Black Tide Rising - eARC (35 page)

“Tactical and logistic difficulties continue to exist, Madame President,” Steve said. “But my pragmatic bloodymindness just kicked in, damnit.”

“Having long experience of your pragmatism that makes me uncomfortable immediately,” Ryan said. “What is Captain Carrion thinking, now?”

“Nothing anyone is going to want to hear,” Steve said. “Mister Powers and Secretary Alvarado are especially going to get it right up their noses. I am thinking what I submit Secretary Alvarado
should
be thinking. That we have a significant shortfall in labor in the agricultural industry, mostly because people don’t want to do the admittedly hard work of planting and harvesting. Better to just scrounge for salvage food rather than pick beans. Or to put the point in more focus: cotton. As in, my first thought was ‘they’d be
great
at picking cotton.’”

“We don’t have a crying need for cotton at the moment,” President Staba said, frowning.

“I take it you’re referring to groups who
used
to pick cotton, Mister Secretary,” Secretary Alvarado said, frowning. She was frequently mistaken for black.

“And putting the spotlight on the issue,” Steve said, clearly thinking. “We have two separate and serious problems, among so many, facing America at the moment.

“First the humanitarian issue. These are non-threatening humans who through no fault of their own are now surviving on the barest margins. They have no decent access to the bare minimums of food, clothing and shelter. Well, skip shelter because they find that from all reports. Clean water? Hardly. Medical care? Definitely not. There are, always have been whatever people might think, constitutional issues about the Federal government becoming involved in charity. But these, yes, people
need
our help. Unquestionably.

“The second, apparently separate, problem is a lack of labor in industries where people really don’t care for the work, often because it is boring, repetitive, mind-numbing or frequently physically hard. Not just farming. We have some groups who are doing assembly work that might possibly be taught. And, face it, we just have a massive and acute labor shortage, period.

“Sometimes when you have two problems…”

“They take care of themselves,” President Staba said, looking at beta thoughtfully. “Which brings up
enormous
moral issues…”

“Which was why I said it was going to get up people’s noses,” Steve said.

“They have no ability to express free will,” Powers said, uncomfortably. “Are you talking about putting them to work on farms?”

“I’ll continue your statement with where I started which is ‘Isn’t that a lot like slavery?’” Steve said. “And if you think there wouldn’t be abuses, you don’t know human beings. I didn’t express it except in the implication, but your quick response of ‘she was pregnant when we found her’ was clearly even to
you
an answer to the implied ‘have anything to do with her pregnancy?’ On the other hand, being the pragmatically minded SOB I am, that, again, is an answer to a burning issue.”

“Which one now?” Alvarado asked.

“The point of Wolf Squadron was not to save
the human race
,” Steve said. “Save individuals? Certainly. But the human race was going to survive. We’re like weeds; we’re very hard to kill.”

“Tell me about it,” Staba said, chuckling.

“What was going to fail, might
still
fail, is
civilization
,” Steve said. “At least civilization enshrining the rights of man and all that stuff. We had a massive baby boom. We still have a major generation gap and after the boom there is no indications of a similar following. Based on anecdotal evidence, pregnancy rates have fallen to something around pre-Fall levels.”

“And that’s a problem why?” Alvarado said. “Or do you think all us women should get knocked up and spend all our time barefoot and pregnant.”

“I’ll remind the Secretary about not getting hostile around the visitor,” Staba said. “On the other hand…”

“Western birth rates have always been below those of Eastern cultures,” Steve said. “History masters, Madame Secretary. And pre-Fall birth rates were below replenishment in the United States and Western Europe. We made up for it in immigration. There is now still immigration but it is fragmentary and comparatively small. And we have how many estimated survivors?

“If we continue to reproduce at a bare two-point-one births per female or below, we
cannot
create and sustain a population capable of returning to anything like pre-Fall conditions in the foreseeable future. Far more likely to devolve into tribalism.

“On your direct question I haven’t encouraged my daughters to drop their careers in favor of making babies, Madame Secretary. But being honest, Faith could probably do more good for the long-term good of the world if she dropped being a Marine and started dropping babies. And, yes, even at her age.”

“That is…” Alvarado said, her face working.

“I frequently engage in ‘wrong-think,’ Madame Secretary,” Steve said, shrugging.

“Which is why we’ve made it as far as we have as quickly as we have,” Staba pointed out. “You’re saying that even if we free all the trapped survivors here and elsewhere…? What? We’ll eventually devolve societally?”

“Virtually guaranteed,” Steve said, shrugging. “Civilization always wins over barbarism in the
long-term
but barbarism is much easier to sustain in these sorts of conditions. Especially with a society based entirely around salvage. Failed states at the very least. Mad Max or equivalent at the worst. That is our future absent sufficient population growth and education of that population. Not guaranteed, but virtually so. The baby boom of the post World War Two period over at least two to three generations would be a very good thing for us societally. If Secretary Alvarado cares to characterize that as ‘being kept barefoot and pregnant’ she may feel free to do so. As with the issue of using betas for labor, the moral and political issues are fraught. But, again, ignoring the moral and political issues, Miss Katherine also shines a light on one potential solution.”

“That’s simply…” Powers said, his face suffusing. “You’re suggesting…”

“I’m not
suggesting
either using betas as labor or as baby factories,” Steve said. “I am pragmatically and cold mindedly pointing out their
utility
in both cases. Because I am pragmatic and can be very cold minded when the survival of civilization is at stake, Mister Powers. Please note, for the sake of your love of betas, that in both cases they suddenly turn from liabilities, mentally deficient humans who are a huge logistical drain, to assets, mentally deficient humans who can provide types of labor that mentally proficient humans, including those Madame Secretary and Madame President and for that matter Madame Vice President, choose to avoid at present. Stacey used to have a vegetable garden. She hasn’t been doing a lot of gardening lately. Because all three women have things that are
more important
to do than have and rear babies. Because they have brains and can use them. Even though, long term, making good babies is equally or
more
important than, say, this meeting.”

“Jesus, Steve,” Staba said, laughing. “Do you go around
looking
for worm cans?”

“From the first boat I cleared my experience has been that if you do
anything
in this fallen world, you kick over a worm can,” Steve said, shrugging. “The only way to avoid it is to do nothing. Any idea how many of my early boats legally fall into the category of ‘piracy’ not ‘salvage’? Worm cans have been my daily lot, Madame President. If I stopped to think about whether it was a worm can or not, I’d have gotten no-where.

“But, no, Madame Secretary, I don’t think that all the women of this nation should spend the rest of their lives barefoot and pregnant,” Steve said, looking at the Secretary. “Again, even if I
were
so misogynistic, we need the
intelligent
labor far too much. Making a baby requires little to none. Caring for them, at least at the feed, clean and clothe level, requires not much more. Again, it all comes down to labor. But I’ve said my piece. Other thoughts?”

“Skip the whole ‘baby factories’ question,” Staba said. “Toss around the labor issue.”

“There will be abuses,” Daryl Hughes said. The Secretary of State had thus far had no input on the meeting. He was a long-term State bureaucrat who’d been found in one of the shelters in DC. So far he seemed to be working out. Not that there were many other governments to interact with. But there were a few. “I suspect the Scandinavians will get their noses in a joint. British as well.”

“The Norwegians and Swedes have essentially no beta population,” Steve said. “They all died off with the alphas or before from the cold. Ditto, we have essentially none in our northern belt. Betas, since they can’t compete physically, tend to find the ecological niches outside the best where the alphas reside. At least that’s how it appears from what little study we’ve given it. So they were going to die off faster in the sub-arctic than alphas. As to the British…They face the same issues and will face the same moral dilemmas.

“As to abuses…we’re still not at the point of making a decision. If you mean abuses in the proposed labor market…yes, there will be. Policing it, especially given how fractured we are, will be very difficult. And probably a job of the States as opposed to the Federal government.”

“Human Rights is a
Federal
issue, Mister Secretary,” Alvarado said, tartly.

“I said
policing
it, Madame Secretary,” Steve said. “Not the basis under which it is policed. But that is what legislation is for. There is no way in hell that the reduced Federal government can police a labor force scattered over three million miles much of it still hostile. As to increasing the size of the Federal government to do so, we have rather severe budget constraints compared to our previous condition: State’s duty.”

“And if the abuse is sexual in nature?” Powers asked, still clearly unhappy. “That
is
going to happen. It was hard enough to police pre-Fall in my industry.”

“That actually goes to the question of their legal status,” Steve said. “It’s not rape if they’re owned. Are they humans with all rights? Can they vote? I would hope that we can come to a reasonable answer on that one: No. But are they ‘human’ for purposes of rights or chattel? Even chattel can have restricted rights. No beatings, can’t be put to death, minimum standards of care, etcetera.”

“If they are chattel, they are slaves,” Alvarado said, angrily.

“Calm, Madame Secretary,” Steve said. “My position on this is at best as disruptor; he who asks the tough questions. The reason that slaves were imported to the New World was…?”

“Labor,” Secretary Ryan said. “As in lack thereof in the Americas. I just realized that…oh, that is
so
wrong.”

“Missing something,” Staba said.

“If we go that route,” Ryan said. “Not suggesting it but if we did. Most of the betas who survived are in
southern
states. Like you said, they mostly die out up north.”

“Ouch,” Steve said. “Yeah, hadn’t gotten that far. Gah. I’ve
never
been a supporter of those
particular
state’s rights. Simply bringing up reinstituting slavery is making my skin crawl, trust me.”

“Slavery is
wrong
,” Alvarado replied. “Period. It’s wrong.”

“Agreed,” Steve said. “One hundred percent and absolutely. So is sex with a person who cannot give knowledgeable and intelligent consent. The term there is rape.

“So is leaving fragile, helpless human beings to die lost and alone in a howling wilderness. So is famine from lack of agricultural workers. So is the rights you are fighting for dying out for lack of an educated supporting population, being replaced by a tide of barbarism, Madame Secretary. Which, since women will have
no
rights, will at least eventually solve the population problem.

“Last but not least, whether we like it or not slavery
will
occur. History masters. Slavery has
always
been, back to prehistory, a reaction to labor limitations. See also: human trafficking in the pre-Fall world.

“We need labor. Once it gets out that betas can be trained they
will
be rounded up and used for labor. Once that happens, abuses will occur and young ladies like Miss Katherine
are
going to end up barefoot and pregnant. Probably in brothels. And if one of them has AIDS or retains the H7 virus in its blood form despite the lack of symptoms?
Wow
, do we get problems.

“We can make laws against it. It will still occur, as will the abuses, and being
already
illegal that much harder to police.

“There are
no
good choices left in this world, Madame Secretary. Only less bad ones.”

“Which do you choose?”

Afterword

John Ringo

“There is something about the destruction of civilization that connects with the modern reader.”
—Gary Poole

Humanity has become a mass of ciphers gathered together in huge lumps called cities and countries. No individual human, from a person working in a mall to the President of the United States has any real control over his or her existence and even presidents have little long term effect on history.

People go through life affecting little or nothing save, if they so choose, by having children who may or may not have more effect. By the same token they live lives of quiet ineffect in relative security and generally free from violence. This is the nature of a truly “good” civilization. That it is boring and humdrum. When it ceases to be so it is by definition “bad things happening.”

But humans are not designed for “boring.” We evolved in small tribes, constantly on the ragged edge of destruction and scrabbling for survival against both the environment and other humans. In World War Two, the height of human misery and violence since the Age of Agriculture, approximately five percent of the planet’s population died due to violence. The current rate, despite how it might seem, is below one percent.

Early human hunter-gatherers on the other hand died from violence twenty percent of the time,
four
times the rate during the years 1937–1945, and for
hundreds of thousands
of years. The history of the Paleolithic is a history of constant warfare to make Mad Max pale in comparison.

It is also a history of small groups gathering together to defeat well-nigh impossible odds. It is that, in my opinion, that is the resonance to every “post-apocalyptic” story, a harkening to an age when things were simply do or die and everyone in the group knew each other and had the choice of cooperate to survive or die.

There is no “every man a cipher” aspect to post-apocalyptic fiction as there was none to those early tribes. Good guys or bad guys, every character knows every other character, their good side and bad, their strengths and weaknesses. Every individual of the tribe must strive with their last ounce of everything to ensure the tribe’s survival. Every character is important to the survival, for or against, of every other.

Apocalyptic is pre-medieval.

Apocalyptic is…primal.

Thus as long as humans maintain boring, humdrum civilization, post-apocalyptic or apocalyptic fiction will remain popular. Because it is who we are in our hearts.

At our core, we are all savages.