New Title 1 by Steven Lyle Jordan Read Free Book Online Page B

Thompson, and his expression lightened slightly, as if he was glad the real subject of the meeting was now out in the open. Aaron, already chastened by being interrupted, did not reply. Reya simply glanced expectantly at Calvin, and that was all the indication he needed that the ball was in his court.
    “Mister Thompson, you know the data as well as we do,” Calvin started. “Your ISs and ours have all come to the identical conclusions: Verdant, Tranquil, Fertile and Qing, being limited biospaces, and designed as independently unsustainable as it is, are already over designed occupational capacity. They are drawing more resources than they are designed to handle, and producing more waste than they are designed to reprocess, due to the overpopulation that already exists.”
    “Drawing those resources from us, I might add,” Thompson stated. “And we are accepting those waste products.”
    “Which you shouldn’t have to,” Calvin pointed out. “We should be able to reprocess and recycle our own waste products… it’s more efficient than shipping it down, and shipping more resources back. Yes, our present overpopulation means we are using more than
our
share of
your
resources, and sending you more trash besides. For all of us, it’s generating a net loss. And if we allow more people up here, it will only make things less efficient up here, which will mean more trash and less resources for you.”
    “The satellites are running in an ideal biospace situation,” Lambert pointed out. “Your use of materials and generation of waste are engineered according to that spec. But things are changing rapidly, Doctor. We can no longer afford the luxury of ideal living situations.”
    “There’s nothing ‘luxurious’ or ‘ideal’ about our living conditions,” Reya pointed out quickly, but before she could elaborate, Calvin went on.
    “Can we afford shutting down the satellites? Because they are simply not able to be retrofitted to be cattle cars.”
    “Who’s talking about cattle cars?” Thompson snapped. “We’re talking about maybe a five percent increase in immigration levels… probably just during the crisis.”
    “That would mean almost tripling our resident population within a year,” Aaron retorted quickly. If nothing else, Calvin thought, Aaron knows his numbers. “We couldn’t operate like that at all.”
    “Maybe not ideally,” Thompson admitted. “But under emergency conditions, we believe you can do it.”
    “Do you?” Julian cocked an eyebrow. “And how many satellites do
you
run, Mister Thompson?”
    “The United States provided the lion’s share of the funds to
build
Verdant and Tranquil,” Lambert stated.
    “Under U.N. guidance and supervision,” Julian countered. “It was
not
a U.S. project.”
    “We know something about how these satellites are put together,” Lambert insisted lightly, and inclined his head to Harley. Harley, in turn, held out a memory chip. “This is an emergency protocol outline that would allow Verdant to operate with as much as five times the current population.”
    Reya allowed a rude noise to escape her lips, and looked at Harley’s chip with clear disdain. Aaron simply said, “Preposterous.” Julian and Lambert regarded each other stonily for a moment, and Calvin finally took the opportunity to accept the chip that Harley held out. Reya actually threw a mean glance at him, as if even accepting the chip somehow indicated their acceptance of its implication, or their willingness to discuss anything on it. But Calvin knew the only way to refute the evidence, was to look at it in the first place.
    “We’ve taken the liberty of forwarding this to Geneva,” Thompson said.
    Reya’s eyes snapped back to Thompson, and were now noticeably cold. She was managing to live up to the embodiment of the “fiery Latin temperament,” and Calvin idly considered whether there might be some
good-cop-bad-cop
staging at work here. Julian, clearly the good cop in this