A Shift in Priorities - Sequel

rast

A thing may be incredible and still be true; sometimes it is incredible because it is true.
(Herman Melville)

Professor Ramsauer must have a cheerful disposition indeed. His idea how BAMS should be tackled was… – well, quixotic, to say the least. Upon arrival, Konrad Schabunde had immediately realised what assignment was facing him. It wasn’t just a matter of slightly modifying the concoction. You had to compose something completely new. Good that the boss and the team were coming up. This surely was going to require a lot of hard work.

He had already begun – with the two Snowpusher chaps Ramsauer had allotted to the task. They were doctors of medicine, speciality bacteriology; one of them had been a member of the Stavanger mission. They were experts, beyond question, but their modus operandi was quite unlike from what Konrad knew. Inspiration, that was it. They were missing inspiration. The boss always was encouraging you to use your imagination.

The Ramsauer method seemed to be downright different. Plough ahead no matter the circumstances; the schedule must be observed. They were thorough, but not at all sensitive. And their boss – was dissecting a horse… Okay, Konrad could see why Ramsauer was doing this, but shouldn’t fighting BAMS have absolute priority? Or had the man finally understood that he hadn’t got what it took to defeat BAMS?

Anyway, even with boss and team arrived, this was due to become a tough task. The little fiends had ‘learned’ how to bypass the counteragent. Another concoction of this kind wouldn’t stop them any longer than a few hours. A new approach was needed. And Konrad had no clue – yet – how to accomplish that. His erstwhile attempts to use viruses for neutralising – or destroying – the bacillus had led to nothing. What else remained?
 

rast

Idiot, n. A member of a large and powerful tribe whose influence on human affairs has always been dominant and controlling.
(Ambrose Bierce)

Vizeadmiral Herbert Kastenmüller was a seasoned military man. Hence, creating the organisation necessary for achieving his mission had been his first priority. With the chancellor’s favour and Director Kammler’s backing, he had gathered a force of three thousand and five hundred men – including a few women – for planning and executing Arx. It was, in principle, a military organisation and therefore structured like a military unit. Getting scientists – bloody civilians after all – to work and contribute in such an outfit wasn’t really complicated. The Kaiserliche Marine had ample experience in such ventures; one wasn’t – and never had been – as hidebound as the army.

It was nice to have the mind unencumbered by all the petty stuff – and being able to focus on the important issues. Of course, there always were final decisions to be taken, but that was his job as military leader. Yeah, and you had to liaise with everybody and his dog. This was quite a challenge for an ancient submariner; yet, he had got quickly used to it. In fact, interoperating with other decision makers provided you with special knowledge, which was helpful for directing your staff towards the common goals.

Selecting the future colonists was one such overarching issue. RRA was already groaning under the perspective of having to train the future Phönix crew. Now, colonists didn’t have to be trained kosmonauts, but, on the other hand, you couldn’t just pick a guy from the street and send him to Jupiter. They had to be qualified. The good thing was that there were more than enough applications. But Germany was already suffering from a lack of hands, selecting only the best would create serious problems in other realms.

The average colonist was not required to be a genius, but he must be a qualified specialist – farmer, engineer, policeman, whatever. The question was: how exacting must the qualification be? Could one choose the ordinary bloke? Was a Pomeranian peasant capable of farming on Arx? Or did one need a guy with university degree? Or how many humble farmers could a single graduate agriculturist guide? So, yes, one would need a certain number of highly qualified specialists, but not 40,000 of them. The burden for the economy wouldn’t be unbearable.
 

rast

Healthy scepticism is the basis of all accurate observation.
(Arthur Conan Doyle)

He had been warned just in time; relevant people were out for getting rid of him. One of his followers, a cleaner, had listened in on a pertaining conversation. The WAU had alerted the Ala Ka Kuman authorities: he was a sought-after terrorist, a dangerous criminal. – Getting rid of someone in this country usually meant letting him disappear in the desert. Wukr el-Shabbazz had immediately bolted. Once bitten, twice shy. Portuguese Guinea was a poor place – on many counts, but it was safe – at least for now.

This was the end of the Al’iikhwa Miskin, the Brotherhood of the Poor, obviously. At any rate, he had taken along a bag filled with the brotherhood’s cash assets. It wasn’t much, yet perhaps sufficient for the next couple of weeks. Whereto should he go? The fucking WAU had his data – and they were talking with the rest of Black Africa. Madagascar came to mind. Ever since they had ousted the French, the country had become a completely forgotten backwater. From Bolama, the local capital, he could get a lift to Mozambique, another Portuguese colony. And from there, he would – someway – get to Madagascar.

He had no clue what might await him on the island. It seemed to be an outright black hole. They were selling sugar, spices and coffee – mainly to the ROTA and the Ottoman Empire, that was known. However, information on the political system seemed to be hard to come by. It was not a democracy. But… Well, he was going to find out. Perhaps they needed a professor…
 

rast

We’re in a blessed drainpipe, and we’ve got to crawl along it till we die.
(H. G. Wells)

The Kaiser was coming! The alarming news had caught Josef ‘Seppel’ Mobutu on the hop. In 1969, one was going to celebrate the 25th anniversary of Middle African independence. And the monarch – or rather his staff – had advised Daressalam that the occasion merited a visit of the sovereign. Good grief! One had believed to be safe from such visitations… But it was true, the bloke was the official head of state. There even should be a viceroy residing in Daressalam, but that office had – for whatever reasons obscured by the time elapsed – never been activated, thank goodness.

Okay, one would have to live with it. He would appoint a special commissioner for preparing the event. Coming to think of it, it wasn’t a bad opportunity to excel. After the 1966 elections, he surely was going to be chancellor, not just the acting prat. And the anniversary – at mid-term, how convenient – certainly had to be celebrated. Yes, it should be a splendid chance to shine in glory. – Provided that dreadful pest thing had been defused until then. Well, he had already agreed to have that antidote wizard Misuku sent to Germany. Hopefully that would do the trick once again.

Though, on the other hand, of course, nobody having their wits together would propose to bring Emil Muramba back into office in times of utter peril. That meant the pest threat ensured that he could remain acting chancellor – without any ado. It should provide him a fine bonus of incumbency in the 1966 – next year already! – elections. Yeah, could he still delay Misuku? – No, had already left the country. Fair enough, the recent mission hadn’t provided lasting relaxation. So, staying cool and responsive should be the best approach…
 

rast

Lawyer: one who protects us against robbery by taking away the temptation.
(H. L. Mencken)

Puri on the Bay of Bengal was a scenic sea resort with a number of attractive villas dating back to the time of the English overlords. But as a hightech site, it was quite a disappointment, found Egon Hamzi of Luwele, Kabinka & Hamzi Solicitors. Because the Indian Federation had banked on Bhaee aircraft and Mā'usa gliders, they never had built launch pads and other infrastructure required for handling chemical rockets. Their Bhaee – they had only one; the new constructions hadn’t been commissioned yet – was floating on near-by Chilika Lake, which also had been used for regular starts and landings. And the gliders were stored in a simple warehouse on the lake shore.

There was a control centre – well, sort of. One of the English villas had been turned into a kind of conning tower – and an auditorium, made of wood, had been added. Even by the standards of the pathetic MARFAK this was extremely poor. But okay, SUS had been pretty much successful in their space operations. Hence, the arrangements seemed to work fine for them; no reason to become overweening. – However, where did they train their kosmonauts? And the Sikuku kosmonauts? Where were they?

Right now, they were in the Himalaya, but they were due to be back tomorrow. Flying helicopters was part of their training. Oh, there was a training camp for them, just a small compound on the beach, nothing substantial. Normally, the trainees were travelling – from one tech site to the next. Or to a university – or a military installation… There was no need for them to be here – except when the Bhaee was activated. They could learn more by travelling – and travelling itself was part of their formation.

Fine and dandy, tomorrow then… He had to see them, and to interview them. The nabob wanted to know how far their training had advanced. When would they be able to operate the Sikuku space craft? – Indeed, they all had been in space already – and had also landed the gliders. What was missing was Bhaee flight training. One was waiting for at least one of the Kolhapur jumbos to become operational, because one didn’t want to take a chance with the single machine one had at hand presently.
 

rast

Ask the beasts and they will teach you the beauty of this earth.
(Francis of Assisi)

The horse had been devoid of any glanders bacteria. How was that possible? How could the animals have survived in this environment? – Well, coming to think of it, avoiding contact with vectors should do the trick. The most common vectors hereabouts were humans, the immunes. They might kill horses – for food. But that didn’t infect the rest of the herd. And the solitary immunes – or small groups of them – were not trying to catch horses alive… or were they? Now, a horse caught would die. And the rest of the herd would run away – without being infected.

Dogs were liable of hunting horses as well. But they were no carriers of glanders. – Immune horses? Were there any? One had to find out. – The Peak District herd were the first horses one had observed at all. One had believed they were extinct on the British Isles; killed by NED nine years ago. That obviously was not the case. There had to be more of them. One single herd couldn’t exist for nine years. Why hadn’t they been spotted before? – It was utterly confusing.

At least Friend Eberhart had arrived with his team. The chap was in a better shape than at Stavanger. They had immediately started work, instructed by Doctor Schabunde. Would they be able to turn the scales? Konrad Schabunde had explained to him that simply altering the concoction a little bit wouldn’t do. One had to find something new. It might take a lot of time… Professor Sigbert Ramsauer didn’t think it would take that long. Eberhart certainly was going to find a solution in a trice. Hitherto, the bloke had done it each time…
 

rast

An optimist may see a light where there is none, but why must the pessimist always run to blow it out?
(René Descartes)

Chopping and changing, it was unnerving. Borders open, borders closed again. Merchandise ordered, but not delivered. It seemed the Opaque Woodlands were indeed forced to fall back on subsistence economy. It was doable at a pinch, but meant sacrificing economical growth for a long time. Withdrawal to the interior and dispersal had already hurt development. And now, unavailability of goods was about to deliver the coup de grâce.

Jeremy Dreaming Fox was still struggling against this trend. After all, the US – with their quarantine policy – was ready to allow imports and exports. The problem, though, was transportation. Accepting a fortnight of downtime was not attractive, if it wasn’t compensated by extra payment. One was still negotiating. Would the US establish transit centres – where merchandise could be handled free of quarantine? Two, at New Orleans and Mobile, would be sufficient to serve the OW’s requirements.

Fritz Ma’alongwe thought it was hopeless. The OW were too irrelevant to nudge the smug Amis. The Chinese might get such easements, but some run-away Indians? Why bother? – No, one was going to be on one’s own. It was inconvenient, very much so. Ellen, his wife, was down east at Musuq Picchu, the mountain resort the Peruvians were building on the Ma’alongwe estate. And he was here, in the west, in the interior highlands. There was no communication, a disconcerting situation.

He could only trust that Ellen was capable of handling the situation over there. She was a clever and resolute woman, but these Peruvians could be downright mulish. They liked the idea of autarchy – and living in the mountains… But they were useful. The local gang here had started implementing paths for runners – in the good old Inca manner. It was anachronistic, but extremely effective. Yeah, getting communications across the OW working again would be nice.
 

rast

Hope not ever to see heaven. I come to lead you to the other shore; into eternal darkness, into fire and ice.
(Dante Alighieri)

Their application had been approved. They were designated Arx colonists now. Egon had been accepted in his capacity as a police officer. That was exceptional, because he clearly lacked education. But he was good – very good – in his job. Apparently, someone at Prerow was blessed with sanity and reason. Or perhaps, they weren’t getting enough police applications. Who could tell? Anyway, the admission had been declared.

Gerdi had been accepted as fitness trainer and nursery school teacher. The kids, Herbert and his prospective sister, were part of the parcel. – Right now, no further details were known. Approximately in three years, an instruction directive was going to be issued. And there would be, of course, another medical examination. This was unavoidable. One had to make sure that only hale and hearty folks were travelling to Jupiter.

Okay, all that was normal. It would have to be business as usual for the next couple of years. Egon Schagalla never had been a dreamer. He was too hard-nosed for fancy. First of all, Herbert’s little sister had to be born. And the family had to remain well. All this didn’t require witchcraft. One would manage.
 

rast

Princes and governments are far more dangerous than other elements within society.
(Niccolò Machiavelli)

USS Hercules was on the move since yesterday; with a speed of twelve inches per hour. It was going to take 22 days to complete the relocation. That was quick indeed. One was going to lose one month only. Harvey Allen was deeply contended. US Steel was doing a splendid job. They were already retooling their plant for producing USS Hydra’s pusher plate.

One had also finished renegotiating the contracts. Consequently, the contractors were currently in the process of increasing their workforces. The cost increase was not quite unsubstantial, but folks in Washington, anticipating that a lot of additional jobs would be created, had been keen to approve additional spending. Yeah, the economy was still ailing.

The flip-flopping about border closures – and other cruelties – had choked trade and commerce. The US quarantine ruling didn’t really help there; it wasn’t enabling easy turnaround of goods. The isolationist faction in Washington didn’t mind; they were obstructing – quite successfully – all attempts to facilitate international affairs.

The pest was dangerous, no doubt, but there was no epidemic situation anywhere right now – as far as Allen could tell. Hence, the whole manoeuvre had to have a domestic dimension. But the question was moot; the isolationists were supporting Operation Hercules.
 

rast

The man in ecstasy and the man drowning: both raise their arms.
(Franz Kafka)

Should one lift the restrictions? Could one risk it? The emergency in Norway and Sweden had passed. The danger had become latent. – It was urgent. One had to act. The economy was at rock bottom. And the mood of the population was approaching the boiling point.

Vladimir Yefimovich Semichastny had read all the reports. They provided a vivid picture of the situation, but they didn’t tell him what to do. He had assumed office under the impression that the pest threat had been overcome. But that impression had been erroneous, as he very soon had been forced to find out.

The initial impulse had been to revert to his precursor’s lockdown. This approach, however, was now proving unsustainable. Russia’s vastness didn’t help; the bulk of the populace was living in the European part of the country. People were loath of the anti-pest measures.

The American quarantine regulation was a fairly clever scheme; one would imitate it. However, it wouldn’t suffice. Folks wanted to travel – and go on vacation. That posed a severe problem. Only Greece was ready to welcome Russians yet; Hungary, Bulgaria and the Ottoman Empire were still closed to tourists. Ládno, Germany was open too; they never had closed their borders.

Was it really clever to allow transit to the Mediterranean? It would ease tensions, undoubtedly. But the Greeks were notorious for their jauntiness; one couldn’t trust their provisions against an epidemic. And Germany was the centre of cyclone. Semichastny didn’t like the idea of letting compatriots travel to perilous spots. One still had no cure…
 

rast

Far better it is to have a stout heart always and suffer one’s share of evils, than to be ever fearing what may happen.
(Herodotus)

Franz Josef appeared to be perfectly unperturbed. Everything seemed to bounce off of him. He was wilfully following his daily routine. And was making decisions, quite a lot of them – but not those the public was abiding. Well, the ‘public’ was a strange mixture of disparate elements: foreign diplomatists, certain media representatives, opposition politicians, coalition politicians, other politicians, professors, the military, bankers, you name it. They wanted the blockade of the British Isles to be restored. They wanted the societal emergency to end. They wanted the traditional political system to work again.

Franz Josef was doing nothing of that kind. He was rather meeting with those folks who liked his way: Industrialists and unionists alike, foreign diplomatists, certain media representatives, certain politicians, professors, bankers, you name it. The economy was thriving; people were earning good money. Germany was leading the world in science and technology. His Swiss bank accounts were well-stocked. There was no need to change anything.

The pest? Science was going to solve the quandary, no doubt. There was no reason to worry. Science had created it; science would delete it again. – Hanne Zülch wasn’t quite sure whether the bugs would underpin this notion. Hadn’t NED been terrible enough? Why risk another disaster? Was it really necessary? But Franz Josef wouldn’t budge. His intuition told him to act like this. And his intuition had proven right every time hitherto. She should trust him. Everything was going to be all right.
 

rast

It never seems to occur to some people, that, like beauty, a sense of humour may sometimes be fatal.
(Edgar Rice Burroughs)

The Feuerdrache was on its way. One was aiming at the main asteroid belt. Wanted was a stately solid piece of ore. – One would have to search for it. The scientists thought most asteroids were of the composite type – flying muck heaps, certainly fascinating for the specialists, but worthless for the purpose of mining.

On the Hammer’s journey to Jupiter, the asteroid belt had been bypassed. There had only been one encounter, with a composite asteroid, the Hammerstein. On the way back, one had crossed the belt, but had been in a hurry – too fast and too pressed to care for pebbles.

Most probably, the object one was looking for would be an unknown. Too small to have been registered already. If one should find what one was looking for… The captain planned to use the dinghies in the search. Once arrived at the belt, one would have to move slowly anyway – not because of the pebbles, but because of the search for them.

At the moment, Wilfried Thalhammer was at the helm, while Heinz Grabowski and Sigmund Jähn were taking a nap. One was still accelerating, hence having some gravity. That made life easy. There were three extra scientists, geologists – whatever their merit for evaluating ore hunks might be, on board – and five engineers, for mounting the rockets.

Yeah, the load bays were full of that stuff. RRA must have bought everything available on the market. One was going to produce grandiose fireworks in space. The navigators thought one would need three – or four – burns to get the bonanza on a course towards earth orbit, depending on the mass and the velocity of the boulder. And it was going to take time, one year and four months – approximately. The exact data would be determined once one had found what one was looking for.
 

Aristomenes

rast said:
Yeah, the load bays were full of that stuff. RRA must have bought everything available on the market. One was going to produce grandiose fireworks in space. The navigators thought one would need three – or four – burns to get the bonanza on a course towards earth orbit, depending on the mass and the velocity of the boulder. And it was going to take time, one year and four months – approximately. The exact data would be determined once one had found what one was looking for.
Click to expand...
I have an ominous feeling about that...
 

rast

In theory, theory and practice are the same. In practice, they are not.
(Albert von Einstein)

Once again, Indrik Zver was sitting in Crater Klaproth. Shift turnover was in process. Polkovnik Ivan Ivanovich Drubchev was using the time available for walking through Lunoseló. Not much had changed since the last time, of course. But it was nice to see something working according to schedule. The colony’s reactor was a small unit, yet more than sufficient for all current purposes. Water production was the largest consumer, but also the colony’s proudest asset. One was independent – in principle. Yeah, sure, the hydroponics farm was still under construction.

The Nyemtsi had buried their reactor far away from Mondstadt; Lunoseló’s reactor was an integral part of the main structure. That made operation and maintenance easy. This approach worked in submarines, ships – and Indrik Zver; therefore it been copied for the moon colony. Why the Nyemtsi had chosen another policy was something that worried not only Drubchev. Obviously, the buggers reckoned with being shelled.

Indeed, Drubchev had seen a secret report: they had this retired general, hero of the Great War, the War for South-West and the British Civil War. He was their advisor for war in space, had even written a book about it. NASA had nothing of that kind. Drubchev remembered the absurd fuss about arming Indrik Zver. One was too simplehearted. – Right now, the big Nyemetski ship was cruising to the asteroid belt. They wanted to catch an asteroid. But they didn’t yet have a facility to process it.

NASA had such a facility: NSÓ; but one had no asteroid – and no plan to catch one. One was too inflexible. The Nyemtsi were right: collecting an asteroid came first. The chunk required time to travel to earth orbit. While that happened, one still could build a space factory to handle it. NASA had done it the wrong way round. NSÓ was idling about, while the men in the Kremlin couldn’t decide what they wanted. One was too irresolute…
 

Dain

Aristomenes said:
I have an ominous feeling about that...
Click to expand...
Well, the description of their preparations did not fill me with confidence that they have considered this task from all angles. Let's see what they decide to do once they actually rendevouz with one of their target rubble piles. :D
 

rast

To the eye of failure success is an accident.
(Ambrose Bierce)

The Feuerdrache was darting to the main asteroid belt. The Russian jumbo was sitting on the Moon. The Turks were still tinkering with their space station. It was business as usual. Helga von Tschirschwitz was looking for something she could present to the media. The asteroid haul operation had already been explained to the public, more information would only confuse the laymen. Or create panic… The Phönix was far too complicated. Remained Arx, the object of popular attachment anyway.

Kastenmüller’s staff was turning out vapid bulletins galore. However, the clobber was only good for lulling people to sleep. Helga thought the stuff sorely needed to be amped up. A kamal tale should be helpful – and perhaps some novels, although future stories had never become as popular in Germany as they were in Russia. But one had to try. – There had been stories already, of course; the scribblers would hardly miss such an opportunity. Yet, they all had been far off the mark. One needed something that dealt with the real Arx – or, well, with the current version of how the colony was going to look like.

Money was not a problem; security was… Getting a declassified version of Arx for fictional purposes was… difficult. She had already plied Kastenmüller, who had agreed – in principle. But his staff was taking their time to deliver. Until then, it was going to be downtime. – What else could she do? The film about the Feuerdrache’s trip to Mars had already been released. It wasn’t a blockbuster, but the scientific version had been well received. – The training of the Foreign Legion? Rather not… Construction of the Four Sisters? There was already a declassified unwrought version for PR purposes. Doktor Rüchel was quite active in this respect. Yeah, why not?
 

rast

Every physician must be rich in knowledge, and not only of that which is written in books; his patients should be his book, they will never mislead him.
(Paracelsus)

It was enough to go off at the deep end; there was no progress. The boss said one had to think around the corner – whatever that might mean… Professor Ramsauer had gone hunting horses in the north. That didn’t help the common effort, but was perhaps the cleverest thing he could do. His assistants were contributing to the best of their abilities at least. However, like their principal, they were bioweapon folks, rather oriented towards breeding germs instead of fighting them.

Konrad Schabunde had started looking for viruses that might help to subdue BAMS. Extra equipment – a modern scanning transmission electron microscope, a STEM – had arrived from Germany. Ramsauer obviously was up to his reputation as capable organiser and enabler. Konrad was now searching for sick germs – or at least for ones that produced antibodies. That was tedious – and, up to now, inconclusive. But he had only just begun. There were millions of viruses found in the samples, yet only those that BAMS was fighting were of interest.

After all, he had already identified two. Both weren’t disabling BAMS though, only using it to reproduce – and hence perhaps weakening it a little bit. That wasn’t enough; BAMS was a tough beast. One needed more, something with a bang…
 

rast

In every province, the chief occupations, in order of importance, are lovemaking, malicious gossip, and talking nonsense.
(Voltaire)

The exams were due to start next week. This marked the end of the training period. After the exams, the final exercise was going to take place – in orbit and on the Moon. Fähnrich Yankel Kerschbaumer was certain to pass all tests – with honours. All eighteen aspirants would pass, of course. Nevertheless, he anticipated to be the best. He always had been the best in the last three years. That was why General Bredigkeit had made him leader of the group.

The others hated him; they always had done. But they were obedient. That was the advantage of serving in a military outfit. Well, RRA wasn’t exactly a military organisation, but General Bredigkeit had turned the training department into one. – The exams consisted of a written part and an oral one – in each of the thirteen subjects. It was going to take six weeks until everybody had passed. For the individuals, this meant a lot of free time – at least for those tested early and late.

Taking leave was okay, the sergeant major, the Spieß, had said. The exam schedule was posted on the bill-board. Hence, the lads had started making plans. The Hungarians would be tested last. That gave them full five weeks for holidays, lucky bastards. The Ukrainians would come first; for them applied the same – and even more so, because they would be past the exams. Yankel’s turn would be in the third week – hard luck. Well, you can’t always win. But the Heymshtot wasn’t far away – and the borders were open.

He was going to stay here, pass the exams – and then have a fortnight at home, if the borders should be open still. If not, he considered spending his leave in Berlin. It was a cosmopolitan city, after all. And he deserved a time-out, didn’t he?
 
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