Part 9 (1/2)
There was a harsh rap at the door. A moment later several waiters charged in carrying delightfully aromatic platters.
And Marines made automatics disappear as quickly as they'd appeared. For a long minute, Kris watched as an interesting array of food was set before her. As she had so often when on the campaign trail for Father, Kris prepared to see what and how a more knowledgeable elder ate, and would follow her lead.
When the help left, Gramma seemed to have other things on her mind. As she slowly ate from a strange-looking salad with a stranger-smelling cheese, she eyed Kris.
Kris let the silence stretch, then slowly twist itself into a pretzel. Finally, she grabbed the bull by the horns. ”Gramma, why doesn't everyone on Eden get to vote?”
Ruth laughed at that. ”Ask the old girl a question. Huh. That'll get her talking.” She looked at the lunch, mostly untouched. ”Well, you folks fill your mouths. The lamb is especially good with the couscous. That's this stuff.”
Kris took a small bite to keep Gramma happy. It actually tasted good. Still, she put her fork down and gave the older woman her full attention.
”I can't answer one question without firing up more, so let me start at the beginning. The various s.p.a.ce programs on old Earth had just about completed their first fusion-powered s.p.a.ces.h.i.+ps when a lunkhead on a quantum-gravity research grant spotted this weird something out Jupiter's way.
”The Chinese shot off an unmanned high-speed probe that somehow stumbled into the jump point and vanished. Suddenly, the mission to Mars didn't seem so interesting and all three, the Santa Maria from Europe, the Columbia from America, and the Smiling G.o.ddess from China are not quite racing for this little bit of nothing orbiting Jupiter.
”And despite the calmer heads back on Earth telling them to be careful, the three s.h.i.+ps, after ducking just one remote through the jump, went charging through themselves.
”You know about the Santa Maria getting lost?” Penny and Kris nodded at that. ”That kind of set the others back a bit. But only a bit. Alpha Centauri is a bust of a system. But there, not a day's hop from Earth's jump, was this other one, and behind it was lovely, blue-green Eden.
”It took the Chinese all of five seconds to announce they'd be colonizing the place. Which meant the Americans had to. And the Europeans couldn't be left out. Now, who do you think was ready to come out here?”
”The best and the brightest,” Kris said. That was the usual answer the teacher expected.
”Thank you for the textbook answer,” Ruth drawled. ”Now, who do you really think got on the s.h.i.+p to leave Earth forever?”
”Didn't the Chinese basically just press-gang their transportees?” Penny said.
”I expect that was in your schoolbook, if you grew up anywhere but the Chinese section of Eden, honey, but I don't think the old lords of Beijing were all that different.
”Eden got some folks that couldn't wait to see what's out here, but they aren't that many. Then came folks the old regime wanted to see gone. Some were in prison; others were just troublemakers. The Europeans and Americans emptied their jails of all but the worst offenders. And there were the religious zealots out to create a perfect world for their true believers.”
”That's not exactly the mix you hear about in the Lander's Day speeches,” Kris said, having sat through many a long-winded one praising the gallant, foresighted founders of Wardhaven.
Gramma chuckled. ”Back on old Earth, the Americans were a lot like us, a population made up of folks who fled Europe. Some came on their own. Most were flat broke and came as indentured servants, in hock for their pa.s.sage. Some were headed for jails when they signed their indenture. Two hundred years later, people might want ancestors from the early boats. But one American businessman of that time, a Benjamin Franklin, I think it was, had a different view. 'We ought to thank King George for his new colonists by s.h.i.+pping him rattlesnakes in return.'”
”Rattlesnakes?” Jack said.
”Yeah,” Gramma Ruth answered. ”Big, poisonous things. Not what you want to come across in a dark alley.”
”And it was like that here on Eden?” Kris said.
”For a while. Then the Americans found their own planet, Columbia. The Chinese got New Canton all to themselves. Same for Europa with the Europeans. Yamoto got the j.a.panese into the act. And the less said about New Jerusalem, the better. So interest in New Eden, and New Haven, another one-for-all colony kind of dried up.
”And Eden was having enough trouble. Who's in charge? So once the banks weren't running things, the folks had a bit of a problem on their hands, figuring out just what kind of government they wanted telling them what to do. Did I mention that most of them didn't cotton to much telling?”
”So each set up their show to run their side,” Kris said.
”With them setting the rules for their territory, and vetoing any law they didn't like for the planetary government. It worked fine at first,” Ruth said.
”But they needed more labor than could be done by the babies they were producing,” Penny said.
”You can praise technology all you want, but there's still the dirty work, the stuff no one wants their kids to grow up and have to do,” Ruth said.
”So they imported them from Earth,” Kris said.
”And as these guest workers grew in numbers, the problem of them not having any say in how they were governed got to be more and more of a problem,” Gramma Ruth concluded.
Kris pursed her lips in thought. ”And no one knows what to do about it.”
”Oh, don't kid yourself. They've known what they have to do since before the Iteeche War. Ray probably could have gulled them into it...if we hadn't suddenly found ourselves up to our eyeb.a.l.l.s in critters with too many eyeb.a.l.l.s and no love for us. When you're crossing a raging river, it's really hard to talk folks into changing their horse. Tarnation, girl! Some folks would consider it a d.a.m.n fool thing to even consider. No, Ray folded his tent real fast, and the way things were stayed the same. Right up to today.”
”Everyone knows what needs doing?” Jack said.
”Every year, students throw the same debate. Kids with franchise defending the status quo. Kids from the other side of town pointing out why it can't go on this way. Lots of ideas for working the change. Some want just one big happy parliament, like so many other planets have. That kind of frightens a lot of folks. Big changes tend to.
”So others suggest more of the same. The Spanish should have their own house. And the Turks. Or maybe them and the Arabs. Or maybe not. You begin to see the problem. The African's want theirs, of course. And you don't dare do something like this without giving the j.a.panese their say-so. What with Yamato looking out for all the sons of Nippon in s.p.a.ce, you can't short them. Oh, and then we need one for everyone who isn't covered. Oh, and where do the Filipinos fit, Spanish or other. Or...?”
Gramma Ruth shrugged. ”Once you set the wheel in motion, figuring out where to stop gets awfully hard.”
”So people who have the franchise figure better the devil you know,” Kris said.
”But they aren't paying the devil's piper,” Penny added.
”And nothing gets done,” Jack finished.
”Until the wheels come off,” Gramma pointed out. ”And you got to admire how well Eden is doing, keeping folks in the dark about how wobbly those wheels are. Lot of my franchised students never had a serious talk with someone who wasn't, until they got to my cla.s.s. It's an eye-opening experience, let me tell you.”
Kris mulled that over while she took another nibble at her lunch. It was really quite good. It was just that her appet.i.te had done a vanis.h.i.+ng act. She'd have to give this place another chance when she could concentrate on the food.
”What would have happened,” she said slowly, ”if we hadn't caught that bomb yesterday? What if it had gotten who it was intended to? That looked like a very prestigious cavalcade.”
”The papers would have said nothing,” Ruth said, munching something that she'd unwrapped from a grape leaf.
”And the dead,” Kris said, reaching for one of the fig-wrapped items.
”Heart attack, poor dear. Didn't get him to the hospital on time. Or one of those rare, untreatable cancers. Or maybe a skiing accident. Amazing the number of eighty-year-old types who take up skiing late in life.”
”Here on Eden!” Kris said.
”That's true,” Nelly said. ”I've just checked the database. Kris, the most likely cause of death for people in business or government is heart attack, cancer, or skiing. Five times the planet's average for people not in those lines of work.”
”How many skiers died the day after our little shoot-out?” Jack asked.
”None,” Nelly reported. ”However, a large helicopter went down. It was taking twelve people to ski in Aspen.”
”Nelly,” Gramma Ruth said with an impish grin. ”Could you tell me how many of them had ever been skiing before?”