“Gilles,” Fred said when he left the corridors, “send pizza and soda around to the reserve and then start rotating them to the floor. And rotate the pikes down here with the ones in the shack.”
Roger that.
Fred continued his tour out on the convention floor. He passed through logjams of happy free-range chartists. It felt odd to be among them. Though there were so many of them, each and every one had their own unique face, and they came in a dizzying variety of sizes and shapes. And unlike the affs, who technically were also free-range, many of the chartists were plain-looking, if not outright ugly.
The Rondy-goers mostly ignored Fred, and those who greeted him were friendly enough. Everyone loved russes.
The TUGs on patrol that he encountered were a different matter. Though clearly free-range, their size and shape were uniformly large, and Fred found this strangely comforting. They looked good too. Tonight they wore their dress uniform: a crisp, olive-green jumpsuit with a sharp V-shaped bodice. The bodice came in olive-green or mustard, depending upon the tugger’s moiety. A patch over the chest displayed the tugger’s name under the Circle T logo. Floating over the left shoulder was an olive-green marble imprinted with a mustard T.
Their attitudes could stand an adjustment, though. They scowled at Fred, at least until they noted his rank.
Fred looked into the ballrooms and conference rooms he passed. In one he found an Olympic-sized boxing ring with qualifying rounds under way for the 2134 World Chartist Golden Gloves.
Down the hall, a cavernous banquet hall had been set up as the Rondy nursery and child care station, and it seemed to be one of the most popular stops for Rondygoers. A giant swan floated in a shaded pool where babies slept on lily pads. Toddlers frolicked in a gummy pen, while older children played games organized by adults. Fred estimated about four hundred youngsters here, and two thousand adults.
In a conference room, Fred came across the quarterly business meeting of the World Charter Union Congress. It was the only room that security was prohibited from monitoring with cams or bees. Assembled were the leading lights of charterdom, its thinkers and activists and delegates from all parts of the UD. The delegates sat at chintz-skirted tables that lined three walls of the room. In the center of the room were arranged two hundred seats for spectators. Real people sat in some of them, but most were occupied by proxy.
One of the few realbody attendees was a TUG woman who Fred immediately recognized—Veronica Tug. She was delivering a presentation to the Congress. She stood between Earth and Mars in a simplified solar system and was pointing at an overscaled Oship. She was making an argument or rebutting one. Passion simmered beneath her veneer of self-control.
As Fred stood at the rear of the ballroom, a proxy appeared before him, the head and shoulders of Myr Pacfin, the insufferable Rendezvous chairperson. “I’m sorry, Myr Russ,” it said to Fred, “but this is a closed meeting, for chartists only.”
“I’ll take my leave then,” Fred said. “I was just making my rounds.”
The Pacfin proxy looked at Fred’s name badge and said, “Ah, Myr Londenstane. Everything seems to be running smoothly, wouldn’t you agree? Rondy nearly runs itself, and security here is pretty much a waste of effort.”
Fred tried to hide his annoyance, and before he managed to leave, they were joined by a second proxy. This one was an imposing bust of Veronica Tug. The real woman was still in the middle of the room delivering her address. “Excuse me, Myr Pacfin,” it said to Pacfin’s proxy, “but I would like to invite Myr Londenstane to stay for my presentation.”
“I wish we could,” said the Pacfin proxy, “but rules is rules, and it would take a vote by the delegates to waive them.”
“In that case,” the Veronica proxy said, “let’s put it to a vote.”
Fred told her not to bother, that he was just leaving, but Veronica Tug’s proxy said the results were already returning. A moment later, the Pacfin proxy added, “The delegates welcome you, Myr Londenstane. Please find yourself a seat.” It vanished before Fred had a chance to reply.
“Don’t take it personally,” said the TUG proxy. “My fellow chartists harbor an irrational hostility toward iterants, as I’m sure you know. They feel that your people have replaced ours in the economy and are the biggest cause of our decline. They are blind to the march of history.”
“Don’t worry about it,” Fred said. “We don’t take such things personal.”
The proxy said, “Perhaps you should take them personal. Maybe we all should. The affs have made separate races out of us and taught us racial hatreds and lies. That’s pretty personal, wouldn’t you say? It’s how they control us.” As the proxy spoke, its hands wove and thumped and slashed the air.
The proxy paused and said, “I’m sorry. I’m monopolizing your time, and you’re missing my presentation. Please find a seat, Commander; the best part is coming up. I’ll leave you alone now.”
“Wait,” Fred said before it could vanish. “I agree with much of what you said about the friction between our groups, but as to the ‘march of history,’ well, only time will tell.”
The proxy’s bulbous face smiled, and it said, “I’ll be sure to pass that along to my original.”
“And pass along my appreciation for the assist the other night. Like I said, I owe you big time.”
The proxy’s expression hardened a little. “Don’t worry about that, Commander. I’m sure we’ll find a way for you to repay your debt.”
When the proxy disappeared, Fred did not find a seat but continued to stand at the back of the room where he listened to the real Veronica’s presentation. She was discussing Oship #164, arguing the case against it. Apparently, the World Charter Union had proposed buying up an entire Oship for chartists to use to colonize a new world. It had chosen a production number that would be completed in about twenty years, giving them time to enlist passengers and accumulate the quarter-million-acre price tag. Veronica seemed opposed not to the acquisition of an Oship, but to its destination.
“Why embark on a dubious voyage to another solar system,” she was saying, “when we have a perfectly good one here? One which the powers-that-be seem determined to keep us from exploiting. Why are there no space charters among us? Who gave the corporations an exclusive right to the resources of our solar system? Furthermore, if we do decide to colonize a new world, must we renounce our rights to this one? This ‘one for a thousand’ offer by the Garden Earth Project is a cunning fraud—”
Fred? Gilles said.
Go ahead.
You might want to check out something in the Hall of Nations.
What is it?
A stinker there is holding court in a traffic lane.
A stinker?
A seared individual.
I know what a stinker is, Gilles, Fred said. What is this stinker’s name?
Kodiak.
That was a relief of sorts—not the stinker he thought it would be. On my way.
BOGDAN GOT DETOURED by a concession wall. He had missed dinner, and the concession walls at Rondy were free of charge. All the burgers, fry, cinnaballs, and pizza tubes you can eat. Pot stickers, noodles, rice curry, whatever you like. Give me a triple mondo choco-fudgy with extra nuts and whipped cream.
Bogdan spotted an unoccupied quiet nook across the busy corridor and carried his towering frozen concoction over to it. Once he passed through the pressure curtain, the din of the hall fell to a murmur, and he dropped into an armchair. For long moments he spooned up sweet bliss and watched as silent crowds went by. Then he noticed a Doorprizer frame next to the pressure curtain that was displaying the ongoing drawings. Every three minutes another prize was given away. An aff’s ransom in household necessities. A garbage digester appeared in the frame, and three minutes later the name of the winning charter—not Kodiak.