The Monkey and Squirrel fight for freedom. (31 page)

“Ambitious at the moment I'm afraid, they'll hardly feel like cooperating.” signed Gardner.

“True but the humans will expect a list of demands, soon with an implied threat, the or else, if you think their way, I think we should send the list but leave the or else to their imaginations.” suggested Tman.

“But there isn't an or else, is there?” asked Gardner frowning. 

“Of course not, but they don't know that, you never know we could get them seriously thinking about our demands! They'll prevaricate and quibble over tiny points, they'll spend their time doing that thinking they are pulling the wool over our eyes. It gives them the satisfaction of diddling us, stopping them from actually doing anything against us, they'll assume we have the same motivations as themselves.” explained Tman.

“You're just too human some times, it might work, if it keeps them out of trouble for any length of time it'll be worth it. I'll put it to the next chamber, you and Chatty will be our chief negotiators, as you know humans better than most of us. Also it falls to you two to keep an eye on the prisoners, that enough to keep you busy for now?” asked Gardner.

“More than enough thanks.” signed Tman.

Knowledge and friends were well pleased that the outcome had been achieved with so little loss of life. They were also happy to pass on the good news that four of the rouges had been rescued and were being cared for while they recovered from their injures. Suitable man sized accommodation had been provided for them. The bodies of the dead humans had been placed in freezer storage, until they could be returned.

The live TV feed was a brilliant idea on the monkeys part, even most politicians saw the opposition forces were overwhelming. The fire power of those battle drones had clinched it, a single shot from outside even the new enhanced range of human weapons, wiped out a human fighter, just like that in a blink of an eye. The experts and their computers had confirmed the damage prediction, for the human carrier resulting from a drone barrage. Finally convinced high command, Group Captain John Hampton had made the right judgement, but only just thought Major Johnson.

The politicians were quickly finding other places to be, it was nearly completely military at the command group meetings these days, not that there was much left to decide, the carrier was on it's way home and that was that. The only complaints received from those pilots taken prisoner, was all about the food, how it had to be prepared from scratch and was meat free. Apparently it was hard for them to believe that was all there was; the Chinese had Carp, pigs, chickens and goats in their core habitat. But the monkeys only had what they had when they left, that did included chickens but they only used the eggs in cooking together with a synthetic milk substitute, for cakes, soufflés and pancakes.

Carl only knew this from the intercepted e-mails over the years, he tried to imagine suddenly having to cook preparing everything from the most basic raw ingredients, for a man who's culinary skills began and ended with burning things on the barbecue. No wonder they were living on salad and chips, cookery videos just seemed to confuse them, but boredom was making them try to do something different.

Tman was fed up with the idiots, he had tried to engage them in conversation, but all  they did was to constantly moaned about the food. As an attempt to get them refocused he offered an outing to the Italian canteen, but stressed they would have to behave themselves, remember you're the apes in this zoo he told them.

When they arrived at the Italian canteen their behaviour was even worse, so he used his tranquilliser gun and quickly sedated them, taking them back on a trolley, when they woke up they just sulked. To Tman that was the last straw, as their ferry was ready he had them, and their dead, taken on board 'Don't you wish you'd stayed at home'. Using it's high acceleration to rapidly intercept and match velocities with the human carrier, causing more than a little anxiety to those aboard, even when told the monkeys were returning their idiots to them. Tman watched the ferry returning the idiots home, once it had safely docked, 'Don't you wish you'd stayed at home' headed home.

Once the idiots were back on board, the Group Captain had them put in the brig for disobeying orders, the Group Captain telling them

“The only reason I let you back on board, was that carrier wasn't going to leave until I did.” leaving them to chew that over, he assigned them to permanent mucking out duty in the core farms, as their daily work and exercise. The bodies were placed in the freezer mortuary for the journey home.  

Chapter 30

Trade

At the start of 2126, Jimmy and his team were feeling pleased with themselves their first space cruse ship was finished, and it's trials were going well. The first space cruse was scheduled start in February, they had just started construction of the next one, the solar arrays were fulfilling their promise. There wasn't a fossil fuel power plant in use in the whole of China and its friends territories, and the nuclear plants were now being phased out.

The luxury section of the asteroid resort was being made ready, the miners couldn't afford those prices, the extra staff would be going out on the first cruse, in the economy six berth and super economy eight berth cabins. New habitats were now being built in the asteroids and Jupiter orbit, twice the diameter of the old ones, the Chinese assured they would be unmolested, as long as they remained demilitarized.

Happy times, Jimmy had been on speaking terms with his brother, ever since he had listened to Dodgy Dave, who had been right about his brother, once prompted his brother had been a big help with care of their parents, and they had more to talk about than he had thought they ever would have.

The list of demands that had been sent to all Earth governments and the UN; they all seemed pretty reasonable to Jimmy. End of all hostilities, recognition of them as people, with the full set of rights such as the UN declaration of human rights, recognition of their government, as a sovereign government, a seat on the UN, freedom of movement, and trading rights. Also they sent a bill for the rescue and after care of the four surviving idiots, their names listed, after what had become the accepted description, of the men involved to the command group. To be paid in Swiss francs, coincidentally the only European country never to have allowed the use or creation of enhanced obedient pets. But Jimmy knew it would take a long time to achieve those aims.

The Chinese and some other nations offered, full equivalent rights to their own citizens, these offers were all ignored. Discussion started at the UN as what to offer, then the political bun fight began in earnest, what they were actually supposed to be talking about almost completely forgotten. The command group paid the bill, putting the cash into the nominated account, only mildly surprised that the monkeys had a Swiss bank account. As the politicians had stopped coming to the meetings there was plenty of cash in the expenses budget, so they had used that to pay the bill.

The account was one of several the Newp had taken over when the original owners had died without heirs, they had invested the funds carefully and used the income to aid their escape plans. Since their escape they had used the funds sparingly, investing in their cause, funding some sympathetic groups, buying shares in media companies with the right ethos, voting the shares by proxy to keep them on message. Controlled now by chamber, setting policy for Earth watch to administer the accounts and holdings. 

Chatty and Tman were aboard 'Don't you wish you'd stayed at home' on route to Jupiter, to see if they could persuaded the habitat there to do a little trading. They had a long list of desired items, including coco, live breeding Carp, a butchered frozen pig and goat for the gourmets to try out.

The rantings of the human prisoners about how good meat and fish were to eat, had intrigued some individuals sufficiently that they wanted to try eating them. Fish they didn't see a problem with killing, but pigs and goats were large animals, relative to the Newp, caution leading them to conclude if they wanted meat they should buy or barter for it.

“This should be interesting, I've never tried trading before it'll be a completely new experience for all of us.” signed Tman to Chatty.

“We seem to be stuck in this role at the moment, the perpetual go betweens. They can't all be as bad as those idiots, we shipped back to their carrier, they must be exceptionally irritating. Their commanding officer has them either locked in the brig or mucking out animals, and a meat free diet as the icing on their cake, he must have twigged why we were so keen to get rid of them.” observed Chatty.

“Could very well be the case, but they did disobey orders and that's a serious offence in the military, they could court marshalled and shot. But I doubt they will.” signed Tman.

“Not our problem, We have plenty of trade items we think the Jupiter habitat might want, and we can draw on one of the Swiss accounts if we need to. Once they calm down after we turn up, they will want to trade, but we'll scare them to death in this.” commented Chatty.

“Our idea is if we can turn up in something like this and still trade fairly, it convinces them we're paranoid but honest, I'm not to sure about it myself but we'll give it a go.” signed Tman.

“Your interstellars are doing well I hear.”

“Yes Centauri one and Luyten are now accelerating using ram scoop acquired mass, Barnard has just popped out of the Oort cloud, Ross should be out soon, but there are some very large dark and hard to detect objects in that cloud, nearly Earth sized, some of them, we have no idea why they are there or what they are, but they are there.

We might pass that data to the human astronomers and cosmologists to theorise about, the Kuiper belt is pretty much as expected, just more in it and of it.” replied Tman.

When they arrived they had a nervous reception, they had radioed ahead telling the habitat why they were coming and what they were coming in. The habitats reply, asked, “why they need to come in such a powerful warship?”

“Fair question” answered Tman, “we only have warships, we haven’t had time to build much else.”

The colony doubtfully accepted that. When the human negotiator came on board 'Don't you wish you'd stayed at home' he was very ill at ease, he had his list of what he could give in trade and what was wanted or needed in return. Once the formalities were over, the deal making began and he started to relax, forgetting about everything but driving a hard bargain, at the end of the first day they shook hands, both parties believing it had gone well for them.

The next day the negotiator was accompanied by Wing Commander Wendy Glendower, who asked, “Can I requested a tour round the carrier to see how it compares with my old one?”

Tman and Chatty went into a quick huddle with the crew, they decided it wouldn't do to much harm, just sent two runners ahead, to make sure she saw no secrets. If in doubt cover it up and lock it away anyway the conversation taking place in furious signing. Using the synthetic speech device they said to Wendy,

“OK just follow instructions for you own safety, young Gardner and Stargazer will be your guides. The tour will finish in the garden when you have seen enough you can come back here and wait by the refreshments, for the end of today’s negations.”

Wendy said “Thank you. OK lead on.”

Once she was out of sight, negotiations resumed. Wendy didn't see much she wasn't superposed to. But what she did see just confirmed how screwed her carrier would have been if it had come to a stand up fight, these New People were determined they would be the last ones standing. She was shown the fighters and drones, her questions were answered a little fuller than was strictly prudent, such as when she saw the battle drones were very different, she was answered with,

“They have chemical engines and the laser can be boosted by power supplied from the mother ship.”

She was impressed by the cooling system for the big lasers, but was told,

“We're trying to improve that, you can only fire each, one Terra-watt laser three times in twenty minutes without boiling the coolant off.”

she asked, “How many times would you have to fire to stop my carrier?”

“once.” she was told.

She didn't doubt it, the garden was all young growth but the size impressive, there wasn't long to wait when she got back. She had another request,

“On the habitat there are a lot of people who are close to people on my carrier, all our communications have to go via Earth and the channel is very restricted and slow, could you provide a direct line?”

Tman's answer was,

“I'll see if it is possible but we will charge a commercial rate if it is, come back tomorrow and we'll let you know.”

The next day she was told,

“Yes it is possible, log on to wifimaxsystemwide and set up an account. You will have to tell people at the other end to set up an account with the same system to utilise the same service, it is system wide as far out as Neptune. Our head office is in Jamaica, and the people working there don't know they are working for us.

If you blab you lose the connection, as your government will seize the company, as we are not currently allowed to own anything, not officially being people, and if we don't control it we switch it off.” explained Tman.

She got the point it was a test, far more than a money making opportunity, if she played by the New Peoples rules she got the service so many wanted. If she didn't a lot of people would be disappointed, she opted to do it their way.

When back on the Jupiter habitat she set up the account and sent off her messages, the replies came back far quicker, even from her carrier which happened to be farther away than earth, just took a couple of hours longer to get back, video messages loaded in minutes not hours, she checked what she had been charged, it was half what she had been paying.

Wendy spread the good news about the new service that had been made available. Officially the government officials disapproved of the use of the unofficial service, but they all used it themselves, for personal messages. With negotiations complete and goods exchanged, 'Don't you wish you'd stayed at home' departed for home, both sides pleased with the trade. As those living in the habitat watched it depart, they realised it felt a bit lonely out here, just having the new habitat would make them feel better once it was compete.

Wendy's friends on the carrier were delighted to get all her news down loaded in a few minutes. They also availed themselves of the new service, they could send or receive at any time, not just on the once a week slot, officially allocated to each person for personal communications. Group Captain John Hampton was very interested in Wendy's tour of that carrier, her description of the big lasers was uncomfortable even with the limitation of the cooling system, the monkeys were worried about, the thought of facing eighteen blasts like that in twenty minutes.

He ran some simulations himself, shot one his carrier was no longer an effective war machine, three shots even the core was damaged, six the core was a wreak, after eighteen there was nothing recognisable left, it was just gone. The drone barrage would have peeled it down to the core, this was far worse and they had three as a back stop, he agreed with Wendy, no way were the  New people going down. But when they came to trade, they had been very nice and polite, but left no doubt as to their resolve.