A World Between by Norman Spinrad

Roger Falkenstein appeared on the screen beside it and began to speak. The Delegates listened to th whole thing in stony silence, but the moment it was over, everyone was speaking and shouting at once and Carlotta’s board lit up with dozens of requests for the floor.
    “Order,” Carlotta shouted, rapping her gavel. “Order! Order!” When that didn’t work, she forthrightly yelled “Shut up!” at the top of her lungs.
    The Delegates shut up.
    “That’s better,” Carlotta said sweetly. “Chair recognizes Delegate Willmington.” Nora Willmington was a Gothamite and former newshound; she could be counted upon to take umbrage at the slightest hint of denial of news access, and it was best to get that question out of the way immediately.
    Nora rose as if to make a speech and indeed began to declaim in slow ironic tones. “I should like to ask the Chairman by what right, under what constitutional authority, she withheld the news of this contact with the Arkology Heisenberg from the news channels and issued instead a patently phony press release to the effect that the ship entering our solar system was unidentified and had not announced its identity to Pacifica—”
    “By right of common sense and under the authority of sweet reason,” Carlotta said. “The moment this august body saw the message, you were all screaming at once like godzillas with burrmites up their tails. How would you have liked to have had the whole planet bellowing like that before we had a moment to decide anything? We wouldn’t have been able to hear ourselves think. And we do think, don’t we?”
    “If the Chairman thinks that snide remarks can justify—”
    ‘Tell you what, Nora,” Carlotta interrupted, “I hereby move that we release the Falkenstein message with full details immediately following the conclusion of this session. And I further move that it be considered a formal vote of confidence in me, okay?”
    “I’ll second that” Nora said.
    “Good,” Carlotta said. “Now do we have to waste valuable time debating this resolution or can we get it out of the way right now and deal with the real issues at hand?”
    “Vote! Vote! Vote!”
    “Thank you, people,” Carlotta said as Nora sank back into her seat. “Ayes for the resolution, nays against.”
    The central wall screen behind her lit up with the running tally as the Delegates pressed their “Aye” or “Nay” buttons. It took about thirty seconds, and the count was 99 to 5 in favor, Carlotta not voting. So far, so good, Carlotta thought. That was a neat little maneuver, avoiding a possible no-confidence vote on withholding the message by turning it into a vote on releasing it. We’re over the first hurdle.
    “Now to the issue at hand,” Carlotta said. “Falkenstein will be here in about eighteen days. Interstellar protocol demands that we allow him to land, and common sense dictates that he be allowed to present his case to some official entity or person. Since we’ve already voted to release everything we know at the end of this session, I submit that by then we must have decided who will meet with Falkenstein and what their policy directives from this body will be. Any dissent to that?”
    There was general silence. Lacking political parties, the Pacifican Parliament was not in the habit of debating the self-evident. .
    First things first, Carlotta thought nervously. First whatever plenipotentiary powers I can extract, then the policy question. “I’d like to suggest that whoever meets with Falkenstein be empowered only to transmit whatever policy we decide upon today and that they not be empowered to discuss any deviation from that position without a full Parliamentary vote.” That’s a cagy way of putting it, she thought: no discussion, my hands are tied, I’m only expressing the will of my government. “Debate?” she asked.
    Carlotta’s board lit up with a dozen requests for the floor. At random, she recognized Jarvis Tatum, a beefy, red-haired