[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
I thought your comments made the beginning of a provocative piece."
Despite his name, he looked quite domesticated. Victoria regarded him. He was
not at all the way she would have imagined from his name and his articles. He
had curly red-
brown hair cut all the same length. In weightlessness it fluffed out around
his head. His eyes were a gentle brown. His chin was round, his lips mobile
and expressive.
"It wasn't exactly an interview, and I think I've said as much as I need to
... or want to." Victoria smiled to take the sting out of turning him down. "I
mean .-. . I said what
I meant. If I start explaining myself, it would sound like weaseling."
"When I interview somebody," he said,, "they only sound like they're weaseling
if they really are weaseling."
"I don't have anything more to say right now. Maybe the opportunity will come
up while you're visiting Starfarer, eh?
I'm sure you'll find most people happy to talk to you."
Feral Korzybski wrote about the space program. He had resisted jumping on the
new U.S. president's anti-tech band-
STARFARERS 37
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wagon. As far as Victoria knew, all his articles appeared in public-access,
not in sponsored news or feature information services.
"I really would like to talk to both of you about the alien contact team."
"Have you been in space before?" Victoria said, changing the subject without
much subtlety.
"No, first trip. First time I could afford it."
"You've got a sponsor, then. Congratulations."
"Sponsors are nothing but unfilled censors!" he said with startling vehemence.
"When you read sponsored stuff, you're paying extra for the privilege of
reading work that's been gut-
ted to make it acceptable. If I can't make my name as an independent, I don't
want to do it at all."
"How'd you get up here?"
"By saving for a ticket, like any other tourist."
"But tourists can't come onto Starfarer anymore. We're too close to final
maneuvers."
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file:///G|/Program%20Files/eMule/Incoming/Vonda%20N%20McIntyre%20-%20Starfarer
s.txt
"That took a lot of persuasion and a lot of calling in ob-
ligations. Including a few nobody owed me yet." He looked away, obviously
embarrassed by the admission of any flaw in his independence.
'^If I can help you find your way around," Victoria said, "I'd be glad to."
He smiled shyly from beneath his heavy eyebrows. "I'd appreciate that. A lot.
Will you talk to me off the record?
'Deep background,' we call it in the trade."
"Of course I'll talk to you," Victoria said. "I just like to be warned when
somebody's about to start quoting me. All right?"
"Sure. What do you think about the Senate bill to trans-
form Starfarer into a military base with remote sensing ca-
pabilities?"
"You don't ease into anything, do you?"
"No," he said cheerfully. "The argument is that we need more information about
the Mideast Sweep, and more de-
fenses against it."
"I understand the argument, but the proposal has already damaged the
expedition. You know about the recalls. I'm sure."
38 vonda N. Mcfntyre
He nodded. "It's last century's space station all over again."
"That's right. We lost a couple of decades' worth of orig-
inal research and intercultural cooperation right there. Now, as soon as we
start to recover, as soon as there's hope for peaceful applications, your
country is making the same damned mistake. You contributed more than half the
funding and more than half the personnel, so your president thinks he can get
away with this bullying."
"He's not my president. I didn't vote for him."
Victoria quirked her lips in a sardonic smile. "Nobody did, it seems like.
Nevertheless, he is your president and he is bullying us. He's violating
several treaties. Unfortunately, your country is still sufficiently powerful
that you can tell everybody else to take a high dive if we don't like your
plans."
"What about the Mideast Sweep?"
"What about it?"
"Don't you want to keep an eye on them?"
"JProm here? You con do remote sensing from very high orbits, but why would
you want to? You might as well use the moon. You don't need something the size
of Starfarer for spying. You don't even need it for a military base powerful
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file:///G|/Program%20Files/eMule/Incoming/Vonda%20N%20McIntyre%20-%20Starfarer
s.txt enough to blow the whole world to a cinder. Starfarer as a military
base even as a suspected military base becomes vulnerable. 1 hope it won't
come to that. Look, Feral, your country is trying to make itself so powerful
that it's becoming paralyzed. When you rely solely on your weapons, you lose
the art of compromise that created the U.S. in the first place.
Soon your only choice will be between staying in the comer you've backed into,
doing nothing ... or blasting the whole building down."
"Do you think we can talk the Mideast Sweep around to a reasonable position?''
Victoria had no fondness for the Mideast Sweep. To begin with, there was the
sexual and racial discrimination they prac-
ticed. If she lived under its domination she would subsist at a level so low
that it would barely count as human.
"I don't know how much can be achieved with talk. But I
hope 1 have to believe that the United States is a country
STARFARERS 39
too ethical to destroy a whole population because it lives un-
der the control of an antagonistic hierarchy."
"Does everybody else on the crew agree with you?"
Victoria chuckled. "Getting everybody to agree on any-
thing is one of our biggest problems. One thing we do agree on, though, is
that we aren't 'crew.' "
"What, then?"
^Starfarer isn't a military ship not yet, anyway, and not ever if most of us
on board have anything to say about it. It's only a ship in the sense that it
can move under its own power.
There's a hierarchy of sorts, but it isn't based on a military structure.
There's faculty and staff and technical support. It's more like a university.
Or a university town. Most of the decisions about how things are run, we try
to decide by con-
sensus."
"That sounds awkward," Feral said.
"Only if you hate five-hour meetings," Victoria said, straight-faced.
"Don't you have to be able to react fast out here? If there's an emergency and
there's nobody to give the order to do something about it, doesn't that put
everyone at risk?"
^Starfarer has redundancies of its redundancies. With most emergencies you
have plenty of time. As for the others . . .
everyone who lives there takes an orientation course that in-
cludes possible emergencies and what to do about them- You have to pass it if
you expect to stay. That's how fast you'd have to react to an acute
emergency you wouldn't have time to call some general and ask for permission."
"What about sabotage?"
"There's much more reason to sabotage a military instal-
file:///G|/Program%20Files/eMule/Incoming/Vonda%20N%20McIntyre%20-%20Starfarer
s.txt (32 of 240) [11/1/2004 12:30:54 AM]
file:///G|/Program%20Files/eMule/Incoming/Vonda%20N%20McIntyre%20-%20Starfarer
s.txt lation than a civilian one. And a lot more explosive-type stuff sitting
around to use to sabotage it with." Victoria laughed.
"Besides, in a group run by consensus, all a saboteur would have to do is come
to meetings and block every proposal.
That wouldn't stop us cold, but it would slow everything down and drain a lot
of energy." She sighed. "Sometimes I think we already have a few saboteurs
aboard."
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"How would you respond to an attack?" [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
zanotowane.pl doc.pisz.pl pdf.pisz.pl szkicerysunki.xlx.pl
I thought your comments made the beginning of a provocative piece."
Despite his name, he looked quite domesticated. Victoria regarded him. He was
not at all the way she would have imagined from his name and his articles. He
had curly red-
brown hair cut all the same length. In weightlessness it fluffed out around
his head. His eyes were a gentle brown. His chin was round, his lips mobile
and expressive.
"It wasn't exactly an interview, and I think I've said as much as I need to
... or want to." Victoria smiled to take the sting out of turning him down. "I
mean .-. . I said what
I meant. If I start explaining myself, it would sound like weaseling."
"When I interview somebody," he said,, "they only sound like they're weaseling
if they really are weaseling."
"I don't have anything more to say right now. Maybe the opportunity will come
up while you're visiting Starfarer, eh?
I'm sure you'll find most people happy to talk to you."
Feral Korzybski wrote about the space program. He had resisted jumping on the
new U.S. president's anti-tech band-
STARFARERS 37
Page 24
ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
wagon. As far as Victoria knew, all his articles appeared in public-access,
not in sponsored news or feature information services.
"I really would like to talk to both of you about the alien contact team."
"Have you been in space before?" Victoria said, changing the subject without
much subtlety.
"No, first trip. First time I could afford it."
"You've got a sponsor, then. Congratulations."
"Sponsors are nothing but unfilled censors!" he said with startling vehemence.
"When you read sponsored stuff, you're paying extra for the privilege of
reading work that's been gut-
ted to make it acceptable. If I can't make my name as an independent, I don't
want to do it at all."
"How'd you get up here?"
"By saving for a ticket, like any other tourist."
"But tourists can't come onto Starfarer anymore. We're too close to final
maneuvers."
file:///G|/Program%20Files/eMule/Incoming/Vonda%20N%20McIntyre%20-%20Starfarer
s.txt (30 of 240) [11/1/2004 12:30:54 AM]
file:///G|/Program%20Files/eMule/Incoming/Vonda%20N%20McIntyre%20-%20Starfarer
s.txt
"That took a lot of persuasion and a lot of calling in ob-
ligations. Including a few nobody owed me yet." He looked away, obviously
embarrassed by the admission of any flaw in his independence.
'^If I can help you find your way around," Victoria said, "I'd be glad to."
He smiled shyly from beneath his heavy eyebrows. "I'd appreciate that. A lot.
Will you talk to me off the record?
'Deep background,' we call it in the trade."
"Of course I'll talk to you," Victoria said. "I just like to be warned when
somebody's about to start quoting me. All right?"
"Sure. What do you think about the Senate bill to trans-
form Starfarer into a military base with remote sensing ca-
pabilities?"
"You don't ease into anything, do you?"
"No," he said cheerfully. "The argument is that we need more information about
the Mideast Sweep, and more de-
fenses against it."
"I understand the argument, but the proposal has already damaged the
expedition. You know about the recalls. I'm sure."
38 vonda N. Mcfntyre
He nodded. "It's last century's space station all over again."
"That's right. We lost a couple of decades' worth of orig-
inal research and intercultural cooperation right there. Now, as soon as we
start to recover, as soon as there's hope for peaceful applications, your
country is making the same damned mistake. You contributed more than half the
funding and more than half the personnel, so your president thinks he can get
away with this bullying."
"He's not my president. I didn't vote for him."
Victoria quirked her lips in a sardonic smile. "Nobody did, it seems like.
Nevertheless, he is your president and he is bullying us. He's violating
several treaties. Unfortunately, your country is still sufficiently powerful
that you can tell everybody else to take a high dive if we don't like your
plans."
"What about the Mideast Sweep?"
"What about it?"
"Don't you want to keep an eye on them?"
"JProm here? You con do remote sensing from very high orbits, but why would
you want to? You might as well use the moon. You don't need something the size
of Starfarer for spying. You don't even need it for a military base powerful
Page 25
ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
file:///G|/Program%20Files/eMule/Incoming/Vonda%20N%20McIntyre%20-%20Starfarer
s.txt (31 of 240) [11/1/2004 12:30:54 AM]
file:///G|/Program%20Files/eMule/Incoming/Vonda%20N%20McIntyre%20-%20Starfarer
s.txt enough to blow the whole world to a cinder. Starfarer as a military
base even as a suspected military base becomes vulnerable. 1 hope it won't
come to that. Look, Feral, your country is trying to make itself so powerful
that it's becoming paralyzed. When you rely solely on your weapons, you lose
the art of compromise that created the U.S. in the first place.
Soon your only choice will be between staying in the comer you've backed into,
doing nothing ... or blasting the whole building down."
"Do you think we can talk the Mideast Sweep around to a reasonable position?''
Victoria had no fondness for the Mideast Sweep. To begin with, there was the
sexual and racial discrimination they prac-
ticed. If she lived under its domination she would subsist at a level so low
that it would barely count as human.
"I don't know how much can be achieved with talk. But I
hope 1 have to believe that the United States is a country
STARFARERS 39
too ethical to destroy a whole population because it lives un-
der the control of an antagonistic hierarchy."
"Does everybody else on the crew agree with you?"
Victoria chuckled. "Getting everybody to agree on any-
thing is one of our biggest problems. One thing we do agree on, though, is
that we aren't 'crew.' "
"What, then?"
^Starfarer isn't a military ship not yet, anyway, and not ever if most of us
on board have anything to say about it. It's only a ship in the sense that it
can move under its own power.
There's a hierarchy of sorts, but it isn't based on a military structure.
There's faculty and staff and technical support. It's more like a university.
Or a university town. Most of the decisions about how things are run, we try
to decide by con-
sensus."
"That sounds awkward," Feral said.
"Only if you hate five-hour meetings," Victoria said, straight-faced.
"Don't you have to be able to react fast out here? If there's an emergency and
there's nobody to give the order to do something about it, doesn't that put
everyone at risk?"
^Starfarer has redundancies of its redundancies. With most emergencies you
have plenty of time. As for the others . . .
everyone who lives there takes an orientation course that in-
cludes possible emergencies and what to do about them- You have to pass it if
you expect to stay. That's how fast you'd have to react to an acute
emergency you wouldn't have time to call some general and ask for permission."
"What about sabotage?"
"There's much more reason to sabotage a military instal-
file:///G|/Program%20Files/eMule/Incoming/Vonda%20N%20McIntyre%20-%20Starfarer
s.txt (32 of 240) [11/1/2004 12:30:54 AM]
file:///G|/Program%20Files/eMule/Incoming/Vonda%20N%20McIntyre%20-%20Starfarer
s.txt lation than a civilian one. And a lot more explosive-type stuff sitting
around to use to sabotage it with." Victoria laughed.
"Besides, in a group run by consensus, all a saboteur would have to do is come
to meetings and block every proposal.
That wouldn't stop us cold, but it would slow everything down and drain a lot
of energy." She sighed. "Sometimes I think we already have a few saboteurs
aboard."
Page 26
ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
"How would you respond to an attack?" [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]