Connection by Ken Pence Page B

poured me a shot. I took that for a ‘yes’. “Your colony is struggling and the government has probably cut support because you want independence. You started smuggling Twasolo because it was the only thing you had that paid more than the transportation costs. Your ‘cousin’ has been supporting you here. LeSlur (actually his father – LeChak) wants all the profit because he was once a wealthy elite here but has fallen on hard times. You doubt my…” I turned around to Twlise and she suggested a word. “My role in all this…” I said and reached into the backpack and pulled out a bottle of Sema LeSlur and the espresso.
     
    “I know what that is,” said the pilot “…but what is…”
     
    I handed him the espresso. “All yours. On my planet it is a mild breakfast drink.”
     
    “You obviously have found out its use here,” said the bureaucrat looking at Twlise.
     
    She spoke up for the first time, “He has NO need for Twasolo. None at all,” she said reaching forward and rubbing my neck.
     
    “How close was I?” I asked.
     
    “Nearly accurate. How could you know? How do you fit?” the pilot asked.
     
    “I don’t like governments that think they own everything – I don’t like governments that think the people should serve them and not the other way around. I don’t think Twasolo deserves ships in space to stop it – how can they justify the huge expense. Our colonies also went through a painful period breaking away from the government. It took twelve years.” I asked.
     
    “The government is determined to obtain control of all of Xale. They already have a small military base there,” said the pilot, “but we can’t get troops close without being seen. The leader there is a general named LesTo. His men have raped children and destroyed whole towns.”
     
    “Why didn’t you just destroy the base instead of attacking it over ground?” I asked. I was truly puzzled why they just didn’t destroy it.
     
    “How? We don’t have weapons that powerful.” He said with a serious expression.
     
    “You don’t want to kill any of the soldiers then. I don’t understand. You don’t want to destroy their base. Really? You’re serious?”
     
    I chugged the rest of whatever it was they had poured in my glass – cheap vodka like stuff and poured myself some Sema LeSlur. “LeSlur makes good liquor,” I paused. “I could easily destroy this whole country.”
     
    “You have weapons that powerful?” the bureaucrat said incredulously.
     
    “You do too. Any species capable of interplanetary spaceflight has the means. You deflect a…” I turned to Twlise and asked her how to say a ‘rock in space’ and she gave me the word. “You get an ‘asteroid’ and direct it toward that base… poof …no base.”
     
    “I understand how we could redirect an asteroid but what if we got one too big,” asked the pilot. “We don’t want to destroy our ecology. We are trying NOT to destroy Xale.”
     
    “It would not take a very big one. You know the gravity of Xale, density of air at different heights. You guess the mass of the asteroid.” I said using the new words, I’d learned. “You release it at the right time and you have no base and no radiation. You don’t even have to use a fusion weapon.” I didn’t know the words for ‘fission’ or ‘fusion’ or ‘nuclear’ for that matter so I turned to Twlise. She didn’t know either – oops. They did have great meat dishes though.
     
    “You have these weapons?” asked the bureaucrat.
     
    “No. We use nuclear weapons to deflect asteroids if we detect them soon enough. We’ve only used those a few times on people – kills too many.” Had to turn to Twlise again and explained about people not in military who know nothing. She gave me the word, “Kills too many innocent civilians, and makes others want to use their own nuclear weapons.”
     
    “But the government could do that to us too,” said the pilot.
     
    “Yes.