51 The New New York (1/2)

”Looks good,” Carlton Brock said.

”Yes,” said general Roy McAdam with visible pride. ”What's more, it will soon look even better. By spring, we'll be making thousands of bricks per day. Didn't manage to get the brickworks completed this year, because the lumber mill was a priority.”

”Mmm,” said Carlton Brock. ”Spring... It's not winter yet.”

”Spring is only a couple of weeks of Earth time away, sir. By the time spring arrives back in the World, we'll have a real town here. With solid brick housing, paved streets, and a proper sewage system.”

”It doesn't look bad right now,” said Brock.

The two men were standing on the platform of one of the four watchtowers that had been erected around the settlement. They were dressed in brown leather suits and leather hats. Brock had refused to replicate in the New World until a full suit of clothes had been prepared for him.

Officially, the watchtowers were meant to protect the nascent town from unexpected dangers. In reality, they were used to keep tabs on the multinational crowd of delegates from various countries Brock had been forced to allow into the settlement.

When a watchtower sentry spotted a foreign colonist or colonists stray too far from town, a team of soldiers on horseback was instantly dispatched for an interception. The foreign colonists were politely but firmly induced into turning back, and returning home. They were told this was for their own good. There were lots of unknown dangers lurking beyond the immediate neighborhood of the settlement. And general McAdam, the governor of the town, was personally responsible for the safety of its inhabitants.

All this heart-warming concern for the well-being of the foreign colonists was motivated by other reasons. Some distance from the settlement, the American inhabitants of New York had already erected several installations that they wished to hide from foreign eyes. The big launch platform completed in the early days of the settlement was one of those.

It was a visit to the platform the previous day that had finally convinced Brock of the differences in scale between the two worlds. It took two hours on horseback to get there. Back in old New York, it took twenty minutes of brisk walking to reach the receiving port in Central Park. Initially, everyone had thought this was due to geographical differences between the two worlds.

At first, Brock regretted that New World's New York had been established by soldiers that had replicated in the underground staff room in the United Nations building. He would have preferred a location free from meddling by foreign heads of state. However, that room had since become an official launching pad for new colonists. This meant that the two New Yorks were unquestionably the capitals of their respective worlds, which pleased Brock.

He was also very pleased by the fact that he already had a settlement going in every US state capital and major city - around a hundred, all in all. And that he had just been appointed governor of the United States territory in the New World. And that it had all been his own idea.

An Earth day earlier, he had proposed that UN commissioners for former nation states act as governors of corresponding territories in the New World. He also proposed to do away with all this 'commissioner' bullshit. It reeked of a soulless, inefficient bureaucracy, he'd said. The United Nations were the new government, weren't they? So the people appointed to supervise former nation states should be called governors.

His proposals were enthusiastically voted through by the new parliament, composed of the former heads of state that now became governors in both worlds. The New World governorships promised to be very lucrative. A tenth of a single percentage point of profit from an entire territory containing thousands of colonies promised immense wealth.

Correction, thought Brock, gazing with unseeing eyes at the panorama from the watchtower. There would be literally millions of colonies. Because there was ten times more space due to the difference in scale.

Refocusing his eyes on the landscape, he looked around and frowned.

”Roy,” he said. ”I can see smoke to the left.”

”To the south?”

”To the left.”

”Right, right,” said general McAdam.

”Left!”

”I meant right, I got it, it's to the left. Yes, I can see it too. That's the shipyard. We got sixty people there, a whole village.”

”The shipyard was supposed to be ket secret.”

”It is.”

”But I can see it. I mean, I can see its smoke.”

”That's because we are twenty feet above ground level, sir.”

”You mean those foreign assholes can't see it? What if they climb a watchtower?”