Lully and Esperanza hurried through the halls to Alcott's berth, knocking breathlessly when they arrived. Alcott hadn't given many details, but she had sounded upset. Lully knew that things had been shifting on the base, after a while you could feel it in the air. Unfortunately, past experience told him it always originated with Levi and Dylan.
"Merci for coming," Alcott said, opening the door and letting them in. "I've just put the pot pie in the oven, but we can talk before we eat."
Levi was sitting on the couch with a dazed look on his face. Dylan, wonder of wonders, was sitting next to him holding his hands. Walsh waved from the kitchen, holding a spatula. Alcott poured Lully and Esperanza a glass of wine each and then sighed.
"Dashiell removed Levi from botany," she said and then further explained what had transpired today.
Levi added a thing or two from the couch as she spoke and Lully hated that he was right about things changing on the base. He hadn't liked Dashiell, hadn't voted for him in the first place, and now that his friend from Earth was building the new constitution, there was a possibility that Dashiell would remain captain despite their best efforts.
"How are you doing?" Esperanza asked Levi. She moved to the couch to touch his arm.
"Pas mal, I guess," he said, blinking once and then turning to face her. "I'm just in shock; I just...." He sighed. "A lot as happened here and I never expected that botany would be the thing I lose next."
Dylan's face twisted with guilt, and she rested her head on his shoulder.
"I'm so sorry," she said.
"No es tu culpa, ma belle," he replied. "I mean, I see Dashiell's point. There's no one like me on this base. I am a rare resource. But I was willing to volunteer my free time, not be conscripted into a new department. I mean, I went from blackberry research to head of a new department in a day."
"I don't care about your rarity," Walsh remarked. "You made your choice of occupation. We don't need anything from Earth to survive. What are they going to do for us? Increase the air density? Find us some more resources? Even if we get some blueprints or other useful information, we are woefully lacking in resources to print them. Vertov ran out of iron yesterday."
"Truly?" Dylan inquired.
"Oui. We weren't able to finish repairs. That's why I had time to do dinner in the first place."
"I didn't know that," Lully remarked. "Why not?"
"Because no one knows," Walsh replied. "Vertov doesn't want anyone to panic when there's nothing that can be done. I took the broken pieces back to printing so they could be reused, but even if everyone recycled fastidiously and we reduced print queues, it's not enough. It's not like we're printing superfluous things. We need to expand. We need to grow."
"Is that why you couldn't print my holo?" Dylan inquired.
"Not that I know of," Lully replied. "Possibly? I don't know anymore."
"Lully, don't feel bad. Vertov only told me because I was beating down his door and demanding answers," Walsh pointed out. "He trusts you. He just knows that you are the source of most rumors on this base."
Lully grimaced. It was true; but he had always thought that it was better for people to know what was going on. If they didn't know, they couldn't do something about it. People would be hold off on printing expensive things if they knew how low the reserve materials were.
"So what do we do about Levi?" Alcott asked, turning to the crisis at hand. "Obviously you can bring it up in congress, how many votes to you think you'd have? Anatoly, Levi, Walsh for certain. Probably Cameron; she seemed upset, but I can never tell with that woman. Rainier. Maybe Ford. Madison and Ibsen?"
"Dashiell made it seem like I could never get a vote to happen," Levi replied. "I don't know why that would be the case."
"Because Dashiell has been controlling budgets," Walsh replied. "I have meetings with him twice sometimes three times a week over credits. He thinks we're spending too much for too little return and I have to come up with new reasons to keep building every week."
Dylan snorted. "He wouldn't have liked me," she laughed.
Walsh rolled his eyes. "He would have hated you. You outspent every department by double. But that's the only reason we have breathable enough air to take husbandry outside now. How we were able to do research at the lake. We need air and water and shelter from the elements. Everything else has to come second. Dashiell doesn't think so. He keeps pouring more resources into personnel and builds. Anatoly and I suspect he's trying to expand the population so he can get his daughter out of cryo."
"He can, at any time," Esperanza protested. "It's just that her match is five years younger. We recommended to Libba that they wait, but we did not force them to leave their daughter in cryo. That would have been cruel to wake them up like that."
"Which is what Dashiell then did to Tyson's parents," Alcott pointed out. "I was Tyson's only match. I wasn't actually in the registry. But Dashiell offered me a better maternity leave and I took it. I wish I hadn't now, because I can't help but think that action started us on this course, but," she sighed. "He had promised me that it wasn't permanent."
"How?" Lully inquired. "How can partners be anything but permanent?"
"Dashiell wants to change the rules on genetic diversity and pass it through congress," she replied. "He wants confirmation that we have ships coming from Earth so that he can argue that we have more people coming. He just needed a partner for Tyson long enough to keep him out of cryo and to pass this law. "
It was starting to sink in how thorough Dashiell was being. He was using Levi and Alcott and who knew how many others. This had to do with his daughter, with his obsession with Earth, even his somewhat tyrannical rule here. Each piece of the puzzle only knew a little of the overall manipulation.
"He's not expanding the base for our population but for Earth's," Lully said. "Oh. Seasons, he doesn't care about us at all, does he?"
The timer on someone's holo-rib chimed, making everyone jump. Walsh turned toward the oven, grabbing a towel to pull out a large steaming pan. Lully had no idea what potpie was, but it smelled amazing. Walsh found plates and bowls and scooped out servings for everyone. There was a knock at the door just before they started eating. Alcott hurried to open it and smiled as Anatoly entered the room. Walsh poured her a glass of wine and Anatoly took it with thanks.
"I needed a moment to calm down," she admitted. "How are you doing, Levi?"
"I have a lot of friends," he said, managing a laugh. "How are you?"
"I've talked Ibsen and Wright," she replied as she sat down. "Dashiell has everyone's budget's held in a despotic vice. We've never dealt with it because I think the only thing we've printed in ages are those windows for the garden. We reuse everything. And all we needed to start with is dirt. Dashiell doesn't have a hold on me. He could pull others out of botany, but that's just rotated and unjustifiable. My partner is dead, my children have families of their own. He's got nothing to attack me with. And I have all the produce on the base. So he picked a fight with the wrong department."
"Alcott," Walsh complained. "We're going to just...shut down a department because Dashiell turner is an eject."
"Papa!" Dylan objected, though grinning broadly.
Lully had never heard Walsh swear and so had a similar reaction to Dylan. The room chuckled nervously.
"I'm not wrong," he pointed out. "Look, I've been there. I made horrible decisions because I believed it was for the good of the base. Dashiell isn't thinking about us; he's still pining away for his lost Earth and he's going to drag us down with him. But builds, for whatever reason, loves the man. He's popular. We're not the average people on this base and I think everyone here forgets that sometimes. If we shut down botany, we look like bad guys."
Lully was glad he wasn't on congress. He was reasonably certain that Vertov was training Emerson to take the role; Lully didn't want it, but more importantly, Emerson would be a far more level head. Lully would just get everyone into more trouble.
"We can't do nothing," Esperanza insisted.
"I have a couple bills in mind that I'm going to put in front of congress," Anatoly said. "These appointments should not be for life. Our departments should vote regularly whether or not someone is competent to be on congress. Now that we're passed the eye of the storm, we have just time to kill until we can work again. I am going to call for a meeting tomorrow and every day after that."
"I'm more than certain Dashiell has his own agenda if we were to have such frequent meetings," Walsh warned
Anatoly smiled.
"If Levi is in those meetings he can't be working on the Earth data. If we can demonstrate that the rest of the department can handle it, we'll have a better chance convincing congress that Dashiell is being needlessly cruel."
She turned to her plate of potpie, finishing up the last couple of bites. Lully had saved a bit of the crust for last and so finally ate it with great relish.
"Anatoly, you are more conniving than I would have thought given your profession," Walsh said.
"Please," Anatoly scoffed. "Your daughter here puts me to shame. I'm late to the game. I'm trying to catch up because I assumed incorrectly that Dashiell would never pay mind to my department and Levi paid for my mistake."
"That's not true," Levi objected. "He's right in that I chose something that did not match my skill set before, a skill set even Walsh called useless when I first arrived."
"Sorry," Walsh grimaced.
"Eh, you learned to love me," Levi laughed. "Or at least like me."
"I tolerate you," Walsh quipped.
___
Walsh has come a long way.