflicted with it. It was a shame he wasn’t the planetary manager.

  “No kidding?” Ed said slowly with a thoughtful tone. “That’s going to stir things up.”

  “We very much want to avoid violence and destruction,” Jeff assured him.

  “But she does jolly well want her planet back,” Ed said. He didn’t say it like a question.

  “Yes, she will insist upon it most vigorously if need be. We have both Red Tree Clan and Central ships in the system to support her,” Jeff said. “I’ll be back in a bit.”

  “I’m seeing a situation here I didn’t expect,” Jeff said when he rejoined their fleet.

  “That the Bolton ran away?” Lee asked. “They did the same thing when we came here the first time with just the Kurofune.”

  “No, that the Claims Commission with their lack of planning has managed to treat their contractors and lessees here nearly as bad as they treated you and Gordon,” Jeff said.

  “Oh, I hadn’t made the mental leap to see that yet. I guess I was fixated on being the offended party. But given everything that Ed fellow said it makes sense to me,” Lee agreed.

  “I think they are so badly treated that what the Mothers said about them kicking the rascals out is a good possibility,” Jeff said. “We should have had a better well-thought-out announcement ready. I didn’t explain very well why we were here initially and Ed called me on it. I was just too concerned with finding out all the security issues. Perhaps you should quickly make some statements about what you intend towards the people already on the planet. Let them know they are going to be treated well, and they may be moved to have a heart to heart with the planetary manager and his support staff and encourage them to accept evacuation to Earth.”

  “You better do that pretty fast,” Gordon said. “It may already be too late.”

  “Why is that?” Jeff asked.

  “The last drone switch brought back satellite images showing a lot of thermal sources in Providence City. I’ve seen this before. It looks just like when we upset the rule of the Teen and the crazy Bunnies started burning down their cities.”

  “Oh, crap. Couldn’t they have held off a few hours and let us talk about it first?” Lee said.

  “I guess they were already pretty peeved and near the tipping point,” Gordon said.

  “I need to get down there and talk to them,” Lee decided.

  “No, no. No indeed,” Jeff objected. “If it’s just a mob in the streets burning stuff down, they aren’t going to talk to anybody. You need to find out what is going on from orbit and see if anybody sensible is willing to talk to you. If there isn’t some sort of organization with a head guy or some sort of revolutionary committee you wait until they settle down.”

  “That’s what I meant,” Lee agreed. “Down closer to the planet where we can talk real-time. I didn’t mean to just drop to the city uninvited.”

  “Good, sometimes you scare me,” Jeff said.

  Gordon gave him a significant look that implied he should get used to it.

  “They didn’t mess with the Hringhorni. They aren’t interfering with the drones. Anybody see any problem with moving into a trailing orbit on the station with the Sharp Claws standing off five light seconds, emitting low power radar to make them aware we have an overwatch?” Gordon asked.

  When nobody spoke up, Gordon ordered Dionysus’ Chariot to jump in taking them along and feeding the numbers for the move to everyone else.

  Chapter 24

  “He knows your voice. Carry on talking to him,” Gordon told Jeff.

  “Mr. Polonis, are you still on duty?” Jeff asked.

  “Still volunteering,” Ed corrected him. “Nobody is showing up to relieve me, but the office still has coffee, and talking to you is interesting.”

  “Are you able to follow what is happening below?” Jeff inquired.

  “Just what friends and acquaintances are sending me off their phones. Glasser shut down the planetary net for data. You can’t do video or get anything but an official page saying it is temporarily out of service, to stop the spread of disinformation. You can’t even look up other people’s addresses if they aren’t already on your phone. Either he was too stupid to shut off the voice and text functions or he needed them himself. Here’s the link. It should come up for you,” Ed offered.

  “Thank you. I’ll save that to look at in a bit. So, you could only send the fact we have arrived to your friends?” Jeff asked.

  “Yeah, but that’s near two hundred in my contacts. Then they are going to call their friends and so on. I figure pretty much everybody knew in an hour or two. A lot of them aren’t working so what do they have to do but get on the phone and gossip? Glasser is aware of you, because not long after I copied everybody about that, a message filtered back to me the same way saying that one of the survey geologists, Werner Brandt, marched up to the administrative offices with about a hundred friends and demanded Glasser find out what you want before somebody does something stupid, or stand down and resign so somebody else can.”

  “Oh, how was that received?”

  “He immediately did something stupid just like you’d expect,” Ed said. “He told his security to throw them out of the building. You had three guys on duty shoving against a hundred in a narrow hallway. They shoved back and the security started shooting, when they were the ones being pushed back and scared. Werner got out with a leg wound but they left a few behind. A friend told me Werner is kind of pissed off and in no mood to talk now. Can’t say as I blame him.”

  “You have Werner’s com address? Can you patch us through to him?” Jeff asked.

  “That would be trivially easy if I had his addy. Even if I couldn’t patch you through the board here, I’d just hold my phone up to the mic. I’ll send a request to all my contacts and if nobody has it, they’ll ask their friends. I bet you have a number in ten minutes,” Ed predicted.

  It was three.

  “You want to call this character?” Jeff asked Lee. “Do you need to write out a cheat sheet of points to make or to avoid? We can delay a little if you need to prepare.”

  “I don’t think a day would see me prepared,” Lee said. “I suspect there are going to be aspects of this I’d never imagine. Meanwhile, bad things are almost certainly happening while I delay. Let me talk to Mr. Brandt. I’ll just have to wing it.”

  “Mr. Polonis, Lee Anderson, the principal claim holder for the planet, would like to talk to this geologist Mr. Brandt. Would you mind patching her through please?”

  “No need to be formal with me. I’m just Ed. I’m no official. You folks listening in, too, or is this a private talky-talk?”

  “The command decks of all our ships are listening in. Why?” Jeff asked.

  “I just wanted to know if you mind me listening in?”

  “Not that I could stop you, but you’ve been helpful. You are welcome to listen in and advise us if we miss addressing some important local issue,” Jeff said.

  “I appreciate that. I never was one to snoop on folks. I wouldn’t want somebody doing that to me. I’m connecting you now. He should answer,” Ed said.

  “Ding, ding, ding, ding,” sounded.

  “Werner here. Make it brief ‘cause I’m busy,” he growled.

  “Mr. Brandt, this is Lee Anderson.”

  “Yeah, I can read the screen. I don’t know you. What do you want?”

  “I’m the principal claim holder for Providence and am sitting above you in orbit. I’m here to repossess my planet,” Lee said.

  “I’ve never read who found it,” Werner admitted. “H
ow do I verify who I’m talking to?”

  “The traffic dispatcher on Providence Station is relaying my call. He can verify it originates from our fleet in orbit,” Lee suggested.

  “I don’t know him either,” Werner said.

  “You aren’t stopping to think and you’re being an ass, Werner,” Ed said. “Ask all your contacts if they know Ed Polonis the traffic controller on the station and they’ll verify me by consensus. Did you really expect to already know somebody who just arrived in an outside fleet? I doubt if any of your contacts know Lee Anderson either.”

  “That makes sense,” Werner said slowly. “Give me a second to switch gears. I was busy getting ready to blow Glasser and his murderous thugs to hell.”

  “If you have the situation contained and there is no rush, I’m undoubtedly better equipped to do that or extract him to justice,” Lee said. “I’m also much less likely to suffer repercussions for doing it later than you would be. I have a fleet. A couple of them, actually. I am a Voice for the Mothers of Red Tree and an ally of the Sovereign of Central. I have two of her peers and Voices here supporting me. I’m also wealthy well beyond my two-thirds interest in the planet you are standing on. That affords me significant protection.”

  “Yeah, sounds like you might be a little harder to get back at than me. We have them contained in the administrative center. Unfortunately, the security section is in the building and they have long arms in there. We had some big dump trucks that were impervious to small arms fire drop a load of dirt against all four entry doors. They just backed up and dropped a load. Glasser’s guards shot at them but it was just a waste of ammo. All the doors open outward and none of the windows open. If they do bust out some windows and get out, they may be difficult to deal with since we don’t have small arms. I’d expect them to wait until night to do that.”