on the council and some of our more important constituents are starting to wonder if perhaps a new FLEB director would be able to handle things more efficiently.'
'I understand their concern,' Clinton said without hesitation. 'And I understand how it may seem that we in the bureau are not doing our jobs. To tell you the truth, I never imagined that it would take this long to make Laura Whiting go away but she has proven to be very crafty to this point. Obviously this little independence game is something that she has been planning for years. And her manipulation of the Martian people, well that is quite simply an ability that we had not factored into our equations. What we have on Mars right now is the unsavory reality that the elected representatives of the planet are actually ignoring those who have sponsored them and instead are responding to the demands of the common people.'
'That is unacceptable,' Calvato said, speaking for the first time. 'Having the ignorant greenies making the decisions on that planet is putting at risk trillions of dollars in investments.'
'We understand that, sir,' Clinton said. 'And believe me when I say that we are working as hard as we can to reverse this before it gets any further. As I said, the problem is that Whiting has managed to anticipate and neutralize all of our traditional means of removing a troublesome politician.' He then went on to explain everything that had been attempted so far: the criminal investigations of bribery, the media smear campaign, even the assassination plot, and how they had all failed. Williams and Calvato did not seem terribly impressed with his explanations.
'All that we've heard here are excuses,' Williams told him. 'What we need is action, and quickly. The problem has now spread beyond Laura Whiting. The greenies themselves are on the verge of getting out of control. We have reports that they are distributing fliers on apartment doors about independence, that they are spray- painting epitaphs on corporate buildings. How long will it be until they start rioting in the streets? How long will it be before they start doing more damage to corporate property than mere graffiti? I can even foresee them trying to arrange some sort of general strike or something like that. I don't have to tell you what that could do to the profits of the various WestHem interests on that planet.'
'No Ma'am, you don't,' he said humbly.
'You need to start cracking down on those greenies,' Williams said. 'I expect you to continue working on the Whiting problem, which is the root of the matter after all, but these greenies need to have the fear of God put in them, they need to be shown that following and responding to such an obvious madwoman is not in their best interests.'
'Crack down on the greenies, Ma'am?' he asked slowly, knowing instinctively that this was a very bad idea and also knowing that neither Williams nor anyone else on the council had been the one to come up with it. No, cracking down sounded like the sort of thing that corporate heads such as Steve Carlson of Agricorp would come up with. To a man used to operating a huge business and corrupting politicians, this would seem the logical course to follow when people were not doing as they were told. After all, it worked with middle management and blue-collar workers didn't it? It worked with politicians (except for Laura Whiting and the Martian planetary legislature) didn't it? Why wouldn't it work with common people? With vermin? And if the idea had come from the corporate heads, the executive council would not be swayed from this course. Being swayed from a direct order by Carlson or his companions would mean that they risked be cracked down upon.
'You heard me correctly,' Williams told him. 'We want your agents on Mars to let those greenies know, in no uncertain terms, that these acts of defiance against our business interests will not be tolerated. We want them thrown in jail and held there!'
'We've tried that,' Clinton said. 'The problem is that graffiti and so forth are crimes against the planet, not the federal government. This puts them under the jurisdiction of the planetary criminal justice system: the local police and the local judges. These people are all greenies. And while we'd always considered the judges and lawyers and police chiefs to be... well... reliable, it seems that we were wrong about that. They are simply not taking action against these crimes. I have even received reports that police officers have caught the perpetrators red-handed and just let them go. We are having the same problems with assaults against the managers and officers of the corporations.'
'If they're not federal crimes than you
'These are extreme times,' Calvato said. 'And extreme measures are called for.'
'Yes sir, yes Ma'am,' Clinton replied, not showing the dread he was feeling at these orders.
'We expect this to be done immediately,' Williams said. 'And remember, the removal of Laura Whiting is still the highest of your priorities. Get rid of her by whatever means is necessary. Whatever means! If you do not, we'll be getting rid of you.'
'Yes Ma'am,' he said.
The meeting went on for a while longer — closing pleasantries were required by protocol after all — but that was really what had needed to be said. Soon Clinton was escorted from the building and back out to his VTOL on the lawn.
'Enjoy your flight, sir,' the secret service agent that had been his escort told him as he climbed into the cockpit of the aircraft.
'Right,' he said sourly, closing the canopy and settling into his seat. He strapped in and then put his finger to the computer screen below the windshield.
The computer analyzed his fingerprint and, after concluding that he was an authorized user of the craft, lit up with the opening display. 'Good afternoon, Director Clinton,' it told him politely. 'Awaiting command.'
'Flight mode,' he told it. 'Destination: FLEB building, Denver.'
'Warm up sequence beginning,' it replied, the hydrogen turbine engines mounted on the wings immediately flaring to life with a hum. The propellers, which were currently in the take-off/landing position, facing upward, began to turn. Clinton felt cool air from the ventilation system blowing on his face.
He sat back in his seat and tried to relax while the computer sent the aircraft through a pre-flight systems and hardware check and obtained authorization for take-off from the Secret Service air traffic computer system. The authorization was given after only a two-minute wait and the engines wound up to high RPMs for take-off. The aircraft lifted into the sky a moment later, rising slowly to an altitude of one thousand meters above the ground before the engines tilted forward, changing the angle of the propellers and imparting forward flight. Guided by detailed mapping software and an extensive system of global positioning satellites, it darted and banked over the downtown Denver area, automatically avoiding other such aircraft and finally settling down to a soft landing on the roof of the FLEB building five minutes later.
Clinton climbed out and made his way to a secured, private elevator. Two minutes later he was back in his office, loosening his tie and staring at his computer screen. He had one of his staff bring him a stiff bourbon and coke and then called up his communications software.
'This will be a priority message for Corban Hayes, director of Martian field operations.'
'Record when ready,' the machine told him.
He began to talk, laying out a set of instructions for his underling that were very much against his better judgment.
Two days later, in Eden, Lisa and Brian were working a patrol shift in the downtown area. Their call volume had been much lower over the past month than they were accustomed to and those calls that they did go to seemed to be less violent and less sordid. Once there they had found themselves being subjected to an increasingly dwindling amount of physical and verbal abuse by the welfare class citizens that they dealt with. Though both were hardened, cynical veterans of patrol services, they could think of no other explanation for the drop in crime and abuse than Laura Whiting and her speeches. It seemed that the vermin were taking her words to heart.
'It's eerie in a way,' Lisa said as they drove slowly down the daylight streets of the ghetto section of downtown. 'Nobody's flipping us off, nobody's grabbing their crotch, nobody's throwing empty Fruity bottles at us. What's the planet come to?'
'They don't love us anymore,' Brian said, watching the throngs of vermin that were hanging out on every planter box, in front of every public housing building. They were all doing the usual vermin things — drinking Fruity, smoking from marijuana pipes, watching porno shows on their PCs — but most of them were completely ignoring
