September 1, 2183
“Chaos would not be too strong a word.” Arthur dropped his handscreen on the conference table with a disgusted gesture and leaned back in his chair. “Legally, anyway. The NAC has a challenge pending before the International Court against Monroe’s original ban on supplies to the Colonies. Now he’s out with this new one, and he’s invoking emergency powers. Where does that leave North America’s case? He never bothered to claim a legal basis for his original blockade order, but emergency powers give him one— and the Constitution states clearly that when the president declares emergency powers, he has them until two or more Continental Directorates protest.”
“What the dust is something like that doing in the Terran Constitution?” Carol asked. “I’d have thought it would require the president to ask permission to grab that much power, not require the continents to say no after the fact. Wasn’t the whole idea of the Terran Federation to end dictatorship everywhere?”
“Yes but the Constitution was ratified by the allies right in the middle of a rather nasty global war, if you’ll remember. The view of the time was that a crisis would likely jump off too fast for legislative debate, and giving the continents a veto would be protection enough. And it only takes two to veto an emergency powers declaration— just enough to stop one rogue continent from blocking the president, not enough to make it difficult if it’s the president who’s gone rogue.”
Carol frowned. “But unfortunately, two is one more than we have.”
“Right.” Arthur nodded. “The North American Continent is the only one on our side— and we need to realize even that is shaky. Public opinion in the NAC is almost as solid against the Colonies as everywhere else on the planet. The only reason the government leans our way is because our representatives vote as a bloc instead of by party, and so hold the balance of power in a divided congress. So the politicians court us. But that won’t hold if we get unpopular enough, or if the next election gets either party enough votes that they don’t need us.”
Charles broke in. “And meanwhile the emergency powers are legally in effect no matter what we do.”
“That’s correct, Governor.”
“So even if the NAC decides to keep defying the Federation, Monroe’s order to the military to actually shoot down the transport ships is in force.”
“Yes.”
Carol shook her head. “It’s in force, but would they actually do it? Most military units are locally recruited and organized. Would a North American patrol ship actually shoot down a North American transport ship? Even if they’re ordered to?”
“I doubt it’ll come to a test,” Arthur said. “They’ll back down, call off the shipments until things straighten out.”
“What does this do to our plan to sustain the lifesystems by trade between Colonies?” Charles turned to Aaron Hayes, seated at the end of the table.
Hayes shook his head. “Blows it to dust, Governor. The whole scheme was predicated on the six NAC Colonies still receiving supplies. Without that, there’s no way we can reach sustainability, at least not soon enough.”
“Will exchanging supplies still help?”
Hayes thought it over. “Some,” he finally said. “It’ll delay the inevitable.”
“Then we go ahead we those plans.”
“I’ll be easier to sell politically now,” Carol observed. “Mutually beneficial trade instead of our six Colonies helping the others out of charity. We all like to say we’re in favor of helping, but voters tend to react to their own bottom line.”
“Plus—” Hayes began, then hesitated.
“What is it?” asked Charles.
“Well, the plain fact is that people are already leaving, going Down. Not many, especially from Star City, but some. Obviously the Lifesystems Department tracks onboard population very closely. We’ve declined a bit, for the first time since the Colony was founded. It’s happening more on some of the other Colonies.”
“Makes sense,” said Arthur. “Colonies outside the NAC six are in a worse bind than we are. They know their own continent is against them, as well as the Terran government.”
“We ran some numbers,” Hayes said. “If the Colonies, collectively, lost twenty percent of current population, we could achieve sustainable lifesystems without help from Earth. We’d have to keep working to build up the systems as population rebounded, but we’ve always planned on that. Maybe we could… well…”
“What, start deporting a fifth of our population?” Charles asked. “How do you figure we should decide who? A lottery? No. No way.”
“We might not have to deport anyone,” Hayes said. “If things keep getting worse, maybe it’ll happen by itself. Or maybe we can just encourage people who want to leave—”
“Disaster. That would be disaster.” Arthur shook his head and folded his arms.
Carol nodded. “Right now people are scared. They don’t know what’s going to happen to their homes, their jobs, their lives here in the Colonies. If some are already starting to give up and go Down, the slightest whiff of defeatist talk from the Colonial government will turn that into a stampede.”
“Well sure, we can’t afford to lose everyone,” Hayes said, “but maybe we could limit the number of exit visas—”
Arthur laughed. “Good, so instead of deporting people by force, we get them running for their lives and then stop some of them by force. You’re not a politician, Aaron, don’t ever try to be one.”
“We’re not encouraging anyone to leave,” Charles said, “and we’re not breathing a whisper of even wanting them to. If enough people go Down anyway, then we count our lifesystem blessings and go on, but all initiative on our part will be encouraging our people to stay. Offworld is our continent, dust it, even if Earth’s population voted down that referendum. It’s…” He stopped, frowned, and then said, “No. Offworld is our country. We’re not giving it up.”
“We’re back to the question of what we do about it,” Arthur said. “Monroe has the legal authority to force the evacuation, and to fire on supply ships heading to us, unless the NAC can get a second continental government on board to veto the emergency powers.”
“Well.” Charles drummed his fingers on the table. “I’m sure civil disobedience is a fine thing but it’s not something we in this room can decide on behalf of the whole population. Arthur, I want to call a special election. There’s something in the Star City charter about popular referendums for charter amendments, right?”
Carol said, “Usually those are on the ballot at regular elections.”
“We can’t wait for the next regular election. Arthur?”
“With a bit of creative interpretation, yes. If an elected official has to leave office, the governor can call a special election. And a charter amendment can be part of any official election.”
“Find someone who needs a vacation,” Charles said. “He can run for reelection right back into office. Or else I’ll just call for the referendum without any vacant office to fill, and if anyone objects they can take me to court. If Monroe can do it, so can I. Get the legal office to put it in proper form to add to the charter, but the referendum is: Star City rejects any evacuation order, and assert its right to remain in operation regardless of any outside government or authority. Yes or no.”
“Charter amendments require a two thirds majority of the popular vote to pass.”
“Great, if we’re going to turn this Colony into rebels, I’d like more than a bare majority anyway.”
“A special election requires six weeks notice between you calling for it, and election day.”
“Okay.” Charles called up the calendar on his handscreen. “How long for the legal office to write a proper amendment?”
Arthur shrugged. “A couple of days.”
“It’s Monday now. Think I can announce the referendum by Wednesday?”
“Should work.”
“Good. Then Wednesday plus six weeks…” Charles counted down and then added a flag to the date. “Everyone mark your calendars. On Wednesday, October fifteenth the revolution begins.”
TO BE CONTINUED
