Visions of Liberty

Anyhow, Christine Pesh proposed—and got her proposal out while the communication system was still working pretty well—that government be phased out. She argued that those Kiwis who remained would have enough to do keeping mutton and fish on the table without supporting deadbeat politicians. I don’t know how she managed it— remember, son, I was younger than you are now when this happened—but she got her measure passed.”

Faelin was California born and bred. He’d heard of wilder schemes, but he knew how governments worked.

“Seems like someone would have appealed,” he said.

“There were those who tried,” Kidd agreed, “but Pesh and her cronies told ’em there was no government anymore to listen to their appeal. Meantime, while these pro-government factions blustered and debated—’cause they couldn’t even agree among themselves which way things should be run, if they got government started again—the petroleum virus kept chewing away at stuff. Telephone failed. Computers flashed nonsense and died—lord how I cried when I couldn’t get my games to run! Cars and trucks—all of which needed petroleum to go and even if they hadn’t were so full of plastic parts that they crumpled up…”

“Just like here,” Faelin interrupted, knowing he was being rude, but eager to hear the real story.

“That’s right,” Kidd said, thin lips shaping the half smile of an old man who realizes that the great events of his life are dull fodder to the eager young. “And so Pesh got her way. There were some riots, but most of those who disagreed simply got on ships and left. Most, I hear, got only as far as Australia, where they found more government than anyone could want—but that’s another tale.

“You’re wanting to hear about New Zealand, or Aotearoa as they renamed it, saying that since the nation was certainly new but had nothing to do with Zeeland—some Dutch place, I recall—they might as well go back to the old Maori name for the land. Prettier, too, means something like Land of the Long White Cloud.”

Faelin nodded encouragingly. The boss didn’t care if he chatted up the customers during these slow hours, not so long as he worked while he did so and the customers kept drinking.

“There were a couple of townships,” Kidd went on, “Christ Church was one, I recall, that experimented with government. Problem was, it’s hard to run a government when nobody except you is playing by the rules, sorta like playing soccer when three-quarters of the players insist on picking the ball up with their hands. None of those enclaves lasted more than about twenty years.

“My folks had decided to stay on in Aotearoa. They ran an inn out at Thames, augmenting their business with salvage—lots of folk worked salvage in those days. An uncle offered to take me on his ship as cabin boy—an island cruise, then—it’d be a while before anyone tried to go much farther than Australia. No reason or so it seemed to us.”

Kidd paused, visibly swallowing down tales that covered some sixty years at sea. Faelin felt a tinge of curiosity about them, but not enough to keep him from prompting:

“And the rest of the Kiwis? How did things go for them?”

“They were pretty damn hot on their new idea, called Aotearoa the new frontier, compared it to the American West, like we used to see in the movies. Movies were…”

“I know, I know,” Faelin said impatiently. “I am Californian! So everyone wore guns and rode horses?”

“Well,” Kidd laughed, “many did, but that wasn’t why folks made the comparison—at least not the only reason. More reason was because there was no law but what folks carried in their hearts. That’s still how it is today—or at least how it was when I left Aotearoa a couple years back, and I don’t see why it should have changed. No law books or lawyers, no presidents or monarchs, no rules and regulations, just common sense, hard work, and prosperity for those who earn it.”

* * *

Faelin never forgot Ambrose Kidd’s stories. Indeed, he became the old sailor’s constant companion—for it soon became clear that Kidd was never sailing home again. The boy’s eager attention was meat and drink to Kidd, just as his stories were to the orphan boy. After the sailor died, Faelin found that he was starving for more.

He took jobs around the ports and soon learned to spot a Kiwi sailor by a certain proud lift to his head. An offer of a drink usually got the boy more stories. Work as a dockhand evolved into work aboard ships—first in port, then at sea.

Chafing under California’s numerous regulations, all of which seemed to exist—as far as Faelin could tell—to keep the strong and able from profiting while buoying up the weak and unfit, Faelin happily took a berth on the Speculation.

Speculationwas an ocean-going free-trader, a sailing vessel modeled off the old China clipper—a ship type that, ironically, had met its demise due to the evolution of the coal-dependent steamers soon after it had reached near perfection of design. Now, with petroleum products useless, the clipper ship had been resurrected.

Current technology had taken a while to recover to the point that a clipper ship could be built—there were so many old skills to be relearned, so many shops to be retooled—but now that point had been reached and Faelin’s childhood had been marked by the sight of these great white seabirds, first in ones and twos, later in great flocks.

TheSpeculation’s captain, a sour old cove named Burke, was among those who were taking advantage of the relative availability of clipper ships. Burke’s vessel was not among the newest, but Burke was owner-aboard, a thing that would have been nearly unheard of twenty years before when it took a corporation to fund the building of the vessels.

Faelin admired Captain Burke as the perfect type of the self-made man. TheSpeculation was a tight ship, but her regulations made sense. After all, you couldn’t have someone lolling below decks in a storm when all hands were needed on deck or deciding to steer without the least knowledge of navigation, could you?

For five years, Faelin served on the Speculation and during that time he grew into a big man, broad-shouldered, topping most around him by a head or more. His rough, calloused hands were equally swift with a pistol, gun, or a line. He even picked up a few lubber skills—some carpentry, iron working, and sewing. He became known as a good man to have at your side in a brawl, had many followers but never close friends.

Over those five years, however, Faelin’s opinion of Captain Burke and his capacity as a commander underwent a change. Faelin couldn’t help but notice that as officers retired or went on to other vessels, he himself was never promoted to fill their posts. He received pay raises readily enough, and high bonuses when a cargo sold well. Still, this wasn’t stripes on his sleeve and his mates calling him “sir.”

Had the Speculation been a military vessel, Faelin might have excused the oversight, but on a free-trader nothing but ability was required for promotion. Therefore, he started brooding over the slight.

He might not make a good quartermaster—Faelin was the first to admit that bookkeeping was far from his favorite sport—but he navigated well enough, had taken his time at the wheel. He might be young yet to serve as first officer, but he’d make a good second. Eventually, he grew sullen, deciding he was being slighted.

“I tell you,” he said one afternoon to Simon Alcott, his closest crony, as they sat up in the riggings mending trousers. “Captain Burke doesn’t like me because he sees I’m a threat to him and that wimp son of his, Irving. He don’t dare promote me, even to second, lest the crew start wondering why Irving’s first mate and I’m second. Far better to have old Waldemar in that post, him with his stammer and two missing fingers.”

Simon Alcott listened and nodded. Ever since Faelin had come to his rescue one night in a Singapore alley, Simon had been his absolutely loyal toady, reveling in his protector’s strength. In his simple loyalty, contradicting anything Faelin said or thought never would have occurred to Simon. Indeed, he thought Faelin was right.

“Heck, Faelin,” Simon said, “you’d make a better captain than the old man. Let him keep the books and work out the trades. You could run this ship tighter than a kernel fits in a nutshell.”

For weeks Faelin groused on, Simon providing an unquestioning chorus to his complaints, until Faelin’s vague grudges became as real to him as if Captain Burke actually told him that he was unpromotable.

As his discontent grew, Faelin considered his options. He could jump ship and get hired by another vessel, maybe by one of the big lines. They’d recognize his skills quick enough. For days he reveled in the image of himself in the neatly tailored dark blue coat and trousers of one of the better known shipping lines. There’d be gold piping on his sleeve and men jumping to anticipate his every word.