Van frowned. He understood the history, but not where his father was going. “I’m missing something.”
“I’m getting there, Van. It’s complex, and that’s why it’s happening again, because no one really wants to understand complicated structures. We always look for simple answers, and they’re usually wrong.” Cicero took a sip from the tall beaker of water beside his chair. “Because the rich controlled the wealth, the legislators really only looked to them. So those who were wealthy had effectively bought the government and the legal system. Both became economic tools. The system lasted for a long time because these people weren’t stupid. They factored in the negative externalities of environmental problems, and those of the worst social and economic problems. In a sense, the economic system worked. What eventually brought the system down was the perception that, for all the appearances, there was no ethical basis to the system, the feeling that ethics were relative to wealth, and that the wealthy had no ethics and bought their way out of being ethical.” Cicero laughed. “What’s ironic is that they had it totally backward.”
Van was definitely lost. He just shook his head. “I can’t say I understand at all.”
“The loss of ethics by the wealthy was a symptom, not a cause. What brought down the system was the unwillingness of the everyday citizens to live up to their own responsibilities. They allowed themselves—in fact, they pushed—to be corrupted. They insisted that public benefits—education, public safety, transportation systems—all be paid for by the rich. That doesn’t work economically unless you allow the rich more income. Once, the head of a business might have made between ten and a hundred times what one of the workers might. At the end of the Commonocracy, some heads of multilaterals made thirty thousand times what their workers did. At the same time that these so-called common people deplored the excesses of the rich, they filed hundreds of thousands of frivolous or semifrivolous claims against businesses and governments for millions or hundreds of millions of credits, often for trivial injuries. Most of them did not even bother to vote for their legislators, then complained when the elected officials—”
“What does this have to do with your article?” Van interrupted as gently as he could.
“It should be obvious. We’re seeing the beginning of the same thing here. The law becomes more and more of a tool for influencing economic and political events, rather than an arbitrator between conflicting parties. The more it becomes a tool, the less people want to take personal responsibility, and the more power is concentrated in the hands of the few…and that leads to more problems…like the rise of old-time simplistic and intolerant faiths…and an emphasis on simple answers that create even more injustice…”
“Cicero’s always been a crusader at heart,” suggested Almaviva. “You know that, Van.”
Van smiled. “Crusading won’t get me a job, though.”
“Do you need one, really?” asked Almaviva. “Retiring as a full commodore? You always had a good voice and presence. You could get involved in theater here, like you did in school…”
“I don’t think I’m ready for that,” Van replied.
“You could still try STA,” said Dad Almaviva. “You might not be that happy with them, but they’re the only possibility for transstellar pilots. In-system, there are a couple of others.” He looked to Cicero.
“CCA is usually looking for pilots,” Dad Cicero added. “That’s all in-system, but they go all the way out. Do a lot of work steering ice comets.”
“Have they made any real progress with the Aeylen project?”
Both older men laughed, almost simultaneously, and once again, Van felt the warmth that had surrounded him for the years of his youth.
Chapter 35
For the first week in Bannon, Van concentrated on his family, rest, and his fitness program. He enjoyed the quiet dinners especially, and Dad Almaviva’s tales of his voice students and current opera production. But he also enjoyed Dad Cicero’s succinct observations about law and life.
Van had already begun to see some results from his early workouts in New Oisin and the continuing efforts on the hill trails around the villa, and found his stamina improving rapidly. When he ran the trails, he still wondered if someone were watching, not that he could tell, either from listening, or from the limited functions left to his implant.
After ten days of family and exercise, he returned to investigating piloting possibilities. As Dad Cicero had prophesied, Van never even talked to anyone beyond the netsystem at STA, but after another week, shortly after eleven hundred, Van was sitting in the office of Farris Macks, assistant director of personnel for CCA. Van felt a little strange in the new gray business singlesuit, but since he was no longer on active duty, the uniform wouldn’t have been appropriate.
Macks was a thin man younger than Arturo, and Arturo was ten years younger than Van. Macks never quite looked at Van as he ushered him into his office and settled behind a desk that was little more than an overgrown console. The office itself was a windowless cube, with
