* * *
Keene and Adreya Laelye drove out with a relief crew in one of the general-purpose site runabouts to view progress with the shuttle silos and launch pads being constructed on the far side of the landing area. The runabout had four wide wheels on independent axles like the larger Scout, an enclosed cab that could hold three with a squeeze, and an open rear section like a pickup, but which could be tipped to function as a dump truck also. The work going on currently involved forming revetments and foundations from a ceramic foam that dried a fraction of the weight of concrete but with strength of the same order. It was intended as an intermediary measure until heavier construction and full industrial startup capability arrived with the Aztec. The talk, however, as most of the time, concerned the takeover and its implications. They stood by one of the trenches, watching the skeleton of alloy mesh being emplaced, around which the foam filling would be blown.
“We’ve all read about it,” Adreya said. “But to actually witness it is something completely different. Even the idea of a minority having control without general support of the followers is inconceivable. Never mind imposing it.”
“Yes, I know,” Keene told her. “Sariena’s been saying the same thing.”
“The obsession for amassing wealth beyond any conceivable need is something we just can’t relate to. To us it’s as pointless as compulsive eating.” Financial obesity, Keene thought to himself as he stood with his hands thrust into the pockets of his parka. That was an interesting way to put it. Jon Foy had said something similar. Adreya went on, “But now that I’ve seen it, and what people can be driven to in pursuing it, I think I know what it is that motivates it.” Keene cocked an eyebrow at her inquiringly. “It’s insecurity. Fear. They have nothing to offer that anyone freely wants, but they depend totally on others for everything they need. So to feel secure, they must have the power to compel.”
Keene had listened to similar things from Kronians but never heard it put quite that way before. He remembered being told in earlier times that one of the big fears of the fabulously rich was very often that of finding themselves penniless, even when simple arithmetic showed it to be something they’d have a hard job achieving if they devoted the rest of their lives to trying, but he’d never really understood it. “Well, they can always build bureaucracies,” he commented. “That way, you create lots of rules that don’t benefit anyone, and then make a comfortable living catching people for breaking them. And you do it at their expense. Pretty neat when you think about it.”
“I never understood how someone could possess ownership rights to the wealth created by another.” Adreya sighed. “It seems that whenever things reached the point of there being money in something, that always destroyed it.”
How true, Keene thought, looking back. Small wonder the Kronian leaders were set on the unique economic system that their experiment had brought into being. He was about to respond, when he saw Pieter Naarmegen approaching beside the low wall forming the top of one of the molds. He was wearing a quilted cap with ear muffs, his face pink in the wind behind his straggly beard. He looked at Adreya uncertainly for a second, seemingly trying to convey that he wanted to talk to Keene privately; but then his expression changed to one that seemed to say, Heck, if I can’t talk in front of the representative of SOE . . .
“What is it?” Keene prompted.
It was a good place to bring up subjects that weren’t for general audiences, since the guards hadn’t attempted to secure the far sector of the pad area. For one thing, there weren’t enough of them to spare any for such a task; and for another, there was little out here that it was necessary to guard against. None of the ships could move without clearance codes from ground control, and there was nowhere to bring unloaded cargos back to except the base. And the background of construction noise made a good privacy screen against other ears that didn’t need to know.