Part 30 (1/2)
Well, actually, the freelancers' idea. They had recording equipment all over that s.h.i.+p, and they took it out of restricted Moon s.p.a.ce. They were going to interview Disty s.h.i.+ps that were turned away, as well as get footage of those s.h.i.+ps as they left.
If things worked out as both Bowles and the freelancers expected, they'd get some internal footage from the s.h.i.+p itself-face-to-face contact with whomever pa.s.sed for the captain of the Disty vessel being turned away.
Personal touches were so crucial on a story like this. Most people didn't realize that these s.h.i.+ps contained dozens of lives. No one seemed to understand that those little pinp.r.i.c.ks of light above Sahara Dome's port had meant that Disty were dying at an alarming rate.
Bowles had been appalled at DeRicci's order to close the ports. DeRicci's action had confirmed her bigotry. She clearly didn't want more Disty here, even if it cost thousands of lives.
Bowles wasn't sure Ling had believed that side of the story until the order came through. He had a hunch that DeRicci's old partner was only saying these things out of jealousy or misguided hatred. Noelle DeRicci was a popular public figure, and Ling thought she deserved softer gloves. Until this.
Until the calls from someone in the Port Authority, questioning DeRicci's rights to restrict entry into Moon s.p.a.ce and to close down the port. And then there was that little message of protest from the train lines, again about DeRicci, wondering if she truly had the right to ask that no Disty be carried from Dome to Dome unless those Disty could show they had been on the Moon for the past week.
Other InterDome offices all over the Moon were getting those kinds of calls, mostly because no one knew exactly what DeRicci's authority was. Apparently, a few of the port administrators had tried to refuse the order, only to be told that they would breaking the law.
Bowles had an intern investigating which law applied. There were still very few Moon-wide laws. Generally, each Dome ran its own port and its own transportation system. And each Dome took care of its own citizens.
This was a mess, and Bowles was relis.h.i.+ng it.
All except one part.
It had been relatively easy to think of the dying Disty in the abstract while the crisis had been confined to Mars. Then Bowles had prepared herself for the refugee story, willing to wade into crowds of Disty at the port, asking them how they would deal with the dislocation in their lives.
She had covered refugee stories before. They were always emotionally wrenching-children who seemed lost because they'd never been away from home, adults who were so frightened they could barely speak, and authorities who were just as frightened as they tried to figure out what to do with the influx.
She'd seen tent cities. She'd seen horrible overcrowding. She'd seen violence like none other in one of the refugee camps on Io during her days as a cub. But she'd never ever heard of a world unilaterally denying access at each and every port. Funneling people into one area, yes, she'd seen that. Creating ghettos for the refugees that had their own problems of air, sanitation, and privacy; she'd seen that as well.
But condemning dozens, maybe hundreds, to die in s.p.a.ce, unable to land? She'd never seen that.
She knew Earth wouldn't take them. Getting into Earth had been difficult for centuries now. The Disty might request refugee status on Earth, but they wouldn't get it. Earth often didn't let legitimate non-Earthlings onto the planet, humans with relatives there, Peyti with student visas, or Rev with work permits. Disty who had little or no identification, their only possessions what they had carried out of their homes, would have no chance.
That was why the Moon had become so popular with aliens and itinerant travelers, why the Moon's universities were getting interstellar acclaim. The Moon hadn't had that overarching central government that made silly unilateral decisions.
This change, which seemed to have snuck up on everyone, boded badly for the Moon's Domes. All that progress, all that tolerance the Moon prided itself in, had just vanished.
At the cost of hundreds of lives.
Bowles would report that. But she wasn't going to look at those s.h.i.+ps more than she had to. And when the footage came in from the freelancers, she wouldn't look at the faces of the Disty trapped outside the Moon's restricted s.p.a.ce.
She knew from past experience that the dead stayed with her. She saw them in her dreams-the people she hadn't been able to save, the people her job forbade her from touching, from helping. She could report, but she couldn't become part of the story herself.
She could focus the story and point it in the right direction. Noelle DeRicci was the focus of this story, not just her inexperience, but also her ignorance. Combine those two things with unbridled power and a willingness to use it, and the result was visible on everybody's news links.
s.h.i.+ps hurtling toward the Moon's s.p.a.ce, s.h.i.+ps that wouldn't get in. s.h.i.+ps that might hover there, waiting until someone took pity on them, or might go from place to place until their fuel ran out.
Either way, the occupants would simply be waiting. Waiting to be set free or waiting to die horribly, homeless, in the darkness of s.p.a.ce.
45.
Flint finally found several enclaves of survivors who had moved back into this solar system, apparently trying to get as close to their former homes as possible.
From the interviews he scanned, the messages that had somehow made it onto public boards, vid blogs that a handful of the young had done, the survivors believed no one remembered the ma.s.sacre here, and they might actually have a chance at living a peaceful life.
Not everyone felt that way-he still got an undercurrent of killing anger from much of what he saw-but enough had to venture within easy travel distance from Mars.
His office was dark except for the lights from various screens. He had turned the environmental controls on cold because he was having trouble focusing in the warmth of the afternoon. He had the sound off-the various reports coming in from Mars only added to his tension. His own links were down as well; all he had on were the emergency links.
The largest group of survivors was on Europa. They had come back to this solar system together after some kind of conflict in the Outlying Colonies. Something about this group of people seemed to anger the already established settlements-which was very unusual in the Outlying Colonies. Usually, they were tolerant of differences.
The Europa survivors hadn't lasted long as a group. After a few years, many of them went their separate ways-some to different cities on Europa, others back to the Outlying Colonies, and a few into deep-s.p.a.ce travel-going as far away as they could.
But then Flint found a note that intrigued him. Five survivors had come to the Moon. They had scattered, none going to the same city. He felt a surge of pleasure at the discovery, even though the move had taken place more than three decades ago.
Before he traced them, he looked at the other data his system had acc.u.mulated. There he found twenty more survivors or survivors' descendents who had ended up on the Moon. Most of the arrivals were within the past fifty years-and only one, a great-great grandson-had been within the last five years.
Flint didn't care about the descendents, so he selected his perimeters to remove them from his current database. Of course, he kept the information in case he needed it. Then he redesigned the searches on his other networks, seeing if he could trace the addresses of the fifteen remaining real survivors of the ma.s.sacre who, at one point or another, had lived on the Moon.
Two more hours later, he had the information he needed: An even dozen survivors of the ma.s.sacre still lived on the Moon as of last year. He verified names and addresses- making sure that private records didn't show other changes, such as deaths, incapacitation, moving to some sort of care center, or selling a home to a relative.
Within a few minutes, his list was complete.
His heart pounded, and he realized he had been breathing shallowly. He downloaded the survivor list into one of his unlinked information chips, then closed his eyes for just a moment. Step one-the hardest step-was done. The rest wouldn't be up to him. Someone else would have to convince these people to return to the scene of the most hideous event of their lives. Someone else would have to do the talking, and make sure that these people trusted them.
And someone else would get to ferry them to Mars.
Flint opened his eyes. On the wall screens, various images of s.h.i.+ps superimposed over other images, all of the windows bleeding together thanks to the dark backdrop of s.p.a.ce. Only a few of the news reports showed Mars at all.
His stomach twisted, and he realized he hadn't eaten anything in hours. He wasn't sure he wanted to know how the crisis had expanded. He would take care of this, then maybe get back into the moment-by-moment details of the entire thing.
He used his most secure link to reach Sharyn Scott-Olson in Sahara Dome. She might be able to use their channels in Sahara Dome to put him through to people who could actually do something with these survivors.
But no matter what he tried, he kept getting the message he had gotten from the public links earlier: The links were unusually jammed, and he should try again later. One link actually told him that communications were down in Sahara Dome. He wouldn't doubt it, with everything going on.
But that didn't settle his problem. He now had a list of people who might be able to solve the Disty crisis, and he had no one to give the list to.
He had to find someone who could take action-and he had to do it fast.
46.
It took the governor-general three hours after receiving the emergency communication from DeRicci's staff to come to Armstrong. The council members for the United Domes of the Moon were on standby, waiting for the governor-general, who insisted on a personal meeting.
DeRicci no longer cared. She had spent the last three hours issuing orders, answering queries from mayors of various cities, and fretting about how to enforce the restricted s.p.a.ce law. Bluffing her way through the hierarchies of all the Domed governments had been easy; the problem she now had was that the United Domes of the Moon had no police force, no security team, and no military.