Free The Voting Species by John Pearce

their way to ravaging yet
another world. This time the planet had half a billion defenders
with modern weapons. Another quarter of a billion who want peace,
but not at any price, would have defeated us with their genes.’ The
Admiral waited before releasing his thunderbolt to a now murmuring
audience. ‘Those modern weapons you’ve just seen were supplied by
smugglers to human colonists, in an attempt to wipe out an alien
species, we the military arranged for those smugglers to be
neutralized.’ The whole audience was stunned into silence, three
jaws dropped, Denton, Tubary and the Professor could only gape at
each other. The Admiral continued, ‘This latest event encouraged
peaceful behaviour, I am now ready to answer any
questions.’
    The stunned silence switched to a media
frenzy, questions were thrust at the Admiral from all around the
tiered arena:
    ‘Where did the colonists come from?’
    ‘ DNA scans
showed they were descendants of escapees from the Penal Colony,
over a period of two hundred years.’
    ‘What were they fighting about?’
    ‘The usual, land.’
    ‘Who supplied the rifles?’
    ‘The serial numbers showed they were stolen
from the Cyan Government by their own security leaders, who were
renegade aliens from AO2374, and shipped by smugglers.’
    ‘ How did the
colonists pay for them.’
    ‘ Platinum,
our assays told us it was mined on their adopted planet, then
shipped back by the smugglers.’
    ‘Did you find a hoard of platinum?’
    ‘Yes, the smugglers left the renegades share
in a cave on AO2374. As the cave was in alien territory it now
belongs to them.’
    ‘How did you find this hoard?’
    ‘From agents we sent there.’
    ‘What happened to the smugglers share?’
    ‘It evaporated in space along with the
smugglers, I am not obliged to elaborate.’
    ‘ How did you
know the renegade aliens were involved?’
    ‘From human and alien agents we sent to
Cyan.’
    Hit hard by
the Admiral’s fact firing rapidity, the media frenzy
faltered.
    ‘ Surely this
wasn’t just about land and platinum?’
    ‘ True, the
renegades wanted to control their own people on their home planet,
not by land grabbing like the colonists, but by politics; they got
platinum as a bonus.’
    ‘ There are
rumours from Cyan that the renegades were going to unleash the hell
of epigenetic control over their own people, what you could call
gene grabbing?’
    Now the
media perked up again, they all saw the horror that could garnish
their already excited headlines.
    The Admiral
looked at the Prospector sixteen, then gave a wry grin back at the
media. ‘All sorts of cures were experimented with at the Cyan
Government’s Lab, imaginations are bound to run riot. We’ll keep
you informed.’
    The media was lusting for more, the Admiral
was ambushed by another question that would add scandal to
excitement.
    ‘There’s been a lot of dirt thrown at the
Military regarding its legal obligations, what have you got to say
about that?’
    ‘ Planet
AO2374 was not in the Federation, we had no obligation to that
planet or anybody on it. However, we do have an obligation to
protect it now it’s negotiating Federation Membership.
    ‘What was the Cyan Government’s part in all
this?’
    ‘ Nothing by
intent, they are guilty only of incompetence. We will however be
arresting five Senators on suspicion of periphery crimes, too
numerous to mention.’ The Admiral paused and looked around, the
silence told him that their lust for detail had been more than
sated. ‘That is the end of our conference.’
    The media
cheered, they had been handed enough sensation to gorge on for
months. They also had the positivity of heroes that would be given
publicity that Senators could only dream of. Five politicians had
just had their dreams shattered into nightmares of the Penal
Colony.
    ‘ Is that
finally it?’ asked Denton of his now contented team, lounging in
their comfortable seats.
    Tubary
volunteered his usual quip, ‘Only if you