Step Back - Part 34

Wednesday October 15, 1969
Low Earth Orbit

Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev sat back and waited for the retro-rockets of the Soyuz spacecraft to fire.

What was he going to tell the Politburo? From their perspective this mission was a complete failure.

“The basic problem,” said Evelyn Boatman, “is that the doctrine of Communism is based on a clearly false concept of human life and of reality in general, and as such is absolutely doomed to failure. There is absolutely no other conclusion possible.”

“But what about all the lives sacrificed in the pursuit of the Communist ideal?”

“The fact is that all the suffering and deaths inflicted in the cause of Communism were completely pointless.” Boatman replied. “And in the long run the Communist state, in all manifestations, has to end.”

At this point in time it appeared that burning up on reentry wouldn’t seem to be a bad thing.

The Eagle was back under spin as she coasted back to geosynchronous altitude in the transfer orbit. In his role as the mission commander Boatman sat back at the work station in his quarters and read the various reports from the staff on the ground. That jackass of a county commissioner, a Democrat of course, didn’t get the message the first time and had to properly dealt with. And it appeared that the way things in general were going in the United States the idea of moving out to Ganymede and establishing a permanent base was looking better and better.

Why?

As with the Reds, the self-styled progressives and liberals in the United States believed they had an excuse to use force to obtain their goals on the ground. The idea that their victims had the right to live by their own rational judgement as well as the right to the products of their own thought and labor was simply irrelevant to them. As with the Reds, the Democrats and Progressives in general simply saw common people as things to be used. The control and usage of common people was to be brought about through fraud if possible and by force if necessary.

In The Reformation the practice of using people and otherwise profiting through political force was brought to an abrupt end. From coast to coast in the United States there were mass graves filled with the dead bodies of the Users. There was simply no other option at that time.

In the primary timeline The Reformation was brought about in part because the virtual monopoly on the mass media held by the Users had been broken by the Internet. But at the present time even the military communications system that was constructed for nuclear warfighting which served as the foundation of the Internet simply didn’t exist.

Could the Users be brought down now?

Boatman simply had no idea, but it was now time for dinner.

It was late in the night when Senator Kennedy personally answered the door of his Washington residence. The man he let in was a long standing supporter of the Kennedy Family in the publishing business from decades back.

Geoffrey Warren spoke softly.

“So Ted, what’s the big hush-hush about?”

Kennedy answered.

“Geoff, I’ve just been given a copy of a book that was originally published in the future, and the story that it tells is nothing less than appalling.”

He handed Warren the copy of The Concept Of Government. Warren opened it as Kennedy continued to speak.

“This is the unexpurgated version.” He said. “It covers the extermination of our party in the future and those responsible for it.”

Warren looked up with shock.

“Yes.” Said Kennedy. “Our party will be wiped out and that book names those who will do it.”

“So what do you want me to do?” Said Warren.

“What I want,” said Kennedy, “is for copies of that book to be printed and distributed to our people, and it must be done secretly, can you do it?”

Geoffrey Warren nodded.

“Yes, I can do it.”

“And it must be an exact copy,” said Kennedy, “even the typos must be included.”

Warren open the book to the inside cover and pointed to the number stamped inside.

“Does that include this number?”

“Yes,” Kennedy replied, “it has to mean something.”

“Okay,” said Warren, “I’ll do it.”

In the White House President Nixon read the report on the visit on the Soviet visit to the Eagle. It had essentially gone off without any problems. The mission commander gave his guests a tour of the ship, including the main drive room, along with a brief explanation of the technologies. The Russians even got to view the quantum singularity that was the heart of the ship.

Or at least the visual effects of the gravitational distortion it generated by its very existence.

And then there was the dinner. It was as close to a formal meal that could be served in free fall as the Soyuz spacecraft had been brought aboard and the ship could not be spun for internal gravity as a result.

And at the end the Soviet delegation was told that the Uptimers could do nothing for a invalid social order. Absolutely nothing at all.

What Brezhnev and the rest of the Politburo would think about this could only be guessed.

And then there was the latest incident in Nevada. A dumbass politician, a Democrat of course, tried to put the legal squeeze on the Uptimers. And the Uptimers responded with their usual exercise of deadly force.

One would think that the folks on the other side of the aisle would notice that the Uptimers had a standard response to their nonsense. But then the folks on the other side really weren’t in the habit of actual thought.

Or so it would appear.