later, he was put to death.
Six
Aeolis
“We need outdoor areas. Not just grow lights. And we need them for a lot of reasons. Recreation and morale, oxygen production, the wolves, and even economic factors. We have to start thinking that way. We can’t continue to rely on an external economy like we are now. We may not be at war with Earth anymore, but we have to start thinking about a manufacturing base of our own.” Keen had proven to be an excellent leader in the year since the formation of the Ares Federation.
Kay spoke. “I agree. The one thing everyone misses is open space.” Kay was head of sciences for the planetary government. I’m most concerned about a manufacturing base though. Pan has been very generous with equipment and supplies from Earth, but frankly our sciences are surpassing theirs. That means we have ongoing needs for equipment they haven’t considered yet, and I don’t want to tip them to our advancements.”
“Back on Earth, I had plenty of training room for everything but the HAWC system. My cavern was half a mile in diameter.”
Rand interrupted him. “What’s a mile?”
“Sorry. Old habit. My cavern was about eight hundred meters in diameter. I know we can’t do that here unless we go underground. But it would be nice to have a large warehouse or two. Now that we are building the CONDOR Twos, I need more training room.”
Rhodes spoke next. “Unless we can get larger freighter modules from Earth, or maybe a different design, I don’t see how we can do that.”
“It’s a shame we can’t make something like the Formvar-M barrier they put on your cavern,” Kay offered.
“Why can’t we?” Keen asked.
“That’s actually a great idea. We would need a lot of the resins, but it could be done.” Kim Point was on video from the Argyre site, where she was coordinating the preparations for a third colony site. “I’ll have some of my engineers start studying it. There will still be size limit, but I think it’s probably doable. I have enough to make a small test section. Maybe fifty meters square. Where do we want to try it?”
“Everyone will want it, but build the first one here. The wolves need to see the sun more than we do, and most of them are here.” Everyone knew that Cort’s main concern was and always would be the animals. They had talked about it once in another administrative meeting. Cort made it clear back then that he would tolerate no cruelty to the animals. The result of that meeting made negligent animal cruelty a major offense which resulted in one year of community labor. Intentional animal cruelty was a capital offense. Death was the only punishment for capital offenses in The Ares Federation. Coerced mating had also been addressed at that meeting, which had dealt with criminal regulations. The term was removed from use and replaced with ‘rape’. The only punishment for rape was death. The penalty had been exacted only one time since that meeting, and that death was broadcast across the planet.
“Agreed.” Kay loved the wolves as much Cort did. Especially Sköll. She reached down and stroked the big wolf’s neck. They were inseparable. Cort was happy with the loss of his wolf, though. Since John’s death, like when Cort first met her on Earth, Sköll had been Kay’s strength.
Cabinet meetings such as this one were held once a month. Most decisions were made by consensus. On occasions when a consensus couldn’t be reached, Keen would make an executive decision. Usually he sided with whoever had the most knowledge about the topic at hand. There was definitely a hierarchy though. And at the head of it was Cortland Addison. Like the namesake of the federation he had founded, he didn’t meddle in the affairs of others much. But when he did, the rest of the government listened. In all matters of security and defense, Cort had not only the final say, but the only say. In resource
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