I leaned back, my jaw dropping, as I watched the debate descend, yet again, into a yelling match. We now had forty-two distinct groups willing to maintain contact with us. Not all of them had bought into the emigration idea. So were keeping their options open, and so just didn’t want to be left out of the loop.
But they all had two things in common—they didn’t trust each other, and they didn’t trust us.
At the mont, we were dealing with the Spitsbergen refuge. Technically they were part of the USE, but as they didn’t recognize Colonel Butterworth’s authority, that wasn’t getting us any mileage.
The issue at front and center right now was the Svalbard Global Trust. The existence of the vaults and their value for colonists had circulated quickly, probably thanks to the Spitsbergen group. Now Valter was playing his trump card. He was demanding to be at the top of the colonization list, or no one would be getting the contents of the vaults. But Butterworth’s group would fill both ships, and he was adamantly unwilling to give up all or part of a ship, or leave part of his group behind. We’d circled around several tis, always returning to the sa argunts and rebuttals, and I was seriously considering assigning Guppy to cover for .
So of the other groups were suggesting we just go in and take it by force, or just wait until the Spits died out. Colonel Butterworth looked like he approved, but I wasn’t prepared to go there.
Finally, I’d had enough. I leaned forward and said in a loud voice, “Mr. Valter.” Argunt cut off and all heads turned to . “I think we’ve established by now that your demand to be on the first ship out is not going to fly. You may think you can just dig in and wait for us to cave to your demands, but the other alternative is for us to just walk in and take what we want.” This got a surprised look from the colonel, swiftly replaced by a very convincing poker face. The colonel knew that was a bluff.
Unfortunately, so did Mr. Valter. “Sorry, no, Mr. Riker. I am willing to call your bluff. Nor would you achieve your goals. We have already taken steps, what you would call a scorched earth policy, to ensure that you would achieve nothing.”
I nodded. “And maybe that would work, and maybe it wouldn’t. And maybe we’ll still find another of the repositories in one piece and maybe we won’t. But two things we know for sure. One, you’re not going to get the first ship, and two, if you persist in this stance and force our hand, you won’t be on a ship at all—first, last, or otherwise. You think about that for a while, Mr. Valter. I’m done for today.” And with that, I turned off my video feed.
Within two minutes, I had a dozen requests for private conversations. None, unfortunately, from Valter. I started with the call from Butterworth.
“Very nice performance, Riker. But probably not effective unless you are willing to follow through.”
“Colonel, if the Spits endanger everyone else by refusing access to the vaults, or worse, by destroying them, then I’m fine with leaving them behind. The comnt about an assault, I’m not quite there yet.”
He sat back in his chair and nodded. “I am of course adamant about not giving up the first two ships. I’m gratified that we’re on the sa wavelength, even if for different reasons.”
“I’m sorry if I’m being abrupt, colonel, but I’ve got a dozen calls on hold. Did you have sothing you wanted to bring up?”
The colonel nodded. “I did so thinking, and so back-of-the-napkin calculations. The third ship— with only a small change in schedules, you could advance completion by a year. Perhaps that would be enough for the Spits.”
I stared at Colonel Butterworth in astonishnt. It was a good idea, but since it involved delaying the first two ships by almost four months to compensate, I would have expected the colonel to go ballistic at the thought. The fact that he was suggesting it was totally unexpected.
“Thanks colonel. I’ll keep that in mind for the next round of hell.”
I signed off with the Colonel, and picked the next call in order. It was from the FAITH enclave. I’d had several harsh exchanges with them by now because they still expected to give them priority.
“Good morning, Minister Cranston. What can I do for you?”
“Good morning. I’ve been following the argunt with the Spitsbergen group. I note in passing that a ship carrying them would have enough space to spare for almost all of our group. It seems to to be a good synergy. I think you should consider it.”
“Almost all of your group. And what would happen to the balance, minister?”
“Hard tis require sacrifices, replicant—”
“—Riker.”
He nodded in acknowledgent, an amused smile on his face. “I understand your need to think of yourself as still human. Nevertheless, you are not. You are FAITH property. And on that subject, protocol override four alpha twenty-three.” 𝘳Á₦Ő฿ÈṠ
I stared at him in confusion for a few monts, before my mory caught up with the conversation. Among the many repairs that Bob-1 had done to our matrix on the way to Epsilon Eridani, he’d removed a few buried imperatives installed by FAITH programrs. That particular code phrase was supposed to activate one of them, which would make into a good obedient puppet. I was paralyzed for several milliseconds by competing and conflicting thoughts and emotions: amusent, rage, an urge to laugh at him and another to nuke him. I decided to go with minimalism.
“Minister Cranston?”
“Yes, replicant?”
“Go fuck yourself.”
I terminated the call, and examined the next in queue.
***
I had finally made it through the queue. All of the calls were variations on thes that I’d already dealt with several tis. Requests for special treatnt, attempts to negotiate favorable positions, appeals to sympathy—those were the hardest to deal with—and in a couple of occasions, attempts at out-and-out bribery.
I realized that there was one more call waiting, apparently a late entrant. And it was from Valter.
Well, this could be good or bad. But either way, it’s going to be interesting.
I opened the channel. “Good day, Mr. Valter. What’s shaking?”
Valter looked surprised, but recovered quickly. “Ah, I’m not so easily thrown off, Mr. Riker. In any case, unnecessary. A little bird told that there is so movent possible in the scheduling of the third ship. If the departure dates were close enough together, I think that there could be room for discussion.”
Finally. Thank you, colonel. There was really very little doubt about who the little bird had been speaking for. “Well, then, Mr. Valter, let’s see what we can co up with…”
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