Free Singularity Sky by Charles Stross Page A

hand of the reactionary junta is about to be over-thrown for all time! The new economy is being born; the marginal cost of production has been abolished, and from now on, if any item is produced once, it can be replicated infinitely. From each according to his imagination, to each according to his needs! Join us, or better still, bring your fellow soldiers and workers to join us!”

    There was a sharp bang from the roof of the Corn Exchange, right at the climax of his impromptu speech; heads turned in alarm. Something had broken inside the spork factory and a stream of rainbow-hued plastic implements fountained toward the sky and clattered to the cobblestones on every side, like a harbinger of the postindustrial society to come. Workers and peasants alike stared in open-mouthed bewilderment at this astounding display of productivity, then bent to scrabble in the muck for the brightly colored sporks of revolution. A volley of shots rang out and Burya Rubenstein raised his hands, grinning wildly, to accept the salute of the soldiers from the Skull Hill garrison.

    The Evening News bulletin. And now for today’s headlines. The crisis over the invasion of Rochard’s World by the so-called Festival continues.
    Attempts at diplomatic intermediation having been rebuffed, it now appears that military action is inevitable. Word from the occupied territory is hard to obtain, but to the best of our knowledge, the garrison under Duke Politovsky continue to fight valiantly to defend the Imperial standard.
    Ambassador Al-Haq of Turku said earlier on this program that the government of Turku agreed that the expansionist policies of the so-called Festival represent an intolerable threat to peace.

    ‘The woman who chained herself to the railings of the Imperial residence yesterday morning, demanding votes and property rights for ladies, has been found to have a long history of mental disorders characterized by paranoid hysteria. Leaders of the Mothers’ Union today denied any knowledge of her actions and decried them as unfeminine. She is expected to be charged with causing a public disturbance later this week.

    “Baseless rumors circulating on Old Earth about the Admiralty’s planned rolling series of upgrades to our naval capability caused numerous extraplanetary investment companies to sell stocks short, resulting in a plummeting exchange rate and the withdrawal of several insurance companies from the New Republic market. No announcement has yet been made by the chairman of the Royal Bank, but officials from the chamber of trade are currently drawing up charges against those companies participating in the stampede, accusing them of slander and conspiracy to establish a trade cartel using the current defense alert as a pretext.

    “The four anarchists hanged at Krummhopf Prison today were attended by—”

    Click.

    “I hate this fucking planet,” Martin whispered, sinking deeper into the porcelain bathtub. It was the only good feature of the poky little two-room dockside apartment they’d plugged him into. (The bad features, of course, included the likelihood of bugging devices.) He stared at the ceiling, two meters above him, trying to ignore the radio news.

    The phone rang.

    Cursing, Martin hauled himself out of the bath and, dripping, hopped into the living room. “Yes?” he demanded.

    “Had a good day?” A woman’s voice; it took him a second to place it.

    “Lousy,” he said with feeling. And hearing from you doesn’t make it any better, he thought: the idea of being sucked into some kind of diplomatic scam didn’t appeal. But the urge to grumble overrode minor irritation. “Their list of embargoed technology includes cranial interfaces. It’s all crappy VR
    immersion gloves and keyboards: everything I look at now is covered in purple tesseracts, and my fingers ache.”

    “Well, it sounds like you’ve had a really good day, compared to mine. Have you had anything to eat yet?”

    “Not yet.” Suddenly