“Their delegates can vote by Telecom?”
“Hives and heatrash, no! This place is supposed to be inconvenient! You wanna encourage more government? What a thought!” She shuddered dramatically, then winked and sat down abruptly at a console, keying the terminal. Her name appeared at the front of the room, among a few others already present, followed by a number: 6076. “My constituency, such as it is, six-thousand-odd people—odd enough t’let me stand for ’em at this quiltin’ bee, anyway. Sure y’won’t have a grasshopper?”
“Ulp!” I shook my head, taking the extra seat. “Lucy, you continue to amaze me. You represent some district in Laporte?”
“No district to it, son. We’re all”at large” here. Though there’s some as shouldn’t be. Anybody can represent anybody else—or nobody but themselves. Not even themselves, if they just wanna sit in the gallery and be entertained.”
“Well, who do you represent?”
She punched up a couple of drinks, which arrived a moment later through a slot. “European war vets mostly. Colleagues, friends from the old days in Antarctica, some of Pete’s chums. You want that lemon slice?”
“Trade you for the maraschino cherry. Is that the usual way to select representatives?”
“Ain’t no usual way, Winnie, Learn that, you’ll get along fine. Most folks just show up representing friends, neighbors, people in the same trade. Maybe half a dozen are professionals, with a million proxies each.”
“That many?”
“Don’t get sarcastical! Votes don’t amount to much, anyway. It’s what gets said here. Though nothing guarantees anyone’ll listen.” The screen changed again, more delegates arriving, vote-strengths shifting as viewers all over the continent punched in proxies and cancellations. Totals were revised moment by moment; many a politico with thousands of supporters might suddenly discover that, through the miracle of electronics, he was representing no one but himself.
“Interesting,” I said finally, “but not very democratic.”
Lucy laughed. “The object’s getting things done without violating anybody’s rights. Hardly a traditional democratic concern. But this is probably the most democracy ever to park its brains on a bench. Anybody’s welcome, anybody can vote, an’ you can change your mind any time. Whole thing’s telecast so you can see how your rep’s treatin’ you—maybe shift to somebody else if you want. Representative Participatory Democracy—Gallatin’s contribution to creative political instability. Don’t take it too seriously—ain’t good for you.” She flagged the seedy-looking peanut vendor. I buried my nose in my glass, refusing to watch.
“But it should be taken seriously,” I finally protested. “It’s only the seventh Continental Congress in—”
“Even so, I’ll bet more folks’re watching that Mike Morrison western on channel 962 tonight. Everybody’s got a right to ignore the state and be safe doin’ it. Makes up for fanatics, like me.”
“Hmm. What would President Jackson say about that? By the way, you haven’t told me about the Sixth Continental Congress, yet.”
“Nothin’ t’tell. Buncha waste motion, huzzahing the two-hundredth year since Independence. Slept through most of it.” She crunched another grasshopper.
“I see. Lucy, we had a Bicentennial, but it all seemed kind of flat.”
She looked at me closely. “What was left to celebrate?”
TIME GROUND SLOWLY onward. New names blinked onto the screen, the room gradually filled. Important-looking people stopped by to greet Lucy like a long-lost friend. Apparently I’d underestimated this batty little old lady. We ordered a meal. More nothing happened. Finally: “When does this show get on the road anyway?”
She glanced up at the screen, shading her eyes. “Can’t tell, exactly. You bored or something?”
“Or something,” I admitted.
“Ain’t no certified regulation starting time. How could there be?”
“God damn it, Lucy! Clarissa and Ed are prisoners! Maybe dead already.” I cringed inwardly at the words. “And we’re sitting here on our—”
“I know. But whatever happens—even to them—is gonna happen right here, and not until at least nine-tenths of North America’s represented. Ooops!—forgot t’tell you. Take a gander at the tote screen. See that number?”
I looked: 0.83901256. “Eighty-three percent?”
“Closer t’eighty-four, and no Congress till it hits ninety.” As she spoke, the figure jumped to eighty-six. “Y’see, this place is never really empty. Always somebody wheelin’ an’ dealin’. But that number’s only gone over oh-nine-hundred six times in history, and nothin’ else counts.”
“Even if enough wheelers and dealers showed up just by coincidence?”
“Ever try organizin’ ninety percent of anything? Highest it’s been the last thirty years is seven-hundredths of a percent—I know!”
“So it takes something really big to get them all together. But Lucy, this could take weeks!”
“Give Jenny and me a little credit—an’ one of those seegars, too. I might’s well look the part.” She lit up from a hot spot on the console.
“Lucy, I just can’t get my bearings. You all keep changing the rules on me, then I turn around and there aren’t any rules! How can you live like that?”
She puffed professionally. “Only stability this side of the grave, I always say, is in the funeral parlor. Hey—looky there!” The screen was filled with names, the percentage 0.90000002 and still climbing.
The Seventh Continental Congress had convened.
Jenny entered without fanfare, punching in at her terminal. Her image appeared overhead as she said softly, “The Seventh Continental Congress of the North American Confederacy is now in session. Mr. Parliamentarian, may I have the protocols?” Conversation, briefly abated during this opening “ceremony,” mounted again as a chimp to Jenny’s left began typing furiously:
SEVENTH CONTINENTAL CONGRESS:
PROTOCOLS
FRANKLINITES: CONTIGUOUS SESSIONS
DISSOLUTIONISTS: ABOLITION
TELLECOMMUNICANTS: YIELD TO FRANKLINITES
PROSIMIANS: YIELD TO SAPIENT MACHINES
SAPIENT MACHINES: PETITION, ORANGUTANS
NEOIMPERALISTS: YIELD TO ANNEXIANS
ANNEXIANS: PETITION, GREENLAND
GALLATINISTS: DECLARATION OF EMERGENCY
DISSOLUTIONISTS: REBUTTAL TO NEOIMPERIALISTS
HAMILTONIANS: GALLATINIST CRIMINAL PRACTICES ADJOURNMENT
“What the hell is this?”
“Shh!” Lucy whispered. “Let’s see how it’s gonna go.”
Jenny again: “Mr. Williams, we have a proposed emergency before us. Will you yield?” The screen cut to an unkempt, toothy individual with apparent adenoid problems: BUCKLEY F. WILLIAMS, FRANKLINITE FACTION.
“Erh, Madame President,” Williams answered in a bored tone, “insofar as the responsibility were mine alone, I would be deliriously gratified to accede to your charming request. However—” The audience booed enthusiastically, and someone shouted, “Cut the crap!”
“I take it you won’t yield, Mr. Williams?” Jenny said patiently. “Very well, you have ten minutes.”
“Erh, thank you very much, Madame President. Fellow delegates, as you all are consummately aware, we who deem ourselves Friends of Benjamin Franklin have long advocated an unequivocal terminus to the irresponsible and apathetic governance of this polity. There are grave and consequential matters being heinously defaulted to irrational, whimsical, and venally individualistic instrumentalities.” He tapped his prominent teeth with a stylus and sniffed. “Such nugacity is insupportable. Accordingly, and with full assent of my associates, I urge adoption of the following resolution, to wit: that the Seventh Continental Congress hereby decree an Eighth Congress, one year hence, and in each successive year thereafter, henceforward and forever.” Nose toward the rooftree, he rolled his eyes like a dying horse, sniffed again, and sat down.
Jenny waited for the boos and hisses to fade. ??
?Thank you, Mr. Williams, do I hear a second?” Someone near Williams bobbed up and seconded before the camera could catch him. “It’s been moved and seconded that—Mr. Williams, will you kindly transmit your motion to the secretary?—that a permanent legislature be reestablished. Discussion?”
A thousand lights were blinking on the board, wrangling for recognition. Lucy cut her volume and chuckled. “Now maybe I can answer your question.”
“What did I—oh, yeah—What the hell’s going on here? What about the Federalists? Who’s this Williams, and what’s he up to?”
“Calm down, son. We’re here: ‘Gallatinists: Declaration of Emergency.”’
“Okay, but what’s all this other shit?”
“At least you understand its nature. But we gotta wade through it, anyway.”
“I thought we called this Congress to warn—”
“That’s where you’re wrong. This is just us good ol’ folks, whose number ‘happens’ to be ninety percent, remember?”
“But you said it was all carefully arranged!”
“And so it was. But everyone’s entitled to speak, and in practice, they reserve space on Jenny’s agenda, in case we ever have a Congress. Some been waiting for decades, carried over from her predecessors’ lists. Offering ’em this rare shot helped us put it together. Lucky there ain’t ten times as many. Managed to convince a few we got a real emergency. Williams and the rest are holdouts, then we’ll get down to real business.”
“This isn’t any different from my own state legislature! Who are these Franklinites, anyway?”
“They just want a permanent government—been around since Lysander was a pup. Looks t’me, though—she squinted at the screen—”like they’re still dwindlin’. Never stood much chance. What they want, under the rhetoric, is a nice coercive system of franchise monopolies, government contracts—”
“Rotarian Socialism,” I mumbled, quoting Mary Ross-Byrd. “That’s what Propertarians call it: ‘Free Enterprise—and keep those subsidies coming!”’
“You got the point. Listen—they’re about through.” The Franklinites had lost, 99.99 percent to 0.01; on to the next order of the day.
“The Chair recognizes Sandy Silvers of the Dissolutionist Faction.”
“Madame President,” said a pretty, honey-haired girl with a wry smile, “I move that Congress adjourn—”
Catcalls and curses filled the room.
Shouting over the tumult, Jenny exclaimed, “I’ll remind the delegates that a motion to adjourn is always in order! Second?”
“Madame President! May I be allowed to finish my motion?” She was still on her feet, others around her standing in their chairs. The noise died down—what can you add to a motion to adjourn? “Madame President, delegates assembled, I move that this body adjourn—permanently”
Her cohorts jumped and cheered, answered by yells around the room, some friendly, some not. The Franklinites shot a unanimous raspberry at them. Sandy answered, lowering her voice seductively in the pickup, “We love you, too, Buckie.”
Lucy had leaped up, shouting, “Second, Second!” Now she came back to herself, grinned sheepishly, and sat down. “Always did have a radical streak, I guess.” She relit her cigar. The Dissolutionists lost, three to one, but for some reason they cheered again, and Lucy beamed. “Highest total yet! Hope Pete’s restin’ happy tonight. He’s got good reason.”
The Telecommunicants, who simply wanted voting allowed remotely, yielded to Buckley F Williams. Amid hisses and boos, he moved that Congress be conducted by Telecom—on a regular basis. This time the ayes were too small for the big screen to express accurately. The Franklinites got up and walked out.
“Tryin’ t’sabotage us,” Lucy explained. “Below 90 percent, we’re outa business, remember?” She didn’t seem perturbed. “They hope the Dissolutionists will join ’em, but Sandy’s too smart for that.” She waved at the young anarchist leader who grinned and waved back.
“I don’t know, Lucy, all this petty maneuvering …”
She pounded my shoulder. “What else you expect? Politics brings out the worst in people every time. Maybe I’ll join the Dissolutionists after all.” I glanced around later that evening. Most of the Franklinites had sneaked back in, not wanting to miss the real action.
The big board went on shifting as more viewers tuned in. Next up, the Prosimians, contending that orangutans and gibbons should be admitted to the Confederacy. All of their delegates were human. Forsyth had mentioned these worthies in disgust: do-gooders and ward-heelers looking to benefit from the proxy-power of others. The captain had curled his lip, “Orangs and gibbons may be the most intelligent folks on the planet—won’t have anything to do with politics!” But the Prosimians were yielding to the Alliance of Sapient Machines.
“Lucy, are there really any sapient machines you know of?”
“Well, some sure have their own personalities. My two old Thornies have consecutive numbers, but each one handles differently. You’ve probably noticed the same thing with guns. The day a machine walks in here and—Come to think of it, some prankster tried that, back in—”
“But there’s some seriousness in all this?”
She considered. “Probably not now, but y’never know about tomorrow …”
I nodded emphatically, looking around idly for an exit and a bathroom.
The Alliance—as human as the Prosimians—moved to admit orangutans, and any “other intelligences” (their definition), automatically henceforward. Their definition would have included cantaloupes, elephant’s-foot umbrella stands, and at least half the FBI agents I’ve encountered. The proposition failed.
The Neoimperialists, after a brief, Cato-esque commercial demanding destruction of any remnants of government left anywhere in the world, yielded to the Annexians. “Nothin’ new,” Lucy explained. “The Neos, mostly war vets, start with a good enough idea. Government’s morally repugnant to any decent person. But how’d they avoid killing a lot of the very folks they’re liberating? Just won’t wash.”
A slight twinge in my bladder. “What about these Annexians?”
“They just want Antarctica and some other places admitted. I dunno—we generally encourage other continents t’do things on their own. On the other hand, Greenland”—she indicated the agenda—“that might not be a bad idea.”
The Annexians took the floor. By Telecom, the current speakers for Greenland were testifying. Independent more than a century, the island had a Gallatinist assembly. In a recent 90-percent-or-better session, they’d decided to petition for admission.
The vote was affirmative. The North American Confederacy, a culture which routinely handled English, Spanish, and Quebecois, now would add another language. Well, if they could handle Cetacean, why not Danish?
And now, just as I was desperate to leave the room, I found I couldn’t.
It was our turn.
XIX State of Emergency
I often wonder why the ecology movement attracts leftists—there’s a lesson there you’d think they’d avoid at all costs: the economy is like any other part of the environment, small interferences create elephantine dislocations in later years and unpredictable places. If altering algae populations can cause an Ice Age, it’s equally true that minimum wage laws can cause mass unemployment. If they can learn such things about nature, why can’t they learn them about their own society?
—Mary Ross-Byrd
Toward a New Liberty
“Y’all enjoy them goobers now, y’heah?” The vendor smiled nervously at Lucy as she handed him a few small coins.
“Thanks a bunch, Jimmy-Earl, I sure will.” She offered me a handful. “Can’t help it, Win,” she whispered, “that little guy gives me the creeps. Well, looks like they got Greenland seated. Told you it wouldn’t take long.”
Scratch another chance to leave the room.
Jenny rose and cleared her throat. The roar of random conversation faded. “The Chair now yields to Dr. Olongo Featherstone-Haugh”—
she pronounced it “Fanshaw,” but the readout told a different tale—“Vice President of the North American Confederacy.” From her right, nine hundred pounds of Gorilla gorilla ascended to the rostrum. Jenny stepped down. I’d been warned about this gambit: people might take our case more seriously, presented by the leader of the Gallatinist Party, a pretty, well-liked lady who just happened to be president.
“Mr. Vice President!” Jenny shouted from the floor. The background murmur died in anticipation. We were coming to the main event.
The mountainous vice president held his wristvoder near the mike. “The Chair recognizes Jennifer Smythe of the Gallatinist Party.”
“Thank you, Mr. Vice President. Assembled delegates,” she addressed the cameras, “people of North America and the System. Twice in the last century, our culture has embraced new peoples—peoples we had long known, but failed properly to understand. I refer, of course, to simian beings and to the people of the seas, the cetaceans. Today, we anticipate a time when new life is discovered on a distant world, life that shares with us that sum of values we call Civilization.”
The assembly buzzed again, but shut up as Jenny caught her breath. “Fate has chosen me to bring you that news—with two shocking qualifications: the new world is called Earth, its location, anywhere you look around you, for it shares space with our own, existing at a different point along one of the several dimensions of time.”
The audience began to stir. “Ladies and gentlemen! We shall be at war with this new Earth within days—weeks at the most—a terrible new kind of war, ending only when all life on both our planets is utterly extinguished!”
The stirring became a jumbled buzz. “Therefore …” It was useless. The noise crested: shocked reactions, fervent denials, even an isolated catcall. “Therefore, ladies and gentlemen …” In the roaring chaos she went unheard. This was affirmation of weeks of circulating rumor. Faces stretched around to stare at me. Others tried to hush the noise, adding their own to the uproar. Jenny climbed back onto the dais, tiny beside the vice president’s furry bulk. “THEREFORE!” she shouted into the pickup.