or to settle old scores. So the Colonial Union still has to contend with two hundred alien races targeting its worlds and ships.
“Second, there’s Earth. Thanks to the actions of former Roanoke Colony leaders John Perry and Jane Sagan, the Earth has at least temporarily suspended its relationship with the Colonial Union. Its people now believe that we’ve been holding back the planet’s political and technological development for decades to farm it for colonists and soldiers. The reality is more complicated, but as with most humans, the people on Earth prefer the simple answer. The simplest answer is the Colonial Union’s been screwing them. They don’t trust us. They don’t want anything to do with us. It may be years before they do.”
“My point is that even without the Earth we still have advantages,” DiNovo said. “The Colonial Union has a population of billions on dozens of planets rich with resources.”
“And you believe that the colony worlds can replace the colonists and soldiers the Colonial Union until very recently received from Earth,” Egan said.
“I’m not saying there won’t be grumbling,” DiNovo said. “But yes, they could.”
“Colonel Rigney,” said Egan, speaking her compatriot’s name but keeping her eyes on DiNovo.
“Yes,” Rigney said, surprised at being called on. An entire room of heads swiveled to look at him.
“You and I were in the same recruiting class,” Egan said.
“That’s right,” Rigney said. “We met on the Amerigo Vespucci. That was the ship that took us from Earth to Phoenix Station. It was fourteen years ago.”
“Do you remember how many recruits were on the Vespucci?” Egan asked.
“I remember the CDF representative telling us there were one thousand fifteen of us,” Rigney said.
“How many of us are still alive?” Egan asked.
“There are eighty-nine,” Rigney said. “I know that because one of us died last week and I got a notification. Major Darren Reith.”
“So a ninety-one percent fatality rate over fourteen years,” Egan said.
“That’s about right,” Rigney said. “The official statistic that the CDF tells recruits is that in ten years of service the fatality rate is seventy-five percent. In my experience, that official statistic is low. After ten years recruits are allowed to leave the service, but many of us stay in.” Because who wants to start getting old again, Rigney thought, but did not say.
“Mr. DiNovo,” Egan said, returning her full attention to her diplomat, “I believe you are originally from the colony of Rus, is that correct?”
“That’s correct,” DiNovo said.
“In its entire history of more than one hundred and twenty years, Rus has never been asked to supply the Colonial Union with soldiers,” Egan said. “I want you to tell me how you believe the colony will respond when it is informed by the Colonial Union that it will require—require, not ask—one hundred thousand of its citizens annually to join the Colonial Defense Forces, and that at the end of those ten years seventy-five percent of them will be dead. I want you to tell me how the Rus citizens will respond when they learn that part of their job is to quell rebellions on colonies, which happens more often than the Colonial Union prefers to admit. How will recruits from Rus feel about firing on their own people? Will they do it? Will you, Mr. DiNovo? You are in your early fifties now, sir. You’re not that far off from the CDF recruitment age. Are you ready to fight and very likely die for the Colonial Union? Because you are, in yourself, the advantage you say we have.”
DiNovo had nothing to say to this.
“I’ve been giving these presentations to the diplomatic corps for a month now,” Egan said, turning her eyes away from the silenced DiNovo and scanning the room. “In every presentation I have someone like Mr. DiNovo here making the argument that the situation we are in is not that bad. They, like he, are wrong. The Colonial Defense Forces lose a staggering number of soldiers on an annual basis and have for more than two hundred years. Our developing colonies cannot quickly grow themselves to a size sufficiently large to avoid extinction by breeding alone. The existence of the Conclave has changed the math of human survival in ways we cannot yet imagine. The Colonial Union has survived and thrived because it has exploited an unearned surplus of humans from Earth. We don’t have that surplus anymore. And we don’t have the time to develop a new surplus from within the Colonial Union system and population.”