Sentience 1: Storm Clouds Gathering (24 page)

President Cargill filled two large brandy snifters to twice their normal, socially accepted levels and handed one to Kalis. As he sat, he raised his glass to Kalis in toast. “Here’s to old and dear friends.”

Kalis returned the toast. “To old and dear friends, indeed.” They drank and both savored the sweet burn of Sextus’ most excellent brandy as it literally slithered down their tongues.

“Now, is this purely a social call, or is something weighing on your mind that ah mat be able ta help ya with?” asked Cargill.

“Something weighing on my mind?” responded Kalis. “Yes, I reckon there is something indeed weighing on my mind, Mr. President.”

“Oh, stop with the ‘Mr. President’ bullshit, Roger. We’re alone and don’t have ta let titles git between two old buddies, now do we?”

“I guess not. Going informal will certainly make this discussion simpler on me, Wyatt, and that’s a fact.”

“Ah sees ya gots sumpin’ layin’ danged heavy on yer gizzard, Rog, so jes hoist that flag in the air and les see which-a-way the wind blows that sucker,” Cargill drawled.

Kalis laughed. “I see you’ve been working on that drawl of yours, Wyatt. Sounds thicker than I’ve ever heard it.”

Cargill grinned back at Kalis and replied, “And a rat powerful weapon it is too, whar Sextus’ politics is concerned. Dancin’ amongst them rattlesnakes, ah needs all the tools ah kin git ma hands on, if’n ah don wants ta git bit.”

Kalis smiled back at Cargill and took another sip of brandy as he collected his thoughts.

“Now, what’s eatin’ at ya, Rog?” Cargill asked quietly.

“I assume you’re well informed about the impending crisis in the southern Alliance,” Kalis opened.

“Hell, ah’d have to be blinder than a Northern politician if’n ah weren’t,” Cargill snorted. “And that’s party damned blind, seein’s how they all have their heads completely up thar asses. Ah’m surprised they ain’t all drowned in thar own shit ba now.”

Kalis smiled. He’d almost forgotten how earthy Wyatt Cargill could be in private company. “Just between us, I’d like to hear how you and your government feel about what’s going on with all this Separatist business and talk of secession.”

“Y’all would have ta be damned fools not ta git the hell away from those bastards, if’n ya kin pull it off. How much of the Alliance Fleet do ya reckon y’all kin git ta hang with ya, when y’all secede? Ten to fifteen percent maybe?”

Cargill knew Kalis well enough to not question where his loyalties might lie in the impending secession crisis, fully expected him to assume command of whatever military forces the South could scrape together.

“Closer to thirty-five percent,” replied Kalis.

“Thirty-five percent!” yelled Cargill. “Did you say thirty-five percent?” Cargill had forgotten all about his drawl.

“Yup,” drawled Kalis. “Maybe a bit more.”

“My God, at 2:1 you’ve got a fighting chance!” cackled Cargill, as he clapped his hands in glee. “That’s the best news I’ve heard since the pigs ate my little brother!”

“A confederacy, you say,” mused Wyatt Cargill. “That will leave the Southern planets pretty much sovereign. How do you expect to get them all to cooperate effectively without a strong central government?”

“We’ll be using a slightly modified version of the Alliance Constitution, granting the Confederate central government very specific, but absolute authority over things like mutual defense, national court system to decide issues between
Confederacy
planets and the like, but reserving all other governmental powers to the individual sovereign planets,” replied Roger Kalis.

“We used a modified version of the Alliance Constitution down on Sextus, ourselves. Incredible document — too bad y’all quit using it.”

“We feel exactly the same way throughout the South, Wyatt,” replied Kalis. “That’s why we’re trying to get ourselves free from those
Yankee
bastards who don’t abide by it anymore.”

“Yankees?”

Kalis told him the story of how Joja Governor Jennifer Steele coined the term… the Consortium
yanking
on congress’ strings to make them dance whenever they felt like it.

Cargill howled, “
Yankees
... By God, that’s priceless! I’ll put that one out and ever’ swingin’ dick on Sextus will be calling them Northern bastards Yankees within a week. You mark my words.

“Thirty-five percent... I don’t know exactly how you’re planning to pull this off, Roger, nor do I expect you to give me details. Had anyone but you told me this, I’d be sending for the boys in the little white coats to come haul their ass off to the booby hatch.” Cargill’s drawl was totally forgotten by now. “Suffice it to say I believe you. Now, how can I help?”

“First of all, you could route Sextus Fleet and civilian traffic away from the Helix Nebula.”

“The
Eye of God?
” asked Cargill.

“That’s the place.”

“I won’t ask, but consider it done.”

“As I was saying, we use a modified version of the Alliance Constitution ourselves on Sextus,” said Wyatt Cargill. “I’d sure like to see a copy of yours with those national/planetary delineations defined.”

Kalis retrieved a standard data cube from his jacket pocket, and handed it to the Sextus president. “It’s not ratified of course, but it has been approved by our entire working committee made up of the nine Southern planets that are expected to secede first, and thereby form the initial Confederate government.”

“Sweet, I appreciate it, Rog.”

“There are a few other things on the cube you might be able to help us with, if you would.”

“Anything short of declaring all-out war on the Alliance, just name it.”

“We’re going to need our own currency we can replace Alliance dollars with as soon as we can after the
Confederacy
is formally established. We’d like to follow Sextus’ example of backing our currency with gold, so our Confederate currency will have a relatively stable inherent value, rather than just float around subject to the whims of the international currency market the way the Alliance dollar does.

“President Buchwald is quietly transferring gold and foreign currency reserves to Federal Depositories in the South, so we’ll have those assets available to us after secession, but we’ll need some kind of currency before that.”

“Yes, in spite of the proliferation of computerized banking transactions, real
in-your-hand
money will never go away,” Cargill declared. “At least not, if I have anything to say about it.

“But I see your problem, Rog. Timing is catching y’all by the short hairs. I can have our mints create the currency and coinage you’ll need, and guarantee complete secrecy in getting it done. Have y’all made up designs for the bills and coins you’ll need made?”

“They’re on the cube.”

“Good, I’ll get the designs to our Bureau of Engraving and Printing as soon as I get back. They’ll get the dies and engraving plates made, and then we’ll get those out to the mints to get production cranking. I’ll ensure we have specially selected and screened employees doing all the work, with equally screened Sextus Bureau of Investigation agents looking over their shoulders the whole way. How much total?”

“Well, with the gold Buchwald is transferring and what he’s buying from you, we figure we’ll have about 10,000 tons of gold to work with, all totaled.”

“Ah, so you know about the $3 trillion worth that Jimmy is buying from us. Didn’t know about that one myself until about four hours before you arrived. Your intelligence network is pretty good.”

Kalis ignored Wyatt’s comment about Confederate Intelligence.
If only he knew, he’d shit a gold brick the size of Sextus.

“We’ll probably have to ask you to front us enough gold to get this currency thing going. We’ll ship the 10,000 tons of gold back to Sextus, just as soon as we can gather it together from the Federal Reserves throughout the South.”

“That’s not a problem. We can call it an ‘interest-free’ short-term loan.”

“We’re also going to need new uniforms for our military,” Kalis added. “Can we get your textile mills and clothing manufacturers to make them for us?”

“Shouldn’t be a problem. If our little
Sextus Belles
have to forego the latest fashions from Pari for a few months, well… tough shit.”

“All the specs for specialty equipment, like pressure suits and combat armor are on there too. Basically they’re identical to standard Alliance equipment. The only real difference is color,” Kalis offered.

“Working uni’s and dress uniform patterns and finished product drawings and specs are on there as well. They’re gonna be a damned sight different than Alliance uniforms, for sure. Double-breasted, with gold filigree on the sleeves of the officer’s gray uni’s and silver filigree on the black. Officer’s ranks are denoted on stand-up, hooked collars. Pretty sharp-looking actually, and the filigree and sash should appeal to our infamous Southern vanity.”

Wyatt Cargill sat sipping on his third brandy, musing after Fleet-Admiral Kalis finished off his second brandy and left.
10,000 tons. I’m kinda surprised they can come up with that much, seeing as how the planetary governments of almost every planet in the South is virtually broke after those damned Yankees got done with them… Yankees… I love that!

Let's see, 10,000 tons — that works out to about $3.5
trillion US… which would be equal to just a tad more than $230
billion Confederate. Damn, that’s not nearly enough currency to support the financial needs of nine and possibly as many as fourteen planets before this thing shakes out completely. Not nearly enough. May have to see what I can do about that.

“Status report on
Operation Robin Hood
, please Hal.”

President Buchwald has agreed to subtly begin shifting gold and foreign currency reserves to Federal Depositories in the South, so the Confederacy will have use of those assets when the time comes.

He has also agreed to approach the Italian government confidentially, concerning their new state-of-the-art port facility that was just recently completed. We have fabricated a cover story for him about a vitally urgent, yet highly confidential need for this new port facility, and plan to entice them by the complete forgiveness of their current $1.7 trillion debt to the Alliance.

As the Italian government has recently come under a tremendous amount of internal criticism for spending vast sums on half-vast projects, and considering the fact they can build ten such facilities for that sum, they are expected to leap at the opportunity. Upon agreement by the Italian government, a flotilla of Alliance Fleet deep space tugs and crews with Southern loyalties will take possession of the port and move it from Italian space to a designated brown dwarf star, hidden within the Helix Nebula, commonly known as the Eye of God
, located on the fridges of Sextus space.

This port facility is to be named “Mystic,” and will be initial destination of the over 190 recovered Reserve Fleet ships obtained from the Haven Fleet Reserve Facility. Provisioning of the new Mystic port facility will begin just after Mystic’s arrival within the Helix Nebula and its orbit about the brown dwarf is established and stabilized.

“Very well. Any problems worth mentioning?”

I will have to admit this project, with its billions of details, is definitely the greatest challenge of my existence — keeping in mind that I am also continuing to perform all of my primary duties for the Fleet, simultaneously. To maintain security, I am continuing to work out the intricate details personally, utilizing external computer systems only when necessary for authenticity purposes.

My life has certainly become a lot more interesting since I finally established contact with you, Diet. I’m not sure my understanding of the concept is yet fully achieved, but I think I’m having fun.

Troxia Station, in orbit around the Rak Planet Troxia

Drix sent word down to Planet-Master Glet to have him gather together ten Trakaan who best understood the spoken Raknii language, along with their best Rak linguists and computer programmers on the planet. The Rak already had a translator program of sorts, but it was quite limited and not nearly versatile enough to establish a real working dialog with the Trakaan. The purpose of gathering all of these assets together was to help develop a truly effective translator program — one that could enable Drix to effectively communicate with the Trakaan.

The Trakaan were a docile, intelligent race. Perhaps real communications between their peoples might be accomplished. If the Trakaan could somehow be made to believe that after being hunted relentlessly for dozens of cycles, their tormentors were suddenly willing to cease their attacks and remain content with the status quo, as it now stood in this region of space.

Without mutual assurances that neither side would reinitiate hostilities in the future, the Rak dare not enter into their time of testing against the predatory aliens, who represented both extinction and salvation for their race. Raan preferred to be sure by the simplest route of conquering the Trakaan totally, so no potential enemy was left behind them. But, he admitted there might be
something
to Drix’ argument. Perhaps showing mercy to the Trakaan might be a necessary step in discovering the true meaning of
morality
, the key to Raknii survival.

If the Rak could not learn to negotiate a peace agreement with a docile race they had all but conquered already, how were they ever to do so with a race of incredible predators prophesied to cull the Raknii like the Rak culled herd beasts?

When I was a kid I used to pray every night for a new bicycle. Then I realized that the Lord doesn't work that way, so I stole one and asked Him to forgive me.
-- Emo Philips

Haven Fleet Reserve Facility, in orbit above the Planet Conn

July, 3860

“Hey, Frank!” yelled Donnie Smith, who was manning the monitoring station at the Haven Fleet Reserve Facility, orbiting the Alliance planet Conn. “We’ve got inbound. Looks like about thirty of them, just translated normal space — three to four light-minutes out. IFF is green.”