* * * * *
Smiling administrators gathered around the lottery office’s most prestigious conference table. Servers bustled in and out of the chamber, rolling trays filled with Champagne and treats the grocers’ guild was soon to reintroduce onto their shelves. Music jazzed through the table’s speakers, and many of the administrators couldn’t resist the urge to drift together into clumsy dance. The lottery offices had much to celebrate. The Wildberry planet-grab had garnered ratings never before seen. Sponsors begged for the opportunity to advertise their services during the upcoming broadcasts, and there seemed no limit to what those administrators might charge for a fifteen second commercial.
A slim, tall woman with a streak of silver coursing down the middle of her hair took a chair at the head of that polished conference table. The music turned quiet, and the others in the room slowly returned to their positioned chairs.
That slim woman nodded at her colleagues. “I’m afraid I need to ask us to take a very brief pause from our celebrations. Have we determined what housing stack population to next deliver to the stars?”
A balding and plump man pushed the knot of his tie against his second chin. “The computation offices have run all the variables and presented our choices: Highmark; East Blight; Allentown; Juniper.”
The woman at the table’s head nodded. “And which among those seems to be the most sensible choice?”
“East Blight,” the plump man answered.
The woman raised an eyebrow. “I was hoping we might send Allentown to the stars for the next planet-grab. I’m aware how that stack fills our public relations offices with petitions to settle a new planet.”
“I prefer to send East Blight,” returned the man. “Operatives suspect a very high Libertine presence in that housing stack. I think it remains best policy to first jettison those towers most tainted by the Libertine’s message. I think it’s good practice to clear those stacks before Libertine discontent has time to spread into anything more harmful. The population of Allentown, in comparison, seems content enough to wait a little while longer. Certainly, that population is getting all it can from its housing situation. In addition, we’ve received proposals from the reclamation corps for a recreational lake complex built on the site of the East Blight tower. The corps is prepared to move forward on their project once the population has been shipped to a new planet.”
A woman in a thick pair of glasses leaned forward from her seat. “Recreational lakes? Like those rumored to have existed before the housing stacks? Complete with water-skiing and beaches?”
“Indeed,” the plump man replied. “It’s a remarkable proposal.”
The woman at the head of the table grinned. “We live in such amazing times. Who can guess what will next be recovered from the old world’s ruins? So, East Blight it is. Allentown will just have to wait. We have our stack, do we have our planet?”
A dark man with a trimmed beard, seated opposite of the plump man, pressed a button on his electronic reader, and holographic orbs of potential planets floated in the conference room.
“There are always planets,” the man chuckled. “The challenge is selecting one with any chance to offer a show as magnificent as the one Wildberry just gave us.”