Picking Up the Pieces

Chapter Twenty-Four

“We have a crisis on our hands,” Frida Holmqvist said, as the new Council settled into their seats. I watched with some concern from the public bench. Frida had invited me as an observer, but it was clear that I wasn’t the only one. There were a dozen reporters and several known celebrities in the audience, the former probably under the impression that the latter supported the government. “We have thousands of people out of work and starving in the streets. We have an infrastructure that has been badly damaged and needs to be rebuilt. We have massive shortages of almost everything we need. We are, in short, in serious trouble.”

My eyes swept the Council as she continued to speak. Frida’s Council now numbered eleven after a handful of emergency elections had been held. The remainder had represented areas that were now torn and devastated by the fighting, the population so hopelessly scrambled that elections would be impossible — or at least that was the excuse. I couldn’t help, but notice that the newly-elected Councillors were all Progressive Party candidates, and that the other areas might well vote against a Progressive candidate. It wasn’t too surprising, either; a month after the insurrection had been ended, the Progressive Government had failed to improve their condition. Frida had to find that intolerable. It was quite possible that she was stalling long enough to make major changes as, with eleven Councillors, she had a quorum.

On the other hand, I decided, four of the Councillors were hardly Progressive Party. Two of them were Conservatives, a third was from the Independence Party — which effectively represented the Mountain Men — and a fourth was an independent. The Liberty Party had lost all of its candidates and, with the President injured and out of the picture, might well collapse completely. If they fell, where would their remaining voters go? They might go to either of the two main parties… but it might not matter. Frida had near-absolute power in her hands.

“Desperate times require desperate measures,” she continued, speaking for the crowd. No one on the Council looked cheerful, but some looked happier than others. The Conservatives, in particular, were looking wary. I guessed that no one had told them what was about to happen. “Our planet is on the verge of collapse. It therefore behoves us to take a good look at what we need to do and then do it, regardless of our sensibilities. There are few choices and none of them are good.”

She went on in that vein for nearly twenty minutes before getting to the point. “First, we have millions — yes, millions — of starving citizens,” she said. “The price of food is rising astronomically and the starving men and women are starting to die. That is unacceptable. I am therefore proposing a government-organised cap on the price of food so that it is priced at a level the poor and dispossessed can afford. This cap will be defined by a committee and all farmers will be bound by its decision.

“Second, we have to rebuild a vast amount of our industry,” she continued. “The shortage of trained personnel has made it harder to rebuild, therefore I am proposing that we conscript trained personnel into a pool that will allow them to be focused on the most vital parts of our economy. The vast shortages in farming equipment, vehicles, transport systems and mining gear must be solved, the sooner the better. The only way to do that is to rebuild our industry. Further, the trained personnel will impart their skills to others as quickly as possible, by serving as instructors of their disciplines.

“Third, we need to boost our off-world currency reserves in order to purchase items we require to rebuild our industry and develop an indigenous hydrogen cloud-scooping industry,” Frida concluded. “Towards that end, I am requesting that the mines double their output of rare metals and other items we can sell to obtain off-world currency.

“Finally, in order to give the dispossessed masses something to do, I am creating a massive job-creation scheme that will ensure that everyone who wants a job can have one,” she concluded. “We have much that needs to be done to rebuild and the dispossessed will aid in that rebuilding. We will provide training and guidance for those who want to seek a job, while creating a security blanket for those who are unable to find a position. No one will starve on our world. Svergie is a rich world and there is more than enough for us all. We will create programs that will ensure that everyone gets their fair share.”

There was a long pause. “I hope that you will do the right thing and ensure that these proposals are signed into law as soon as possible,” Frida added. “There is no time to waste.”

I watched the Councillors carefully. The Conservatives didn’t look happy now that the hammer had fallen and the Independence Party candidate looked furious. I wondered who would be the first to speak as I turned my attention to the reporters… and realised, for the first time, that Frida had sewn it all up neatly. The reporters were known friends and allies of the Progressive Party and would present her proposals in the best possible light. I doubted that it would be so easy to actually implement them. Svergie’s problem was that it had too many untrained people and not enough trained people. She might be right about trying to train others, but I doubted that they could train enough to make a significant difference.

Frida herself looked confident, and I understood why. As Acting President and a Progressive Party Councillor, she could be certain of getting the legislation through the government and into law. In a very real sense, she’d be giving herself the legislation to sign. Her supporters would back her up, of course, while her detractors wouldn’t be able to raise the votes to stop her. On the face of it, her plan looked workable, but I knew better. It was likely to be a disaster. The complex economic problems facing Svergie couldn’t be solved by seemingly-simple measures.

“I would like to speak against the… proposals,” Councillor Erik Henriksson said, finally. His voice was almost a hiss. The Independence Party would not take the proposals lying down. “I will focus on the mining issue. The mines are producing as much as they can produce and have been doing so for years, even before the UN left. We lack the heavy equipment required to expand the mines and even if we had it, it would be hard to expand them without causing a major ecological disaster.

“And then there is another issue,” he continued. “Your proposals are simple; you propose that the miners work harder and you city-dwellers get all the profit. You propose the same for the farmers. You may even propose the same for those who try to keep the sprawling cities running. You are asking us to do the impossible. We barely benefit from what we do now. Our benefits will not increase if we increase production, will they? We simply don’t have the manpower or the equipment to do as you request.

“You may suggest training up more men for the mines,” he concluded. “You should know better than that. It takes months to train a newcomer so that he doesn’t kill himself the first time he goes down the mines. Training is individualistic and very hard. We reject hundreds of men and women for working in the mines. We could not train miners on an assembly line. You are, again, asking the impossible. We cannot give you what you want.”

I shivered, despite myself. The last time I had heard anyone speaking in that tone of voice, people had died. The tribal leader on Botany had intended to wipe the UN garrison — which I had commanded at the time — off the face of the planet and had come damn close to succeeding. Councillor Erik Henriksson had the same tone… and the name of his Party was not the Independence Party for nothing. I had a nasty suspicion that all hell was about to break loose.

“And yet we must feed our population,” Frida pointed out, “or would you have them starve for lack of food and prosperity.”

“We did not ask for them to be dumped here,” Erik snapped, angrily. “We did not ask for them to be forced on us when we were weak and could barely feed ourselves. We did not ask for people who were culturally and socially very different to us to be dropped on this planet and then allowed to mooch rather than work for a living. We are unable to provide more ore for you and all the political buzz-words in the universe will not change that!”

“Racist,” someone hissed in the background.

Erik’s face purpled dangerously. “We should have insisted that the poor and dispossessed work for a living,” he snapped. “When the UN pulled out, we could have moved quickly to force them to work — or starve. Instead, we waited until it was too late and the Communists — your former Party — used them to wreck vast amounts of our industry. We will not beggar ourselves for people who are unwilling to do whatever they have to do to earn money and a living. We will not work ourselves into the ground for you.”

He stood up and picked up his briefcase. “I cast my vote, as futile as it seems, against your proposals,” he snapped. “They will bring us all to rack and ruin.”

I watched him march out of the room, his back bent as if there was a colossal weight pushing him down, and winced. Neither of them had left any room for compromise. I thought about keying my earpiece, about ordering his assassination before he could leave the city, but there would have been no point. Erik wasn’t the only member of the Independence Party and assassinating him would have convinced the others to rebel sooner rather than later.

And, if he were right, there was going to be a war.

“These proposals are unconstitutional,” Councillor Albin Arvidsson said, flatly. The Conservative looked over at Frida, his eyes hooded and wary. “The Government is specifically forbidden from meddling in private industry, apart from guaranteeing public safety…”

“And what, exactly, is ensuring that people don’t starve, apart from public safety?” Frida demanded. Her lips tightened noticeably as she addressed the problem. “The food exists, Councillor; we have nothing, but a distribution problem, one that must be solved. As prices and inflation rise, we face the prospect of mass starvation, a problem that must be avoided at all costs.”

Her face tightened. “I have obtained an emergency ruling from the High Court,” she added. “They have decided that our measures are barely constitutional and can be used, purely on an emergency basis. The measures will be reviewed every year — and, of course, the next election will be based around public confidence in the success, or failures, of our measures. You may argue, as the racist did, that the UN caused the problem, but we have a duty to fix it. I will not stand by and allow thousands of people to starve to death on my watch.”

“And if you make it impossible for the farmers and miners to meet your demands, what is going to happen then?” Albin demanded. “The whole area was unstable before you came up with these… half-baked measures. It’s going to explode now, and the results will be disastrous, or are you so confident that the army can handle a second uprising? What will you do if the farmers start refusing to send you food outright?”

“Then I will order it seized,” Frida snapped back. There was an audible gasp in the chamber. No one had expected that. “I will not let people starve!”

The discussion raged backwards and forwards, but the outcome was preordained from the start and all parties knew it. I wondered if Albin was right — no, I knew he was right. The farmers would object to having their crops confiscated and would fight back. I knew how many weapons there were in the inner farmlands and the mountains, including far more armed and armoured vehicles than the Communists had ever possessed. I had the unshakable feeling that we were about to rage headlong into another insurrection, only a far more dangerous one. The army I’d built was going to be fed headlong into another meat grinder and this one would be far worse.

I looked over at Frida and realised, to my shock, that she believed every word she was saying. She truly intended to feed the poor and dispossessed. It wasn’t even an ignoble goal, but I feared that it was an impossible one. There were too many mouths to feed and most of them were useless. She needed long-term plans, not short-team measures that would only alienate the farmers and miners from her government. If she fostered out dispossessed and orphaned children to farming families, she might even prevent them from dying in the streets.

“It is time to move on to the vote,” Frida said, finally. The standard procedure allowed an hour for debate and discussion, but it had gone on for far longer. “All those in favour of adopting the emergency measures, raise your right arm.”

I counted the votes. As I had expected, all seven Progressive Party Councillors had voted in favour of the measures. The independent hesitated, and then voted in favour as well, leaving the two Conservatives isolated. I wondered if they would vote in favour now, just to have the law passed unanimously, but they were made of stronger stuff than that.

“I will not continue to participate in this farce,” Councillor Albin Arvidsson snapped, as he stood up. “These measures are utterly illegal and without any form of justification. You are attempting to square the circle and you will soon discover that you don’t have the ability to even begin to get enough food for all the poor and hungry there are out there, nor can you hope to get enough jobs for them just by decreeing them into existence. We barely escaped one bureaucratic state and you intend to create another. There will be no pretence that we agree with your plans, or that we will merely… view with concern. We will challenge you in the High Court and the court of public opinion.”

“Public opinion is firmly behind these measures,” Frida said, coldly. She believed — again — what she was saying. “We did hundreds of surveys to see if the public would accept them.”

“And you did them here, in the cities, where people believe that food magically appears on the shelves of shops without giving any thought to the harsh realities of farming life,” Albin said. “The farmers will be against your plan because it enslaves them for nothing. The miners will be against your plan because it enslaves them for nothing. The rest of your population will be behind your plan until they realise the costs and how badly you’ve fucked up your duty. It will all be on your head. Goodbye.”

He marched out with the same precision that Erik had shown, but I hoped that they wouldn’t be going to the same place. As the new measures were passed into law, and the reporters scurried out to write their stories and place them on the news nets, I looked over at Frida, hoping she would consent to talk to me. It would be easier said than done. She was currently shaking the hands of various celebrities and thanking them for their support. I knew it would come back to bite them on the behind. I just hoped it would be painful.

I keyed my earpiece as the room emptied. “Ed, this is Andrew,” I said, without preamble. The spaceport had to be warned before the shit hit the fan. If we were lucky, we might avoid further losses. “Code Yellow, I repeat, Code Yellow.”

“Understood,” Ed’s voice said. Code Yellow warned him that the spaceport — or anywhere else we had a presence — might come under attack at any moment. They would all be put on very quiet alert and patrols would be doubled, just in case. The soldiers on leave would be recalled to their bases and warned to be careful. The situation might explode at any moment. “Our heavenly friend had a message for you; it came in two minutes ago. There was another one. Another one what?”

“Never mind,” I said. Daniel and I had arranged for me to be informed when there were any more encrypted transmissions. If there had been another transmission, who had sent it? Erik? One of the Conservatives? I looked over at Frida again and wondered just what she was thinking. “Go to Code Yellow Status and wait for me.”

I stepped over to Frida as the last of her admirers departed towards the exits. “This is not a good idea,” I said, flatly. I pushed as much icy firmness into my voice as I could. She had to believe that all the self-congratulation was just the calm before the storm. “They’re not going to take it lightly.”

“I know it’s not a good idea,” Frida agreed. Her face twisted bitterly. “But tell me; what else can I do? If I do nothing, people die. If I act, people may die. What choice do I have?”

I had no answer.