SOL OPERATION NEARING COMPLETION. PREPARE INITIAL SHIPPING AUTHORIZATIONS.
Singh read Trejo’s message over twice, joy blooming in his chest. He took a moment to send the order to his section heads and group commanders, and pulled up what everyone jokingly called the “occupation calendar.” Even based on the amended projections from Laconia that included not pausing to rebuild the battery, the immediate transit of the Tempest to Sol system, and the early deployment of the Typhoon, they were weeks ahead of schedule. They’d built some flex into the schedule in the event that the Transport Union put up a more bitter fight to hold Medina, or the Earth-Mars Coalition Navy had revealed naval forces or technology significantly greater than their estimates. But neither thing had turned out to be true, and sooner than anyone expected, they could get down to the business of building the new human civilization.
The sad fact of the human species that High Consul Duarte understood so well was that you could never overcome tribalism and jingoism with an argument. Tribalism was an irrational position, and it was impossible to defeat an irrational position with a rational argument. And so, instead of presenting a logical plan for why humanity needed to give up the old national and cultural divides and become a single unified species, the high consul obeyed the old forms that everyone would understand, and went to war. Thankfully, a brief one.
The real work, the work that would let Elsa grow up in a universe that was safe for her, and for her children’s children’s children, was the work that came after the conquest of the rest of humanity. Work that required stability.
“Ensign,” Singh said at his monitor, which was currently flattened out on his desk. He’d appointed a temporary replacement for Lieutenant Kasik, and he hadn’t quite memorized her name yet.
“Governor?” she replied a moment later.
“Please send my compliments to President Fisk, and let her know we’re sending a cart to pick her up. I need an immediate meeting to discuss some urgent matters. Do not take no.”
“Yes, sir,” the ensign replied. “I also—”
“Right away, Ensign,” Singh said, then took a look around at his office. The flowers someone had placed in a vase on his corner table were dying, and the shelf that held his coffeemaker was a mess. “Also, send in someone to make fresh coffee and replace these flowers before the meeting.”
“Yes, sir. I wanted to also let you know that you have an incoming message from Laconia. The Storm just sent it over.”
“Send it through. And please let me know five minutes before President Fisk arrives.”
“Of course, sir,” the ensign said and then killed the connection.
Singh tapped on the glowing message button on his monitor and it projected a still picture of his wife holding Monster.
“Play message,” he said.
The still image sprang to life. The recording must have started midway through her expression, because Nat’s face went from an enigmatic Mona Lisa smile to her normal wide grin. Monster didn’t seem all that interested in the camera lens, and instead was focused on something over her mother’s shoulder. They were both beautiful, and Singh felt an emptiness in the pit of his stomach that was always there, but that he managed to ignore until he saw their faces.
“Hi, Sonny,” Nat said to the camera. She held up Monster’s hand and waved at the screen with it. “Say hi to Daddy.”
“Hi, sweetie,” Singh said to the recording like an idiot. He couldn’t help himself.
“I know you’re so busy right now, but we have some good news to pass along,” Nat said. She put Monster down, and the girl ran off out of frame. Singh felt irrationally disappointed to see her go. “My work with sheep modification has been approved for the next round of live testing. We could go wide with it in the next thirty months. Which means a posting to Medina would actually help me move the project forward. No pressure, or anything.”
She smiled as she said it, but he felt the loneliness echoed in her eyes. She continued. “Monster is doing well. She’s a little bored, and so ready to move into the big kids’ room at school. She spends most afternoons with your dad, and they’re becoming the best of friends. She calls him Poompaw now, and he’s started insisting everyone else call him that too. Most days he doesn’t want me to take her when I get off work. We eat dinner at his place a lot of evenings.”
Singh felt a swell of love and gratitude for his father that he’d never felt before he had a child of his own. He paused the video playback and took a moment so he wouldn’t get maudlin and weepy. It wouldn’t do to bring Carrie Fisk in and begin delivering his orders while his eyes were goopy and red. When he’d gathered himself, he started it again.
“So, that’s it, I guess. Reply when you get a minute. The home monitor has figured out Monster’s version of the word play, so she loves replaying your messages over and over again. Love you, Sonny. Be safe out there.”
And that was it. Nat saying she loved him shattered whatever resolve he thought he had, and he spent the next several minutes blubbering shamefully to himself.
Someone tapped at his door, and he called out, “Give me a moment!” Then rushed off to his private bathroom. While he was washing his face, he heard the sounds of someone cleaning up his office, and by the time he’d put himself back in shape to see people, there was a fresh pot of coffee percolating on the shelf. A noncom was just finishing up by placing new flowers in his vase. The chief threw him a snappy salute, then faded out of the room like a cat.
Singh sat at his desk, composed himself, then started a recording to Nat. “Hello, my dear. Thank you for the lovely message. I’m so happy to hear things are going well there, and Monster looks very well fed, so my father is almost certainly spoiling her rotten with sweet rolls. Things are still ahead of schedule here. Living here will take some getting used to, but there’s plenty of usable land for your sheep and lab, and we’re working to get all the services up to snuff for my little girl. Talk soon. I love you, Nat. I love you—” He almost said Monster, but something felt wrong about using her pet name. “I love you, Elsa.”
He killed the connection, and sent the file for processing to pass it down to Laconia with the next comm dump. He took a lot of pride in the fact that saying “I love you” to Nat hadn’t sent him into another weeping fit. There were people who thought that sort of thing was unmanly. Singh didn’t care about that. But it was undignified.
“Five minutes,” Ensign Somebody said from his monitor.
“I’m ready,” he replied.
Carrie Fisk sat in a chair in his office, drinking his coffee and looking twitchy and uncomfortable. She’d been picked up at her office by fully armored Marines and driven to the governor’s offices in a convoy of three carts filled with other Marines. For her protection, certainly, but it could also be a little intimidating for someone who wasn’t used to it. If that gave Singh a bit of a home-field advantage when dealing with the minor functionaries on Medina, he’d happily take it. He waited until she’d stopped fidgeting and started paying attention to him, then pulled up a list of the hundreds of ring systems that had habitable colonies and threw the list up onto his wall.
“Madam President,” he said. “We’ve reached an exciting moment for us all, but especially for you as the first president of the Laconian Congress of Worlds.”
“Are we married to that name change?” she asked. “Or …”
“The name of the legislative body is established in the documentation I gave you after our first meeting. Did you not read those documents?”
“I did,” she said. “I just wasn’t sure if that was a working title, or not. We haven’t voted on adopting the new—”
“You do not vote on directives delivered from the executive authority of the high consul’s office.”
“I see,” Fisk said. She stared at her lap and blew steam off her coffee.
“As I was saying,” Singh continued. “This is an exciting time for us all. High Admiral Trejo has decided that our situation is now secure enough to allow limited trade to resume through the gates.”
Fisk looked up at him with genuine surprise. “What?”
“Yes. Limited trade can be scheduled starting now. Put together a list of the worlds in the greatest need, as well as a schedule of deliveries that can meet those needs. Not from Sol system. Not yet. At first, we’ll allow a single ship transit per week, and of course each transit must be approved by me personally at least thirty days before it’s scheduled to occur.”
“That’s actually—” Fisk started, then stopped for a moment. “That’s actually really good to hear. There are a lot of colonies barely hanging on by a thread. This will save lives.”