from
First Constitutional Congress of
the Cloudships of the Outer System
April 2, 3013 (e-standard)
a transcript
C. al-Farghani: Thank you, most gracious Chairman and assembled worthies. I would like neither to deny nor affirm this preamble, but to call your attention to the greater matter which is before us—namely, continued exploration and elaboration of the cosmos. While I agree that we may believe whatever we want to, to waste resources in the defense of misguided thought seems to me a foolhardy venture. Let us form this government, or not, and just leave. We have been to the Centauris. We are going to Barnard’s Star. We are ships, and ships are explorers. To turn inward and gaze at our navels—or, more precisely, the navels of those who could not hope to share our sense of adventure and wonder—is to abandon that which brought us to where we are today. If this Amés wants the solar system, I say: Let him have it. There are a hundred million stars in our galaxy alone waiting for us. What is the use of getting ourselves killed over one average sun? To leave would not be a sign of cowardice, but an expression of our true purpose. Cowardice can mean nothing to creatures such as we have become. We are above the petty squabbles of our ancestors, and the fact that the vestigial remains of our origins still exist in some twisted form in this solar system can ultimately mean nothing to us. Did we join in the fights of one ape band with another on Earth? Of course not! Were we cowards to turn away, and let the two sides fight it out? In no way. We are in an analogous situation. I, for one, feel only the vaguest kinship with those who do not know the pleasures and wonders of the stars, or who would deny them to us out of some latent animal perversity. We are ships! Let us sail away. Thank you, kind Chairman, and honorable colleagues.
C. Mencken: Thank you for seeing in me attributes to which even my wife will not attest, Cloudship al-Farghani. Chair recognizes Cloudship . . . uh, excuse me a moment. Yes? . . . All right. Chair recognizes Cloudship Austen—J. Austen.
C. Austen: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Before we become so enamored of ourselves that this caucus descends into a love fest, I might ask you to consider, ladies and gentlemen, where the money comes from, money that allows us to fund our wondrous adventures and fanatical quests? I am not, of course, referring to anyone in particular. I myself have an obsession or two, and adventures are fun to go on, as long as one can be back for a good meal in the evening. And by a meal, I am talking about the energy that makes us go. Do we obtain our energy directly from the sun? No—it is delivered to us through the Met in forms that we can use. A few cloudships can exist for a short time on the solar collection we do in the Centauris. Can you imagine the infrastructure we need to support all of us? We would not do it in under a hundred years. Hear me again: We could not build it! The Met collects, refines, and delivers our food to us in a form that is, to us, easily digestible. I call it food, because that is what it is. And if someone, anyone, threatened to cut off that energy, that person is threatening to starve us, either to our deaths, or into submission. Even if we take the position that cloudships are somehow better than everyone else—which I do not—it is still incumbent upon us to organize a means to always be assured of eating. And that, ladies and gentlemen, is what this resolution, the preamble of which we are debating, does. It feeds us—and in the best way possible, and with the least amount of work on our part to obtain our meat and bread. The threat that we face from the inner system is very real, and this, I truly believe, is the only sensible solution. Thank you.
C. Mencken: Thank you, Cloudship Austen, now will—
C. Huxley: Mr. Chairman, point of order.
C. Mencken: What is it, Cloudship Huxley?
C. Huxley: Are we debating a declaration of war or a resolution for the adoption of a new constitution? I heard no specific reference to any hostilities in that preamble.
Chamber Left: Get real, Huxley!
Chamber Right: It’s not a constitution; it’s a Tacitus stink bomb!
C. Mencken: This chamber will come to order or I will have the troublemakers condemned and hung. Or vice versa. But I mean it!
C. Huxley: But does my point stand, Mr. Chairman?
C. Mencken: Just a moment, just a moment. Order, I say! All right then. Yes, you make a good point. Speakers will confine themselves to the resolution before us and cease speculation on the current state of affairs between potential friends or enemies. Your committee wrote it broad, Lebedev. Keep it broad. Chair recognizes Cloudship—
C. Beatrice: Mr. Chairman, I strongly disagree with Cloudship Huxley.
C. Mencken: But I’ve already ruled on that.
C. Beatrice: Without debate.
C. Mencken: But I . . . oh, all right, never mind. What was it you wanted to say?
C. Beatrice: Only that by adopting this resolution we are, in effect, declaring war, as any fool can see. Amés will certainly see it. I believe that before we vote on any portion of this revolution we should consider what form this war might take and whether or not we have any chance of winning it.
Chamber Right: Hear, hear!
C. Mencken: Oh, very well. Very well. Fine, then. Chair will now hear arguments on Cloudship Huxley’s point of order and upon Cloudship Beatrice’s addendum to it.
C. Turing: Point of order!
C. Mencken: I don’t get that recursive, Turing. We shall do as I have said. Cloudship Beatrice, do you have anything further . . .
C. Beatrice: My only question is this: If we take on Amés, who is going to do it? That is: Us and what army?
C. Lebedev: I believe I can provide an answer for a portion of that question, Mr. Chairman.
C. Mencken: Chair recognizes Cloudship Lebedev.
C. Lebedev: The Met has a force of several thousand ships, all told. They are not anywhere equivalent in inertial mass to us. It is true that they have certain strategic advantages in areas, but—
C. Beatrice: Are you suggesting . . . do I understand this correctly . . . that we fight directly? Are you insane? We could get killed!
C. Lebedev: Some of us will get killed. It is inevitable. We are not playing games, here. This is a life-and-death question. Amés is bringing the war to us.
C. Beatrice: But he’s only at Pluto. You can’t believe he would challenge us directly.
C. Mencken: Cloudships, please. Order—