Vacation on Union Station (EarthCent Ambassador Book 7) Page 3

  “I’m just reading,” Kelly asserted, looking around for her book. When she realized she’d left it behind on the couch, she gave in and reached for Joe’s pile. “It’s not my money so it’s not really gambling,” she justified herself. “But, Libby? Warn me when the kids get out of the lift tube.”

  Three

  “Thank you all for attending on such short notice,” Kelly said, glancing at the top right of the hologram to make sure that encryption was turned on. “Director Oxford will be joining us in a few minutes, but I thought it would make sense to take a vote first on whether or not this falls within the scope of activity for an intelligence agency.”

  “I realize I’m the new kid on the block, but I’m a little puzzled by the timing of this meeting,” said Ambassador Fu. “I think the self-government issue is certainly worth discussing, but I wish we had been given a little more notice to prepare.”

  Kelly turned to her left to address the Void Station ambassador, even though the holo-conference technology always processed the holograms so that everybody thought that everybody else was looking at them. The effect was rather like sitting around a conference table peopled with Old Masters portraits, since the eyes seem to follow the observer around the room.

  “It came to my own attention just recently, and it occurred to me that asking our intelligence people to look into accusations that we’re running some sort of police state could create a conflict of interest,” Kelly replied.

  “Well, you all know that I’m in no hurry to see EarthCent getting into the military business,” Ambassador White said. “But that does appear to be how most of the advanced species handle their policing, so perhaps we should look into it.” Belinda White was dressed in what looked like an old British safari outfit, and Kelly wondered if she was heading to a costume party right after the conference.

  “I learned of an active anti-EarthCent movement on Middle Station earlier today,” Carlos Oshi contributed. “My weekly meeting with the local council of merchants was interrupted by a group of human demonstrators, though they weren’t as well prepared as one might expect. I’d like to play a recording of that event made by our station librarian.”

  “It’s your committee, Kelly,” President Beyer said.

  “You have the hologram,” Kelly told Ambassador Oshi.

  A scene from Middle Station showing a large café in a setting modeled after an Italian piazza popped into life over Kelly’s display desk. Ambassador Oshi was standing at a makeshift lectern looking bemused as a group of protesters armed with placards pushed into the space between the tables where the local business leaders were sitting. One protester held an old-fashioned megaphone and led the chants.

  “We want free elections,” the woman shouted.

  “We want free elections,” the protesters repeated dutifully.

  “No representation without participation,” proclaimed the leader.

  “No representation without participation,” the followers echoed.

  “Stryx go home!” she shouted.

  “Stryx go home?”

  The protesters repeated this last bit uncertainly, and a young man let his sign fall and raised a hand.

  “Yes, Jason?” the leader said through her megaphone. She was plainly unhappy with the interruption, but as an advocate of participatory government, she had encouraged her followers to ask questions at any time.

  “Aren’t the Stryx already home?” Jason asked. “I mean, they own the stations and all.”

  “That’s an excellent observation, young man,” Ambassador Oshi interjected before the protest leader could reply. “I’d be happy to address all of your questions if you’ll meet with me at the embassy later. Right now we’re in the middle of a meeting to raise funds for a children’s theatre.”

  “Oh, sorry,” the young man said. The other protesters let their signs droop and some of them looked rather abashed. “My little brother wants to be an actor. Can I do anything to help?”

  “Jason!” the leader shouted through her megaphone. “Don’t let the oppressors buy you off with their bread and circuses. Have you forgotten what I said in our meeting just twenty minutes ago?”

  “But now we’re interrupting their meeting, Amber,” protested a middle-age woman. The sign which she had allowed to slide to the floor read, “One sentient, one vote.”

  “Did anybody ask us for our input on this alleged theatre project?” Amber shouted back through her megaphone. “Who are they to decide for all of the humans living on the station?”

  “Do you have something against children’s theatre?” Jason asked.

  “It’s not about the damned children’s theatre!” Amber yelled, losing her temper. “It’s about self-determination and not living as slaves of the Stryx overlords.”

  “Are you feeling alright, Miss, er, Amber?” Ambassador Oshi inquired. He appeared to be genuinely concerned. “Waiter? Could you bring the young lady a glass of water?"

  Amber snarled at him, raised her megaphone to say something, and then changed her mind and marched off, head held high. The rest of the protesters melted away. The scene vanished and the hologram of the steering committee members seated around a virtual conference table returned.

  “Wow,” Belinda said. “That was really wild.”

  “I suspect those protesters had less time to prepare for their demonstration than I did for this meeting,” the Void Station ambassador observed.

  “Has anybody else experienced a similar outbreak of democracy?” the president asked with a crooked smile.

  “I did have an awkward meeting earlier this week with a local man who wanted to register his candidacy for the next ambassadorial election,” Ambassador Zerakova said. “I tried to explain to him that we don’t have elections, but it didn’t seem to sink in. He kept posing the same question in different ways until finally I sent him to dinner with my junior consul. It couldn’t have gone very well because she hasn’t been speaking to me for the last two days.”

  “Does the close timing of these incidents strike anybody else as suspicious?” Belinda asked. “Why don’t we get our Mr. Oxford’s opinion on all of this before we make any decisions? That is what we pay him for, after all.”

  “He’s waiting in my outer office, so we’ll skip the vote and invite him in now if there are no objections,” Kelly said. “Oh, and just in case you’ve forgotten, we don’t pay him. The intelligence agency supports itself by selling data and services to the business community.”

  “Could a police force be self-funding?” the president asked.

  “For much of Earth’s history they practically were, at least in some countries,” Svetlana replied. “Of course, it meant that police protection was primarily available to those who could afford it, and the biggest spenders were organized crime bosses.”

  Clive entered Kelly’s office during this last exchange and took the seat across from her at the display desk. The holo-controller made a space for him at the virtual conference table between Belinda and Svetlana, rearranging them all in a boy-girl pattern for some obscure reason of its own.

  “I believe I know all of you except for the gentleman in the nightgown,” Clive said, looking around the hologram.

  “They’re pajamas,” Ambassador Fu replied. “I am Zhao Fu, and I was appointed the Void Station ambassador after Mr. Beyer accepted the EarthCent presidency.”

  “Clive Oxford, pleased to make your acquaintance,” the director of EarthCent Intelligence introduced himself briskly. “I overheard the last couple comments about funding for a police force as I came in, and I can confirm that self-funding would lead to distortions in enforcement policy. I know that in the case of mercenaries, granting charters to attack enemy shipping usually turns into out-and-out piracy. But first I’d like to present our current assessment of the human-on-human crime situation and discuss whether there’s really a need for policing in some human communities.”

  “Please do,” President Beyer said.

  “EarthCent has es
caped the problem of policing humanity in space to this point thanks to the fact that practically all of the humans who have left Earth are living as guests or contract workers. This means that they, we, live under alien authorities whose surveillance and enforcement technologies make it nearly impossible for human criminals to avoid detection and capture.”

  “I can see where that would discourage property crime, and of course, none of the Earth’s laws regarding vice have any meaning to aliens, but what about violent crime?” Belinda asked.

  “Human-on-human crimes against persons are indeed the main problem under alien rule,” Clive replied. “But you have to remember that the humans living on alien worlds have no rights other than those granted by the landlords. I’m sure you all see your share of runaways from labor contracts, especially the young people who grew up in the system rather than making a commitment of their own accord. I’m also sure you all have friends or acquaintances who were contract laborers at one time or another, but have you ever heard somebody complain about the alien policing?”

  “An interesting point,” the Middle Station ambassador commented. “We conduct an ongoing survey of humans transiting the station, mainly questions about their employment experiences, though you can find most of the same information on the job boards run by the laborer agencies. The food, the pay, the hours, and the conduct of their co-workers all come in for regular criticism. Occasionally we’re asked to look into a failure to deliver on promised bonuses, but I can’t recall the issue of policing coming up even once.”

  “Even if it was an issue, we have no jurisdiction in alien space to do anything about it,” Clive pointed out. “The Stryx grant us limited self-government on our own decks, but since they also provide all of the infrastructure and services, there’s never been a need for anything beyond the business associations and school cooperatives. The only place we see a real demand for policing is on the self-governing human colonies and outposts. As more humans who complete labor contracts opt to remain in space rather than retiring to Earth, the human populations on the open worlds of the tunnel network are starting to grow rapidly.”

  “But the open worlds still belong to the aliens, don’t they?” Ambassador Fu inquired. “I’m not aware of any sovereign human worlds on the tunnel network.”

  “Ahem,” President Beyer cleared his throat meaningfully.

  “Aside from Earth, of course,” the new ambassador amended himself hastily.

  “Open worlds weren’t an option for humans until just a few years ago,” Clive explained. “It takes money to buy passage and land, not to mention capital to invest in setting up a farm or a business. Generally speaking, unless the world is well established, newcomers are expected to handle their own affairs. The open worlds currently accepting humans are owned by Dollnick merchant princes, Drazen consortiums and of course, the Verlocks. But it’s rare for any other species to want to live anywhere a Verlock would feel comfortable.”

  “I’ve heard the Dollnicks hire human laborers for terraforming projects, and when the world is ready for occupation, they try to recover their investment by selling part of the real estate to the same laborers who did the work,” President Beyer said.

  “It seems to be a successful business model,” Clive replied. “From the human standpoint, it saves on transportation costs if they remain on the world where they or their parents served out a labor contract, and they also know exactly what to expect.”

  “But I suppose when they move from a work camp or a company town into an independent human settlement, the Dollnicks are no longer responsible for policing,” Belinda said. “Do you have any information on how they’re coping?”

  “Everything we know to date comes from an analysis of the help-wanted ads posted to the mercenary exchanges,” Clive said. “We’ve assigned a pair of senior agents to visit some representative communities and to talk things over with whoever is in charge. The ads usually state that the humans are willing to consider proposals from artificial people and aliens, but for the money they’re offering, the only takers will be human, or perhaps some Gem ex-military. By contrast, doing police work on alien outposts has always been viewed as desirable work for human mercenaries, but of course, the aliens can afford to pay well.”

  “Why would any of the advanced species need human cops?” the president asked.

  “It mainly comes down to economics,” Clive explained. “None of the advanced species hire mercenaries for policing on developed worlds, or even on their own colonies, for that matter. Most of the demand is from mining outposts, recreational orbitals and commercial ag worlds. The only aliens who go to live at those places are doing it as a job, or on mining outposts, for a chance to strike it rich on shares. If they want to work as police, they prefer to do it somewhere civilized.”

  “I recall that you started out as a mercenary, Mr. Oxford,” Svetlana said. “Did you have any experiences in this field?”

  “I worked as a market cop on a Frunge orbital for six months,” Clive replied. “It was even more depressing than fighting in the endless Vergallian wars. As on the Stryx stations, Frunge surveillance made it nearly impossible to get away with committing a crime undetected, so there’s little point in trying unless the criminal has the means to immediately flee into space. My platoon was responsible for investigating transient-on-transient crimes, but the Frunge had a different system to address problems with their own citizens.”

  “Do you believe we should be encouraging the humans on these open worlds to set up their own surveillance societies?” Raj inquired.

  “That’s above my pay grade,” Clive responded. “I can only tell you that the near-certainty of being detected tends to remove the profit motive from most crimes. The advanced species have their problems, but other than the feuds and the occasional crime of passion, it’s mostly sophisticated stuff, more like industrial espionage than smash-and-grab. The kind of police work that human mercenaries are capable of doing for aliens is of the frontier town variety, or anti-piracy patrols.”

  “We recently had an unfortunate incident involving some of the youth on our lower deck overdosing on stimulants for recreational purposes,” said Svetlana. “Pepper is manufactured by the Farlings and tailored for human biology. It provides a feeling of energy and wakefulness with no noticeable side effects right up to the third or fourth day when the user collapses.”

  “Collapsing sounds like a pretty serious side effect to me,” Kelly said.

  “Users can avoid that part if they take what amounts to an antidote at the right time,” Svetlana explained. “Of course, the antidote, Salt, is priced higher than the Pepper, and it also puts you to sleep for twenty-four hours or so.”

  “Is there a big difference between collapsing in bed and taking the antidote?” President Beyer asked.

  “The users who take Salt according to the schedule seem to hold up pretty well, but the ones who only use Pepper lose weight, and their hair starts falling out almost immediately,” the Corner Station ambassador replied. “It’s the hair loss that’s kept this drug from turning into an epidemic. According to our station librarian, the drugs aren’t sufficiently harmful to fall under a Stryx import ban, and are probably safe if used as directed.”

  “I think we should talk to the Dollnicks about this,” Kelly said. “They may not be the largest employer of human labor in terms of the total numbers, but their projects are certainly the biggest. I’m aware of an ongoing terraforming job where the Dollys have more than thirty million humans at work on a single planet, and that doesn’t include the dependents.”

  “I’ll ask our local Dollnick ambassador,” Raj Tamil offered. “They employ tens of millions of humans on a pair of ag worlds they run in a nearby system, and I was able to help the ambassador with recruiting the latest replacements. It seems that the market for unskilled human laborers has become more competitive since most of the people who wanted off of Earth have left.”

  “Speaking of Dollnick terraforming and human emigrat
ion, how long until Venus is available?” Belinda asked.

  “That project is strictly in the chemical lab phase,” the president replied. “The Dollnicks are still working at removing the sulfuric acid from the atmosphere, after which I believe the plan is to mechanically sequester most of the carbon dioxide before they introduce specially engineered microbes to start the real terraforming process. We’ll all be long dead before any humans set foot on the surface.”

  “Again, I apologize in advance if I’m bringing up a point which has previously been discussed by this committee, but policing and intelligence gathering are very different activities,” Ambassador Fu stated. “My understanding is that our intelligence service grew out of EarthCent’s need for information to help our diplomats, including those present. A commitment to policing, however, requires both enforcement and a judiciary to deal with suspected criminals, not to mention a penal system.”

  “We don’t have any budget for a judiciary or prisons,” President Beyer cautioned the group. “We don’t even have the authority to raise money beyond the funding we get from the Stryx.”

  “Couldn’t we just dump the bad apples on the Wanderers?” the Middle Station ambassador asked.

  “It doesn’t work that way,” Kelly said. “The mobs only come around every few hundred years, and they don’t accept just anybody.”

  “Maybe we could extend the successful model of the Stryx stations, where all of the policing is done by bots,” Svetlana suggested. “I realize that they are being controlled by the station manager, but perhaps we could develop a police force with artificial people who could also act as impartial judges?”

  “A two-for-one deal,” the President mused, sounding impressed. “That would solve half of our money problems. Perhaps those human communities who are currently advertising for help would be willing to fund the development.”