This screening was being held for their very special guest; seated in the center of the auditorium was Edgar Paulsen, the representative from the CoDominium Information Council. Paulsen was a pensive, ferret-faced bureaucrat who frowned a lot without ever telling anyone what was bothering him. Most people who dealt with him considered Paulsen an easily distracted, even absent-minded man, which was a very grave mistake. In fact, he was certifiably brilliant, and if his moods and expressions changed rapidly, it was because he routinely summoned up complex problems he needed to deal with, brooded a moment, solved the problem in his head and moved on to the next one.
Paulsen was here today to review the latest effort from the public relations department of BuReloc. Flanking him were Brian Callan, the junior BuReloc executive who had commissioned the ad spot, and Scott Saintz, senior partner of the Saintz-Raddison agency, which had produced it.
Neither man took the ad too seriously; BuReloc was not a public enterprise. As a CoDominium entity, its powers exceeded the constitutional authority of any nation where it operated, and it operated everywhere. Still, public resistance to BuReloc "excesses" was on the rise, and something needed to be done.
The result was the thirty-second hobo-spot being premiered today in its final form. The project had been arduous, since Paulsen's office had insisted on location shooting and complete physical accuracy. Over the past year, Saintz-Raddison's people had worked closely with BuReloc execs, traveling throughout the CoDominium for locations, and the two offices had developed good working relations. Today's screening was as much a wrap party for them as it was a presentation for Paulsen, and they were all looking forward to the celebration that would follow.
Paulsen blinked slowly and nodded to Callan, a signal that he was ready for the film to begin.
Before them, the screen shifted spectra from neutral blue to a star-field dappled black, onto which came the bulk of a sleek CoDominium cruiser. The narration began just as the main thrusters of the CoDo ship came into view, and the camera angle swiveled around the gleaming ship.
"The new frontier."
Callan leaned over and whispered to Paulsen: "The narrating voice is performed by a computer-generated combination of three actors of the late nineteen-nineties; each voice was chosen for its qualities of recognition, sincerity and strength."
Paulsen nodded slightly and answered, as if speaking to himself: "It's like listening to the cloned child of Mister Rogers, James Bond and Darth Vader." Without knowing it, he was two-thirds correct.
"This is the challenge that awaits humanity here, today, at the dawn of this new age," the inhuman voice assured its audience. The sincerity aspect was important for the public, but it was wasted on the BuReloc and Saintz-Raddison people; they knew what was being sold here.
"Centuries of strife have ended, to bring us to this golden era of peace on earth."
"Hasn't seen the tapes of the food riots in Tokyo this morning, has he?" another dark figure in the darker room asked. His companion chuckled.
On the screen, the camera's point of view had pierced the hull of the cruiser, and how moved down spacious corridors where people in coveralls moved purposely about undefined tasks, passing one another on opposite sides with crisp waves and cheerfully determined smiles.
A BuReloc woman in the audience snorted. "If this was shot on a CoDo ship, they used dwarfs for actors."
"It was." The Saintz-Raddison woman beside her finished lighting two ganjarettes and handed her one. "And they did." Their laughter sparkled, their smiles in the darkness reflecting tiny red pinpoints of light from the smoldering tips held carelessly before them.
"And these are the people who will shape this golden era, the people who will make this age-old dream a reality."
"If they can ever learn to wake up without screaming," a Saintz-Raddison man said, and the viewing room erupted into laughter.
Drowned out by the mirth, the narration continued: "These are the men and women of the new frontier, whose bold spirit of adventure and dedication to the future will literally win worlds for them and their children."
The camera's point of view had moved onto the cruiser's bridge now, and looked out a viewscreen that would make the one on which it was projected look like a postage stamp, had it ever existed. But it was pure fiction; the bridges of CoDominium cruisers were not built for the view. In the mythical viewscreen, a blue-green sphere loomed, graphic enhancements (and probably subliminal encoding) making it a hundred times more appealing than any tiresomely familiar snapshots of the blue-white old maid that was Earth.
"For this frontier is a place where all the old freedoms are alive and well." The voice paused, which was a mistake.
"Freedom to bleed, freedom to starve, freedom to die in childbirth, freedom to sell your daughters for scotch." The BuReloc woman was giggling as she counted off the points on perfectly manicured nails. Eventually she lost her composure, and her friend hugged her to stifle gales of laughter.
The camera pulled back to show a farmwork-hardened colonist straighten up over his hoe to stretch luxuriantly, and regard with pride the open fields, evidently his, that stretched on for miles.
"And where a man can have all the land he will ever need."
The entire audience, pushed to the brink by the past few minutes' comments, erupted into guffaws and howls of amusement.
"Yeah, a six-foot plot!" Callan couldn't help himself; the film was a huge success, and the party had apparently started early.
The camera panned up, into a starlit, indigo sky, and the Great Seal of the CoDominium faded into view, with the narrator's tag line:
"The CoDominium's Bureaus of Colonization. Renewing the dreams of our forefathers, every day."
The lights came up as the laughter died down, the audience composing itself as its constituent members tapped out notes on datapads, chuckling to the person next to them.
"Oh, boy, that's great stuff." Callan pushed his glasses up on his nose as he entered figures for minimum police strengths required for the next days' round-up in London's Trafalgar Square. A rally to protest Britain's acceptance of Bureau of Relocation aid in various social programs would allow a vast number of English-speaking colonists to be gathered and send a clear signal to the rest of the United Kingdom. The police would be CoDo, of course; had to keep it non-partisan. And best to draw them from the Russian half. It would do everybody good 'to remind the world that the old bear still had teeth.
He looked across Paulsen to see Scott Saintz wearing a pained smile as he listened to Paulsen.
"But, Mr. Paulsen," Saintz was explaining, "you must understand; our people spent a long time on those CoDo ships and colonies. They're just blowing off steam."
Paulsen was shaking his head. "I still don't see what's so funny."
Saintz's gaze flickered to Callan in a clear plea for help.
"Is there a problem, Mr. Paulsen?" Callan asked neutrally; he liked Saintz, but surviving unexpected disapproval by superiors was the hallmark of the successful bureaucrat.
Paulsen shook his head again. "There's nothing wrong with the film; it's an excellent piece of work. I'm just puzzled by the reaction of Mr. Saintz's people. And yours too, for that matter, Mr. Callan."
Callan had to choke back a laugh of his own. "Ah, yes. Well, Mr. Paulsen, in any public relations venture, a certain amount of embellishment is always necessary, to-"
Paulsen cut him off. "Embellishment?"
Callan's mouth was open; he shut it with an audible pop. What was Paulsen saying? That he believed conditions on all CoDo ships were like that? That all CoDo colonies were like that? Had Paulsen somehow missed the open secret-that those ships were, in fact, claustrophobic steel coffins bulk-freighting human refuse to backwater wastelands, pausing only long enough to jettison their miserable cargo, leaving them to scrabble for survival or die, and heading back to pick up another load of forced deportees?