Every Man's Fantasy Ch. 12

Knowing the science herself, with Roger giving her the historical background and the holograms (dressed in ancient fashion and adopting inaccurate 'country' accents) providing the social context, Danielle felt by the end that she'd been truly immersed in Newton's life. It was a relief to walk out into the fresh air of the garden and to sit at a bench near the fabled apple tree (or its great-great-granddaughter).

Gladys brought out a tray of tea and cakes with elegant china and napkins decorated with pink flowers. She sat down next to Danielle. A woman who craved company, Gladys made the most of her few acceptable visitors.

"Well, what do you think of my gentleman?"

It took them a few seconds to realise she meant Isaac Newton.

"He's an inspiration to us all, the nonpareil of geniuses."

Danielle thought Roger was laying it on a bit thick but she smiled her agreement with his judgment.

"He is, isn't he?" Gladys gushed, "Though he was not in every respect an admirable character - all those priority disputes and the like, and he never married - yet no one touches him for brilliance, not even now."

"Indeed," Roger agreed. "Danielle, here, has the privilege of teaching physics at Trinity college. ... Ouch!"

His exclamation was because Danielle pressed her heel into his instep.

"Oh," Gladys said, "so you understand all that mathematical stuff?"

"Yes."

"But you are such an elegant young lady!"

"Ahem!"

"I mean, you don't seem like a mathematician, not cold or intellectual at all ..."

Danielle could only stare as the fluffy old dear rattled on. Not all she said was nonsense, however.

"I always think Sir Isaac's failing was because he wasn't much of a people person," she said. "All that physics. It's just things. And the people who come and study him. Historians. All just dead things."

"Ah yes. Roger, here, is an expert on the Commonwealth and Restoration periods."

Danielle smiled her 'I got you back' smile but Gladys's own smile unexpectedly widened. She beamed benevolently at the pair.

"Ah, then you're perfect for each other... I just so adore when a courting couple comes to visit."

Clearly her mind had been addled by reading too many romantic novels but Danielle was amused. She tried to use the mad woman to tease Roger.

"What gave us away?"

"Well, you sit so close together; and he held all the doors open for you."

"Roger is neurotically polite and he's got no sense of personal space."

"Also, the way you look at each other," Gladys pursued her idea as if Danielle hadn't spoken, "it's so romantic, so human. I go on and on, I'm afraid. You'll have to stop me, but I think there's too little romance in the world, too little genuine feeling."

"I was saying exactly that to Roger on the way here, wasn't I, Darling?"

"Were you, Dear? Sorry, I don't remember you talking much at all."

"Romance is dead, I said to him, Gladys, romance is dead."

"Oh, I hope not, my dear," Gladys gushed, adding in a whisper that Roger couldn't fail to hear. "He seems a fine young man. I'm sure he's just waiting for the right moment to pop the question."

"Gosh! Do you really think so?"

"Well, I wouldn't be surprised," she whispered. "Though young men seem to lack a certain gumption nowadays, I'm sure your young man has more 'go' in him than most."

"Oh yes, he does. He's quite useful, really."

The two women nattered conspiratorially for a while, until another visitor arrived, forcing Gladys to rush off and fuss over him.

When it was certain she wasn't returning, Danielle said:

"She's a CCD short of a telescope but I like her. ... You're very quiet. What are you thinking about?"

"You, of course."

"Liar!"

"All right, Restoration politics."

"Is that the thing you wanted to talk to me about?"

"No, not exactly, but you said you've got something to say as well. Why don't you go first?"

"Ladies first, is it?"

"Indulge me: I'm old-fashioned."

"All right. ... I've been offered a job on Celetaris. It's the chance to join an astrophysics department at a research facility, the Celetaris Institute for Science. Post-grad teaching only, and as much or as little as I want. The rest of the time, I can research. I can bring my own team or recruit when I get there."

"I don't know Celetaris."

"It's about 170 light years from here, on a small planet with a free-port on the border between the Anglosphere region and the Sino-Russian region. They've enjoyed a rapid advance in wealth and technology and now they want to spend their profits on science and culture. Lots of ambitious people are moving there."

Celetaris was a rich community, a former colonial settlement that became a self-governing dominion twenty years previously. With abundant natural resources and on a prominent trade-route, it had prospered well and grown quickly, attracting industrialists and investors. After concentrating too long solely on economic development, however, the chief residents began to miss the comforts and amenities of home. With magnificent civic pride, they set up institutions to promote Earth culture, building a university, art-galleries, libraries and even an opera house.

High wages attracted academics, scientists, artists, musicians and architects. Beautiful plasto-steel and perspex cities were now growing up on the granite escarpments of the planet's rocky surface, replacing the low-rise fabrications that, however homely, were always intended to be temporary.

"Celetaris is wonderfully placed for onward space-travel to quite promising regions of the galaxy," Danielle explained. "There's cutting-edge work to be done on hyperspace pathways. You know, I've gone about as far as I can in my present job. On Celetaris, we could have a good life in a young colony that wants to progress and grow. What do you think?"

"It's an amazing opportunity, Danielle. Congratulations! How come it's just appeared?"

"Well, when my latest project officially ended last week, I thought I'd look around to see what jobs were available. The day after I put my name on the agency's books, I got contacted. Recruiters work quickly - everything for Celetaris is being done at double-speed - and they found me this post. I applied and an offer came through yesterday. An old professor of mine, Hendrik Jakovs, is at Celetaris and he recommended me. I haven't given an answer. I wanted to ask your opinion first."

"It's an amazing opportunity," he repeated. "It's just what you want, isn't it?"

"I want us both to go. I'm not going without you."

"But what could I do there?"

"I'm told there are lots of opportunities. You could teach history at the university. Also, because it's a border planet, you could teach at a Russian school. They're big on anything Anglosphere at the moment because our colonies fare so much better than theirs. They want to know our secret."

"When would you go?"

"They want me to start in October but I'd rather go a month early to get acquainted with the place. They're offering accommodation and assistance with the move."

"September? That's only three-and-a-bit months away."

He was silent a minute.

"Well," she asked, "what do you think?"

"I'm not committed to staying here, though my main research is on Earth. I'd like to come with you."

"Are you sure? Don't you want to think some more?"

"I'm sure - but I will think some more about it."

She was sincere in wanting him to ponder it, however much his "yes" pleased her.

"So what do you have to say to me?" she enquired.

"Nothing important. It can wait. It doesn't compare to your news."

"All right. I'll wait."

They sat on the bench, finishing the seed-cake, enjoying the afternoon sun. After a few minutes' silence, Danielle said:

"Darling?"

"Yes, Dear?"

"Do you remember the rule we agreed when we first got together?"

"That Friday night is oral sex night?"

"No, a different rule."

"That you will always order your own dessert and not say you don't want one and then eat half of mine?"

"No, and I never agreed to that."

"Well, then, what rule?" he asked.

"The rule that we wouldn't be like those silly romantic couples who, if one of them has something important to say, he won't say it because he thinks it will upset the other."

"Yes, all right, that rule."

"Well?"

He paused to sort out his ideas.

"I've also been offered a job, but it requires staying on Earth for six-months or maybe a year."

"What's the job?"

"It's a broadcast series based on my book."

"That's brilliant!" She was genuinely pleased for him. "Why didn't you tell me?"

"I only got the offer a few days ago. I was saving it up for today, to surprise you."

"All right, I'm surprised. Tell me all about it."

"You know I gave a talk in Boston last week?"

"Yes, on The Three English Revolutions."

He'd practised the lecture on her but she remembered the title because it was the same as his book.

"Afterward, someone from the Anglosphere Free Market Institute came over to talk with me. He said he was impressed and told me about a program they run whereby academics are introduced to film-makers and journalists to publicise their ideas. He thought my book would make an ideal broadcast series and offered to take up my cause."

"Next day, he and I had a video call with a producer. The producer liked the idea of three videos, one for each revolution, giving its background and results, with lashings of historical detail, going back to before Magna Carta. He even suggested I might like to be the presenter."

"Gosh!" Danielle exclaimed. "I thought broadcast presenters had to be good-looking and charismatic."

"They agreed to make an exception in my case. ... Actually, I've no interest in being the presenter. They should use a celebrity; but they want me to test for it, anyway."

"Oh, Darling. That's wonderful! I'm so proud of you."

"Yes, but it's moot now. We're going to Celetaris."

"Not if you've got a video contract. We're staying here, at least until you've made your film."

"But your job-offer?"

"There'll be others. Every colony needs hyperspace engineers."

"Not all colonies are alike. Celetaris sounds perfect. I want to go there."

"No you don't, Roger. Most days you don't want to leave the university library. Could you live in a society that didn't have thousand-year-old buildings?"

"Of course I could, if I'm there with you."

"Now who's talking romantic nonsense? ... I'm staying here with you."

"No, we're going to Celetaris."

"Why do you get to have your own way and not me?"

"Because I'm the man: I'm in charge."

"Are you now?"

"Well, for the moment, if you'll let me. ... Look, Darling, there's no certainty my series will ever be made, but your opportunity is a real one. I know you think you've gone as far as you can in your present role, and my job will always be the same, whether I make a film or not, so it makes sense we both go to Celetaris."

"No, it makes sense that we compromise."

"How?"

"I go to Celetaris. You stay here to finish the video project ..."

"No!" he interrupted.

"... then you come and join me. That is, if you really want to leave Earth."

"I want us to be together. I don't care where."

"Besides," she added, "if you're worried about getting a position at Celetaris, then an Earth historian who is also the presenter of an acclaimed video series would have an advantage."

"It's not even made yet, still less acclaimed."

"It will be both. ... So tell me about the broadcast series."

"All right. Its main point is the difference between the English revolutions and other revolutions, best illustrated by our American Revolution."

"The third English revolution?"

"That's right. You paid attention."

"Of course I did! You argued that the American Revolution was the third in the series of English revolutions (I forget the dates) ..."

"1642, 1689 and 1776."

"... and not a new kind of revolution, because - something about ancestral rights and replacing tyranny with democracy."

"That's right, contrary to what we're taught, that our American revolution was a progressive revolution, driven by Enlightenment values, with the aim of creating a new kind of society, it was really a conservative revolution, driven by the old English ideals of liberty and individual rights. All the colonists asked for was the same ancient rights as native Britons and it was only when the King pig-headedly refused that they took up arms."

"Since then, however, the American Revolution has been an inspiration to revolutionaries all over the world, and also in the outworld settlements. But while the American revolution was successful and re-established the rights of man, most later revolutions have been disasters and only replaced one tyrant with another, sometimes a worse tyrant. For three centuries, almost every revolution in Europe, Russia, China, Africa and the Caliphate ended in despotism and, sometimes, even social collapse. Not a single one adopted either the English or the American Bill of Rights, for example."

"Why did they all fail?" she asked.

In answering, his voice took on a rhetorical sing-song tone.

"They destroyed the old order and tried to build a new society on new foundations. But the American Revolution was a shining beacon of liberty and individualism, not a cleansing destruction and sanctifying blood-letting. It modified the old system, re-establishing lost rights: it didn't demolish the old system. ... And I found a neat piece of evidence just recently from my home town to support the fact of continuity between England and America."

"Go on." She always encouraged his enthusiasms.

"In Boston, we're proud of a revolutionary called Paul Revere, who rode to Lexington summoning the patriots by warning them 'The British are coming!'"

"I remember the story."

"But it's untrue. Revere was British himself and so were the patriots. He really said 'The Regulars are coming out!' (The Regulars were the army, the Redcoats.)"

"All right, but so what?"

"So what is that I researched when the change was made to public school books. It was in the twentieth century, long after the revolution. This is when we Americans were trying to invent a new history for ourselves that downplayed our attachment to the mother-country."

Danielle was impressed by his passion even when she didn't fully follow his argument.

"So why is the Free Market Institute interested in your book?"

"Because of its contemporary relevance. There's a lot of tension at the moment between some of the out-world settlements and Earth."

Danielle nodded. She knew this from her father, a diplomat in the service of the Anglosphere, who said (with characteristic under-statement) that it was "an interesting time" in galactic politics.

"Dad says the richer Anglosphere colonies want more independence from Earth."

"They do," Roger agreed, "and most of them get it by a gradual process of increasing self-government, evolving from colony to dominion to independent federal polity. Some others don't want such a gradual and peaceful process, however. They're the ones who are at odds with Earth and the older settlements."

"So what's driving it?" she asked.

"Lots of things. Envy and stupidity on both sides, for instance; but the really dangerous problem is from unscrupulous demagogues who gain power by pretending they're freeing an oppressed people from unjust foreign rule. People like Alexander Marazon."

"Who is he?"

"Did you ever hear of a settlement called Marazonia?"

"I think so."

"It's gone back to its original name of New Exeter. It's a settlement about 300 light-years from Earth. A tiny frozen world that was colonised about eighty years ago. But it never lived up to its potential. The problem was that the terraforming costs were so great that the settler company had a huge debt to recover. Then they had the bad luck that a temporary contraction in galactic trade meant products from the mines in its asteroid belt were less valuable than they'd been when the colony was founded."

"The settler company couldn't attract more settlers or investment to support the colony, so it began to decline. It then became attractive to drifters, hucksters, carpet-baggers: all those who feed off other people's bad luck."

"One of these was a demagogue called Alexander Marazon, who claimed to represent the settlers who'd sunk their fortunes into the colony and couldn't now leave. He said the settler company was exploiting them and persuaded the colony to declare independence, electing him as President - a modern-day George Washington, or so he pretended."

"He unilaterally cancelled all the debts and nationalised the settler company's property. For a few years, things seemed to go well. They felt rich, spending all the money they'd otherwise pay in rent. The settler company fought back in the courts, of course, and though it took ten years, finally won the case. It was another few years before the government applied the judgment by imposing sanctions."

"Marazon tried to resist. He renamed the colony 'Marazonia' and ruled it as a tyrant but the colony was isolated and the stolen money ran out, so the economy began to collapse. Marazon tried to give the planet to the Chinese but diplomatic pressure prevented it. Eventually, he fled and, after negotiation, the colony rejoined the Anglosphere. Though even more heavily indebted now than before, trade picked up, new investors were found and the economy began to recover; but it was too late for the settler company, which had debts from another venture that had previously gone awry. Can you guess which one?"

"Samothea, for sure."

"Dead right. The two failures pushed the company into bankruptcy and its assets were bought by Outworld Ventures, for whom your brother has done prospecting work."

"Interesting," she noted. "So how does it fit into your project? Surely the message to other colonies thinking of achieving independence in such a dishonest way is obvious."

"Yes, one would think so; but it all ended fifty years ago and the temptation of cancelling debts by declaring independence is ever-present. The real problem, however, is that it makes colonisation more risky and more expensive; so settler companies are not so adventurous as before."

"I think I saw some proof of that in the difficulty Ezra had getting backers for his latest venture," Danielle volunteered. "So what can be done about it?"

"Not a lot. The Anglosphere government reformed the Planetary Homesteading Law to make it more attractive for settler companies to risk their capital; but government cannot intervene directly in the economy - thank God for that, of course. History shows it's much better to have a free market, even if some big companies fail."

"I've never seen you so passionate about politics," Danielle said. "You definitely have to make the video. You should talk to my Dad."

"Already done so, last week."

"You did? You never said."

"Rather misses the point of a surprise, doesn't it? Anyway, your Dad gave me some useful information and agreed to be interviewed, if the video goes ahead. He has led negotiations with colonies threatening to break away."

Danielle was silent again, thinking.

"If you're definitely coming with me to Celetaris," she said, "then I know exactly what you should do."

"What should I do?"

"Make a sequel to your book looking at how the colonies who unilaterally declared independence have fared. I know this is all recent history but it's still history, isn't it? And we can visit some of them on the way to Celetaris."

"Yes, a fourth film in the series!" He was impressed. "It's an excellent idea. Even a fifth film is possible, based on those colonies that look like they may be planning to break-away. Your Dad gave me some names to watch out for. ... Thanks, Darling. You always have good ideas."