Authors: Mark Kalina
The
biotech executive, though, was an interesting example of Arcadian society
himself, which gave Aran a reason to pay attention.
"Actually,"
the man said, smiling at Ulla, "our initial competitive advantage over
Earth-based companies, back in the late '50s, was purely regulatory. We could
do experiments that our rivals on Earth couldn't, and even more, when we had
positive results, we could move forward with them right away, without worrying
about funding-process oversight or waiting for regulatory approval."
The
biotech executive looked to be a fit man of late middle age, tanned,
well-toned, but silver-haired. Like most Arcadians, he wore colorful, informal
clothes well suited to warm weather. Only his prefect haircut and his
expensive, cutting-edge Japanese wrist-phone hinted at his status.
"Now,
of course," he went on, "we have a whole generation of young people
with a tradition of cutting edge research and top-notch academic preparation; a
lot of our first biotech people are the ones teaching the current generation.
So biotech has become our point of pride, here on Arcadia.
"Don't
get me wrong; we have some good people working in other fields; in info-tech,
for instance, but it's nothing like what you see on Earth, in Bangalore, say,
or in Zhongguancun, 'Silicon City,' in China. But biotech, well, that's
different. I'd say we pretty much lead the human race, there."
"But
what about the bioethics?" Ulla asked. "Don't you have problems with
unethical activity, without regulatory oversight?"
"What
sort of ethics?" the executive asked in turn. "If you mean fraud,
falsified results, then no, we don't have a problem; at least not for long.
Some outfits tried that sort of thing at first, but we pretty quickly worked
out a system. Any new result, product, what have you, is tested by almost all
the other biotech outfits. Anyone who cheats, either by falsifying a result or
by sabotaging a test of a rival's results... well, that'll get reported by the
Office of Standards and we'll just never deal with that outfit again. And
pretty much no one else will, either. After a couple of outfits went down the
tubes that way, everybody else plays nice."
"What
about experimental ethics?" Ulla asked. "Or medical ethics, for that
matter? You don't even license medical practitioners!"
"Well,
we do have laws, you know. Any deliberate or negligent harm caused to anyone
will bring in the Office of Justice. As for licensing, what for? We have the
Office of Standards to call out any proven fraud, and people in the medical
industry live by their reputations even more than the biotech business does.
Anyone unqualified or incompetent won't last long. Won't even manage to get
started, is the truth of it. No one goes to a medical practitioner without
recommendations."
"But
there are stories, reliable, credible stories," Ulla replied, "of
experimentation on gravely ill individuals."
"And?"
"That's...
that's not ethical! It's taking advantage of people who are desperate!"
"How
so? Those people do need help desperately, and the experimental treatments have
a chance of helping them. Of course it doesn't always work. No medical
treatment always works. But it gives people a chance where they otherwise
wouldn't have any. How can that be worse than just putting the gravely ill in
'medical holding centers' and letting them die because they've exceeded some
government-mandated health-care ration?"
Aran
frowned slightly at the direction the conversation was taking, but Ulla was a
good enough reporter not to get into a fight with her interview source. Or at
least not to get into a head-on fight.
"What
about the allocation of your profits?" she asked. "Your government
claims to have almost no taxation, but isn't it true that you, your whole
industry, I mean, gives a large portion of your profits —we're speaking
of very large amounts here, I understand— to the government, on a
supposedly voluntary basis?"
"If
you mean our contributions to the Defense Force," the executive replied,
"then yes, we certainly do, and we're proud of it. First off, we'd be
crazy not to; how long would we even have an industry without the Defense
Force? We'd be under UEN 'oversight' and regulated out of existence in no time
flat. Besides which, the Defense Force isn't some outside organization begging
for our cash. It's us. I served, and so have all of my colleagues. Some of us
still volunteer in reserve units. I don't, anymore though; let me tell you, the
time commitments aren't easy to juggle. But for that matter, my son is in the
service right now, driving a tank."
Ulla
left the interview in no great mood, though she seemed happy for Aran's
company. "One more interview, in three days, and then I can't get away
from this place soon enough," she said.
The
two of them were on their own for a while. Bernie had taken the time to go
shopping, and told them she'd meet them three hours later, which gave them enough
time for the interview and an early dinner after. Ulla, at least, seemed
relieved not to have to share a meal with the redhead.
Aran
and Ulla talked over dinner at a nearby restaurant, located in the same indoor
mall. Many of the best restaurants, it turned out, were inside indoor malls, to
allow people to avoid dealing with the heat of the outdoors; even the Arcadians
had their limits, it seemed.
The
mall itself was interesting. Much of the interior architecture, walls, columns,
doors, was made of high-strength glass made from various sorts of mineralized
Arcadian sands. The interior space was lavishly decorated with sculptures and
flowers, and not at all cramped. It reminded Aran of indoor spaces in places
like Dubai, a bit, though the aesthetic was less garish and utterly different
in details of style and cultural influence.
"Do
you believe her?" Ulla asked Aran, as they ate. The food was a fusion of
sorts, a mix of styles and ingredients that was new to Aran, though similar in
concept to the Australian-Indonesian food he'd eaten as a child.
"About
the refugees, I mean. The Sergeant, do you believe her?" she added, seeing
that Aran wasn't following her question.
"I
believe she thinks she's telling the truth," he answered after a while.
"And I'd bet that there's more truth to her version that either one of us
would like to believe. I've heard about the UEN shipping in prison populations
to the refugee camps before. Not just on Arcadia, either. People on Mars and
Elysium had similar stories to tell. Not that I could even publish that, of
course."
Ulla
looked disturbed. "But..." she said and then trailed off.
"The
UEN does lots of things that are less than savory," Aran said.
"I
know that," Ulla replied, annoyed. "No one intelligent really thinks
the UEN is prefect. But the UEN system works. There's been no major wars on
Earth since the UEN took over from the old UN system, and under the UEN system,
everyone has access to a fair share of the world's resources; medicine, shelter,
education. And everyone has rights.
"Here,
though, it seems like no one has any rights. You could be sick and starving to
death on the street here, and unless one of those private charities took pity
on you, or you allowed some biotech company to experiment on you, no one would
help. It's insane.
"I'll
grant you this place looks OK to us, but Aran, you have to remember that we're
only getting to see the nice side. I mean, I could show you Frankfurt like this...
or Berlin, or Munich... going to the high-tech company offices, the museums,
the nice parts of town... and it would look like a utopia. So long as I was
careful not to drive into the Turkish districts, say, or the
Siedlungen
, the public housing areas. And
I bet you could show me the same in Jakarta, or anywhere in Australia. But the
dark sides would still be there; the Aboriginal residence zones, or the Papuan
or Timorese communities in Indonesia. Except in all those places, the refugees
aren't shot on sight by the army.
"And
these Arcadians sound proud of the fact that they have what amounts to a
military dictatorship; you have to serve in the military to even have political
rights. I bet that if we talked to people who didn't want to serve in their
military, or who their 'charities' didn't approve of, we'd hear a different
story about this place."
Aran
nodded, but said nothing, and Ulla smiled, looking a touch embarrassed; her
tone had become rather intense. But Aran only smiled back at her, reassuring,
and she reached out and put her hand on his.
"I
mean, look, I understand that the Arcadian colonists weren't happy with UEN
policy," Ulla went on, "but that can't be an excuse for violence. And
there has to be a better way. If these people had worked with the UEN in the
first place, instead of pretending to be independent..."
"Remember
who the colonists were, though," Aran said.
"Right.
Extremists. People who couldn't fit in to modern society," Ulla said.
"Maybe
so," Aran said, and let the matter drop.
The
embarkation was proceeding almost on schedule, which was, General Bannerman
thought, something close to a miracle. The man standing next to him, Colonel
Martin Mbala, looked pleased while the troops from his native Cameroon were
embarking; less pleased when the Russian contingent began their embarkation. He
also looked like he wanted to say something, and Bannerman nodded his
permission.
"Sir,
with all due respect," the Colonel began, "I have to question your
refusal to use drone combat vehicles in the mission plan. The entire operation
would be simpler if we reduced the number of people needed. It’s a way to avoid
altogether the use of contingents that are... less than reliable. With the
accepted doctrine of three drone-vehicles to one manned vehicle, we could cut
our total required personnel in half without reducing infantry forces. And we
could cut even more if we increase the number of indigenous fighters and assign
some of them to infantry duties."
At Bannerman's side, Major Hafez raised
an eyebrow and looked at his general. Bannerman shook his head slightly. Hafez
had the bureaucratic know-how to make Mbala go away, reassigned to something
menial and useless, like border patrol in the Arabian peninsula. But Bannerman
needed Mbala... or at least someone just like him.
An operation
like this one would normally have seen Bannerman in charge of several
subordinate brigadier generals, but instead he had pulled strings, many strings,
to put senior colonels, like
Mbala
, into those
positions of authority. Having no one within a single rank grade of his own
rank would be vital to ensuring that none of his subordinates were in a
position to back-stab him. Or at least it made it harder for them to back-stab
him, Bannerman thought. Either way, though, Colonel Mbala was currently useful.
So
Bannerman refrained from observing that the day of embarkation was a bit late
to bring this point up. Likewise he didn't round on the man and accuse him of
wanting to cut the numbers of embarked infantry in order to engage in the
age-old practice of selling their allotted rations on the bulk-food markets of
Central Africa, a practice that Bannerman was certain Colonel Mbala was very
familiar with.
"I
doubt those refugee gangsters... and let's be clear Colonel, that's what they
are... are going to be able to do the job we've assigned to our infantry,"
the general said instead. "Don't mistake this for a show-of-force
operation. It will take more than warm bodies in Peace Force uniforms to make
this work.
"As
for the drone combat vehicles, you want us to depend on the Arcadians not being
able to jam our remote control systems? Remember, if they jam a reconnaissance
mini-drone, all that is lost is some sensors data. But if we rely on drone
combat vehicles, drone tanks, and they succeed in jamming those, Colonel, then
what is lost is the whole battle."
Using
drone combat vehicles sounded tempting, Bannerman admitted to himself; no
manpower issues, no worries about the political cost of casualties. But if the
drones were remote-controlled, then the control link became a single point
failure source; an invitation to disaster. And if the combat drones were left
to operate autonomously... well, it had been proven again and again that drones
could not match human-operated vehicles in real, unscripted battle. Drones
couldn't improvise, couldn't try anything new, and once a human enemy knew what
he was up against, drones fell for every ruse.
"There
was no indication of the Arcadians being able to jam us seven years ago,
sir," the Colonel said, sounding somewhat diffident.
"And
we're still using the same technology now as we did then," Bannerman
replied. "Do you think, just because we haven't upgraded our technology,
that the Arcadians haven't upgraded theirs? Are you willing to gamble the
outcome of the most expensive UEN Peace Force operation in history on that
position?"
"Ah..."
"Besides,
it's far too late to change the order of battle. We go with what we have. And
pray that it will be enough. I've spoken to some of the officers who led the
fight against the Arcadians in '70. Their words did not make for reassuring
listening."
"They
are not reliable sources of information, General," the Colonel protested.
Bannerman
said nothing in reply. There was no point arguing with a man like Mbala. Again
Major Hafez looked sideways at Bannerman, and again Bannerman gave a minute
shake of his head. Colonel Mbala had a reputation for executing clearly given
orders without fail... which was why Bannerman has asked for him in the first
place. So long as he managed to do that, it would be enough.
Meanwhile
both men watched as the two dozen enormous Glorious Prosperity class launch
vehicles were steadily loaded. The giant rockets were cone-shaped, almost 80
meters high, and almost as wide at the base as they were tall. Clusters of a
dozen booster-rockets were mounted around the base of each of the launch
vehicles, making them appear squat and massive.
The
Victorious Red Morning launch facility that the rockets stood upon was enormous
on a scale that only the Chinese could manage; a patch of hard-baked desert
almost a hundred square kilometers in area, paved over in reinforced concrete
strong enough to take the exhaust of the world's biggest rockets. The world's
biggest parking lot, it had been called; the world's largest launch facility was
what it was.
It
had been built to allow twenty-five of the giant Chinese orbital cargo ships to
launch, one after the other, without needing to take time to refit the launch
site. It had been built to ensure Chinese victory in case of an orbital satellite
war. In such a conflict, the ability to replace shot-down satellite with that
sort of speed would have been decisive. No satellite war had ever been fought,
but the facility was still here.
It
had been General Bannerman who had realized that this same capacity meant that
the field could launch twenty-five of the giant boosters all at once, if it had
to. Looking back on it, that realization had been the genesis of the plan. His
superiors at the UEN had not told him how much the Chinese were charging for the
use of the launch facility, but given the cost of renting the launch vehicles,
Bannerman expected it to be enormous.
And
in a way the huge cost of the operation was an advantage. In purely economic
terms, the operation made no senses. Even if the Arcadians did hear of it, they
might well dismiss it as a false rumor. After all, why would the UEN spend so
much money to recapture a colony that wasn't worth it.
Bannerman
doubted that the Arcadians knew anything about it, though. Locked on their side
of the gate, with contact limited to once a week through a known entry point,
it was easy to control what they saw and heard. But if they did hear of it, he
devoutly hoped they would limit themselves to economic analysis and reject the
rumor.
The
reasons for the mission had little to do with economics, though. Arcadia had
defeated the UEN, and broken away from UEN control. Since that day, the tone of
even the most loyal member nations had become less respectful. The fact was,
Arcadia had to be recaptured no matter what the cost. Because in a very real
way, the power and prestige of the UEN depended on it.
He
looked down at the display showing the scheduled loadings. The Aerospace
Command's technicians had managed to certify one more of the huge rockets,
which meant that they would have all twenty five. Chinese light infantry troops
were all he could find to fill the last one, but every little bit of military
force would help.
The
heavy vehicles were loaded already; two battalions of modern T-66 tanks, and
one battalion of the latest Korean K19s, perhaps the most modern armored
fighting vehicle in the world. Along with that, there were mobile laser
air-defense installations, infantry-frame carrier vehicles, utility trucks
large and small, ammunition and supplies...
There
was even a pair of FRS-59 battle-aircraft; "ghosts" their crews
called them. They were hideously expensive, but potentially crucial. Together
with the UEN Aerospace Command's orbital warship, the OSV-11
Yang Liwei
, the "ghosts" would
be the best hope for aerospace superiority. With the prevalence of anti-air
lasers, that didn't mean as much as it once had, but it would still be a major
advantage if they could secure it.
Last
on the loading schedule... three days from now... were the crews for the vehicles
and the actual infantry troops. Two battalions of frame infantry and another of
light infantry. Almost two thousand men and women altogether would be loaded
into the huge launch vehicles.
All
in all, it was going to be the biggest military force ever launched into space.