“I’m doing all right down here,” Jase said. “I’m adjusting. Those Reunioner kids have no problems. Nothing. They’ve skipped pills. Two have been off them more I suspect than they admit. They’re not sick, so they forget. So Reunioners can adjust to being down here. We supply the population with meds for a few months . . . and their way of looking at the world will adjust. Maybe a few will have to go back, for medical reasons that haven’t turned up yet. But right now—if the Mospheiran legislature hasn’t been getting the word from their constituents up there—we’re still fragile. Damned fragile. We’ve got water, we’ve got basic protein and carbohydrate, but there are shortages of things we need. Diet’s not what it was. And I waited to bring this up now because I didn’t want to be debating it while we were trying to deal with the kids and everything else that was going on. Then the Sabin and Tillington matter blew up, making it impossible to put the problem off any longer. I’m sorry to tie the two together. But they tie themselves together, unfortunately. Tillington doesn’t want the Reunioners, and he apparently doesn’t want any Reunioner kids on the planet.”
“Landing does become possible.” They’d been consistently hearing only two solutions for the refugees . . . Maudit, or a station expansion. There were serious objections to both. Now . . . “Where do the captains stand? You want me to propose this as a program?”
“It’s Sabin’s position. And mine.”
“Not Ogun’s?”
“Ogun wouldn’t be unhappy to be rid of the problem.”
“The logistics are impossible. Five thousand people, going down by shuttle, between cargo runs.”
“Easier down than up.”
“It still takes the passenger modules.”
“There’s light freight you could pack into that config on the return.”
“That’s still a lot of shuttle loads, while you’re having shortages.”
“The more people we shed, the less pressure on the system. Mospheira’s program’s looking to launch a second shuttle next year. And we can build a second shuttle dock, granted Geigi will give us the resources. That doubles our ability to handle freight.”
“We can’t double the shuttle schedule—they take the time they take.”
“We could build more shuttles. In space. So no unneeded ground time.”
Resources and construction gear tagged for the starship under construction had already been diverted to Geigi’s robot landers and the satellite system. Resources would have to be diverted to a Maudit expedition or a station expansion: that the Reunioner problem was going to absorb resources was a given. And a second dock was safer, did conceivably speed turnover . . . increased options. There were ground holds because of a problem in orbit.
“Have you mentioned the idea to Geigi?”
“Not yet. But he’s already contributed supplies, just in housing the refugees. He did say—which I certainly relayed to the Council—that the aiji will not permit the station to increase permanent human occupancy space without a corresponding increase in atevi population; and that if there is a decision to build a station out at Maudit, the same principle will apply.”
“That would be correct.”
“Tillington’s also said he’d demand a Mospheiran presence at Maudit, whether or not he’s gotten an official position on that, which also slows down any movement of the Reunioners elsewhere, because if we don’t have shuttle space to spare, we definitely don’t have transport for three different construction crews going to Maudit, let alone materials and habitat. I tell you, Bren, the damned thing just accretes parts and pieces, and most of them add to the problems rather than solving them. Everybody wants to control it. Nobody wants to actually do it. Whatever it is. And we can’t go putting it off. This last year’s been difficult. We’re entering a second year with these people in temporary housing, on a diet that’s bland beyond description and supplemented with pills. We’ve got to do something. And the anti-nausea med works. And human senses adjust. It’s our best option, Bren. It’s entirely possible.”
“It does change the picture. I agree. The logistics remain a problem.”
“The politics are a problem. And they’re becoming a worse one. It’s not anything analogous to the old situation, but both sides, at least at the administrative level, are treating it as if the old feud is alive and well.”
Mospheirans had fled to the planet in the first place because they’d fallen out with the ship and station administration. And Reunioners were the descendants of the old admin and the loyalists who had taken off and deserted the Mospheirans, only to return in this century, tail between their legs, having stirred up a worse mess than the War of the Landing.
Reunioners, in the person of Louis Baynes Braddock, wanted to dictate the future of humanity in space?
Packing the lot down to Earth became an increasingly attractive solution. Possibly it was going to be more attractive to the majority of the Reunioners.
“They’ve never experienced a planet. It won’t be the same for them.”
“The kids had no trouble,” Jase said. “And these people aren’t their ancestors. Reunion was gravity-anchored to a lump of rock and ice, not really a planet: there was no attraction there. But there is a natural attraction to this planet. The past isn’t the present. Once you tell the Reunioners that the planet is a possibility for them—minds will change. And those kids just proved they can live down here. That’s the point.”
“It’s a better alternative than we have had.”
“Economically and logistically.”
“And politically. Mospheirans can make controversy out of siting a shuttle port they do want. Room for five thousand people they envision as the ancestors—”
“Versus an expansion of the station that’s going to upset the Treaty. Or a separate state with a history of hostility.”
“The Reunioners won’t all favor it,” Bren said.
“Braddock chief among that number. He wants his own station, out there, out of reach, with his hand-picked officers running things again.”
“He can still cause trouble. God knows, Mospheirans are always ready for issues.”
“Up there—there’s no shortage of issues. Being short of food and living space is productive of issues.”
“Mospheirans down here don’t know Braddock’s name,” Bren conceded. “Most don’t have a clue about the Pilots’ Guild. Nor, for that matter, do we actually care.”
A slight grim laugh. “The fact Louis Baynes Braddock still thinks he should order the Captains’ Council doesn’t impress them?”
“Not in the least.”
“Maybe we can bring Tillington on board, get him behind the notion of landing all the Reunioners, setting things back the way they were. . . .”
“I sincerely doubt it. For other reasons. Bren, the man poses a problem apart from the Reunioner issue.”
“He was a good administrator through the Troubles. He and Geigi worked out a system to communicate without us . . .”
“Which has become a problem. He doesn’t want me involved and he certainly doesn’t want Sabin. He’s all snug with Ogun. And so far as his great achievement—that neat little system that doesn’t require humans to communicate with atevi in anything but code, it’s just a longer list of the code the shuttle program worked out, and Tillington’s so devoted to it he doesn’t call on me at all, or ask me to interpret the soft tissue of the answer. Geigi will ask me in depth. I have a good relationship with Lord Geigi. But with Tillington—no. With him, yes is yes, that’s the end, and he’ll read it according to what he thinks yes means. And if it later doesn’t turn out to be the precise yes he wanted, then he says Geigi broke his promise. Communication staff to staff is cordial, accurate, and makes things run. Communication between the two stationmasters is another matter.”