Urgent Messages, Unrest in Utopia…
Megal had been making notes from the maps estimating where some of the ore deposits were because it had been over 400 years since the GC survey had been completed. They had already seen how many more islands had been built by the volcanoes near Port. Blackie and Julie found a string of islands between Utopia and the third land mass. There was some indication that fresh water might be found there.
“That was one of the most serious problems for us on the long trip,” Julie said. “We found some islands but rarely were there steams where we could refill the barrels. We had some distillation kits, but the solar units take a lot of time.”
“Do you see any bays or inlets that would be good for a first landing?” Megal asked. “Has anyone got a better name for this new land mass? One of the renegades said that Third Land Mass was just dumb, and I think he was right.”
“Could just call it New Start,” Tony suggested.
“I think it should be one word,” Megal said. “Maybe when it finally gets settled, they have a vote.”
“Are you and Sarita coming?” Julie asked.
“I wish we could, Julie, but my father is not well and wants me to take over some of his duties.”
“Your reputation has spread here in Utopia, Megal. It is something to remember. Leadership is a gift some say,” Tony said. “It was what helped get Refugio organized when your grandfather took over. People still hold Philipe Morales up as an example of what a leader should be.” Megal was embarrassed by the praise and worried also. This was not a role he had asked for or, in his view, been trained to hold. Sarita had encouraged him and pointed out the training Abuelo Bethal had given him. Perhaps leading a country might be just an expansion of leading a hacienda, but time would tell.
***
The message from his stepmother arrived in a packet of documents from Serept to Tony as the official representative of Refugio. Megal was surprised but Sarita scolded him.
“If Sera Marta can read, she can write, Megal.”
“Well, of course, but you just don’t expect it,” he said. The message was short. His father was weak, and she wanted Megal and Sarita to come home as soon as possible. His father also wanted the baby to be born at the Residency, not in Utopia. Francos needed support.
“I wonder how much longer the Dream will be in dry dock?” Megal said. Blackie had just heard from Master O’Malley that they had pulled the ship up on shore to re-calk the hull. That was going to take a while.
“My ship is repaired and ready to sail if you don’t mind a bit slower trip,” Blackie said.
“How soon can you have it at Trade City?”
“Julie and I were planning on taking the air car to Southmost in the next couple of days. We have a meeting with several families about getting supplies and workers for the new settlement. As soon as those negotiations are over, we’ll leave. I expect we can be back to Trade City in three or four days.”
“Sera Marta wants us back in Refugio soon. My father is not healing as well as we hoped.”
“That is not good news, my friend, we’ll do our best. Julie and Sarita can test to see if they can distance message so we’ll try to let you know when we will be back.” Blackie left to try and move some of his meeting dates.
***
The news that Megal was planning to leave Utopia spread quickly. The front desk at the hostel was flooded with messages wanting to talk with him. Even the prince requested a meeting before he left. Because it was one of the first he received, Megal contacted Naomi and was invited to come to the directly to office. She said the prince was between meetings and could see him. Megal expected it would be about the trade agreement and readied himself for that subject. He was surprised when Sean asked him if he had ever considered moving to Utopia.
“Moving to Utopia, permanently?”
“Yes, your wife is a citizen, and your child could be a citizen of both countries.”
“No, aside from voting on representatives for the government, I don’t see how being a citizen of both countries would be a benefit.” Megal said. “I appreciate the suggestion, but my father is ill, and I am needed to assist him with governance of Refugio.”
“I know how that is hard for someone who has survived the viper poison,” Sean said. “We lost many to the snakes when we first came. Surviving it sometimes is not worth the condition you are in when you are over the first effects.” Megal was startled by the comment.
“Do you discourage saving them?”
“Sometimes it is better to let the poison do its worst.”
“That is harsh, your highness.”
“Our society cannot support the disabled and it diverts the healers from caring for others,” Sean seemed a bit embarrassed by what he was saying. “Many of those who are bitten actually refuse the care from the healers. It is exhausting for them to save someone.”
“My wife and I have made arrangements with Captain Okapie to sail in his repaired coastal ship. We are needed. My father wishes our child to be born in the Residency as I was,” Megal said. “The child will be next in line to rule. We have embraced the tradition we had on Terra that a female can be the head of the country if it is a girl child.”
“Overlord implies male, will you change the term?”
“We may drop it for simply director as was used for the corporation.”
“Many things are changing. Uncertainty is disturbing and unsettling. I think we go too fast, but once we began, there does not seem to be any way to slow down.”
“Change is necessary. Without growth and change, living things do not prosper. If we want our settlements to survive, Lord Johnson, we must change.” Megal rose and bowing to the prince left. He was angry and this conversation only added to his distrust of the prince.
***
“I cannot allow him to be where I don’t know what he is doing, Tyrone. He is too popular with his age group. My spy has reported the hostel has been flooded with messages for him. Unfortunately, he has been unable to get to read any of them.”
“Sean, my friend, you are letting this interfere with your good sense. You would read someone else’s messages? As you said when you helped overthrow Desmond, he was not elected to be a tyrant. He was an elected representative of his people and so are you,” Tyrone said a bit louder than necessary.
“This is not what I wanted when I agreed to take this job. I want security and stability for the settlement. Now, we are talking of overthrowing the whole system.”
“I heard the young man, Sean. He is correct. If there is no change, no growth, you stagnate and die.”
***
Megal and Sarita had sorted the messages they received into piles. Messages about trade items were in one small pile. Messages asking for a place in the new settlement went in a much larger one, and messages commenting on what he had said at the Assembly meeting went in a third pile. Sarita planned to pass the ones about the new settlement to Julie since they were already planning on how the new settlement would be built. The ones on trade, Megal decided to pass on to Tony as the representative for Refugio and unofficially, for Port. The third pile was the most troubling.
“Should I answer any of these?” Megal asked Sarita. “This one must have been sent before yesterday. I did visit with the prince, and I still do not understand why he offered citizenship in Utopia.” Some of the messages were supporting what had been done for the renegades, while others denounced the very idea these dissenters were not again condemned for not abiding by the rules of society. Sarita decided what should be done with those and, in spite of the summer heat, stacked them in the fire pit in the patio area, then set them on fire.
“That is all they are worth, Megal. Should anyone ask, we read them, considered them, and dealt with them.” Megal could tell she was very annoyed. “Papa Kearney would be ashamed, especially at the spelling and grammar.” Megal tried to keep from laughing because it was a serious subject, but her smug expression was too much.
“I love you, mi armor,” Megal said. “You are correct. Most of these people have no idea what those poor people had to suffer. Some of the suggestions I will share with my father, but others raise questions as to how the governance of the whole planet needs to be decided. It is something I had not considered, but these trade agreements are a good start.
“Ser Roblies taught us that for a colony to be successful, it needs to have at least 10,000 people when it is established. It was researched in the twentieth century and history has shown it’s true.”
“We’d need all three groups to get even close to that number,” Sarita said. “I wonder if Utopia had that many when they left Terra. That might be in the papers we are sorting somewhere.”
“The roster for the GC transport would have it, if they saved it.” Megal said. “Your Papa Kearney might be able to find it.”
***
One of the staff of the hostel stepped out the door and then called to someone in the lobby. A sandy-haired man wearing an embroidered tabard over his coveralls brushed past him, thanked him, and walked over to the shaded area where Megal and Sarita were sitting. He was followed by another man wearing a darker tabard. Sarita rose to greet him.
“Lord Donnell, how nice to see you. It has been a long time since Maureen had her woman’s day party,” Sarita had been friends with one of the daughters of the chief adjudicator and had stayed at their home when she was visiting Amaurot. “Please, this is my husband, Megal Morales. I don’t know if you were introduced after the Assembly meeting.” Megal rose to meet this official of the Utopia government.
“We were not, and it is him I need to talk with. If you do not mind, Lord Morales, I have asked a buffer to be here. I do not want anyone eavesdropping on what I am suggesting. Good to see you but it is necessary, Sarita.”
“My Lord, my wife and I are anamcara to use a phrase of Utopia. Whatever you have to say to me will be discussed with her before I make any decision,” Megal was angered that the jurist would suggest Sarita not be included. “Also, we do not use the honorifics of royalty in Refugio even though the common speech calls us regals. We use Ser and Sera as we prefer earned respect. I have no problem with the use of a buffer. My wife has warned me of the keen hearing ability of the Pins.” Sarita noticed Lord Donnell winced at the nickname and knew Megal had used it deliberately. She drew a chair up for their visitor and offered him a cup of the fruit juice they had been served.
“As you wish, Ser Morales.” He then explained that the failure to rid the colony of dissenters by sending them out to the jungle had been a shock. Some of the leaders in the Assembly were considering reinstating capital punishment as an alternative.
“I personally was appalled, but the new settlement will be one place to banish them. Unfortunately, it will be several years until it is settled enough to do that. What I have in mind is allowing them to emigrate to Refugio. Could that be done?”
“Lord Donnell, that would be a decision I would need to discuss with my father. While I am considered his successor, he is still capable and in charge of Refugio,” Megal said. “It is something that could be considered, however, it would depend on why the individuals were being banished.”
“Of course, it would not be a violent criminal,” Lord Donnell said. “Captain Murphy had suggested, and the prince has agreed that the island where you left the uncooperative renegades might serve us better for them. Just driving criminals out into the jungle is not a permanent option and we need one. Those who first set up that punishment did not consider that we might need that land in the north.”
“It seems they did not consider the desire to survive or the skills of the dissenters when they set up that system,” Sarita said. “The fact that other family members joined them may not have been considered either.”
“True, Sarita, or should I say Sera Morales?”
“We are old friends, Lord Donnell. I will not be offended. It seems there have been serious problems here in Utopia that even those of us who grew up here did not realize. Were the Assembly and the Philarchs aware of some of these issues?”
“It has gotten worse these last few years. We all knew how disruptive the switching of farms had become, but the tradition of following the Charter made most of us reluctant to object. This migration I am suggesting is to take some of the pressure off until we can facilitate changes. Lord Johnson is a good man, but he took the position of prince to stabilize and protect what he saw as the perfect society. Your father and the other scholars have shown us how wrong we were. This experiment has failed.”
Megal assured the jurist that he would discuss the possibility of having some dissenters migrate to Refugio. He said many might welcome newcomers but there might be a problem finding them places to work.
“We have support for those who cannot work, but it is expected that everyone has both a place to live and a way to earn credits for food and clothing,” Megal said. “We organize ourselves around our birth family much as you do here, but we have fewer industries.”
“It will be a place to start. Please, discuss this with your father and I will discuss it again with the prince,” Lord Donnell said. “Change can be disruptive or a sign of growth. We need to assure that our changes don’t totally disrupt all our societies.”
***
“Just this morning at first meal, Julie and I were talking about the need for gene mixing and here comes Uncle Don with a solution,” Sarita said after the jurist left. “I wonder what most of the dissenters are being charged with. The only ones I remember were people who would not work or refused an order from their lord.”
“I asked some of the renegades from the camp about that and it was as you said. They were asked to move and learn a new skill but wanted to stay at one farm because they liked doing that skill.”
“There are some, like the former princess who wanted to have nicer clothes and fancy jewelry,” Sarita said. “Papa Kearney said he saw many people with fancy tabards who were not officials. Only the officials are supposed to have them to show what office they hold. There are quite a few who get some pod silk and line their coveralls with it. I don’t blame them a bit. Some years, the fabric is more hemp than linen. That is not comfortable.”
“That would take a lot of credits to line a coverall with pod silk,” Megal was shocked. “I have helped spin the thread and it takes a lot of time and effort to make that cloth.”
“You spin?” Sarita was surprised.
“Of course, everyone learns how because it takes so much thread to weave enough fabric for what we need. We may not need as much since the women are wearing coveralls rather than the long robes.”
“I should ask if anyone here has some fiber and a spindle. I am getting out of practice, and it is soothing to do it while we talk,” Sarita said. Megal agreed and she went off to see if she could find some supplies. They were quickly located, and their hands were soon busy spinning linen fibers into thread as they sat.
“We need to get some of those wooden spindles to take back to Port,” Blackie and Julie joined them. They were damp from taking a swim in the Anider. “It is really odd. The people here swim in worn-out coverall. We got some shocked looks from some because we were in our underclothes,” Julie said.
“At least we did that rather than swim nude like we do at home,” Blackie laughed. “Those poor people from Port who dove into that water after dinner on the expedition really got a shock.” Megal explained to the women how the water had looked so clear, and it was a warm day, but the water that far north was still bitterly cold even in the summer.
“I have never understood why it is the custom to swim in a worn-out suit rather than underclothes or even nothing at all. We all share showers on the farms. The argument is that showering together teaches the men self-control, but swimming is an activity among families,” Sarita said. “No one seems to learn how to swim very well with all those clothes on. Drowning is a problem in some of the locations.”
“I guess because we are on a collection of islands, we start teaching the littles how to swim before they can walk,” Julie said. “It just is easier than having someone worried about where they wander once they are walking.”
“We do swim some,” Megal said. “The rivers are cold, not as bad as the sea was when we stopped, but cold enough. It is considered something boys need to learn and I suspect we’ll add the girls now that the conditions are changing. I have read that back on Terra, they have pools of water in buildings for people to learn to swim. It is something to think about for places where the water is frozen part of the year.”
“Another thing to plan for someday,” Blackie said. Sarita handed Julie the stack of messages from people who wanted to move to the third land mass. They began reading them and Julie suggested they sort them somehow.
“It would have been nice if all of them had said what they were skilled at,” Blackie grumbled. “Most of these just tell me they are ready to travel. We need people who are ready to work.”
“From what you have said, the first things will be clearing the land, but what will come next?” Sarita said. Megal explained to her how they had worked the land on his grandfather’s hacienda. Julie and Blackie agreed. Shelter and clearing would be the first steps.
“The settlers will need to have food shipments for at least a year,” Megal said. “We need to have some planning on what will be done. I wonder if there is a plan here in Utopia when a new farm is built?”
“As I understand it,” Sarita said. “Each family plans for when they split off a new family line. The Kearney family has never had enough people to do that, and I am surprised that we have as many farm as we do with the low birthrate.”
“Who delegates where they go?” Megal asked.
“It is just move up one number,” Sarita said. “I have no idea why it was set up that way, but it was. One of the elders might know.”
“I have a meeting with Lady Rourke to get supplies for the trip back to Port. She might,” Blackie said. He and Julie took the messages and went to get ready for last meal. The evening sun lit up the buildings with a warm light. It was hot but a breeze usually cooled the evenings. Sarita and Megal gathered their messages and returned the tray of cups and the empty pitcher to the dining room as they to readied for last meal.
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