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			   ===== NOTES =====


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------   [ T + 7 days ]


-----

"OK, this is A-core," Burns announced as he led Andrea into the first
cargo module past the 747.  "It's basically a backup command center.
It might become our command center in time."  Much of A-core was still
in packing boxes secured to the walls of the module.  Some things had
been unpacked, however, most notably an enormous flat-panel LCD
screen, considerably bigger than a conventional TV, which had been
installed against one wall and was now lit with a standard computer
status display, showing the ship's position in its orbit, their a
ground track, and a radar composite two hundred kilometers to either
side of the ship, showing the various cargo modules.  This image,
unlike the others, appeared blurry at first, since it was actually two
images alternated rapidly with each other and designed to be viewed
with 3-D glasses.  The far side of A-core was almost empty.  To this
far side, and the pressure door there, Burns led Andrea.

"There is no other A-module, because there's nothing else docked to
A-node," Burns said, passing through the pressure door into a docking
node with four empty ports, their portholes showing only star fields
and, in one, a spectacular view of Australia.  Only one door directly
across from A-core was occupied, not surprisingly, but a cargo module
Burns called B-core.  Andrea closed the pressure door behind her as
Burns opened the one in front of him.

B-core was almost completely empty.  Burns explained as he propelled
himself across it that it was intended, like the far end of A-core, as
a staging and work area for any modules that might be temporally
docked to the A-node.  Past B-core was B-node, but this one was fully
occupied with docked modules.

"These are the crew quarters, Doctor, we've each got one of these;
well, I don't know about you.  I'm in B-2, the captain's in B-1,"
Burns said, pointing to pressure doors around him as he spoke,
"Alister's got B-3, and the doc's in B-4.  I don't know where we'll
put you, but let's take a look at C-core."

C-core was intended as a crew lounge.  Stowed here in boxes was
exercise equipment, more computers and TV panels, all of it yet
untouched.

C-1: sickbay storage
C-2: sickbay
C-3: electronics lab
C-4: chemistry lab

----

Bush: "Quit all this politic'ing around and land that plane before
       somebody gets hurt."

      "Theft is wrong.  These people have done wrong, and they deserve
       to be punished.  And they will be punished."

----  [ T + 54 days ]

"That's the problem with being smart.  The smarter you get, the more
you can do, and the fewer other people there are who can help you do
it.  Eventually, you get so smart that you can do almost anything, and
none of it actually gets done."

Eventually, you get so smart that you can do anything, and nothing gets done.
Eventually, you get so smart that you know how to do anything, and nothing gets done.
Eventually, you get so smart that you know how to do almost everything, and none of it actually gets done.
You can do almost anything, and almost nothing gets done.

----- [ T + 8 days ]

*maybe a t-shirt?*

"Propaganda is not a substitute for leadership."
"Good propaganda is not a substitute for good leadership."
"Good propaganda is not a substitute for bad leadership."
"Bad propaganda is not a substitute for good leadership."

"Propaganda is like sacarin; it can substitute for leadership,
but it leaves a bitter taste in your mouth.

----- [ T + 33 days ]

Andrea made a conscious effort to be constructive.  "Democracy isn't
magic.  It's a system of government where the majority of people choose
their own leaders.  If they choose well, it succeeds.  If they choose
poorly..."  Her voice drifted off into silence; the humming of the
air conditioners was the only sound for many seconds.

---- [ T + 1 day ]

"How much money did you steal?"

"Hard to say.  Adding up everything we lied about, everything we
bought on empty credit, everything we just flat out stole - probably
close to a billion dollars."  He paused for a minute.  "And that's a
shoestring budget for what we're trying to do.  We've cut a lot of
corners.  A billion isn't much for a manned space launch, let alone
one going to Mars."

"How many corners did you cut?"

"A bunch.  I'd like to have three identical ships going, but we've
only got one.  We don't have any kind of landing vehicle yet, and
of course I'd like to have one built already and tested here on Earth,
but that isn't going to happen either."

"How do you plan to land on Mars if you don't have a landing vehicle?"

"We've got an old 747 we managed to put in orbit this morning, and
I'm hoping we can modify it to function as a space shuttle."

"How much do you have of... uh, supplies?"

"We've got a year's supply of food, water, charcoal to extract carbon
dioxide from the air.  Then we'll have to start recycling."

"Do you expect to be gone longer than a year?"

"Of course, yes.  There's no way we could get to Mars and back in a
year.  Plus, I'm planning on making a stop at the astroid belt on the
way.  I'm looking at five years..."


---- [ T + 770 days ]

"Vic had really good points.  We live in a world where individuals
are dependent on society to an almost unprecidented degree, and
that's not a good thing.  Then you compound this with the majority's
total inability to choose good leaders."

---- [ T + 231 days ]

"All this is true, but again, the most serious problems are spiritual
and not political or technological.  As long as people are willing to
stand behind their counters and refuse to serve a hamburger unless
they're getting money, you're going to have these problems.  It's a
bottom up proposition.  If people can't eat without money, it's
pointless to talk about building some hi-tech system without money.
You've got Christ there telling you 'give to all those who beg off
you' and the masses of people just don't want to hear it.  They refuse
to believe that he was talking to _you_, in _your_ business, standing
there behind _your_ counter.  They didn't want to hear it two thousand
years ago, and they don't want to hear it today."


----- [ T + 7 days ]

----- [ T + 54 days ]

"Genius?!", Burns sneered.  "What is genius?  A lot of it is passion.
I've heard it said that we use less than ten percent of our brain
power, and I believe it.  When I a teenager, I just loved math.  I
read every math book I could get my hands on.  Marc was like that with
literature.  I figured it out from watching him - you want to learn
Greek, get a copy of the _Iliad_ and just plow your way through it;
you want to learn Spanish, read _Don_Quixote_ or something; you want
to be a pianist, just play the piano every day.  I don't know
if you're going to be Elton John, but you're going to be a good pianist.

If I got behind in a college class, I'd sit down and put an hour a day
into it and be caught up in no time - and I'd time that hour with a
watch.  You put an hour a day into anything, and you're going to get
good at it, but most people just drift through life.  They have no
passion.  Or maybe their passion is being socially accepted, or making
money, or getting laid.  For whatever reason, they do just enough to
get by, and then they look at someone who has passion, who's just
driven to do something, and they think, 'man, that guy's a genius; I
wish I could be like him.'

-----

"Alister, it's not just democracy.  This has been going on for
thousands of years.  Humanity is barbaric.  Democracy just
demonstrates is what Christ said two thousand years ago, 'the path to
salvation is narrow and those who find it are few'.  People won't live
the way they were taught by Christ, it's just too hard.  Thoreau said
this, too, 'in their sacrifices to humanity they ran no risks.'
People want a watered-down, riskless religion, and that's not what
Christianity is."

-----  [ T + 54 days ]


idiot routing protocol.  It's just boring, and I always had managers
pushing me to do more and more and more.  If anything, Marc pushes me
to do less and less.  He'll offload anything he can.  And Alister was
a great find.  He's a lot of fun to work with, and a lot of stuff I'm
sick of fooling with, he'll jump into.  Marc hired him, of course."

---- [ T + 8 days ]


"Communism made a lot of sense - 'class warfare', I mean, look around.
A bunch of people trying to make money off publishing books pushing
the government for all these legal restrictions, the high-school kid
who can't afford the music he wants copying it anyway.  The 'haves'
verses the 'have nots'.  How could it not make sense?  It's the story
of human nature - the rich man and the thief.  Communism tells the
thieves that their theft was justified, that they had been oppressed,
that they could have a people's revolution and expropriate the
expropriators.  Capitalism tells the rich man that his wealth is
justified, that it's his 'right' to decide how it gets spent, that all
these people gripping about it could just go get a job and make the
money they keep begging for.

"Christianity, of course, refuses to justify either man.  God tells
the thief, 'thou shall not steal', and Christ tells the rich man 'if a
man steals your coat, give him your cloak as well'.  So to put that
in a modern context, if a man breaks into your house, holds you and
your family up at gunpoint, takes everything of value that he sees,
you give him the keys to the car and offer to help carry the stereo
out, because it's pretty heavy."

Laughter.

"Well, you laugh because people just don't want to hear it, but that
_is_ what Jesus said.  He also told the thief some things he doesn't
want to hear, either.  In fact, even your majority don't want to hear
it.  Despite all your condemnation of Communism, you still keep trying
to glorify your own revolution.  You keep trying to tell us George
Washington and Thomas Jefferson were justified in an armed revolution
against the British crown.  Yet Christ tells us in the garden to
sheath our swords.  The oppressed are not justified in theft, and they
are not justified in revolution.  If people would live both sides of
that equation, if the 'haves' would give to anyone who begged of them,
and the 'have-nots' would accept whoever was in power, things would
tend to work out.  But the 'haves' always abuse their power, and the
'have-nots' always scream for revolution.  For a democratic
revolution, if they are sufficiently localized geographically to be
able to control one, because democracy really 'legimitizes' it.  If
all the drugs users in the United States were completely localized in
one state, that they could easily control the state government through
democratic elections, you'd see a much different drug policy in the
United States.  I can't tell you exactly what it'd be, but I can tell
you that the dissident groups that get oppressed most in democracy are
the ones that are so broadly spread geographically that they can't
influence even local elections."

---- [ T + 770 days ]

"It was like that movie 'The Untouchables', in that scene where the
accountant got blown away by the mob, and scrawed on the wall in blood
was the word 'touchable'.  That's what nine-eleven was for this
country - 'touchable' scrawed in blood across the rubble of Ground Zero.

"What changed in nine-eleven is this majority finally figured out that
all the billions they've blown on weapons, weapons, and more weapons,
hasn't had then _untouchable_.  Nine-eleven was just like the scene in
the movie, written in blood on the wall for all the world to see:
'touchable'.  That's why we hear all this crying now about weapons of
mass destruction, because these are the _only_ weapons that can really
target THE MAJORITY.

"Who else you gonna attack?  Who else is really guity?  It's the
people who keep voting militant capitalists back into power, keeping
working for their corporations, keep supporting their system - in a
word, the majority."

"What do you mean by mititant capitalism, you've used the phrase
several times."

"Well, first of all capitalists, men and women who subcribe this
pseudo-religion of greed, that you've got this whole battery of goods
and services you offer, but nobody gets any of it without money, and
secondly militants, people who sit around at cocktail parties and say,
"Man, that technology worked great in Iraq!" and marvel at tanks that
can fire twice as far as any other and do it at forty miles per hour,
people who insist that we've _got_ to have those weapons, to protect
our _freedom_, you know, _militant_capitalists_, or in other words,
_the_majority_.


----

"Do I 'beilive' in democracy?  No.  I mean, do I believe that it
exists, sure!  Do I believe that it's the
greatest-system-of-government- ever-invented-by-man(TM), no.  Do I
believe that it can consistently produce decent leadership, no.  Do I
believe that there's a snowball's chance in hell that it won't be
remembered as one of the most hated systems of government ever...
maybe."

"Well, the fact is that people will follow selfish and violent leaders
- this has been demonstrated time and time again, from the French
Revolution forward."

"You keep saying the French Revolution, what about the American?"

"Well, the nice thing about the French Revolution was that it came to
pieces so quickly - you could directly see what'd you'd get from a
democracy.  It took the American Revolution another two hundred years
to conjuer and annex northern Mexico, rip itself to pieces in the
Civil War, exterminate native Indian society, and generally unlease
capitalism on the planet after it had muddled through fascism and
communism."


---- [ T + 8 days ]

In 1848, based almost entirely on his name recognizition, the French
elected Louis-Napoleon Bonaparte their president (his uncle was the
famed Little Cornnel), and within five years he had disolved the
Republic and proclaimed himself Emperor Napoleon III, but I digress.


---- [ T + 21 days ]

Vic: "Well, I don't reject technology outright, but I certainly think
we've got a serious, serious problem with industrialization and the
consequent de-humanization of labor on the assembly line.  In the
twentieth century, we've seen the emergence of labor unions and the
general success of the labor movement to gain improvements in working
conditions through both legislation and contract negotiation.  Yet
those gains are largely confined to the West, and we've also seen
factories essentially exported to third-world nations that don't have
strong labor movements in order to avoid the high costs of labor in
the West.  One thing you don't see is an _international_ labor
movement; labor unions are typically local or national institutions
that are perfectly willing to sacrifice the interests of foreign
workers in order to protect their own; thus you see labor leaders
advocating restrictive immigration policies, for example, while
basically turning a blind eye to the working conditions in those
countries."

"So what's the point?"

"Well, the point is that despite all the much publicized successes of
labor we've still got serious problems with industrialization."

"But hasn't the world gone post-industrial?"

"No, it hasn't.  We still use industrial processes to manufactuer our
cars, our appliances, our food, the concrete, the steel, the plastic
that so much of our society depends on.  The hype and the money has
gone post-industrial, but there's still a lot of people working on
assembly lines in Middle America, and getting a computer certification
so you can quit your job when the factory moves to Thailand isn't the
answer."

"So what is the answer?"

"Well, I think a lot of the answer is technological.  I'm a firm
believer that we need technological solutions to our technological
problems, political solutions to our political problems, and spiritual
solutions to our spiritual problems.  It doesn't do any good to try
and find political solutions to technological problems.  The robotics
technology that we're using to grow our food here has a lot of
potential.  Basically, we can think now about replacing our assembly
line workers with robots.  But we can't do that if replacing the
workers means putting them homeless and jobless on the streets!"

----

"Th age-old propaganda technique - get personal!  Turn the discussion
into a _personal_ attack on your opponent

---- [ T + 6 or 8 days ]


Mercuriou: Yeah, I've got some closing remarks...

Mercurio rumaged in a storage bin and sent clothes flying all over the
compartment.  Finally, he pulled out one of Burns' T-shirts, brushed
away a pair of jeans that had drifted in front of the TV camera and
spread the black T-shirt out so it dominated the view field of the
camera.

"Here's my closing remark!"

The shirt read: FUCK YOU, YOU FUCKING FUCKS.


-----


LINGURING ISSUES
----------------
Burns' and Alister's drug use
Andrea's response to September 11



Congressman Ecks - capitalism
Senator Wye - freedom / drug war / border policy / liberties of democracy
Govenor Zee - the religious right



----

nobody's going allow the vegitarian minority to do this to
the majority.  So why don't you get off my back about drugs?"

----

We are forced to consider the possibility that there is a Great Evil
Spirit, which oposses us at every great turn in our lives.  We
consider that Earth may be a testing ground between Good and Evil, and
that Evil is always present, especially near end turns [near end of
life].  Then we are forced to discern Evil.


We are forced to consider Evil.
We may be opposed at every great turn in our lives.
Earth may be but a joust.
Thus we are forced to discern Evil.

   Evil may be a quest for the naive!
   Good is all there in the universe!
   Just move a little forward,
   You'll get by OK next time.

Maybe you will, God's all of love
But that's not the point.
You do his will now,
the best that you can.

----

I should've been there instead of Vic.
If anyone deserved to go down in flames it was me and Burns.

---- [ T + 7 days ]

"OK, this actually happened to me.  One day I didn't have any money, I
had just hitchhiked up from Mexico to Corpus Christi, I was walking
down the streets of this city and eventually ending up sleeping behind
an abandoned house, but before that happened..."

"Excuse me, what were you doing hitchhiking up from Mexico?"

"Well, I had gone down to visit a friend of mine who was a Franciscan
monk, I had taken the time to spend a week on a mountaintop in prayer
and then another couple of days recuperating before I went home."

...

"So when I got to Corpus Christi, I walked into this fast-food place,
I think it was a Popeye's Chicken, and I asked for a bowl of their
dirty rice.  I told the woman straight up that I didn't have any
money, she called her manager, and that woman's answer was 'We don't
give out food for free, thank you, have a nice day,' or something like
that.  So I walked out.  Now what do you want to call that?"

"I beg your pardon?"

"What do you want to call that?  Is that capitalism?"

"Well, the woman there has the freedom to give to you or not give to
you.  Capitalism doesn't tell her not to give to you, that's up to
her, she has the freedom to choice."

"No, she has the obligation to give."

"Obligation?  Whose obligation?"

"Her obligation.  She has a obligation to give."

"And who is obligating her to give?"

"Christ.  We're taught by Christ to 'give to all those who beg of
you'.  She has an obligation, imposed on her by God, to give.  Christ
said 'I give you a new commandment', and because that commandment was
to love, sometimes we forget that it wasn't just a request, it really
was a _commandment_.  So if capitalism is telling her she had the
freedom to chose one or other, it's flat-out wrong because she had an
obligation to choose to one over the other."

"Well, Doctor Yeats, whose going to impose that obligation?"

"The obligation is imposed by God."

...

"Does democacy tell us we have to freedom to drive however fast we
want in a car?  I mean, I exceed the speed limit all the time, clearly
we _do_ have that freedom, are we told that?  Do we constantly hear
from our leaders that we have the freedom to drive how fast we
please?"

"But that is prohibited by law!"

"As is the behavior of the woman in the store - it's prohibited by
God's law, despite the fact that we have the freedom to break that law
if we choose!  So are our leaders constantly telling us that we have
to give to all, they're always telling us we have to drive the speed
limit!"

...

Zee was doing a slow burn.

"Well, maybe if you had a job, you wouldn't need to hitchhike."

Now it was Andrea's turn to simmer.

"I've flow two space shuttle missions, done ground support for a half
dozen more, and spent almost ten years of my life giving my all to
NASA; that isn't good enough for you?"

"No, Doctor, it's not.  In this country we don't let people rest on
their laurels.  Whatever you may or may not have done in the past, we
expect people to work.  If you're not working now, then you've got no
reason to expect anything from anyone."

"Yet some guy makes twenty million or so pitching a baseball for a few
years, he gets to retire at thirty and relax in his beach house the
rest of his life!"

"Well, those are the decisions the majority has made..."
"Well, if he invests it wisely..."

"Well, he got that money working a job, didn't he?  That's the value
this society places on his labor, just like it placed a value on
yours, and you invest it wisely then, yes, you can retire."

...

"Let's face it - it has nothing to do with 'resting on your laurels'.
That's what 'Captain' Mercuriou here would call your propaganda.  It's
greed, pure and simple.  It doesn't make a difference what I've done
in the past; all that matters is that I don't have any money
_right_now_, all that's all most people are interested in."

"I am a _Franciscan_oblate_; let me explain just what that means..."

"So, what, you left NASA to join some goofy cult?  Maybe they're
better off without you!"

"The Franciscan movement is over 800 years old and is one of the most
storied franchises in the Christian church!"

---------

They're not fighting against freedom,
they're fighting against democracy!

---------

"Alister, most employers check to see if their employees are legal.
We checked, too, and I can tell you that not one of these guys here
has a green card!"

---------

Vic: "I guess I saw myself as the voice of morality in this whole
venture, well, maybe more the voice of spirituality!  But you've got
me beat, Andrea, they didn't need me at all!"

---------

Andrea: I think Henry Kissenger once asked a Chinese diplomat his
thoughts on the French Revolution and the man answered that it was too
early to tell.  I guess I feel that way about both the French and
American Revolutions - two hundred years isn't long when it comes to
earth-shattering political movements - it's just too early to tell.

---------

Andrea to Alister:

"Don't worry about it.  Let Kyle and his engineers back in Houston
figure it out, they understand all the orbital mechanics and can come
up with a burn schedule.  All we've got to do is make sure this ship
stays together."

---------

Back in Earth orbit, the satellite phones were working again,
and Andrea was talking to Kyle.

"As soon you're on the Internation Space Station, we're handing
off to Mission Control, and I'm flying to Flordia.  I'll see you
on the ground."

"Kyle, when you asked me to look at what NuTech was doing, I figured
it was just a favor for a friend.  I never dreamed how much I'd need
you through this."

"Andrea, I never dreamed you'd make such an impact through this.
Everytime I see you on TV, I'm just in awe."

---------

Asked if she supported the government / believed in democracy:

"No, and I'll tell you why.  I'm a Christian, and when you get right
down to it, I don't see where the Christian has hardly any use for
government, at least as we know it.  Government is coercive, and
passivism is a mainstay of Christianity.  Think about it.  The
Christian will 'give to all those who beg of him', the Christian will
give even to thieves - 'if a man steals your coat, give him your cloak
as well', so what use does he have of a court system to sue for
damages?  The only way he'd end up in court is if someone else was
suing him.  He's taught not to resist evil, but to love his enemies;
the soldier is taught to 'do no violence to any man', so what use does
the Christian have for national defense?  If someone nails him to a
cross, with his dying words he'll say, 'forgive them, they know not
what they do', so what utility is a criminal justice system, if he'll
let murderers walk?"

--------- [ T + 1033 days ]

"X, in _Zen_and_the_Art_of_Motorcycle_Maintenance_, described the
Great Books program as the last major attempt to change the course of
a university.  That's probably a pretty accurate description, too."

"Did it work?"

Mercuriou sighed.  "Well, yes and no.  It'd be accurate to say it
changed the course of _some_ universities.  St. John's, for example.
They don't give grades; they don't have exams; it's all based on
reading and writing and discussing what you've read.  But so far it's
been limited to a liberal arts program, and after watching Burns in
action, I think the methodology could be applied to hard sciences as
well.  You study geometry by reading Euclid and Descartes and Hilbert.
You read Faraday to understand how to conduct experiments.  You read
modern authors, too, Maor, and Jackson, and Albert; you pick apart
algebra, and trigonometry, and calculus, and then you go through
physics, and chemistry, and biology.  Of course, you might just end up
producing a generation of Frankensteins crammed full of all this
knowledge without any moral context on how to use it."

... maybe something here about different styles of education ...


-----

"...and then _this_ thing," Mercuriou declared, waving his computer
tablet in the air, "'Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the
Citizen', in translation, of course..."

"The representatives of the French People, formed into a National
Assembly, considering ignorance, forgetfulness or contempt of the
rights of man to be the only causes of public misfortunes and the
corruption of Governments..."

"What a fantastic claim!  That ignorance or contempt of the rights of
man are the _only_ causes of public misfortunes!  What about greed!?
What about violence?!"

"What about ignornace or contempt of God?" Andrea asked.

"No, but let's continue!  Perhaps it's in there somewhere!  Perhaps greed
violates the rights of man!"

Mercuriou continued to quote aloud from the tablet.

"Article 2.  The aim of every political association is the
preservation of the natural and imprescriptible rights of man.  These
rights are Liberty, Property, Safety and Resistance to Oppression."

"Hmmm..." he continued in dramatic fashion, "Nope!  The right of
Property but nothing about greed!  Nothing about the _responsibility_
of those with Liberty and Property - all rights, no responsibilities!"

"And Christ taught us to forgive our oppressors and pray for our enemies,
not that we have a right of Resistance to Oppression," Andrea chimed in.

"Article 12. To guarantee the Rights of Man and of the Citizen a
public force is necessary..."

"Article 13.  For the maintenance of the public force, and for
administrative expenses, a general tax is indespensable..."

"There you have it!  _The_People_ need a public force to guarantee their
Rights and a general tax to pay for it all!"

"But isn't there something to be said for it, I mean don't people have
rights?"

Andrea answered first.

"Alister, the violation of those 'rights' arises because the men in
change have responsibilites, too - love, charity, forgiveness."

"Witness the great, modern Free Man!  He has Liberty, he has
Property, he lives Unoppress'd, and Oppresses not others!  So what if
another man begs the steak in his freezer?!  Has not that other man
Liberty, too?  Can he not aquire his own Property as well?"

Has he not Liberty?  Has he not Property?

"The public misfortunes and corruption of Governments arise not because
men have forgoten/contempt their _rights_," Mercuriou now thundered
from Olympus, "it is because they have forgotten/contempt their
_obligations_!"




======

liberation theology is alive and well in the United States


======

One of the worst aspects of capitalism is how it promotes mediocrity.

======

"And if you could land and take off again, you could claim the X Prize."

It was weak, but Andrea was grabbing at straws.

"The X Prize?  Doctor, I'm after the M Prize."

======

Kyle near the end:

"Well, it's in the hands of the boys over in '39', now.  I'm flying to
Flordia, Andrea, I'll see you on the ground!"


========= [ T - 312 days ]

talking about St Francis


=========
You make it sound like a utopia!


Impossible task: a voyage to Narnia




Anyway, if they made it to Mars, she wanted
to be there, and if they didn't, they'd _really_ need her help.


On late night T.V, a comic quipped, "Captain Mercuriou wants to open
spaceflight to the masses.  Anybody who can steal five billion
dollars is welcome to join him."


A hundred and twenty miles in altitude,
the ship was in a ninety-minute Low Earth Orbit in the midst of over
hundred free-floating cargo modules.

Once in orbit, the crew got right to work.  They had to.  Most of
their fuel and supplies were in the cargo modules, which were built
around a three-part design.  The first stage boosted the module to
orbital height and speed, though with a perigee still in the
atmosphere.  After detaching the first stage, the second stage fired
briefly at apogee to raise the module to a circular orbit, while the
first stage dropped back into the atmosphere and burned up.  Atop the
second stage was the cargo module itself, equiped with a laptop
computer using a radio communications link and a fuel cell fed
from supply lines of N-1033 and peroxide.




Mercuriou would have lept out of his chair, but of course, he
had no chair.  He was floating free in the cabin of the 747,
so had to be content with a bizarre gestation of his arms
before firing back his retort.




"Excuse me," came a female voice from just outside camera range, and
Andrea Yeats propelled herself into view.

"Excuse me, but I really don't think the issue is freedom.  The issue
is morality.  Freedom has to be used morally, and I think these
objections come down to morality, even though very few people like to
use that word.  Freedom is not an absolute good.  It can abused, and
the crux of the issue is that the majority of people have freedom, but
have abused it and used it immorally."

"Well, who's going to define this morality, Doctor Yeats," came the
sarcastic response from Earth.  "Who's going to tell people what they
can and can't do with their freedom?"

"Morality is a function of religion, Senator.  As a Christian, I look
to the gospel of Christ to define morality."

"Well, that's fine for you, Doctor, but we've got freedom of religion
in this country!'

"Freedom of religion is fine up to a point, but somewhat unrealistic..."

"It's not unrealistic, Doctor Yeats, we've got it!  What you advocate
is something we abandoned centuries ago, that there should be some
prefered state religion!"

"Well, you've got to have a prefered religion..."

"_Got_to_have_a_prefered_religion!"  Interrupting, Wye echoed her words
with a sneer.  "Doctor Yeats, I hate to break this to you, but you're
about two hundred years behind the times!  Ever heard of the Salem
Witch Trials?"

The NASA engineer turned red and practically ripped the microphone off
her shirt before pushing away from the bulkhead behind her and fleeing
from the TV cameras without saying another word.  Mercuriou jumped
into the gap.

"OK, now you're back to picking on someone your own size!"

The televised confrontation ragged on another fifteen minutes, with
Senator Wye repeatedly asserting that the United States had freedom
because the majority of people supported the government, and Mercuriou
repeatedly charging that all the majority wanted to do with their
freedom was use it to oppress others.  Later, the captain found Andrea
Yeats back in C-3, working on a computerized radar system Burns
planned to install on the front of the spacecraft.

"So what where you talking about there?  You've got to have a hide of
steel to debate those bastards; it's a blood sport.  They're not
trying to have some intellectual debate; they'll stoop to any low to
get their sound bite and 'win'."

Yeats brushed back the long blond hair that was starting to
drift in front of her face.

"What I was trying to say was that you just can't have a human society
without some kind of shared standard of morality, and that's one of
the main functions of religion.  I mean, how can you judge right or
wrong?  You invariably end up with some kind of preferred religion;
complete freedom of religion is totally unrealistic.  Why can't
someone say that his religion allows human sacrifice, for example?
Where's your freedom of religion then?"

"I'll tell you what their prefered religion is - it's democracy!"
Mercuriou responded.  "The murderer can't make his human sacrifice
because the majority won't allow it!  I can't smoke pot because
the majority has decided to outlaw it!  Our ship's library
is illegal because that's what the majority has decided to call it!
Right and wrong are subject to a vote, now, Andrea."

"Well, we both know right and wrong are not subject to a vote.  I
think half of what religion is, heck, maybe 90% of what religion is is
giving us standards to judge right and wrong.  Murder isn't wrong
because it's illegal, it's wrong because it's immoral, and you can't
decide what's moral and immoral without religion.  So that's why I
think freedom of religion, or more precisely seperation of religion
from public life, is a chimera.  You can have freedom to go to
whatever church you want, but you can't have a society without some
kind of shared norm of morality, and that means a shared, what I
called a preferred, religion."

Mercuriou was silent as he thought about this for a minute.

"You know, you've got a good point there, Doctor - morality!  Maybe
it's something I don't talk enough about.  These people crow on to no
end about 'freedom', but they don't want to talk about morality!"




Mercuriou: I'll agree with that, but I'd still like to see these
additional powers codified in Constitutional Ammendments, and I'll
tell you why.  One of the big accusations people made against Soviet
Russia was that their government didn't obey their Constitution, that
it was tiny little bunch of communists who had taken over the
government, that it wasn't really what people wanted, that if they had
only had 'freedom' everything would have been so different.  Now, I
don't want anybody being able to come around a hundred years from now
and try to say that the U.S. wasn't really a democracy, that the
people didn't really want these things, that some bunch of politicians
took over the government, that if only the Constitution had been
enforced, then everything would have been so different.  This
government, this majority, talks so much about law and order, is so
determined to make all these rules for everyone else to obey, I'd just
like to see them have to obey the rules that were laid down for them.
It's a bit of a side issue, but I'd really like a precedent
established that the powers of the government are limited by the
Constitution.


cut from T + 6 days




Mercuriou: Freedom for whom, senator, freedom for whom?  Freedom for
the two million people sitting in your jail cells?

Wye: So now you're trying to compare us with fascists!

Mercuriou: The basic premise is the same.  The solution to our
problems is to build all these super-weapons, arm ourselves to the
teeth, have a war against our own people, send armed men busting into
their homes, make people so terrified of what will be done to them
that they'll be too afraid not to just fall in line and do what
they're told when the great majority barks out its orders.  Isn't it
funny how in all of these great _people's_ societies the biggest enemy
of all always ends up being _your_own_people_?

Wye: Fascist Germany was a dictatorship, captain; its government
_wasn't_ responsive to its people; THAT'S HOW WE GOT THE HOLOCAUST!!

Mercuriou: It was DEMOCRACY that brought Hitler to power, senator!
Germany had not one, but two national elections in 1932, and the Nazi
party won a plurality in both of them!  Hitler was the leader of the
largest political party in the country and the obvious choice for
chancellor!

Wye: This is outrageous!



Mercuriou: After the Soviet Union collapsed, we saw the truth about
democracy.  The U.S. was left as the world's only superpower, and
could really have done something to make all this talk about liberty
and freedom real.  Instead, they built a wall across their southern
border, declared war on their own people for what they smoked, and
decided to keep all their technology secret and controlled so they
could make billions off it for themselves, and told the rest of the
world to 'compete'.  That's when we really saw the truth about
democracy.



Mercuriou: Drug addiction, alcoholism, thirty thousand suicides a
year, clinical depression at near epidemic proportions... and it's all
because of some guys sitting on their couches smoking dope, right?
Couldn't have anything to do with your leaders, ehh?  Couldn't be
because you're raised from childhood to be a little cog in this
capitalist system, that you're basically forced to work because the
capitalists control everything, and the people you're forced to work
for are the most selfish bums you'd ever want to meet in your life.
Couldn't have anything to do with your problems, right?  Couldn't be
_the_people_in_charge_of_your_society_ that are responsible for any of
this?



Mercuriou: Yet people believe that if they've got money in their
hands, they've got freedom.  They absolutely insist that they _aren't_
living off the clerk stocking the shelfs at Safeway, only because they
sit behind some desk pushing paper and some corporation cuts them a
check every other Friday.




Mercuriou: OK, now let's take a look at the history of democracy!

Wye: Fine, let's look at it's history.  Let's start with freeing the slaves!

Mercuriou: In the bloodiest war in American history.  I mean, let's
face it - the Lincoln government had got to be the most disastrous
administration in American history!  Do you ever think that maybe if
he was told by God what was going to happen he might have just say,
'I'll just sit this one out... let someone else be president this
year'?

Wye: Most disasterous!  Lincoln was one of the countries greatest
presidents!

Mercuriou: OK, fine.  But you have to admit that 'freeing the slaves'
is was least a push.  Not to even go into civil rights, but clearly we
can't afford too many 'successes' like the Civil War!

Mercuriou: What else was happening to democracy in the nineteenth
century?  We had this thing called 'Manifest Destiny', remember?
Hitler had something similar called 'Liebingstrum', but I digress.
The point...

Wye: What the hell are you muttering about?

Mercuriou: The point is that 'Manifest Density' meant we were going to
rule this continent from sea to shining sea.  The two main groups of
people in the way were the American Indians and the Mexicans.
American Indian civilization was basically wiped off the face of this
planet.  The _best_ you can say is it was pushed back into
reservations on some of our most worthless land we've got.  The
Mexicans were invaded, conjuered, and California, New Mexico, Arizona,
Utah was taken from them.  President Polk's war, remember?  Henry
David Thorugh wouldn't pay his ten-dollar tax because he was so
opposed to it?

Mercuriou: This is democracy, or at least American democracy.  In
Europe, it gets even better!  In 1848, the French once again overthrow
their monarchy!  The king flees the country, and they proclaim another
Republic!  They produce a constitution that looks on paper like the
most democratic in Europe!  It provides for an elected President and
universal sufferage - all males can vote, and at the time a
revolutionary concept, and I mean revolutionary!  There was exactly
one election under this new constitution [check this] and guess who
won?  Napoleon Bonaparte's nephew!  Napoleon Bonaparte's nephew, who
within five years proclaims France an empire and himself Emperor
Napoleon III!  Now this is pretty good.  Should silence anyone with
any idea that Napoleon Bonaparte wasn't one of the most popular
leaders in French history, and that he came to power in a democracy.

Wye: So I guess democracy is some evil monster imposed on this planet?

Mercuriou: Something like that.  I think _populist_government_ is a
disaster, and things like democracy show it.  I think things like
Communism and Fascim show it, too!

[now we do russian and germany]

Wye: And now we come to capitalism, I suppose?

Mercuriou: That's right.  We come to capitalism.  It isn't an
encouraging track record.




Wye: Look here, I don't know what you're trying to say...

Mercuriou: Well then let me be crystal clear, Senator.  I don't think
your 'participatory government' is worth a hill of beans [CA].  The
majority of people - not all the people, mind you, just one group of
people - make all the decisions.  Everybody else gets to 'participate'
about the same way you could 'participate' in Russia!



Mercuriou: Well, senator, I'll agree with you that this is a
democracy, but I don't think that changes things much.  Let's say
Russia had had freedom of speech, and freedom of the press, and free
and open elections every two or four years, and they had still elected
the communists, and still supported the KGB, and still shipped their
citizens off to gulags.  Would that have changed things all that much,
just that they had elections?

Wye: No sir, the people of these country don't support the KGB, and we
don't ship our citizens off to gulags!

Mercuriou: Oh, but you do.  Haven't you heard about 'zero tolerance'?
Haven't you heard about the War on Drugs?  Don't you watch C.O.P.S?
It has got to be one of the most violent programs on television, and
it's all real!  Remember who you're talking to, senator - a drug user!
Don't expect me to sit here and crow on about freedom while this whole
society is hell-bent on a war against me and everyone else like me.
You do ship your citizens off to jail, and while you may not torture
them, and your prisons may not be as cold as the ones in Siberia, the
fact remains that fear of the police is just as readily used in this
society as in those others.

Wye: I don't think you can compare the DEA with the KGB.









Moderator: So what do you really think of democracy?

Mercuriou: I think it's another communism.

Wye: Democracy is not another communism!  We have freedom in this country!

Mercuriou: Really?  Go tell all the people who smoke pot that they've
got freedom.  Democracy isn't about freedom; it's about putting one
particular group of people in control - the majority.



Mercuriou: Well what about the people in jails?  Do they choose their
own leaders?  Or the people who want to copy music around the
Internet?  How about drug users?  Is that why we have a War on Drugs,
because they choose their own leaders, too?



T + 8 days

"The majority don't want good leaders."

"So you actually do think the majority of the American people support
their government?" the moderator asked.

Mercuriou went on without waiting for an answer.

Mercuriou paused briefly before continuing in a calmer voice.


NEED TO BACK THIS UP MORE

"And then we've got the granddaddy of them all, at least as far as
European democracy is concerned - the French Revolution!  The great
French republic, who leaders preached liberty, fraternity, and
equality... and guillotines in the public squares of Paris to chop off
the heads of the noblemen!  Europe's first democracy - and every one
of those thugs was elected - Coulton, Saint Just, Robespierre, and of
course, finally, Napoleon.  And don't let anyone tell you that
Bonaparte wasn't elected, because he could have won any election he
ever stood for.  He came to power in a democracy and was one of the
most popular leaders in French history."

MORE ABOUT FRANCE ... 1848

"Meanwhile, while all this is going on in Europe, we've got the great
American 'experiment', based on all men possessing certain inaliable
rights... unless your skin was black, of course, because if capitalism
is the issue that has dominated the last hundred years of American
history, then, really, slavery was the issue that dominated the first
hundred years.  



Well, you said it yourself, captain - the majority
_of_southern_whites.  It wasn't really a true democracy!

Mercuriou: No sir, that is simply not going to cut it.  If democracy
was really so great, if it sounds

AT THIS POINT, WE HAVE TO HAVE MADE THE CASE AGAINST CAPITALISM A SLAM-DUNK

MEXICO AND THE AMERICAN INDIANS


"Basically, the only legimitate form of government is democracy,
right?  Everything else is illegimiate, and if your government is
illegimiate, you basically have no rights, there is no international
law for you, so better buddy up with the U.S. or you might find the
SEALs airdropping on your international airport one morning."

"It's the same with all these populist governments. Communism was one
of the biggest mass populist movements of the twentieth centry.
How did it manage to take
over half this planet?

This is the sick truth about
populist government.  The masses of people are selfish and violent.
That's why they chose people like the communists and the fascists and
the capitalists to be their leaders!"



"This has been the broken record of democracy for the last two hundred
years.  It just keeps repeating the same lyrics - 'put the people in
control', 'put the people in control', 'put the people in control'!
All these people talk about these grandeose ideas of liberty and
freedom, and then choose absolute garbage for their leaders, and build
societies based on the basest and most vicious traits of mankind.
This time around it's the capitalists - the most selfish sons of
bitches you'd ever want to meet, and the majority support these bums
every step of the way.  And of course they can't spend enough money to
build the most lethal killing machines this planet has ever seen.
This is what the majority of people want - militant capitalists, about
the most selfish men you'd ever want to meet, and they're going to get
tough with anybody who won't follow all these laws.  Real good
leaders."

Mercurio stopped.  He had been lecturing the TV camera non-stop for
almost half an hour.  A tense silence fell over the television
program.  Across the country, millions of people in their homes
murmorred amongst themselves, at least those who were still watching.
"I don't want to hear any more of this."  "You tell 'em, Marc!"  "That
bastard deserves to die up there!"  "I hope the whole bunch die!"  "Is
this what people think about us?"

In New York, the broadcast was nearing it's end.  There would be
plenty more opportunities for debate.

"Captain, what are your plans?  How long can you stay in orbit?"

Mercurio rumaged in a storage bin and sent clothes flying all over the
compartment.  Finally, he pulled out the T-shirt he was looking for,
brushed away a pair of jeans that had drifted in front of the TV
camera and spread the black T-shirt out so it dominated the view field
of the camera.  It read: FUCK YOU, YOU FUCKING FUCKS.

"We're going to Mars!"

-----

"Please grip about socialized medicine.  Hell, our medicine already is
socialized; it's just capitalist socialism instead of communist
socialism.  Doctors don't make the decisions; H.M.O.s and Medicare and
hospital administrators and pharmasutecal companies do.  The bottom
line is still the same.  It's still some screwed up system that
everyone is a little cog in.  You can buck it.  But just like John
Cougar Mellancamp said, 'whenever I fight the system, the system
always wins'.  You fight the system, nobody'll hire you because you
won't churn out the billable hours, you very well may lose your
hospital privileges 'cause you don't have some 'group' you're part of,
if you just ask people to pay what they can afford, you'll get a
pittance, and on top of it all you'll still have medical school loans
to pay off, and they're astronomical because the medical schools
expect that you'll do like everybody else and make a killing, so they
want a nice little piece of the pie, too."




T + 33 days

After her one ill-fated attempt to butt in, Andrea had let Mercuriou
have the debates to himself.  One thing was for sure, though, and that
was that the crew of the _Xplorer_1_, loved or hated, had become media
darlings, and Yeats was one of the big 'gets' for a TV interview.
Rather than returning to Mercuriou's format, Andrea decided to accept
an offer for a one-on-one interview from a prominent female journalist
with a reputation for objectivity.

"Captain Mercurio says the problem is democracy, that it's another
communism.  Do you agree?"

The NASA engineer thought for a moment before answering.

"Not really.  The problem is human nature.  Democracy is just another
political system.  In some ways it's better than others, in some ways
worse.  Ultimately, the solutions to our problems are spiritual and
not political.  Unfortunately, democracy tends to accentuate a lot of
problems, because you can't just go blame it off on some dictator."

"How does democracy accentuate problems?"

"Well, the problems have always been there.  Democracy shows us that
the problems aren't caused because people don't have political
representation.  Now people do have political representation, and a
lot of the problems are still here.  So, just giving political power
to the masses of people doesn't magically solve your problems."

"Dr. Yeats, you mentioned a moment ago that democracy is better than
some political systems, worse than others, or something to that
effect.  If I'm not reading too much into your words, can you give us
an example of a superior political system?"

"Well, like I said, our problems are spiritual more than political,
and thus we need spiritual solutions more so than political ones.  Now
take a monarch like King Arthur or King Solomon; you can have a good
king, genuinely interested in caring for his people, so yes, a good,
generous, tolerant monarchy would be superior to a self-serving and
violent democracy."

"So, do you advocate monarchy as a system of government?"

"I don't advocate anything as a system of government.  I advocate
Christianity as a system for people to live their lives.  Monarchy is
like any other system of government, you might get a good king for a
while, but eventually you'll get a bad one, so it's no answer.  If you
go back to the Old Testament, the book of First Samuel, I think, you
find the people actually _demanding_ a king!  We have this idea today
that a king is somehow imposed on people against their will, but in
those days it was the commonly accepted form of government.  And
Samuel basically told those people that they didn't need a king, that
all they needed was to follow the will of God, but they didn't want to
hear it.  So they got their king, it was Saul, and Samuel told them
again that if they and their king followed the will of God, things
would work out well for them, but if they didn't, there would be
problems.  It's a lot the same today.  People don't need a king, and
they don't need a democracy.  They need to follow the will of God, but
of course you've got half of them screaming that militant capitalism
_is_ the will of God, so there you go."

"So, doctor, I'm, I'm not sure exactly what you mean when you say
that you advocate Christianity rather than any system of government.
For example, what do you say to Captain Mercurio's very vocal
criticisms of western society?"

The astronaut paused before responding.

"I think he makes a lot of good points, but this has been human
society since the dawn of time.  Take Saint Anthony of the Desert, for
example.  God appeared to him in a vision and told him to flee from
men, so he went to live in the desert, and founded the Christian
monastic tradition.  This was during the Roman Empire, when Christians
were thrown to the lions, so these problems have been around for a
while."

"Haven't we come a long ways from that?  We don't throw Christians to
the lions anymore."

"No, we don't, thank God, but it's still tough to live as Christians.
Generally, the people who rise to the top in human society do so
by abandoning Christian values, so living as a Christian generally
means that you're going to get a lot of doors slammed shut on you."

"Could you elaborate on that?  How do people not live as Christians?"

"Well, look around.  Christ gave us two great commandments, to love
God with all our hearts, and to love our neighbors as ourselves.  And
he elaborated on them, and lived them in his own life.  I think the
second commandment is more obvious than the first; we look around and
see how we don't love each other as Christ taught, that's more obvious
that how we fail God."

"Could you be more specific; I'm not trying to be dense, but
why don't you think a Christian can rise to the top in our society?"

"Well, consider what Christ said.  He taught us to give to all those
who beg from us; that if someone asked to borrow from us we should
give without expecting anything in return.  If you do that, if you
give to all, you often end up with nothing, at least nothing material."

"Capitan Mercuriou has talked about making books and dictionaries
freely available and has been accused of theft.  Do you support
intellectual property rights?"

"Well, I think it's somewhat of a mute issue.  Christ said that if a
man steals your coat, you should give him your cloak as well - you
love your enemies, and not just in an abstract sense, either, you
really try to do good for your enemies.  So if someone steals your
intellectual property, the Christian response is the same as to any
other theft - you make sure the thieves have got the latest and most
up-to-date versions of your books or software.  When you take that
kind of an attitude, I think you quickly reach a point where you just
say that you'll publish all this information anyway, I mean, why would
you give to a thief, but withhold from someone who just asks
politely?"

"So do you advocate a welfare system of some kind?"

"Well, no, not if I understand your question, because welfare to me
implies some kind of government operation.  Christ didn't tell us to
give our money to the government to run welfare, he didn't tell us to
give our money to the church so it could fund charities, he told us,
he spoke to us as individuals, he said _you_, give to all those who
beg of _you_.  So, if you see someone standing by the road begging,
you stop and give them a dollar or two, if you see someone asking for
a ride, you pull over and ask them where they're going, if you see
someone sleeping in a park, you say 'hey, I've got a spare room, you
can come stay with me', or whatever.  And people don't want to do
that.  If they see a beggar, they keep driving, they choose leaders
that always tell us not to pick up hitchhikers, the guy in the park,
well, that's what the homeless shelter is for."

"But isn't it dangerous to pick up hitchhikers?"

"Yeah", Andrea replied, sucking in her breath, "picking up hitckhikers
is dangerous.  But we remember the story of the good samartain, we
remember that we're called to love our neighbors, and we don't let one
bad experience turn us against all hitchhikers."  She uttered the last
phrase as though a robot, it was her voice, she was preaching to
herself, but she didn't really beleive it.

"It's more dangerous not to pick them up.  It's dangerous because then
we're violating the commandments that Christ gave us to live by; we're
acting out of fear and not love.  And the reason someone, well a lot
of people, actually, like Captain Mercurio, really dislike democracy
is because people don't choose leaders who say, look, you should stop
and pick these people up, they choose leaders who say, no, don't do
that, think of how dangerous it is, put your own safety first."

"You mentioned homeless shelters, in a somewhat negative way.  Do you
not support homeless shelters?"

"Well, I've been in a few, many years ago, before I had a steady job
with NASA.  The problem with homeless shelters is that people think
because there's a homeless shelter, well, the problem's taken care
of, they don't have to do anything, but again, Christ tells us that
we should..."

"But can't people take advantage of that?  I mean, won't some people
just take and take and take without working or really doing anything
productive?"

"Sure, a lot of people will, in a lot of different ways.  Christianity
is about being taken advantage of, when you love unconditionally, when
you give unconditionally, when you forgive unconditionally, people
will just take and take and take, and most people, understandably,
don't want that, and that's why they really don't live as Christians.
They give up to a point and then they say no more.  But one of
Christ's stories was about a woman who came to the temple in Jerusalem
to give a donation.  There were all these other people who gave all
these big donations, and this old woman gave just two bits.  Jesus
told his diciples that she went away redeemed rather than the others,
because she had given all she had, while the others had just given
their surplus.  So it's not about how much you give, it's about you're
willingness to give all."

"Well, that raises a good point, that's been made by people like
Warren Buffett.  I mean, can't you do a lot more good in the world by
working hard, so then you'll have the money to spend on charities that
can really make a difference?"

"Well, now we come back to the first commandment, the one about loving
God.  The point isn't to do as much good as we can in the world, the
point is to live in harmony with God.  That's really what's going on
here, ultimately we're all spiritual beings, first and foremost, so
how much good we can do in the world is really secondary if we're not
living in harmony with God, so that's why the woman who just gives a
little goes away redeemed, because she's the one who's living in
harmony with God."

"What does it mean to live in harmony with God, how do we do that?"

"That's what Christ taught us.  That's what his Gospel teachings are
all about.  I mean, Christ could have chosen to be a political leader,
he was tempted to do that by the Devil, he could have liberated the
Jewish people from the Roman Empire, heck, he could have become the
Roman Emperor, he could have freed the slaves two thousand years ago,
he could have done a lot more 'good' in the world if he'd been
tougher.  But what he was trying to teach us is that living in harmony
with God, loving God, loving each other as sons and daughters of God,
is more important that all the 'good' you do."

"I don't think I understand, completely.  Isn't the 'good' we do, I
mean, isn't that what living in harmony with God is about?"

"No, not really, it's just an effect.  Christ taught us that faith in
God is the most important thing, and that our works come from our
faith.  Our good deads, our works, they are the outward expression of
our inward faith, but it's the faith that's the most important thing.
So you can do all kind of good works, but if the faith isn't there, it
doesn't amount for much.  On the other hand, if you have faith, then
it will be expressed in your works, because you'll always be looking
for ways to help people, to give to people, to forgive people, because
you love people, or at least try to.  I guess it's kinda like what
Marc, what Captain Mercurio did to defraud his investors, he created
some kind of robot that could cook dinner, but it didn't work the way
he said, because it actually had a person operating it.  Good works
are like that, it's not the outward appearance that's important, it's
what's going on behind the scenes."

"What do you think of the Christian right?"

"Well, the Christian right seems to be much more a political movement
than a spiritual one.  To listen to them talk, you'd think the
Christian gospel was mainly about sex, drugs, and alcohol.  Yet if you
look at the gospel, you find basically nothing about drugs and
alcohol, and only a little about sex.  Christ instead hammers
constantly on love, forgiveness, generosity.  Chirst say 'give to all
those who beg of you'.  He told one of his followers to sell all his
worldly possesions and give the money to the poor.  Go ahead - try it.
Sell all your worldly possessions, give the money to the poor, and see
how people treat you then.  The Christian right almost completely
ignores this.  They rail about sex, but are strangely silent about
the neighborhood merchant who puts a price tag on everything in his
store and is standing there behind the cash register to take your
money before you walk out the door.  And then you look at what they
really propose.  So much of it involves more and more government
regulation.  They want the government to ban abortions.  Look, I don't
support abortion, but having the government 'get tough' with abortion
clinics isn't the answer.  They're tough on crime.  Fine.  Christ said
love your enemies.  Why don't you see them agitating for decent
treatment of prisoners in jails?"

"You mentioned the treatment of prisoners.  The United States,
in particular, has all manner of regulations designed to ensure
humane treatment of prisoners.  How are they inadequate?"

"Well, I've never spent more than a night in jail, but if you look at
the videotapes of how prisons are run, they look to me like military
boot camps.  The prisoners are told when to get up, marched through
dining halls, assigned to work projects, ordered here and there.
Maybe more significantly, the prisons are seen as something between a
threat and a punishment.  They're there to create fear in people; you
obey the laws or else you go to jail.  In my mind, just about the only
reason to imprison someone is because they're dangerous to other
people and need to be isolated.  And once they've been isolated,
there's no reason to go beyond that.  Just give them an apartment in a
guarded complex, the level of security being dependent on how
dangerous they are.  What rational reason is there for anything else?
So much of how our prisons are run is based on anger and hatred.
People don't love their enemies; they hate them, and they want to make
them suffer, so that's why they want their prisons to be 'tough'."

"OK, we've only got a few minutes left, let me change the subject, at
least slightly.  You're a scientist, or at least an engineer, so what
do you say to people who claim that there's no scientific proof from
the existance of God, so it must be just a myth?"

"You know, I've been asked that question before and here's my answer:
Scientific proof is based on experiment.  Now, just because something
is factual doesn't mean we can design a experiment to test it.  For
example, you might as well ask if there is life elsewhere in the
universe.  Few people today would suggest that it's unscientific to
speculate thus, but any kind of experiment to exhaustively search the
universe for life is totally impractical.  So the question of
extraterrestrial life, while in no way unscientific in itself, admits
no realistic experiment, and thus no realistic scientific proof!"

"Now let's return to the question of God.  There is an experiment you
can perform to find out if God is real - you can die.  You can put a
gun to your head and pull the trigger, and you'll find out real quick
if there is life after death.  But, like searching the universe for
alien life, this experiment is somewhat unrealistic.  Most of us don't
want to perform that experiment just to satisfy our academic
curiosity.  Yet the fact remains that we will all die some day, and
then we'll know.  So my answer is that the existence of God and the
question of life after death is no more unscientific than speculating
about extraterrestrials, and to people who refuse to accept that I say
just wait - the day will come where you're going to find out all about
God."

"Well, thank you for joining us this evening.  My guest had been
Dr. Andrea Yeats, astronaut, philospher, and Christian.  We'll be back
in a minute with my final thought."

The entire crew had watched the broadcast, floating on the other
side of the TV camera.  After the program ended, they were
fairly quiet for a while, the captain in particular.

"You did really good, I was quite proud of you," he finally said.

Andrea's television interview aired four days later, to a large
audience.  It provoked widespread public response, evidenced by a
deluge of e-mails whose subject lines ranged the spectrum from "May
God bless you and your crew" and "Thank you, you are a genuine saint"
to "Christianity COMMANDS Capitalism" and "This is __HERESY__!!!".

"Live from Los Angeles" - name of the program?



======

The 747's crowded crew
compartment was the hub of activity, with the remainder of the ship
docked to its upward-facing airlock.  The first module, docked
directly to the 747, had become basically an extension of the
aircraft, where the crew tended to take their meals and gather for
all-hands briefings.  Past the first module was a docking nexus, with
four modules extending out from its sides, and other module mated
above.  These four modules had become the crew quarters.  Alister and
Burns shared one, Vic had another.  Andrea, as the only woman
aboard, had an entire module all to herself, as did the Captain.  Next
came Module 2, primarilly used for storage of immediately needed
items, such as a supply of food rations, with enough open space in the
middle to allow easy passage to the next docking nexus, with four more
modules faning out from it.  Two were basically engineering workshops,
packed with a variety of tools Burns had brought up from Earth, a
third Vic had converted into the ship's sick bay, and the fourth was a
library, loaded mainly with Burns' various technical books.

CREW QUARTERS SHOULD BE A LITTLE FARTHER "UP"

Beyond the second module, the side modules were taken up with a mix of
greenhouse modules, of which there were twelve, and storage modules,
containing both supplies carried from Earth and the crew's refuse and
waste, which the Captain and Burns had forbid throwing overboard.
Though it would be some time before they figured how to convert their
waste into fertilizer for the plants, they knew that everything had to
be recycled if they were to make it to the red planet and back.

Past the greenhouse modules were the tank modules of fuel, oxidizer,
and water, attached to the sides of more docking nexuses,
interconnected by storage modules so packed with supplies that it was
almost impossible to move through them.  The crew hardly ever ventured
that far into the spaceship, having organized all of their valuable
supplies close to the 747 and relegated things like the dishwasher to
the more distant modules.  In all, there were 14 modules arranged in a
line, with 13 docking nexuses interconnecting them and with another 52
modules attached to the various docking ports.

They still had about a dozen of the rocket engines from the cargo
modules' second stages, attached, with their fuel tanks, to the ends
of the side modules jutting out from the docking nexuses.  Under
Burns' direction, three of the cargo modules were converted to act as
Orbital Transfer Vehicles, which could hold two or three people,
maneuver, and fire their single rocket engines.




=======


said that all parties should try to resolve their problems peacefully,
though she ruefully noted that the Muslems would do good to accept
Christ, and ruffled feathers by suggesting that the terrorists,
misguided though they may have been, were probably the only people
that morning who got on the airplanes because they were trying to do
God's will.

At Andrea's suggestion, Mercuriou issued
a statement of condolence, expressing his "deapest reget", and stating
that it grieved him as nearly as much the death of his "dear friend
Burns".  The entire crew followed suit.  Asked via videomail by the
press about his comparison with Burns, he replied that though he
deeply felt the loss in New York, he was sure the family's victims
would concer that no one feels a loss more acutely than that of a
loved one.  The media largely accepted this.


Within months, most of the old animosities had resurfaced.  The
Captain was still openly critical of the western democratic
establishment in general, and the President in particular.
Dr. Yeats became far more prominent, and far more controversial, by
her repeated advice to end the war, moarn over the dead, then ask
ourselves why so many people hated the country and decide to give our
lives over to God to do something about it.

While the political prong of the twin assult had failed, the economic
prong had succeeded beyond belief.  Considering not only the twin
towers of the World Trade Center, but the smaller buildings destroyed,
or ravaged with all their windows blown out, plus the entire
multi-block area that had been shut down for months, the center of New
York City's financial district had been devastated.



We see it with our educational system.  Knowledge, education, they've
just become one more thing to be packaged and sold.  On-line public
libraries will be outlawed... this is our future under capitalism!



It just won't work.

Well, I'm determined to try.

It's been tried!  Socialism's been tried, and it doesn't work!

I am not a socialist.  I believe that


People who say that they can't afford to live like this, that they'll
go out of business if they do, are absolutely correct, because we live
in a society based on forced labor.  Let's get the hell out!



It just won't work.

So after all our talk about how generous this country is, after all
our bragging about our charities, now we say that we just can't afford
charity after all.  We can afford it a little bit of charity here and
there, but we can't build a society based on charity.

Maybe this is true.  Maybe, despite the fact that we walk into our
supermarkets and see them overflowing with plenty, we really can't
produce enough food to feed the people of this world.  I doubt it, but
if it's true, then we really need to change the way we eat.  We need
to cut way back on the meats, we need to get the land back into
production that our government pays farmers to leave fallow...

---!

Well, you just can't have it both ways, congresman!

---.

So, we can feed our people, but human nature is so depraved that the
only way to do that is to force them to work for some darwinistic
'system'.  That I'll believe.


==========

Capitalism is based on a simple principle - that people should be
rewarded for their work.

Well, I wouldn't have (so much of) a problem with that if capitalism
actually achieved that!  Take two men running a restaurant.  One only
accepts paying customers.  The other will take anybody off the street,
regardless of whether they've got money or not.  They procure the same
food, cook the same meals, and serve them in identical dining rooms -
they do the same work.  Yet one man gets rewarded for his work, and
the other does not.

Well, then you become a capitalist!  Anyone can be a capitalist,
irregardless of race or sex or religion!

Yes, Russia had freedom in this manner - you had freedom if you became
a communist!  And anyone could become a communist!

======

To be a capitalist, you have to reject Christianity.  Oh, you can
carry on the motions, go to church on Sunday, say your prayers at
dinner, but you can't serve God and mammon.  When the homeless man
walks into your hotel, you have to choose.

=====

...under conditions of industrial production, and with the promise of
capitalism fulfilled, it is possible for a whole society to be
economically free and for all men to have the opportunity to live like
human beings.

"slavery, or the equivalent of it in grinding toil and drudgery, was
the necessary price that mankind had to pay for the advancement of
civilization itself"

"problem of organizing production, or diffusing ownership, or liberty
and equality"

"property is the only basis for participating in the production and
distribution of wealth"

"The fact that men are by nature equal makes the democratic
distribution of citizenship - universal and equal suffrage - just"

"distributive justice is done if the share received by each
participant in production is proportionate to the value of his
contribution to production"


This - THIS is democracy!


The two astronauts were silent.  Mercuriou could have been viewing the
transmission as well from his cabin, but there was no immediate way to
tell.



You're against America!

Well, what does it mean to be pro-American?

We believe in freedom!

Freedom for whom?  Freedom for bin Laden?  Freedom for the millions of
people in your jail cells?



Andrea's got some stuff about Christianity in 1.5->1.6


Work!  Work!  Vic had to work!

He had to get through medical school.

He had to work!  Work!

He had to take care of his patients.

He had to work!

He had to finish the encyclopedia!

He had to work!

Work!  Work!

Finally, Vic laid his head down in his arms.  "I'm tired," he said.
"I want to go to sleep now."

WORK!  cried the Lord.  WORK!

"Why do men have to work?"

IT IS THE CURSE OF ADAM.  WORK!

"But I'm the one who drives myself to work!"

IT IS THE CURSE OF MEN, THEN.  WORK!






"Just leave.  Just get out!"

"And go where?"

"I don't care.  Cuba, China, Venezuela."

"I don't like any of those countries..."

"Well to leave one place you must arrive somewhere else.  If you don't
have a place for us to go, then I do - Hawaii!"



"OK, here's who I am - I smoke pot; I copy books on my computer; I
chase teenaged boys.  And then we talk about freedom!  What's my
freedom?  To sit in a prison cell if I'm true to who I am?"



"Can it really make a difference?  Can it really change?"



"So you don't believe in democracy!?"


"So you don't think authors have the right to decide what happens to
their works?"



"You'll make Hawaii into a third-world country"

"This isn't what the majority of the people of this state want!"


after 9/11, somebody tells Mercuriou to "get the hell out!"

"Then let's get out, and let the terrorists reform democracy by
killing as many of you as they can!  You can't TALK to the MAJORITY!"



"Secession is legal; oldest precedent in U.S. history.  All the
cheering for Poland, Hungary, Lithuania - was it all just partisan
politics?  They can't afford an American Prague Spring.  It would
finish them politically."




"But I thought we were going to jumpstart space travel!  Develop this
new fuel!  Get mankind into space!  Grow crops!  Make clothes!  Mine
the asteroid belt!"

RHETORIC appeared on the college blackboard [in Mercuriou's mind],
then evaporated before the stark reality of his two best friends dead.
_Maybe_I_should_have_taken_a_course_called_"Honesty"_instead.

[ Mercuriou answered now, slowly. ]

"No, that was just my sales pitch.  My real reason was... it was a
stunt.  It was biggest stage I could think of to get myself heard.
And Andrea kept telling me I had already done that, that my most
important mission goal had been achieved, but I wouldn't listen."

Alister fell quiet.

"So what was the point then, that it was all for nothing, and this is
the end?"

"No, think about it, Alister," the captain answered slowly but with
conviction.  His thoughts drifted back to college.  _Rhetoric._
_Maybe_they_should_have_required_a_class_in_honesty_instead._

"This nerve we've struck with people, the
stuff we've talked about - freedom, democracy, religion, God,
the role of the individual in society, money, power - this is
the stuff Socrates debated in Athens,
the stuff Plato and Aristotle wrote about, St. Matthew and Thomas
Aquinas, this is the soul of our species.  Karl Marx, Victor Hugo, Leo
Tolstoy, and none of them had all the answers.  I mean, if this is the
stuff _they_ talked about _then_, and it's the same stuff _we're_
talking about _now_..."

The captain's voice trailed off.  Behind him, _Columbia_ gleamed in
the razor-sharp sun of low-Earth orbit.


======
"Now, if the government had built the first airplane, everyone would
be walking around laughing that anything lighter than a skyscraper
could fly.  
======

Mercuriou was stumbling through a haze clutching a book in his hands.
Three hags struggled to get up from their airline seats, calling out
to him as he hustled path through gathering smoke.

"The book is evil!"  "It soes discord!"  "Listen to the warnings!"

Mercuriou bolted awake, his heart pounding.  No fire!  There was no
fire!  He was on _Xplorer_1_.  It was just a dream... there was good
and evil... which was he?  He couldn't remember.  Which was I?  Good
or evil?  Was I good or was I evil?  Why can't I remember?


------

I'll give democracy another shot.  I'll give it its best shot.  I'll
suggest proxy voting; we have the technology to do it.  Every voter
can electronically assign his vote to a representative at an assembly,
and can change their proxy to a different representative at any time.
You can vote for whoever you want, on whatever issue.

------

Andrea was working on the re-orbit problem late one night when the
door opened.  Vic floated in.  Andrea felt a moment of panic as Vic
grinned at her.

"Vic, you're not here, you're..."

"So are you, you just don't know it yet.  And your food is tainted."

...

"Marc, get up here!"

They were in Xplorer I - the _real_ Xplorer I - and Burns was calling
from the pilot's seat.

"Marc!"

"Yeah!" Mercuriou scampered up.

"Get in here!"  Burns yelled as he got out of his seat.

Mercuriou stared at him.  My God, he hadn't seen him for so long!  It
was so _good_ to see him, and he had a million questions to ask!
There'd be plenty of time for that later.

"Marc!"

"What's wrong!"

"Get in here!!"

Mercuriou climbed into the pilot's seat.

"What's going on?!"

"You're in charge now, you're in command!"

Mercuriou started laughing, and began climbing out of the chair.

"Yeah, yeah, I know, I'm the captain, I'm in command!"

Burns pushed him back into the seat.

"No, I mean it!  You're in command now!  You'll need to lead them out
of it!"

------

Andrea found Mercuriou doing a slow brew over his coffee.  He said
nothing as she prepared her breakfast, then broke the silence.

"I had a disturbing dream last night.  Vic believed in dreams, do
you?"

Andrea stopped eating her bagel.  She stared at him for a moment.

"Andrea?"

She shook her head.

"Sorry... it's just... I also had a distrubing dream last night, and
yes, I do believe in dreams.  In fact, mine was about Vic."

"Mine was about Burns."

They stared at each other in silence.

"So what did ol' Vic say?"  Mercuriou asked with a mischievous grin.

Andrea grimaced.

"He said we're not going to make it."

"That's what Burns said."

They sat in silence.  Andrea started to eat again, then stopped.

"Vic said something else, too... he said the food was tainted!"

"What?"  Mercuriou thought for a minute.  "Yeah, Burns said something
else, too, what was it... damn it! why can't I remember!"

And try as his might, he could not remember.

-----

Mercuriou will be all intelectual and ask "why should we believe
anything that this guy said 2000 years ago - or didn't say!  We don't
know what parts of the bible are real?"

----

Let's review a model of trust right now.  I want the computer to
format my document a certain way; I want colors to show a certain way;
I want the keys to work a certain way.  I want revision history and
dictionary lookup to work a certain way.  I need to download a program
I know nothing about, install it, and hold my breath that its legit
and does what I want just because its web page said so.  I'll then
need to spend hours learning it, but we won't go into that.  All that
because I had a list of specification that I couldn't communicate to
the machine in plain English and instead had to rely on something like
an untrusted executable.  Now, how do you figure that closed source is
going to help in that situation?

Well, I can't answer all of that, but I can say that one way to solve
that problem is put trust in organizations to write those binaries and
then to protect that design information so that it doesn't fall into
the hands of hackers.

----

{t + 1 day}


-----

a T-shirt - WORK TIL SURF



Am I just kidding myself with this thing?  Am I just blowing
everything on one last hurrah?  Am I sunk in prison for the rest of my
life?

This isn't me.  I'm fighting my nature.  I just don't want to do this.

But I have to!  It's my job!


Mercuriou turned off the stereo.  It was too depressing.

-----

How do you justify this theft?


----------

"Soy beans?" Alister questioned, imagining the pressed blocks of
tofu he had habitually passed by in the supermarket.

"I rather like them steamed," Vic replied, as the microwave oven
beeped.

"I don't know about this, mate," the younger man quibbled as he
inspected some of the freshly picked raw beans.  "I'll eat them,
though," he quickly added.

"Ever been to a sushi restaurant?" Vic asked, with a raised eyebrow
that indicated he thought he knew something his friend didn't.

"Sure, I love sushi!  Where's the tuna hand roll?"

"Ever had those green beans they serve as appetizers?"

"Yeah," Alister replied, glancing back down at the soy pods in his
hand.  "That's what these are?"

The doctor nodded affirmatively as he opened the steamer and let some
of the cooked soy beans, along with an ample quantity of steam, float
out into the air.  The aroma of freshly steamed vegatables permeated
the air and quickly brought work to a standstill on a spaceship where
plastic-wrapped spaghetti pouches and freeze dried peaches had been
the norm for months.

"What have we got here?" the captain asked as he floated in with Burns
from one direction, almost simultaneously as Andrea entered from a
side module."

"Are these from the garden?" she asked.  "Great!"

"Did you see this?" Mercuriou asked as he munched, handing a tablet to
his first officer.  The latest news updates from Earth had brought
word of a pipeline explosion in Nigeria that had killed hundreds
scavenging gasoline from an illegally tapped pipeline.

Mercuriou was grinning.

"Lycurgus would have approved."

"You can't be serious," Andrea retorted.

"Why not?  The African capitalists want to pump oil and ship it to
America while their own people starve.  What's wrong with a little
'competition'?"

"Who was Lycurgus?" Alister asked as Andrea shook her head in disgust.

"He was the founder of Sparta, maybe the greatest socialist success
story ever."

"Were they Communists?"

"Not exactly," Marc replied.  "Or maybe they were, depending on how
you look at it.  The parents didn't raise their children, for example,
the children were raised by the state.  And their 'education', if you
can call it that, consisted of leaving them to starve unless they
could steal food to eat."

"That's insane!" the youth replied.  "Why on Earth wouldn't they
feed their own children?"

"Lycurgus wanted a nation of warriors... and he got it."

"And you think that's the solution to capitalism?  You _can't_ be
serious."

"Of course not, Doctor, but if competition is so great, isn't social
Darwinism the logical conclusion?  We should just abandon all these
laws against theft and let people compete.  Think how much more
innovation and progress we'd have if kids had to steal their
food... or their gasoline."

"Mankind's determination to train children to evil _is_ amazing."

"Well, maybe you can be our twentieth-first-century Lycurgus, Doctor,"
Vic speculated with a mischevious grin.  "Maybe you can prescribe a
set of rules for us to raise our children to be Christians instead of
warriors."

"I think Jesus already gave us those rules far better than I could."

"The problem is that people don't live by those rules," Vic noted.
"Just because the teachings are transmitted, doesn't mean they're
understood.  Just because they're understood, doesn't mean they're
practiced.  They're talked about all the time, but mostly it's just
talk."

"I don't know about that," the Captain retorted.  "William Gibson
thought that Christianity was a major factor in the destruction of the
Roman Empire.  At first the Romans were Pagans, they gloried in the
martial arts, taught their children the virtues of war, worshiped gods
like Mars and Jupiter.  Then came along the Christians, everybody
started turning the other cheek and forgiving their enemies, before
long, no more Roman Empire."

"Gibson had some other explainations, too, you know," Andrea noted.
"Like the intolerance of the Catholic Church for all those Arians it
declared heritics.  And since so many of the barbarian tribes adhered
to the Arian beliefs, well..."

"A large part of Christianity was about propping up the Roman Empire,
and then the Popes, and all the monarchs who got their scepters from
the Popes," Vic continued.  "Christianity certainly got bastardized in
the process.  What amazes me about Western civilization is how
pervasive is this notion that the individual somehow owes something to
the state, or at least to the society.  In ancient times it was
obedience to the King, now it's obedience to democracy.  And of course
people are obligated to work, too.  That's all gotten embedded into
the religion.  It's all part of propping up a society."

"But people have to work to live, right?"  Alister wondered.  "I mean,
people have always had to eat, right?"

"Yes and no," the doctor replied.  "Yes, people have always had to
work to eat, but this notion that people have to work
_for_the_society_ is what I'm talking about.  Take the Native
Americans, for example.  If anything, they believed that society had a
responsibility to the individual to raise him to be independent.  They
taught their children from a young age to build fires by rubbing
sticks together, to recognize wild plants as edible or poisonous, to
build a shelter or a bow and arrow just from the natural materials
you'd find lying about in a forest.  The net result was that by the
time they were fifteen years old, they could literally walk out into
the forest and take care of themselves.  Their society, therefore, was
almost perfectly voluntary.  If anyone didn't want to be there, they
could just get up and leave.  Murders, robberies, the violent crimes
that we're so familiar with, were almost unknown.  I think it was
because they raised their children to be truly independent, while
Western society for generations has raised people to be dependant.
Most people wouldn't have the slightest idea how to feed themselves if
they couldn't walk into the supermarket with a twenty dollar bill in
their hands.

   "I think the American Indians were the best example of an alternative.
   They raised their children to recognize wild edibles, to make fire by
   rubbing sticks together, to build a bow and arrows from natural
   materials that you'd find lying around a forest.  By the time they
   were fifteen years old, they could literally walk out into the woods
   and take care of themselves.  So you couldn't have a government, at
   least not in form you know it.  Government is based on coersion.  How
   can you coerce people who can just walk out into the woods if they get
   ticked off?  This is why murder and other violent crimes were almost
   unknown in these 'primitive' societies.  This is why the federal
   government couldn't have been nearly so coercive two hundred years
   ago.  Anyone who didn't like it could just pack up and move west."

   "As I said, I think all government, all society, really, is coercive.
   The larger and more inter-dependent a society is, the more coercive it
   is.  I don't think the issue is so much democracy but
   industrialization, and I don't think you can design a system of
   government to fix a society that isolates people from nature, raises
   them so they don't have a clue how to feed themselves without a
   Safeway, teaches them all this science and mathematics, sends them
   running around in cars and airplanes but neglects to teach them how to
   live in harmony with nature, how to quiet their soul, how to look into
   the depths of their being and find out who they really are, and what our
   genuine vision of ourselves really is."

"So we should give up our technology and go back to living like
Indians?" Alister asked incredulously.

"It might not be a bad idea.  The human race is too primitive for all
this technology.  You'd definitely be healthier living in the woods;
maybe happier, too.  What I'm trying to say is that industrialization
had radically transformed human society, and the shock waves are still
being felt.  In the last hundred years, well, two or three hundred
years in Europe, but a hundred years in the U.S. and the rest of the
civilized world, we've gone from a primarily agraian society to a
primarily industrial one; we've gone from people living on farms to
people living in cities.  That means people are dependent on each
other to an extent never seen before, and that exasperates the
problems of society.  Most human societies are based on coersion, on
greed, on the domination of man over man, of the strong over the weak.
The more industrialized society becomes, the more dependent people are
on society and each other, the more oppressive society becomes.
There's just no way around this, unless a hundred million people are
going to wake up one day and suddenly decide to change their human
nature, to abandon greed for generosity, force for persuasion, and
that's just not going to happen."

"And the philosophers keep talking about freedom," Marc added, "but
how can you have freedom in a world where everyone is raised to
be dependent on society?"

"Exactly."

"So the philosophers have turned to politics to try and find their
freedom there.  Their latest dopey idea is democracy; they keep trying
to convince us that freedom is to be found in that dumb vote, and
don't you dare try to tell these people they don't have freedom,
they'll scream you down as a Communist until the bell rings and then
it's off to work.  Go to church on Sunday to hear how you need to work
hard and drop ten percent of your money in the collection plate as
they pass it around."

[ Don't have sex, don't do drugs, don't drink alcohol, and give ]
[ me ten percent of your money as the plate comes around. ]

"You still need me to distinguish true Christianity from, how did Vic
put it, bastardized Christianity?  Jesus didn't teach us to work to
eat, in fact, just the opposite.  He taught us not to worry about
food, or clothing, or housing.  He said to put your faith in God for
those things.  He pointed out that the birds in the air don't sow the
field, or reap the harvest, yet God provides them with all the seed
they need to survive.  Jesus taught us to put God first, love and
generosity second, and let your faith take care of the rest."

"That sounds good, Andrea," Marc slowly replied, "but faith in God
didn't get any of us here.  None of the companies that sold us this
equipment did it for love or generosity.  They did it because they
thought they would get something out of it for themselves.  We got
here because we were willing to take it from them."

----


"Yes, this work is boring!  When I'm bored, it's easier to work
stoned.  After a while, it catches up with you, and you can't get
anything done because you're just so sick of looking at it, sober _or_
stoned.  That's the problem with being smart.  The smarter you get,
the more you can do, and the fewer other people there are who can help
do it.  Eventually, you get so smart that you can do anything, but
nothing gets done."



Burns nodded.  "Since college," he replied.  "We'd roomed together
since our freshman year.  I met him looking for a place to live, and
both of us for the same reason.  We'd been admitted to the university
but didn't apply for housing until that deadline had passed.  We ended
up answering an ad from this medical student named Vic Antonov," he
laughed, thinking back to his receding youth.  "We had a lot of good
times."

"What was he like?"

"Marc?"  Burns was quiet for a minute.  "He's a lot different now than
he was in college.  Back then, all he wanted was a joint, a Coke and
some book in Latin and he was happy.  Now, he's a lot more...
driven," he concluded with a shrug.

"How did he get 'driven'?"

"I guess he did what he had to do to get by."

"He had to steal a billion dollars?"

"If he wanted to fly to Mars, he did," Burns replied quickly, then
slowed his speech.  "He learned to be tough, I guess."  Burns now
paused completely for a moment.  "The kid I knew in college wouldn't
have got us here... of course, the kid _I_ was in college wouldn't
have got here, either!"

Andrea was silent, then blurted out the question she had been
struggling to answer since almost their first day on orbit.

"Why aren't you captain?"

Burns thought for a minute.

"Well, it was his idea to fly to Mars, not mine.  But there's more to
it than that."

Patiently, Andrea waited in silence until Burns went on.

"Marc and I always got along well in college.  I could explain pretty
much all the math stuff and he, really, could understand it.  On the
other hand, he had some great ideas, and one of the best was his Greek
reading tool, and I helped him with all the technical details."

-----

Alister launched himself into A-core wearing a black T-shirt
emblazzened in front with a likeness of Albert Einstein, holding a
marijuana joint in one hand, its smoke forming the letters "E=mc2"
near his head.

"That's one of Burns', isn't it?" asked Mercuriou.

"Yeah, I found it in the electronics lab."

------

Emblazened across the top was the Generalized Stokes Theorem in its
most abstract form:  (int_dC w = int_C dw)

"You wouldn't understand," read the caption, "it's a MATH 462 thing."

-----

 Watched the world here
 Watched the history books near
 Watched, challenged, and proded, the Diety."

-----

The cargo modules, launched two minutes apart over the course of an
hour, were now spread out all over Low Earth Orbit, while the 767 with
the crew onboard was in a six-hour orbit hundreds of miles above.
This was deliberate.  Since the cargo modules were themselves hundreds
of miles apart, rendezvousing with each of them in LEO would have
required many complex engine burns.  Instead, considering that their
ultimate goal was Mars, Burns had elected to put the 767 into a higher
orbit, then wait for each cargo module to come into a favorable
alignment, fire its rocket engine remotely, and put it into a transfer
orbit that would bring it to them.  This enabled the crew to bring
each cargo module to them, roughly one per hour, over the course of
the next several days.

-----

There was another staff meeting.  The Captain was not there.

"We can't assemble the cargo modules without the 767," Alister interjected.
"At least, we can't yet.  I need to run some simulations.  We've got
the cargo modules from the asteroid belt that we rigged to push things
around, but I've got to figure how to get them lined up in a row."

"How do we do that?" Andrea asked.

"I don't know."

The room fell silent.

"I guess I've got to think about it for a while."

"Well, we've got NASA monitoring all of this.  Kyle," she asked the
video camera, "could you give us some help putting the cargo modules
together?  We'll send you copies of the simulation software, and I
think you've already got the manifests."

"We've also got to have some kind of memorial service."

Turning back to Alister, she tried reassure him.  "Don't worry, we've
got a lot of people back home who will help us, and I've got more
hours of spaceflight logged than anyone else here."

Alister furrowed his eyebrows.  It was the first time he had thought
about it, but Dr. Andrea Yeats would for many years hold the record
for most lifetime hours of spaceflight.


-------



"Andrea!" Brown called in a low voice.  "I need to talk to you."

Andrea: "What's wrong, David?"  He was clearly agitated.

"This mission is dangerous.  _Real_ dangerous.  Do yourselves a favor
and get back on your OTV while you still can."

Andrea: "Why?" Andrea wanted to know.  Brown lowered his voice further.

"I had a dream.  More than one.  All the same.  Burning up in space."

He paused while she considered this.

"It was real.  I know it was."

Andrea nodded slowly and signaled for Mercuriou and Alister.  Once
they were together she told them,

Andrea: "David has very good reason to be concerned about the safety of our
re-entry."

Mercuriou: "What reason?" Mercuriou wanted to know.  He shook his
head, 'you'd think I'm crazy', but Andrea encouraged him to speak up.

"I've had dreams, premonitions, about the fate of this mission.
We will die on re-entry.  We will burn up in space."

Mercuriou: Now Mercuriou paused.  "I have a good - had a good friend
of mine who would take you completely seriously.  More than one,
actually.  I don't think you're crazy.  Do you think the ship's been
sabotaged?"

"I don't know.  Get back on your OTV.  Get out of here."

Mercuriou: Mercuriou laughed. "and go home how?  The Russians?  I'd
just sit up here forever... No, I'm going home."

Alister: "Me too," Alister piped up.

Andrea: Andrea looked at them both and nodded.  "Yes, I also want to
go home now.  I'll take my chances with _Columbus_," she told Brown.

He looked at the other two and, more slowly, nodded.

Mercuriou: "Thank you for warning us."

...

"You'll be fine back here.  It's got its own air conditioning
system and it always works fine all the way down."

...



Kyle Lankier



------

Andrea: "Speaking of competition, how did you get to be captain?  Why
not Burns?"

Burns, furthest from the door and enveloped in a haze of marijuana
smoke began to guffaw loudly.  He was wearing one of his favorite
T-shirts, solid black except for a single word across the front, in
neon-green [BETTER COLOR] letters formed from a series of wide
horizontal lines, like you might see on a TV screen: MUTE.

Burns: "Because most bosses just want to suck as much work out of you
as they can.  Marc asks me what I need from him, and tells me what he
needs from me.  As big as this thing is, it's a lot easier than most
of my jobs when I didn't get what I wanted or needed.  Who wants to
write another stupid routing protocol, anyway?  I just don't give a
shit anymore what 'the customer' wants!"

Vic: "What are you, a reporter now?  You trying to draw everybody's
life story out of them like this is some kind of drama?"

Andrea: "I'm no reporter, but I usually have the opportunity to get to
know a crew before we're blasted into space together.  Take you;
sounds to me like until this gig came along, you were just siting up
in the hills growing pot."

Vic: "Well, I'm pretty good at growing pot, and the best part is I
don't have to deal with HMO's!"

Andrea: "And you!  What's Mars?  the biggest platform you could think
of to broadcast your ideas?"



----


   "I think the American Indians were the best example of an alternative.
   They raised their children to recognize wild edibles, to make fire by
   rubbing sticks together, to build a bow and arrows from natural
   materials that you'd find lying around a forest.  By the time they
   were fifteen years old, they could literally walk out into the woods
   and take care of themselves.  So you couldn't have a government, at
   least not in form you know it.  Government is based on coersion.  How
   can you coerce people who can just walk out into the woods if they get
   ticked off?  This is why murder and other violent crimes were almost
   unknown in these 'primitive' societies.  This is why the federal
   government couldn't have been nearly so coercive two hundred years
   ago.  Anyone who didn't like it could just pack up and move west."

   "As I said, I think all government, all society, really, is coercive.
   The larger and more inter-dependent a society is, the more coercive it
   is.  I don't think the issue is so much democracy but
   industrialization, and I don't think you can design a system of
   government to fix a society that isolates people from nature, raises
   them so they don't have a clue how to feed themselves without a
   Safeway, teaches them all this science and mathematics, sends them
   running around in cars and airplanes but neglects to teach them how to
   live in harmony with nature, how to quiet their soul, how to look into
   the depths of their being and find out who they really are, and what our
   genuine vision of ourselves really is."


-----

Wye: You're a tyrant, Yates, a tyrant!  You're a self-righteous
hypocrite who thinks you and you alone are moral enough to dictate to
the rest of us!

Andrea: Senator, I'm not moral enough at all.  None of us, myself
included, should dictate to anyone.  We all have to look to God to
find these answers.  I'm just pointing out that Christ seemed to take
a dim view of most people's ability to do that.


------

"The difference between freedom and tyranny is whether
your government is the one changing."



----------



Mercuriou: "There's a lot of young men dying in that country right now
because they're going to do what they've been told all their life,
that their country is under attack, and it's their duty to defend it,
and everything else that our boys have been told and believe, too!
And the President plays the same old American tune.  He doesn't
declare war, he doesn't attempt extridition, he doesn't get a security
council resolution, he just says, 'if you're not with us, you're
against us', and barks out this order to hand over bin Laden!  The
same stupid thing that started World War I!  And where was all the
screaming then, that Austria had been attacked by _terrorists_, and
their allies were supporting _terrorism_!!!"



-----

"Used to be an airstrip down there after the war, but it's been gone
for years.  I don't think there's anything down there!"

Is this the address?  Down there?

Burns was there, sporting a
baseball-and-marijuana-themed T-shirt captioned "I HIT better than I
PITCH", as was Vic, who looked up from a notepad as they came in.


----

"Onward Hawaiians!  Onward to God!"
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@a12 90
"Now in addition to yourself and Dr. Antanov, you also have your engineer,
Burns, and at least one other astronaut, is that right?"

"Yes, we have two other astronauts.  Alister Compton is the assistant
engineer, and Dr. Andrea Yeats, of the National Aeronautics and Space
Administration, has volunteered to lend her expertise to our mission.
I guess you could call her an observer."

In Houston, Kyle was watching the broadcast from a conference room in
the Johnston Space Flight Center, where an entire floor of a building
had now been dedicated to monitoring the flight of the _Icaraus_.  A
number of people exhaled loudly and began chattering amongst
themselves as soon as Mercuriou had mentioned Yeats' name.  Someone
picked up a contingency plan that had been rapidly developed and
flipped down several pages, to one entitled "Captain invokes volunteer
status".  Kyle stood silently watching the broadcast for a few more
seconds, until a phone rang and it was handed to him.

--- The Next Day (maybe) ---

"Dr. Yeats has not been kidnapped.  She has made that very clear
to us in our communications with her.  She insists that she was
given the opportunity to leave and elected to stay in order to
help these people."

Kyle Becker's news conference was being carried live on national
television.  It was the first official statement from a NASA official
that mentioned Yeats, and the first that had received any kind of
serious press attention.  After each of his remarks, several reporters
would all try to interrupt with a question simultaneously, and
Becker had to make a conscientious effort to control the situation
and pick one question to hear and answer.  Though not his first
press conference, it was his first under this degree of scrutiny,
and he was somewhat nervious.  It didn't show.

"OK, Mary," he stated firmly, pointing to one of the reporters that
usually covered the NASA beat, and tending to avoid the glut of
strange faces that had suddenly crowded into the usually sedate press
room.

"Does Dr. Yeats support these people?  And is she acting in any
kind of official role?"

"No, I don't want to put words in her mouth, but I don't think she
supports them so much as she is willing to help them.  Those of you
that know her, understand that she's a very kind person and very
willing to help even those she doesn't agree with.  As for an offical
role, she was acting in an official role, but her decision to
volunteer for this mission was strictly personal, and it remains to be
decided by NASA if her role on the _Xplorer_1_ is as an offical
observer."

"Why didn't NASA immediately come forward with the admission that a
veteran astronaut was involved in this caper?"

The question came from a political correspondent who had learned to
carefully note a speaker's tone of voice and body language, and loudly
injected his voice at the end of the response before anyone else could
nose in.  Kyle pulled out a canned response he had prepared in advance.

"Well, frankly, because of questions like that!  This thing has become
a media circus that's on T.V. night and day, and we wanted to take
the time to try and get the answers to these questions, such as
how Dr. Yeats came to be on board the _Xplorer_1_, and whether this
is an offical NASA role, and how _she_ wants the situation dealt with,
and frankly, I'm glad we've had two days to talk about this amongst
ourselves without trying to ask and answer these questions all at
the same time with the glare of the T.V. cameras on."

"So, basically, you've been trying to decide how to spin it."

"No, I think that's _your_ speciality, and let me now take a question
from over here."

"Dr. Becker, it sounds to me like Dr. Yeats was basically kidnapped
and somehow convinced to join up with these people, I mean, you know,
Patricia Hurst and the Mansons, it's not uncommon for kidnap victims
to identify with their captors."

"Look, Andrea Yeats arrived at their launch site less than two days
before they lifted off, certainly not long enough for her to be
brainwashed, which is what that question rather implies.  If anything,
her presence there seems to have thrown a major kink in their plans,
and you'd just have to know Andrea to appreciate that she's not going
to be coerced by anyone to do anything she doesn't want to."



--------   [ T + 33 days ]

a16 10
"This isn't Christianity!  Christianity is about redemption through
faith.  You're redeemed through faith, not through your deeds!"

"If that's so, then why does Jesus spend so much time talking about
how we live in this world?  Why did he bother to say 'turn the other
cheek' and 'give to all those who beg of you' and 'if a man steals
your cloak, give him your cloak as well'?  Yes, he talks about faith,
but he talks about deeds, too, and if deeds aren't important, why does
he spend so much time discussing them?"

a1962 36

Constitutional  Ammendments

1. States shall have the right to secede from the Union.

2. Federal authority in individual states, beyond that granted to it
in this Constitution, is entirely that granted to them by individual
States.

3. All extra-Constitutional Federal authority over drugs, weapons,
communications, agriculture... is repealed.  Article 1, Section 8, as
well as Ammendments 2 and 10 clearly delineate Federal authority.

4. Juries shall be selected at random, shall witness court proceedings
in their entirity, and shall judge not only the fact, but the law.

5. Federal authority to regulate patents and copyrights is repealed.

6. Federal authority to regulate immigration is repealed.  States may
regulate their own immigration, and must guarantee American citizens
the right to travel and reside anywhere in the United States.  The
Federal government shall retain the power to naturalize Citizens.

7. The first sentence of Section 1 of the 14th Ammendment (The
Citizenship Clause) is repealed.  All States must grant State
Citizenship to Federal Citizens.

-----

Immigration - sounds like you're trying to push this issue off on the states.

Sometimes that's what we need to do with tough issues, like
immigration, like drugs, like patents and copyrights - push them off
to the states.  Promote diversity and let the best idea win.

----
@


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@a102 13
"For example, you proposed a twenty-first century library of
Alexandria at one point, right, Captain?"

Mercuriou nodded in silent agreement.

"And you couldn't really answer who was going to pay for it, right?
Well, the Christian answer is that the authors pay for it.  They write
the books, publish them on the Internet, give copies freely to anyone
who wants them whether they pay or not, and end up homeless and
starving on the streets, because most people will just take whatever
they can get for free, but you better believe that the shopkeepers and
the restaurants and the landlords aren't going to just 'give to all'.
That's what happens to Christians in this world."
d190 2
a262 210
Zee: "Paul teaches very clearly in Romans that government authority is
consituted by God and that we have a moral duty to obey that
authority."

"Can you show me where that is taught by Christ?"

"It's taught in the Bible, Dr. Yeats, it's taught in the Bible."

"Well, there's lot of things taught in the Bible.  The Bible
teaches us to stone prostitutes to death, for example, but
we all know what Jesus had to say about that.  So that's..."

Zee cut her off.  "So you don't believe in the Bible?"

Andrea took a deep breath.  "I don't believe it's word-for-word
exact."

"Well, Dr. Yeats, I do believe in the Bible.  I believe it's the
inspired word of God, every bit of it.  Maybe that's why you find
yourself mixed up with these people; maybe you need to read that Bible
of yours and take it a little more seriously."

Andrea gritted her teeth, ignored the personal slight, and went on.

"I do take the Bible seriously, governor, but I don't believe it's
word-for-word accurate..."

"The Bible is the Inspired Word Of God!"

Mercuriou: "Is this guy a governor or a preacher?"

"OK, well maybe you can clear up some simple points for me.  Like how
did Judas die?"

"I really don't this is relevent..."

"No, how did Judas die?  Can you tell me?"

Zee took a deep breath before answering.  "Judas hung himself from
a tree, consumed with the guilt of having betrayed Christ."

"But that's now what the Bible says!  At least that not what the Bible
says in Acts!  In _Matthew_ we're told Judas hung himself.  In _Acts_
we're told he bought a field with the silver he had been paid and died
after falling down a ravine in that field.  Now, Governor, how can one
man die two different ways?"

Zee remained silent.  Andrea went on.

"Or perhaps you can tell me what happened to Christ after his baptism
by John?  In _Matthew_ we're told he went to wilderness for forty days
where he was tempted by the devil.  In _John_ we're told that the
_next_day_ he began calling his disciples - no wilderness trip, no
forty days.  So what happened that days after his baptism, Governor,
did he head for the wilderness or start his ministry?"

"So what are you trying to say, Doctor, that we can't beleive the Bible?"

"No, I've just pointing out some of it's many internal
inconsistencies.  There's no way it can be word-for-word exact.  I've
come to see it as a historial document, and like many other historical
documents flawed and inaccurate, but one that deals with some of the
critical events of human history - the life, ministry, death, and
resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth.  Asking if any particular event
happened just the way it's related is like asking if Julius Cesear
actually uttered the words "the die is cast" as he crossed the River
Rubicon.  Who knows?  Yet we can be fairly certain that was a man
named Julius Cesear and that he did most of the things attributed to
him.  It's like that with the Bible - you can't just pick out some
verse and insist that it's exactly infallible; you have to evaluate it
with a critical eye."

"So now we come back to Paul, and we note first that he's not Christ,
he's a great Christian leader, possible the greatest misionary in the
history of the church, but he's not Christ.  He didn't come back from
the dead.  He didn't know God.  His teaching doesn't have the same
weight.  And I think we need to be somewhat critical of his philosophy
that government leaders are placed into authority by God.  So people
who lived in the Soviet Union had a moral obligation not to possess
shortwave radios?  Because it was against the law?  Because their
leaders were consistuted by God?"

"First of all, a communist dictatorship..."

Now it was Andrea's turn to interrupt.

"Oh, no, he didn't say that.  He didn't say that our obligation to
obey the laws depended on whether it was a dictatorship or a
democracy!"

In the television studio on Earth, Zee paused for a moment and
collected his thoughts.  Having watched the earlier interviews, he had
expected Mercuriou to be a push-over.  He hadn't expected Andrea Yeats.

"We have a moral obligation to obey the laws of a legitimate government."

"Do you find that somewhere in the Bible, that distinction between
legitimate and illegitimate government?"

"Absolutely.  Legitimate government is government inspired by God."

"I'll agree with that.  But how do we decide if a particular
government is inspired by God?"

"A legitimate government is one that rules with the support of its people."

"You find that in the Bible?  That a government inspired by God is one
that rules with the support of its people?"

Zee flared up.  "Look, Dr. Yeats, if you can't tell the difference
between a democratically elected government and a dictatorship, then I
guess you belong on that ship of theives with their rebel capitan!"

"Governor, I most certainly can tell the difference, but you're
evading the question about Biblical teaching.  There is absolutely
nothing in Christ's teachings which tell us we have some moral
obligation to obey every law promulgated by any government, nothing
that teaches democracy as some holy philosophy, in fact, I think one
of the main themes of _Revelation_ is the presence in this world of
governments that are _not_ ordained by God, and if you take Paul's
philosophy in Romans at face value, it tells us that people in Russian
had a moral obligation to God not to have shortwave radios because
that was the law of the government!"

"So, what, you're trying to tell us that all government is evil, that
we should have anarchy, that people should do whatever they please?"

"No, I'm just pointing our that our _moral_ obligation is not to obey
the laws of government, but to obey the laws of God!"

"And part of the laws of God is obedience to constituted authority!"

"Where do you find that in the Gospel, governor, I'd really like to
know!"

"So there's nothing wrong with murder?!"

"Murder is against the laws of God; _thou_shall_not_kill_!"

"So the only time we have to obey the law is when it's in accord with
our ideas of what God wants?"

"Governor, the _only_ law we _have_ to obey is the _law_of_God_!"

Zee paused and considered this.

"So all these laws we have, people should just pick and choose
whenever they want to obey or not to obey them?"

"People should concern themselves first and foremost with the laws
of God!  The laws of man are secondary!"

"Well, then we'd just have anarchy!  I could just say that my religion
teaches human sacrifice, that I think that's the will of God, right?"

"You can believe whatever you want.  You can believe the world is
flat, but that doesn't change the fact that it's round.  But I'll go
so far as to say that if you truly believed that human sacrifice was
ordained by God, then you'd have a moral obligation to practice it
irregardless of the laws of men!  Which is why the Bible is so
important!  So we can clearly know that human sacrifice is _not_
ordained by God!"

"So let's see, you think men are only obligated to obey the laws of
God, and yet you don't believe the Bible is literally true, so how are
we supposed to determine the law of God?"

"It's not easy.  In fact, I think it's about the hardest thing to do
in life.  You start by making a conscience decision to seek the will
of God, to try and make every decision in your life, big and small,
based not on what you want, but on what God wants, you pray, you
worship, you study the Bible, especially the Gospels, and then you do
the best you can."

"And if that's in conflict with our laws, you just ignore the laws,
then?"

"I think it's more a case of looking somberly at the laws, and looking
somberly at the men who make the laws, and coming to a conclusion that
the men are self-serving materialists far more concerned with their
economic and political theories of capitalism and democracy that with
the Christian gospel, and that most of their laws are convoluted,
misguided, and unjust."

"So our laws are convoluted, misguided, and unjust?"

"Well, look at them.  Go into any law library and ask to see the law.
Just the Code of Federal Regulations alone takes up entire shelfs.
It's tens of thousands of pages of inscrutable legalize.  And people
say that 'ignorance of the law is no excuse'; I personally think it's
a great excuse - who understands all these laws?  Then compare it with
the laws of God - simple things like "don't kill", "don't steal",
"don't lie", "give to all", "do no violence to any man".  That's what
I mean by convulted.  As for misguided, well, look at how much of it
is to somehow 'regulate' people's greed - this capitalist democratic
idea that everyone should just be in it for themselves and we use the
law to build some kind of a 'playing field'.  And unjust!  You've got
to be kidding me!  One guy cuts a deal to testify against his friends
and gets four months; another guy refuses to snitch and it's a ten
year sentence!  You call that justice?"  [Jamal Lewis]

"And if you decide the laws are unjust, then you just take it
upon yourself to ignore them?"

"Well, basically, yes.  That's what people did in Russia, that's
what people did in Germany."

"This isn't Russia, and this isn't Germany!  We have freedom in this
country, and respect for our laws!"

a489 16
"Christianity _commands_ capitalism!"

It was again Andrea's turn to compete in the televised circus that the
_Xplorer_1_ mission had become.  Her opponent was a minister in a major
Protestant church.

"The civil magistrate has a God-given duty as a minister of justice,
and God's ministers are not to exceed their duties!"

Andrea thought about this, then answered.

"I'm a bit confused.  I stated several days ago that I don't advocate
a welfare system, but that seems to be what you're implying

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