The Unincorporated War Read Online Free PDF Page A

but it was so much freer. His little corner of the system was far enough from the corporate core that most of the time the colonists there could believe they were on their own, away from the credit counters and stockholders who would tell a human how to work, live, and, if they thought they could get 10 percent of the action, make love.
    But then something amazing happened to the oft-ignored settlement. A man appeared on Earth and spoke the truth. Something that the Plutonians, Erisians, Ixionians, Varunians, Orcans, and others had been whispering to one another in the warm bastions of their distant outposts. But that man had said it out loud. “We must be free.” Tyler Sadma had listened to every one of Justin Cord’s speeches and thought that Cord was talking to him and him alone. That phenomenal man fromEarth’s tragic past gave the last best part of humanity the courage to speak. He gave Tyler Sadma the courage to speak, and speak he did—specifically about the evil of incorporation. Tyler had started the Liberty Party in Eris and via that platform had swept the local elections. He roared with triumph as the corporate world tried over and over again to trap and enslave Justin Cord only to fail time and again. Cord had been too smart, too brave, and his message too important. Freedom for the human race. Freedom for Tyler Sadma, his wife, Annabel, and their nine children—who any outer colonist would tell you were the true lights against darkness.
    And then another miracle—Cord appeared in Ceres and called for a revolution. He asked Tyler Sadma and Eris and all the outer colonies to join him, and join him they did. For the rest of his life Tyler would remember storming the warrens where the corporations had their headquarters. He’d freed the prisoners in detention awaiting psyche auditing and then afterwards addressed the large, adoring crowds. He could still hear all those people cheering for him and Justin and freedom as he read the proclamation of independence. There was even talk of making him governor—that is until he became the defense attorney for the very men he had thrown out of power. The Erisians had wanted blood, but Tyler believed that
all
men deserved a fair trial or none would have one. He suspected that Justin Cord would have supported him in this, and it gave him courage. He won his case and got the sentences commuted to expulsion. But after the trial talk of making him governor dissipated. He bore his fellow colonists no ill will. Tyler was a man of his convictions and that, above all, came first. The new governor, his cousin Lemusa Sadma, decided it would be best to have him go away—far away—and made him the head of the Erisian delegation to Ceres and the Alliance congress. Tyler had been glad for the opportunity but missed his wife and children terribly. Like many in the outer colonies, when the time lag got too great he found writing the preferred method of communication. As a result a long-lost art had come back into its own at the edge of humanity’s domain. At times it seemed as if his wife were still with him, so comforting were her letters. But Tyler knew where he, as opposed to his heart, needed to be. He was determined to get these idiot rock dwellers to see what the real issue of the war was. But he was also worried that he might find himself in conflict with the very man who gave him hope for mankind’s future in the first place.
    Of immediate concern was the revolution—it had stalled. But how could a revolution just stop? The Alliance had done the hard part as far as Tyler and all the Erisians could tell. They’d declared their independence and formed a government—one that stretched from the Oort Cloud to the asteroid belt. They’d created a fleet; they’d unified that government and then unified that fleet. They’d made Justin Cord provisional and finally actual President of the Alliance, butyet they still could not or would not declare against the heart of the issue.