A Learning Experience

Chapter Eighteen

Shadow Warrior, Earth Orbit

“Smile,” Mariko said. “You’re on television.”

“The President is on television,” Steve muttered. The President was welcome to it, as far as Steve was concerned. If he had to face a horde of reporters shouting inane questions, he might just have started screaming at them or ordering the Secret Service to turn their guns on the mob. He was all in favour of grace under pressure, but there were limits. “And he’s trying to spin this in his favour.”

He snorted. The President’s logic, when he’d called, had been unarguable. Too much had been seen for any sort of cover-up to work, the President had pointed out, and it was better to release the information while they could still control it to some extent. Steve would have preferred to wait until they had a working constitution and a legal code, but events had moved out of his control. They’d just have to grin and bear it.

“The planet was defended,” the President said. Mentioning the alien attack had worked a miracle. The reporters had been struck dumb. “And humanity is reaching out towards the stars.”

Steve rolled his eyes as the President came to the end of his speech. It wasn’t a bad one, as political speeches went, but it glossed over quite a few details. For a start, the President had implied that Heinlein Colony was an independent nation, yet he hadn’t quite come out and said it outright. And then he’d hinted the US Government had access to alien technology without suggesting that it didn’t have complete control over alien technology. And he’d finished by promising that more information would be revealed soon.

“It could have been worse,” Kevin said, mildly. “Can I upload the data packet now?”

Steve nodded. In the time between the President’s decision to go public and the actual broadcast, Kevin had worked frantically to put together a data packet for the internet, starting with a brief overview of the whole story and ending with a statement about their plans for the future. Unlike the President’s broadcast, the data packet made it clear that Heinlein Colony was an independent state, as were the planned future colonies on Mars, Titan and the asteroid belt. He’d also included a great many photographs of Heinlein Colony and a number of other lunar sights, as well as selected data from the alien files.

“Make it so,” he ordered.

Kevin rolled his eyes, then sent the command through the interface. “It should be interesting to watch,” he said. “I rather doubt that most people will believe it at first, even with the President vouching for us.”

Steve shrugged. The politics in the US had grown poisonous long before the current President had taken office. Republicans wouldn’t believe a word that came out of a Democratic President’s mouth and vice versa. Hell, most people assumed automatically that politicians lied whenever they started to speak. It was hard, given the number of scandals that had washed through Washington one day only to be forgotten the next, to fault anyone for believing that politicians were out for themselves, first and foremost, and to hell with the rest of the country.

“That isn’t our problem,” he said, as he stood up. “Keep an eye on it; let me know if something happens that requires immediate attention. I’m going to work.”

Kevin lifted an eyebrow. “You are?”

“We need a constitution,” Steve reminded him. “And a legal code. It’s time I started writing them both.”

“Let me read it before you start uploading it,” Kevin called after him. “And make sure Mongo and a few others read it too.”

Steve nodded as he stepped into his office and closed the hatch. It had once belonged to the Subhorde Commander, although Steve had no idea what the alien actually did in his office when he was so rabidly anti-intellectual. If there had been Horde females on the ship, he would have wondered if he’d used it for private sessions, but there had been none. Females, according to the files, were restricted to the very largest ships.

He sat down at his grandfather’s old desk — he’d had it shipped up from the ranch — and activated the interface. Downloading hundreds of actual and theoretical constitutions hadn’t been difficult, but he found himself returning time and time again to the Founding Fathers greatest piece of work. It had a simplicity that most later versions lacked. Pulling up Keith Glass’s recommendations, he read through them and then reached for a sheet of paper. He had been taught by his mother, while she was homeschooling her children, that something written down physically would last longer in his mind than something typed. Besides, it felt right to use pen and ink for the first draft.

It was a more complex task than he’d realised, somewhat akin to editing his writings, but on a far greater scale. The sheer weight of history — future history — pressed down on him. He wrote out the first section, then crossed it out completely and wrote out something different, asking himself if each and every human right had to be guaranteed by law. And yet, if the rights known to exist at the time were included specifically, would that automatically exclude any rights still to be discovered?

Carefully, he outlined the structure of government. Keith Glass had pointed out that small government was best — Steve was hardly going to disagree with that sentiment — but there was also a need for a unified government. Very well; instead of a handful of large states, there would be hundreds of small cantons. The Solar Union — as Glass had termed it, after a government in one of his books — would not be an entirely coherent entity. It would be more like the Culture than Star Trek’s Federation.

We’ll have to see how it works in practice, he noted, as he finished writing out the government design and sent it to Kevin and Glass for comments. It would have the advantage of allowing the local governments to remain in touch with their populations, but it would also take time for them to come to any decisions. In the meantime, the overall government would be responsible for defence and foreign affairs. We might have to modify the system later if it doesn’t work properly.

The Bill of Rights was simpler than outlining the government, he decided. Anything that took place between consenting adults in private, whatever its nature, could not be considered a crime. There would be a right to bear arms, but there would also be a responsibility to use them carefully. Everyone, no matter the offence, would have the right to a jury trial and/or the right to insist on being tested under a lie detector. There would be total freedom of religion for individuals, but religion could not be used as an excuse for criminal or terrorist acts. Extremists of all stripes would very rapidly find themselves removed from society permanently.

Defining a citizen was simple enough, he decided, as he wrote out that section. A citizen would be someone who had lived in a canton for two years, paid taxes and chosen to join its voting register. People could refuse to become citizens if they wished, but they would have no voting rights and no say in government. It struck him, a moment later, that some people would probably move between cantons regularly, so he rewrote to say that someone had to have a canton as his permanent residence for two years. There would be no joint citizenship of cantons. One person, one vote.

He was midway through drafting the legal code when Kevin called him. “There are some quite interesting responses,” he said. Steve glanced at his watch, then down at the sheets of paper. Had it really been three hours since he’d started work? “I’m afraid the Russians, Chinese and French have lodged protests at the UN and are demanding we turn the starships and the lunar base over to them.”

Steve snorted. “Them and what army?”

Kevin chuckled. “The UN is calling an emergency meeting to discuss the situation, scheduled for tomorrow afternoon,” he said. “They’re undecided if they want to treat us as an independent state or not, but we have been invited to participate.”

“I’ll think about it,” Steve said.

The thought made him grit his teeth. He hated the UN and considered it worse than the federal government. At least the feds could sometimes find their asses with both hands when they went looking. There was no war or natural disaster, no matter how unpleasant, that could not be made worse by the United Nations. Hell, the fighting in Libya might have ended sooner if the transnational ICC hadn’t put out a warrant for the dictator’s arrest, making it impossible for him to back down.

But then, what could one reasonably expect from an organisation that didn’t even have a majority of democratic states? The whole concept had been fundamentally flawed from the beginning.

“They’re also demanding access to the alien prisoners,” Kevin said. “In fact, they’re not the only ones — and quite a few of the others have been much more respectful.”

“They’re not going to be paraded around Earth,” Steve said. Quite apart from the violation of the Geneva Conventions, it would probably be considered cruel and unusual punishment. And it wouldn’t help any attempt to convince the Hordesmen to join humanity. “But if there are scientists who feel they can add to the research program, see if they’re worth recruiting.”

“Understood,” Kevin said. “By the by, did you read the report from the two new ships?”

Steve shook his head. He really needed to recruit more staffers. But maybe that was how bureaucracy had begun, back in days of yore. The guy in charge, unable to do everything himself, had recruited more and more people to help him do his work. And then the whole process had just snowballed out of control.

The bureaucrats will be held to account in the cantons, he told himself, firmly. They will not be permitted arbitrary power.

“We have four new fabricators and nine new shuttles, as well as quite a few other supplies,” Kevin said. “If we put them all to use, we should be able to double our output of fusion reactors and other vital supplies for the new colony. Keith thinks we might even be able to try to fiddle with one; we might even be able to unlock the command codes.”

Steve had to smile. Overcoming the restrictions on the fabricators would be useful, but it needed to be balanced against the risk of putting one of the fabricators out of commission permanently. The technology involved in producing one was far in advance of anything from Earth, although the researchers were starting to have an idea of how they worked. Duplicating one without a clear idea of what they were doing could take decades.

“Tell him to be very careful,” he said. “If nothing else, we can use the fusion reactors as bribes. Give them only to nations that recognise our independence and agree to respect our dominance in space.”

“The UN wants to talk to the aliens,” Kevin said, “but no one can agree on what message to send. If the Hordesmen come back, Steve, they’re going to be very confused.”

“Poor bastards,” Steve said, unsympathetically. As far as anyone could tell, the only time the Hordes bothered to be diplomatic was when they were facing vastly superior force. And even then, the Hordesmen who had made whatever diplomatic concessions were necessary were expected to kill themselves after making the deal. “But we won’t be bound by any promises the UN makes to the Hordes.”

“I’d like to set you up with a reporter or two,” Kevin added. “Like it or not, we have to shape the public relations battleground to our advantage…”

“Why?” Steve asked. “What does it matter what sort of crap the reporters spew out about us?”

“I wasn’t thinking of going to the MSM,” Kevin said. His voice tightened. “It matters, Steve, because we still need to recruit people from Earth. If they think of us as some new-age version of The Authority, they’re going to be fearful. We need them to consider us rational agents, not monsters. And if we can get public opinion on our side, it will make it harder for the governments to move against us.”

Steve scowled. He had to admit that Kevin had a point, but he didn’t like it.

“Very well,” Steve said, finally. “But someone reasonable. I want to see the name before you make the arrangements.”

“Of course,” Kevin said. “And the meeting at the UN?”

“I will not be sucking their cocks,” Steve said. “You make it damn clear to them that if they treat us as naughty children who need a spanking we will simply walk out and to hell with the UN. We are an independent nation and will be treated as such.”

“They let the Libyan nut lecture them for hours,” Kevin said. “I think they can put up with you.”

He paused. “One other thing?”

Steve sighed. “What?”

“Take a break from trying to write the constitution in a day,” Kevin advised. “The Founding Fathers took over a hundred days. You cannot be expected to write a complete document for the ages in less than a couple of months. Frankly, you really need a carefully-selected committee and a complete absence of pressure.”

Steve snorted, but he took his brother’s point. “Read through what I’ve written so far, then let me know what you think,” he said. “And I’ll try to keep up with the news.”

“That’s definitely your face on television this time,” Mariko said, an hour later. She’d taken one look at his face and ordered him into bed, where she’d massaged him until he’d started to relax. “I think that’s your photo from Boot Camp.”

“It is,” Steve said. He couldn’t help noticing that the tagline claimed it was his High School graduation photograph, which was definitely a critical research failure. He’d never been to High School. “And I bet that reporter is coming down against me.”

“Or maybe he has a crush on you,” Mariko teased. “It’s not that bad a photograph.”

Steve gave her a doubtful look. The photo had been taken four weeks into Boot Camp and he looked ghastly. His eyes were sunken, his face was pale and he looked suspiciously like a drug addict trying to resist the temptation to start taking drugs again. All things considered, it was a minor miracle Mariko managed to like it. But then, she did have strange taste in men.

He flipped through the channels, shaking his head. Both FOX and CNN seemed to have their doubts about the whole affair, suggesting their senior management hadn’t quite decided which way to jump. The BBC reported the whole thing in tones that suggested that it was all a giant joke, despite the President’s speech, while Al Jazeera seemed to believe it was all a Western plot with dark motives. Online, some bloggers were tearing apart the President’s speech while others were pointing out the clear evidence of extraterrestrial life. It was a complete madhouse.

Turning back to the original reporter, it was clear that news teams were already heading towards the ranch. Steve had largely shut down family operations there, but there were still supplies moving towards the area for transport to space. Activating the interface, he sent orders to keep the reporters out of the ranch if possible — and, if not, to pull out completely and abandon the ranch. It would be painful, but he didn’t want another incident. In hindsight, embarrassing the DHS so thoroughly might just have been a major mistake. There were already leaks from the Department, now the President had opened the floodgates.

He started to flip through channels again. A preacher he vaguely recognised was screaming about the End of Days, predicting fire, floods and nuclear disaster. In Washington, a crowd was gathering in front of the White House, although it was impossible to tell what — if anything — they wanted from the government. A handful of Congressmen and Senators were being interviewed, but it was clear that they knew little about what had been going on. Most of the comments included threats to impeach the President for not telling them about the starship and the existence of aliens.

“Business as usual, really,” he said.

Mariko nodded, then pushed him back on the bed and straddled him. “I’m a doctor,” she said, “even though I’ve felt as ignorant as a new intern over the last month or two.”

Steve nodded. Mariko had had to get used to using alien technology that did just about everything for the doctor, including mending old wounds and removing scars. It was so far in advance of human technology that all she really was in the ship’s sickbay was a button-pusher. Steve could understand her frustration with not really knowing what was happening when she used the technology, but there was nothing he could do about it.

“You are pushing yourself too hard,” Mariko continued. “You’re in the prime of health for a man your age — and the alien treatments will ensure you remain youthful for quite some time. But you are still pushing yourself too hard. The Head of Government cannot do everything on his own. You need to delegate more to your friends and allies.”

“I could appoint you Minster of Heath,” Steve said.

He gasped as Mariko poked a finger into his chest. “Be serious,” she said. “You’ve already had to hand recruitment over to Charles. Start handing over some other matters too. You won’t do anyone any good if you work yourself into an early grave. Or don’t you want to give up control?”

Steve gritted his teeth. She was right, he knew. Part of him didn’t want to give up control over the fundamentals of their new society. How could he trust anyone else to write the constitution? But, at the same time, he was pushing himself too hard.

“I understand,” he said. “I’ll see who I can find to help.”