“So am I,” Sheida admitted. “There’s also a fuel problem.”
“Why? The plants run off of hydrogen don’t they?” Edmund asked.
“No, they don’t,” Sheida sighed. “They run off of helium three. It’s produced by the sun and drifts out on the solar winds. It collects in various places, notably the lunar regolith and in the upper atmosphere of gas giants like Saturn and Jupiter. Hydrogen produces radioactive byproducts, H3 doesn’t. So they’re more ‘green’ this way. The problem is…”
“Who controls the fuel?” Edmund asked, warily.
“Right now, each plant is fueled for several years of maximum output,” Sheida admitted. “But the tanker will return in… five years.”
“If this isn’t over in five years,” Edmund mused, “there is going to be one hell of a battle for that tanker.”
“Yes, there will be,” Sheida admitted.
“Not a problem for right now, though,” Edmund said. “The point is, are you going to see this through? Are you going to fight to the end or give up out of weakness?”
“I’m not weak, Edmund Talbot,” she snapped. “The question is…”
“The problem is, you don’t even know how to frame the question,” Talbot cut her off. “Because you don’t understand war.”
“No, I don’t,” Sheida admitted. “That’s what I have you for.”
“The question is, is this a just war? Would you admit that?”
“I… guess,” Sheida said. “But is there such a thing as a just war?”
“There are two types of war, purely defensive and policy difference,” Edmund said. “Lecture mode time.”
“Okay,” Sheida smiled. “As long as it’s short.”
“Purely defensive is ‘you attacked me and I did nothing to cause it.’ In one way, that is the war that you are in. But not really. What we have here is a policy difference. Both sides believe their cause is just. The question is, is it a just war for you to fight?”
“I don’t know,” Sheida said after a moment. “There will be… have been… so many deaths.”
“There are preconditions worked out over history for a just war,” Edmund explained. “In short, there are seven. Just cause; right authority; right intention; reasonable hope of success; proportionality of good achieved over harm done; efforts made to protect noncombatants; and aim to achieve a justly ordered peace. I’m not going to cover all of them, but let me tell you that when the Fall happened I thought about what you had told me and what Paul said. And this war meets every item. At least on ‘our’ side. Just one thing: What is your intention?”
“To return things to the way they were,” Sheida said.
“Virtual utopia, while I found it personally boring, has got to be better than a worldwide, omnipresent, omnisicent dictatorship of the ‘right’ people, wouldn’t you think?” Edmund chuckled.
“Yes… but…”
“No buts. Remember what I said about defeating the enemy?” Edmund snapped. “It works in both directions. If you were just going to give in, you shouldn’t have started. But given what Paul did, you have to know that it’s the best thing to do. Paul is well on his way to replicating every totalitarian state in history, with the full power of Mother behind him. And that we cannot allow! Paul’s way leads to dozens of separate species of specialized insects. Not human beings with free will and the rights of man. We will survive this, and so will the human race. And we will win!”
“Yes, milord,” Sheida said shaking her head. “I hear and obey.”
“Something else to remember,” Myron said with a thoughtful smile. “What applies to us, applies to Paul and company. Who is advising them?”
“Farming is going to be our biggest problem,” Paul said gloomily. “With that bitch Sheida’s attacks we can’t move food around. And people are going to start starving soon.”
“Well, I have some ideas on that,” Celine said. “I think we can handle it quite readily. It all comes down to Chansa.”
“What do you mean by that?” Chansa asked harshly.
“Well, farming’s not exactly what you call difficult,” Celine said, waving her hand. “People have been doing it since they chipped stone after all. But the people who make up the refugees are weak and don’t know how to work. They’re all lotus-eaters, agreed?”
“One of the greatest problems with the world that was,” Paul said, nodding his head. “They shall learn to strive again, learn to work again and thereby learn true freedom again.”
Celine glanced at Chansa to see his reaction, but the giant was simply looking at Paul with a furrowed brow. Wondering exactly how much history Paul knew, Celine cleared her throat delicately.
“Are you perhaps saying something like, oh, ‘work will make you free’?”
“Why, yes!” Paul said, nodding and smiling as his frown cleared. “That’s it exactly!”
“Oh, well,” Celine said weakly. “In that case. Uhmm, where was I?”
“Farming’s not difficult.”
“Ah, do a minor modification to the refugees. Make them more resistant to physical effort, conditions, food quality. Perhaps a bit less… mentally refined; farming can be very boring work. Do a bit of selective memory work so that they are not so depressed by current conditions. Just generally… tweak them to make them more suited to the modern environment.”
“So what you’re saying is you want to make them dumb?” Chansa asked, with a raised eyebrow. “Is that how you see me?”
“No, not at all,” Celine replied smoothly. “I just want to make them strong. And… tough. Capable of surviving better than standard humans.”
“We are trying to escape Change,” Paul pointed out, frowning.
“Oh, this isn’t really Change,” Celine said. “Just… tweak-ing.”
“That will take energy,” Chansa said. “Where are we going to get it?”
“We can take it from their own bodies,” Celine replied immediately. “There is a program to enhance ATP conversion. It will leave them initially weak, but food and work will help them to recover.”
“I did not take the course that history set before me to turn the human race into moronic drones,” Paul intoned.
“No, you didn’t,” Celine hastened to agree. “But this increases their chances of survival and when the war is done we can change them all back.”
“Ah.”
“And loyalty conditioning,” Chansa said. “And touch up their aggression. I need foot soldiers.”
“Loyalty conditioning?” Paul asked, seeming to be perplexed by the sudden change.
“For soldiers it’s all you need,” Chansa replied. “And some aggression. Like farming, soldiering does not require much in the way of brains.”
“And some basic skills,” Celine added, making a note on the paper before her. “Soldiering and farming are pretty simple. We’ll give them the baseline skills for each. They’ll all know how to plow and… well other things.”
“That should work perfectly,” Paul said, looking at his steepled hands. “Perfect.”
“The problem is, Myron, that all these refugees are weak-armed, weak-hearted do-nothing lay-abouts,” Talbot said disgustedly.
“Oh, I wouldn’t say that,” Sheida replied. “They’re all in good basic condition, much better than the average farmer in history. Just point out to them that the alternative is to starve. We’re not going to be giving food away, they’re going to have to produce it on their own. They either produce it or they die. And so do we.”