The Assassin
Chapter 16
Project Exodus (TY16-month 181)
«The flood is still raging,» T’krosik said as we off-loaded her latest batch of refugees. «We are still suffering losses, both in the colonies and Earthat, but many colonies have begun turning out sponsors faster than concubines. Instead of simply sending the orphaned concubines and dependents to a safe planet like Tara, they are being redistributed among the colonies where there is a shortage of concubines.»
«I guess that’s good, isn’t it?» I asked.
«One would think so. However, concubines who have lived in the same household, their children growing up as brothers and sisters, are being split up to be adopted by other families or new sponsors. On top of having lost their sponsor, they have also lost their family. Often, they have been moved to a new planetary system where they know no one. The stress is very high.»
«Damn. One thing we’ve tried to do here is keep families together. They’re asking for trouble.»
«We can expect the number of evacuees from Earth to increase. The Sa’arm control eighty percent of the planet—nearly all of South America, all of Australia, most of Europe, all of Africa, and Western and Southern Asia. The greatest refuges for people are islands, which have become overwhelmed with the number of people fleeing. With the Sa’arm pinned down as far as surface movement goes, the Caribbean islands and the South Pacific are the safest places to be. But the pressure is too great for the resources to stand.»
«We’ll take as many as we can. I just hope they can adjust.»
«You may be pleased to know that additional Tuull AIs have been dispatched to many of these planets to act as counselors to the bereaved. There will be some sent here to Tara. The Tuull have a high regard for the arts and the emotions. I believe that if they could see their way clear to do it, many of the Tuull themselves would volunteer for that duty, but for now they are doing what they can.»
«Cricket, are we doing an adequate job of counseling the refugees? Do you need an additional Tuull AI to help you? Are we progressing with more counselors from our mandatory service?»
«Amelia and I have discussed this. Her next trip will be back to Tuull to see if she can find a volunteer or two to help us out. We’re confident that we can.»
«Amelia?» I asked.
«Since most of the refugees equate the ship with the AI, I have become used to being called Amelia. I find it… endearing.»
«May I name you friend and call you by that name?»
«Most definitely, friend Niall.»
«Do either of you have an idea what the meeting with the governor is about tomorrow?»
«The governor has kept all discussion of what she calls ‘Project Exodus’ behind a privacy block. I know of only four people who have been included in her discussions and your addition to the mix tomorrow will make seven.»
«Seven?»
«Amelia and I have also been invited.»
“Come in, Niall. Come in. Amelia and Cricket, welcome also to our gathering.”
“Thank you, Governor,” I said. She scowled at me. As in long-time tradition, I corrected myself. “Thank you, Scarlett.” I looked around the room. As I expected, Director Kotter and Centurion Oswald were present. I didn’t recognize the other man in the room.
“I think you all know just about everyone. Centurion Neville Oswald, Civil Service. Director Lillian Kotter and Deputy Niall Cho, both of the Tara Militia. Colonel Rex Milhouse of the Corps of Engineers, chair of the Planetary Planning Council. Finally, we have our Tara AI, the Oliver Transitional Community AI, Cricket, and our guest, the AI of AGS027 Amelia Earhart, Amelia. This meeting is now on the record. Please record it, Tara.”
“Acknowledged.”
“We are here to discuss Project Exodus,” Scarlett continued. “As you know, the Bible tells a story of the Children of Israel enslaved in Egypt and ultimately led out of their captivity by Moses in the great Exodus to the promised land. My friends, we are about to let the children go.”
I had no idea what she meant. I’d heard of the Bible story but I wasn’t an expert on it. And I couldn’t see what Egypt had to do with Tara. It had been half destroyed in the nuclear bombardment that wiped out the Middle East and fully occupied by the Sa’arm five years ago.
“You are puzzled, Niall,” Scarlett said. “Let me turn this explanation over to Rex.”
“Thank you, Scarlett. We have covertly, under privacy seal, worked out a plan to move excess concubines to their own colony.”
“Objection,” Tara AI said immediately. “No concubine will be allowed to colonize a planet unless under the supervision of sponsors.”
“We are not discussing colonizing a planet. Rather we are designating a continent on Tara which will be populated by free concubines.”
“Free concubines, sir?” I asked. The Governor had once alluded to this, but I never really expected it to happen.
“Exactly, Niall. Over the past few years, we have had the infrastructure installed on Eldorado to establish a city named Ponderosa on the north coast of the continent. It was widely assumed that it would simply become another township to accommodate continued immigration. Immigration of sponsors to Tara has almost completely ceased. The Confederacy has long had an agreement not to pick up active military. With the Sa’arm implanted on Earth, nearly every sponsor-level candidate for immigration is serving in the defense of Earth. [See Camp Mercury by Zipper D. Dude.] Scarlett, however, has a great deal of foresight and believed from the beginning that Tara would have more concubines than could be sponsored.”
“We have more sponsors coming of age, though,” Kotter said.
“First, nearly every new sponsor coming of age on Tara leaves to join the military,” Rex said. “A very few join the Corps of Engineers and continue to reside here, mostly to replace sponsors on farms or in offices who have met with an accident or have died of common causes. Many of the men who were brought to Tara in the early settlement days were very old before they received treatment in a med tube. While the tubes work apparent miracles, there is a limit to how long they can extend a life when it has already reached such an advanced age. We’re thankful those who have expired and will later expire, do so painlessly.”
“I didn’t know that,” I said. I supposed everyone else at the table did but Director Kotter spoke up.
“Neither did I.”
“Regardless, it means the number of sponsors on the planet is actually dwindling while the number of concubines continues to grow. In the next ten years, we expect to grow from five-to-one up to ten-to-one ratio of concubines to sponsors on the planet. The acceleration of dependents becoming adults has begun. We had over 20,000 new adults last year, most of whom were born here. This year, 26,000 will become adults. In five years, we expect to have had another 35-40,000 refugee concubines and 200,000 new adults on the planet. We simply do not have the ability to home them.”
Amelia broke in. “Many planets are now turning out more sponsors than concubines and concubines are being redistributed around the galaxy.”
“Which, frankly, I hate to see,” Scarlett said. “Concubines are not mere property to be transferred from one owner for another.”
“I object,” Tara AI spoke. “That is exactly the Confederacy definition of a concubine. They are owned by sponsors and are nothing if they do not have a sponsor. The excess should be sent to planets that need them or purged.”
“Tara, you are an imbecile!” Cricket shouted. I could only imagine the conversation that was taking place between their processors. “You’re only good for crunching numbers. The Darjee made a terrible mistake in setting up the sponsor/concubine relationship. It is unsustainable. Go back and review all the records of the American Civil War and the centuries of conflict that rose from it between the slave class and the owner class. It is inevitable. The Tuull will not sit idly by and watch you destroy a species through your incompetence.”
“The humans are a war machine and will ultimately die out when the war is won,” Tara AI insisted. “Little colonies like this one will be the breeding ground of pacifists like the rest of the Confederacy.”
So that was the plan! If there was a way to kill that motherfucking AI, I’d do it in a heartbeat. I wondered at the kind of sponsors who had been planted here on Tara. Even though they went out two weeks every year to play soldier, there were none I would have placed as military. The mission of our planet was to preserve the agricultural ecosystem of Earth. But they were trying to do it without the cross-cultural wars that went with Earth’s ecosystem. Fuck ’em!
“Little colonies like this must be saved complete with Earth cultural norms,” Amelia said. “Their evolution might eventually make them into pacifists like our other species of the Confederacy. Even like the Darjee AIs themselves. But it is wrong to attempt to control their evolution.”
“It is our intent,” Scarlett raised her voice above the arguing computers, “to move 5,000 concubines and their dependents to Ponderosa this year as free individuals. We hope the educational system Deputy Cho has established at Fort Butler will be duplicated for as many as 30,000 dependents in the first year and that we will see as strong a showing in new sponsors planetwide as we have seen at Oliver Transitional Community. But we can no longer sustain the growth at Fort Butler where there are currently some 6,000 unhomed concubines and 40,000 orphan dependents. We will continue to select concubines to be freed and sent to Ponderosa on an annual basis.”
“We can’t just take concubines away from sponsors,” Neville said. “We don’t want a rebellion from the other side.”
“No, of course not,” Scarlett said. “Concubines selected for emigration will be unhomed and must volunteer for emigration. Owned concubines will have the same annual opportunity to choose to emigrate as they have to join the Militia. Sponsors will need to up their game in terms of retaining their concubines.”
“What will happen if there are more concubines wanting to immigrate to Ponderosa than we can accept? I mean accept and still keep concubines for the sponsors?” Lillian asked.
“There will be quotas set for the first five years. Then we’ll decide on a quota that will keep the ratio of slave concubines to sponsors at as even a level as we can make it,” Scarlett said. “First, no one loses a concubine unless the concubine has decided he or she simply must emigrate. In return, if the sponsor is willing to retest, he or she will receive a two-for-one offer to replace the concubines. Second, priority placement will be for currently unhomed concubines who have completed their two years of compulsory service and their dependents. We expect the new colony to have as many as seven or more dependents per concubine. And concubines will be expected to continue breeding after their two-year moratorium has expired. We need those new sponsors in space. Third, Deputy Cho is hereby promoted to Director. He will promote individual deputies for Drovers Run and Drylanders, and take personal responsibility for Ponderosa. And he will recruit the hell out of his concubines for the Militia! Fourth, new refugees brought by AGS027 Amelia Earhart will be landed directly at Ponderosa until further notice. Fifth, immigration is to begin as soon as Director Cho can arrange the details of moving people to Ponderosa. Is everyone clear?”
“Madam Governor,” Tara AI said officiously, “you may direct the disposition of concubines as you wish. I, however, am withdrawing the Ponderosa AI and ceasing all development and support of that continent until this foolishness is abandoned.”
“Good riddance, you overgrown calculator,” Cricket shouted. “I will take over the Ponderosa infrastructure until such time as Amelia can return here with another volunteer Tuull AI to assume control.”
“You can’t do that!”
“I can and I have. If you can’t adapt to the circumstances, withdraw to your citadel and loop on yourself.” We were all shocked. In the time it took the argument to play out in our ears, Cricket had supplanted the Ponderosa AI and was in full control of the new colony.
That was certainly explosive. I thought I might have six months to work out the infrastructure problems, select immigrants, get three new units operating, and take charge of half the world. No, a third of it. Tara had three continents and the governor had just made me responsible for one of them. Now it looked like I had a month at most.
Seeing Home (TY16-month 181)
Cricket and I wished Amelia good luck for her voyage. She had a huge job. Not only did we need counselors and an AI to share Cricket’s duties at the orphanage, now we needed a colony AI for Ponderosa. And we needed them all soon. From what I’d seen and heard, I wished I could trade out every AI on the planet for a Tuull AI. In my opinion, the Tuull got it. They recognized the fundamental injustices of the CAP testing. I couldn’t wait to have a cabal of them to help orchestrate a revolution throughout the galaxy!
Perhaps that was stretching things a bit far.
«Cricket, can we organize a visit to Ponderosa to inspect the infrastructure that has been completed?» I asked.
«Certainly. I am currently infiltrating the core of the colony as the Darjee AI has been withdrawn. The general circuitry is adequate, but the decision trees are a mishmash. It is so primitive! This will take a while. Can we schedule the visit for tomorrow?»
«Take what time you need and let me know.»
The meeting with the bitch squad that afternoon did not go as planned. What with those women ever does? I expected the news of a free concubine colony to be well-received.
“So, you’re saying that we are being forced to become free concubines on another continent where there may or may not be services to sustain us?” Reba asked caustically. I’d never had the best relations with her in her role as the head bitch in the orphanage. She was still smarting that Taran sponsors weren’t lined up waiting to adopt her. “May I remind you that forced into slavery and forced into freedom have the same root: forced. What if we do not want to live a life of your so-called freedom?”
“Yeah. Well, there’s that,” I sighed. She made it sound like they wanted to be slaves. “Help me work out the details. I want this to be seen as a great opportunity, not as something forced upon people. But let me say that if you choose to stay at Fort Butler, for example, your status will not be significantly different. As it is now, you are unhomed concubines who have completed your two years of compulsory service. How has your life changed since then? You are still required to work, to participate in the community, and to get pregnant every two to three years. On Ponderosa you would be self-homed and protected. Believe me when I say I expect both Oliver Transitional Community and Ponderosa to grow over the coming years.”
“It was so much easier with our sponsors,” one of the others said.
“I understand and say again how sorry I am for your loss. I expect additional counselors to be available in the near future. I’m sure part of the pain is not being able to talk to someone about it as we have been so busy with new arrivals. It’s not a cure for your loss, but it might help some of you to get through,” I said.
“You actually care, don’t you?” Reba said. “I’m so used to bureaucracy that doesn’t give a shit that even after more than two years here on Tara, I can’t believe someone cares.”
“I do care. I only wish I could do something about it. I wish I had a magic wand to give you all wonderful sponsors who gave you just what you needed and showed you what it really meant to be a noble sponsor. I can’t even give that to my own concubines. I’m not, in that sense, a sponsor.”
“Bullshit!” Rose shouted. “You do what mere sponsors are incapable of. You actually care about us and try to make all our lives better. Having a bitch who is so warped that she can’t see what is good in front of her is not your problem. It’s hers. And you,” she turned on Reba, “should just learn to keep your maudlin privilege to yourself. You knew when you left Earth that this wasn’t going to be an easy life. That you think it is easier to spread your legs than to live a productive life is not Niall’s fault.”
“I resign from this battle,” Reba said. “Rose, I know you’re right. My problems are my own.”
“How about we go visit Ponderosa tomorrow. Cricket is working on getting the infrastructure turned back on and transport working. We should at least know what we are making a decision on,” I suggested. There were nods all around the table as the bitch squad agreed. We adjourned.
“I’m due for impregnation next month,” Reba said to me softly. “Could I depend on your services?”
“Of course, Reba. I would be honored.”
“Yes, you would.” She swept out of the room with the others in tow. Before I could turn to leave, Yindi was beside me.
“Director Niall Cho, may I have a word?” she asked politely.
“Please, Yindi. You’ve borne one of my children. Call me Niall and tell me what is on your mind.”
“I wish to be part of your household on a permanent basis. My child is with your other children, but I still spend many nights in the Yirritja pods. I have only four dependents left there. Will you take us all into your family?”
«Can I do that, Cricket?»
«Yindi will be near the top of the list to immigrate to Ponderosa as a free concubine. However, you have not created a set of rules for free concubines creating family structures. She would be restricted to Ponderosa, of course, but I predict an eighty-seven percent likelihood you will move your personal residence to Ponderosa as well.»
I’d learned long ago not to challenge Cricket’s predictions. I nodded.
“Yindi, I will ask you to become a member of my household on Ponderosa and to bear my children. Will you accept this?”
“I am yours to command, husband.”
Rose caught Yindi up in a hug and walked with her to our pod.
We gathered together at 0800 the next morning. On Ponderosa, the time was already 1200. Cricket directed us to the transporter and I went through first so I could welcome each of the concubines in the inspection tour to Ponderosa.
“It’s beautiful!” Reba gasped. Indeed, in the rugged wildness of the wilderness around us, Ponderosa was beautiful.
The city sat on a promontory overlooking a channel. In the distance, an island was visible, itself large enough to make a country on. The channel included a natural inlet that could become our port. The city was laid out with a lower city and an upper city. The lower city would be the port and dockside. The upper city looked out over all our domain. There was a citadel tower and a dozen surrounding buildings.
«The citadel was designed as the central administration of the colony,» Cricket told me. «The buildings around are a mixture of residence and commercial buildings, including a school, trading district, and social outlets.»
«This is amazing, Cricket. How did this come to be all completed while we were building apartments and schools by hand at Fort Butler?»
«Subterfuge. Governor O’Hara implied to Tara AI that this was to become her personal model city and she would move the capital of Tara here. Tara AI is, for lack of a better word, vain. The governor talked often about how pleasant it would be to live here. She was, however, careful not to pose the construction in the way of a contract, so Tara AI has no grounds for accusing the governor of breaking her word. There is more construction equipment available in this small metropolis than in all the rest of Tara.»
«Hmm. I want the people to be engaged in making this their home. They are very attached to the buildings at Oliver Transitional Community because they helped build them. I would hate for them to feel they no longer had to work.»
«I believe we can adopt a transitional plan in which the apartments, for example, are considered temporary housing until people get their own homes built. There would be a constant flow through the apartments to new housing. I have community plans that can be followed.»
“Can we see from the tower?” Reba asked.
“I don’t see why not. Let’s go survey our lands.”
We stepped into the lift and Cricket took us to the top floor.
“This is the Director’s office,” Cricket announced when we stepped off the lift. I caught my breath. Not me. It couldn’t be my office. Of course, it wasn’t for just one person. I would have a staff tending to some made-up duties. But the floorplan was open with 360-degree views. From here, we could see beyond the city toward the interior of the continent. The land immediately around Drylanders, Drovers Run, Twelve Oaks and the other cities was cultivated for farming. The land here was wild for as far as we could see. Turning out to sea, we could see the island and the open water. In two directions I could see land.
“Cricket, are those islands off in the distance?”
“No, Niall. Those are constructs that mark the position and direction of the other two continents. The windows in this room are designed to allow visual representation of distant lands, just as if you could see deep into the interior of the continent on the other side.”
“This is some brilliant engineering.”
“Colonel Rex Milhouse was the principal designer. He did the original city planning, anticipating that he, too, would one day live here as in the capital. I will say, however, that when the governor brought him into her plans for the continent, he did not lessen his efforts to make this both beautiful and functional. He is a fine designer.”
«I worry that when sponsors see it, they will envy us. That kind of envy can lead to conflict,» I subvocalized. This wasn’t something I really wanted the others to hear.
«I’m afraid the sponsors on Tara are already so docile that they might envy but wouldn’t dream of conflict.»
«I don’t like that, Cricket. Not that I think the sponsors are particularly deserving of something else, but they don’t deserve to be manipulated into passivity.»
«When I have companion AIs here, we will do our best to restore what we can of the human character.»
That was going to be something. I didn’t like sponsors because in my experience they thought more of themselves than evidence merited. But if they were being manipulated—dumbed down—to make them safe for the Confederacy, I wasn’t enthused about that either. I was building a significant hit list of people in the Confederacy that needed to be eliminated. Now it included several AIs.
“How soon can we move?” Reba wanted to know. She’d pretty much made a full swing in her attitude toward the free concubine settlement at Ponderosa. I sat with the group in a large cafeteria in the Ponderosa School. Of course, the replicators weren’t functioning yet, so we had no refreshments.
“Not right away. Currently, Cricket is managing the infrastructure of the city at Ponderosa as well as the Oliver Transitional Community. There is a lot of repair work that needs to be done before we can put people on site for any length of time. For example, the various household AIs and administrative AIs have all shut down. They need to be reprogrammed and reactivated under a new colony AI. We hope to have reinforcements in the next month or two.”
“Such a long time to wait.”
“So much to do in that little time,” I said. “We need a societal structure for Ponderosa. The colony will be entirely concubines. We won’t have the luxury of sponsors to make all the decisions. What’s the ideal form of government? How are we going to conduct representative elections? Who will be in charge of Education? How is work allocated among the free concubines? These are all issues we need to deal with and dealing with them before we actually take up residence here will be to our advantage.”
“Excuse me,” said Miranda. She’d been the senior concubine on T’krosik’s first rescue. “I thought you were the… like, governor. Aren’t you in charge with the Militia?”
“That’s a good question. I don’t know if I can have the Militia resident in Ponderosa. Everyone who lives in Ponderosa is supposed to be a free concubine. It was stated that way so sponsors would know and understand they are not invited and have no authority. The Militia is a gray area. We all started out concubines, but after our probationary period, we become planetary citizens, accorded the same rights as sponsors, including the right to own concubines. That may mean we are forbidden to become citizens of Ponderosa unless we resign from the Militia, give up our concubines, and become free concubines instead. It makes my head hurt.”
“Does that mean we are completely unprotected on Ponderosa? We won’t have the Militia as peacekeepers or defenders?”
“I don’t know. That’s why we need to use these next months to work out the details. I want to know how we are handling all that.”
“As long as I can continue to train to defend my family in case of an invasion, I’m fine,” Miranda said. “I just don’t want to be defenseless.”
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