A Learning Experience

Chapter Thirty-Six

Shadow Warrior, Earth Orbit

Kevin had been trained, long ago, in reading the subtle signs of their body language. A person pretending to be annoyed, his tutors had taught him, tended to overact as badly as a child actor and start shouting in outrage at the drop of a hat. Body language wasn’t entirely universal — it hadn’t been universal even before the humans had first encountered the Galactics — but there were plenty of points of similarity. And all of his training was telling him that Steve was very definitely annoyed.

He looked at Mariko. Unlike Steve, she was more composed, but there was a faint flush to her face that told Kevin precisely what they’d been doing when he’d interrupted them. Kevin sighed, inwardly, silently cursing their bad luck. If the whole affair had waited a few more days, Steve could have dealt with it without having to deal with sexual frustration too. Or, perhaps, nipped it in the bud before it got out of hand.

“This could become a major problem,” Kevin said, once they were seated in Steve’s cabin. “And it needs to be handled carefully.”

“No one has ever accused me of being subtle,” Steve commented, dryly. “Why didn’t you handle it yourself?”

Kevin sighed, out loud. “Because this requires your personal attention,” he said. “Because it could have a major long-term effect on our relationship with Earth’s various governments. Because…”

Steve held up a hand. “All right,” he said. “What — precisely — has happened?”

“We’ve had a request for asylum,” Kevin said.

“Oh,” Steve said. “Another one?”

Kevin scowled. The previous requests had been from men and women fleeing political, economic, religious or sexual persecution. They’d all been given the same chance to make it on the moon, with an added note that they would not be permitted to interfere in the affairs of their former home countries. Quite a few of them had accepted the warning, one or two had tried to steer events back home from the moon before they’d been given a sharp rebuke for breaking the terms of their citizenship. But this was different.

“Thomas Flynn,” Kevin said. “Have you ever heard of him?”

Steve shook his head. Mariko nodded.

“He was accused of rape and murder, wasn’t he?” She said. “I remember reading about it a year or two ago.”

“He’s an American citizen who studied in Germany for some reason,” Kevin said. “While he was there, he was accused of raping and murdering a German girl. There was no certain proof, but he spent two years in a German jail before being allowed to go home — and now the Germans want him back. He went to us and requested asylum.”

Steve leaned forward. “Is there a chance he will be sent back to Germany?”

“More than I’d like to admit,” Kevin said. “Right now, relations with Europe aren’t very good. They’re blaming the federal government for us, believe it or not, and there’s a strong field of thought in Europe that thinks the Americans are going to get away with it again. So it’s a political and diplomatic nightmare.”

“I see,” Steve said. “Why do I have the feeling that he was allowed to flee to us?”

“I have no doubt,” Kevin said tightly, “that the Europeans will raise precisely that issue.”

Steve rubbed his forehead. “I don’t see this as being a major problem,” he said. “Tell him that we will take him in, under the same conditions as everyone else, if he agrees to undergo a lie detector test. If he’s innocent, we will inform the German Government and insist that they abandon their pursuit of him. If he’s guilty, he will be judged under our law.”

“If he’s guilty, he would be a fool to insist on pushing us,” Kevin observed. “Rape and murder… they’re among the worst crimes a person can commit.”

He smiled at the thought. Lunar justice, having the ability to definitely separate the guilty from the innocent, was not soft. If found guilty, Thomas Flynn would be introduced to the joys of breathing hard vacuum. But if he was innocent… Kevin shook his head, remembering just how much trouble the DHS had proved over the years. Wasn’t anyone smart enough, these days, to realise that admitting failure wasn’t the same as suicide? But he wasn’t too surprised, sadly. Success often went unrewarded, but failure always drew fire from politicians out for a few soundbites. The German police probably had the same problem.

“Yes, he would be,” Steve said. “But this isn’t the only person who came to us with a criminal record.”

Kevin nodded. In the long run, he suspected, perfect lie detectors would change society as much as anything else. Why bother with an expensive trial when a suspect could be interrogated, then either jailed or released? But it would cause problems too, he knew. What was to stop someone from being interrogated on just about any subject? Like so much else they’d pulled from the alien databases, lie detectors were very much a double-edged sword.

He scowled, inwardly. There were several people on the moon talking about forming a canton of their own, a canton where everyone would wear personal lie detectors at all times. If anyone lied, it would sound an alarm and the speaker would be gravely embarrassed. There were some advantages, Kevin had thought, to such an arrangement, but they would also cause very real problems. What would happen if someone lied without knowing they were lying? The lie detectors could only pick up deliberate lies.

Maybe it would prove that the liar didn’t intend to lie, Kevin thought. Or maybe it would create another set of headaches because they misunderstood the difference between a lie and a mistake.

“I’ll take your message to him,” Kevin said. “And do we want to do the same in future?”

“If people are being persecuted by governments, then yes,” Steve said. “But we must always reserve the right to issue punishment if they are guilty.”

“Which leads to another problem,” Kevin pointed out. “What do we do if the person is guilty by their laws, but not by ours?”

It was easy to imagine quite a few possibilities. There were no laws restricting gun ownership on the moon, although there were dire punishments for anyone stupid enough to threaten the integrity of the lunar settlement. Nor were there any laws on self-defence, drug abuse or quite a few other issues that were criminal matters on Earth. Kevin could imagine several problems if drug abusers sought out the right to live on the moon. He didn’t give a damn if someone wanted to drug themselves into a stupor every day, but if they posed a threat to anyone else…

Mariko smiled. “We can offer to take them in, while their home country can cancel their citizenship if they wish,” she said. “And we can warn them that what laws we do have are not to be trifled with, not lightly.”

“True,” Kevin agreed. One problem with letting juries decide everything — including the simple question of if the criminal act was actually a crime — was that the results could be somewhat variable. But, as they built up much more case law, he had a feeling that problem would slowly resolve itself. “Steve?”

“Make it so,” Steve said.

Kevin rolled his eyes. The discovery that Gene Roddenberry hadn’t been too far wrong about the development of technology had given the Star Trek franchise a new lease on life. There were even suggestions that humanity’s first starships should be modelled after the USS Enterprise or even Voyager. But, apart from the Defiant, there were few Star Trek starships that were actually practical as warships.

Still, we could build an Enterprise-D and call it a long-range exploration ship, he thought, dryly. But may God help her if she runs into someone smarter than the Horde.

“I’ll see to it,” he said. “And I’m sorry for interrupting your vacation.”

“I bet you are,” Steve growled. “Just you wait until you take a vacation.”

Kevin swallowed. Steve was far from cruel, but he did have a nasty sense of humour, despite their mother’s stern lectures. But then, he did have good reason to be annoyed. If Kevin had known just what they’d been doing, he would have let them finish before calling and requesting that they join him on the ship. Maybe that would have made them both feel better.

“I’ll rest on the ship,” he said. The first group of mercenaries were midway through their basic training, according to Romford. They’d be ready to leave Earth within two weeks; Kevin knew he’d be going with them. They needed to gather more intelligence and set up a permanent base on Ying, after all. And then they needed to set up other bases on other inhabitable worlds. “No rest for the wicked.”

“And to think we always thought you intelligence officers spent the days making up shit and the nights trying to get into someone’s pants, so you could betray her to the MSM,” Steve teased. “You actually did serious work?”

Kevin nodded, expressively.

“Oh,” Steve said. He smiled. “Seeing we’re here, what’s the current status with Mars and the other colonies?”

“The new ships have helped us move several thousand volunteers to the Red Planet,” Kevin said, “now we have the bare bones of a colony to hold them. So far, there’s been no major trouble, apart from a handful of rainstorms. General reports suggest that the engineered plants are taking root, but it’s far too early to be sure. We may need to insert more water from Titan or a few more asteroids in the near future.

“Titan Base is slower, but coming along now that we’re training up hundreds of new workers to start laying the foundations of a colony,” he continued. “The plan to establish the mass driver first seems to be working, which will allow us to use Titan as a base for water collection and distribution. But it will be several months before we’re ready to proceed. Until then, Mars is going to be dependent on asteroids.”

He shrugged. “And the plans for terraforming Venus are being finalised,” he concluded. “But it will be a harder chore than terraforming Mars.”

“Well begun is half done,” Steve said. “And there will be plenty of room for humanity when it is finished.”

Kevin smiled. Despite the very best of human and alien medical science, it was unlikely that any of them would live long enough to walk on Mars or Venus without protective gear. But Steve hadn’t let that stop him start the terraforming process. Their children would thank them, even if the current generation was more interested in the asteroids than the uninhabitable worlds. Besides, the Mars Society was already trying to create its own canton.

“Politically, Mars wants to move ahead to internal self-government,” he added. “I think it’s a little early, but they’re determined.”

Steve hesitated, then smiled. “They’re still going to be dependent on us for a long time, aren’t they?”

“Yes,” Kevin said, flatly. “It will be years before Mars develops an industry of its own.”

He shook his head. Neither he nor Steve had really grasped just how much effort the Mars Society had put into planning the settlement of Mars. Their ten-year plans might not have been tested, but at least they had a framework to use for settlement. Heinlein, on the other hand, had been pretty much an ad hoc affair. In the long run, it would be interesting to see which vision of the future prevailed.

“Then tell them that as long as they abide by the terms of the Solar Union Treaty, they can have their political independence,” Steve said. “We don’t want to rule them indefinitely in any case.”

Kevin nodded. There were only two real rules for the Solar Union, the planned association of cantons that would make up humanity’s interplanetary government. They had to allow free access to the datanet and free emigration, if their settlers wanted to leave. In the long run, decently-run cantons would do much better than cantons that were run by oppressive governments or outright tyrants. The tyrants would, eventually, find themselves ruling over empty asteroids.

Or planets, he thought, morbidly.

He had his doubts about the wisdom of allowing the Mars Society completely free rein, but if people could leave at will it probably didn’t matter. Planning was important, yet he knew from bitter experience that plans rarely lasted when confronted with reality. If the Mars Society insisted on sticking to its plans, the results were unlikely to be good. But it was their task now, if they wanted it. And if their people didn’t like it, they could always leave.

And that is one right we will enforce, he thought, bitterly. Nothing else, but that.

“Very good,” he said. “Do you want to return to your holiday?”

Steve glared at him, then sobered. “I think we’ll come back to the ship in a day or two anyway,” he said. “I’ve relaxed for far too long.”

“Mongo can take the island in your place,” Kevin said. “I think Jayne and he probably need a break too.”

“Good thinking,” Steve said. “And how is Carolyn?”

Kevin flushed. “She’s fine,” he said. “And working on the first antigravity system.”

“That wasn’t what I meant,” Steve said. “Have you and her…?”

Mariko elbowed Steve, hard. Kevin concealed his amusement behind a blank face. He’d taken Carolyn out to dinner every time he’d visited the moon, but their relationship hadn’t gone much further. It was both frustrating and tantalising; the more he thought about her, the more he realised that she was almost an ideal partner for him. But did she feel the same way?

“Not yet,” he said, tightly. “But we shall see.”

“What a shame,” Steve commented archly, “that you don’t get to walk around with a suit, a gun and girls on each arm.”

Kevin snorted. “When I get my hands on the man who invented James Bond,” he said, “I’m going to strangle him.”

“You’ll have to hold a séance,” Steve countered. “He’s been dead for years.”

“Men,” Mariko said. “Kevin, if you’re genuinely interested in her, give it time. And if you’re not, stop messing around and get back to work.”

Kevin nodded, then watched as Steve and Mariko made their way out of the cabin. He shook his head, ruefully, then accessed the interface and called Komura. There was political work to do.

“I’ve spoken to Mr. Flynn,” Komura said, an hour later. “He’s willing to undergo the lie detector test if we swear we’ll take him.”

Kevin resisted the temptation to snort, rudely. Teenagers. Didn’t they have any idea just how many people gave their solemn word in one breath and broke it in the next? Actually, they probably did… but if Flynn was innocent, he probably wasn’t feeling much trust in adults and any sort of government official at the moment. And if he was guilty…

“Good,” he said. “Make it clear that he will suffer our punishment if we discover he’s guilty.”

He couldn’t help wondering if that would cause more of a diplomatic incident than anything else. The Germans presumably wanted to punish him themselves, even though they wouldn’t kill him or do anything more than lock him up for a number of years. They might not even insist he served his full sentence, too. Liberal justice systems, in Kevin’s mind, often ensured that the punishment did not fit the crime. But then, they also often had skewed ideas of what was a crime.

It was nearly another hour before Komura got back in touch with him. “He’s innocent,” he said, shortly. “He didn’t kill the girl, he doesn’t know who did and he hates the German government.”

“Not our problem,” Kevin said. “Have him moved to Heinlein — he can go into one of the basic introductory courses until we know where he will fit in. And make sure that full copies of the interrogation record are placed online. Let the Germans download it and see that they nearly jailed an innocent man.”

He sighed, inwardly. In the long run, the Germans had badly damaged their cause. How many others, threatened with extradition, would use this as an excuse to delay or cancel their departures from American soil? And, for that matter, what would happen when a real criminal requested extradition?

What a fucking headache, he thought.

Shaking his head, he walked over to the console and started to tap in orders. The bloggers on the moon could start the ball rolling, ensuring that they got as much good publicity as possible. He had a feeling they were going to need it. Given time, the Germans might use the whole affair as an excuse to meddle with the new world order.

Or perhaps they will learn something from the whole affair, he thought, instead. If nothing else, the real killer is still unidentified. He must be laughing his ass off at the Germans — but not at us. Now the mistake is known, it can be fixed.

He sighed, again. The technology they had could be used to prevent all crime. A few billion nanotech surveillance drones, a handful of powerful computers to monitor their take… and crime would become a thing of the past. But the price would be a total loss of privacy and freedom. No one would be able to do anything without being observed. It would become a nightmare even if there was no Big Brother watching everyone. The entire human race would become neurotic.

But isn’t that the promise and threat of the future, he asked himself. The eternal balance between good and ill, between freedom and slavery, between the ideals of the future and the curse of the past?

In truth, he conceded, he had no answer. All he could do was wait and see.