flash inspired by linnea's barba tree world poems, vinge's deepness in the sky, and williams' liberal reform in an illiberal regime.

% under, left

stolipu shifted uncomfortably under the baron's barba tree, his grey fingers running over a jeweled knife in his pocket, his eyes tracking the opalescent glimmers of Trader ships slipping up the horizon like tiny soap bubbles. the baron was late, the emperor was far away, and the kedet party member in front of him was very angry.

"the baron is late," the kedet growled. his thin frame curled over a bottle of shub-tea as if it might grow legs and run away from him, his eyes a dull red with the stimulant's effects. "and you're avoiding looking at me."

stolipu's hand ran through his black hair. the Trader soap-bubbles floated higher in their twelve hour orbit.

"collaborator," the kedet spat.

"it was the land reformer's bill," stolipu responded idly. "you supported it six months ago."

"the people want more. break the estates." the kedet threw back the bottle and tossed the empty behind him into the decorative shub shrub hedge. "that's our line. no compensation."

"if you push this, the landowners will freeze out the deme," stolipu drew the words out with the rising frustration of repetition. "the emperor will dissolve the lower house and call new elections with stricter property requirements. you'll be frozen out of government. progressive development will be set back five years. listen - i got your bill pushed, even if by article 3. collaborate with me-"

"progressive development," the kedet spat again. "that's all you types have." he stood up abruptly. "the baron has clearly declined to meet me."

"just the railroad bill," stolipu responded. "i'll push your amendments in return."

"expropriation!" the kedet said. "we have a gun to your head, collaborator. remember '06."

"the village agitators are no Trader gun," stolipu shot back. "a poor-quality weapon betrays its wielder."

the kedet stomped out of the gate, the Trader ships hanging over its silver finials like bright eyes.

% under, right

the sweet smell of chewed flickle-leaf wafted up the path in front of a saber-scarred, Rubenesque grin between drunk sapphire cheeks.

"stolipu!" the baron roared. "how are you, old friend. sorry i'm late."

"the kedet just left," stolipu sighed.

"ah, splendid," the baron laughed. "nasty fellow, no?" his eyes glanced at the bottle-sized hole in his hedge.

"we can't keep subordinating the lower house with article 3," stolipu started, the frustration of repetition coming back. "we need to build trust in the democratic process."

"well, i didn't want blasted land reform anyways," the baron scoffed. "you insisted on it. good thing it's toothless, but don't blame me for your political slithering."

"you promised you would get the votes. we need to work with the left for progressive development," stolipu sighed. "we need peace. give me twenty years of peace and i will make the emperor's realm the crown of the world."

the baron laughed. "twenty years! you'll be lucky to get twenty months."

"i know. hence the railroad bill. i have a plan. i know it will hurt, but please support-"

"absolutely not. no east spur. running the railroad east will destroy the east."

"the eastern estates, you mean," stolipu shot back. "and it won't. production will consolidate, but they will survive."

"consolidate! it will wipe out the gentry. it's cultural erasure, stolipu! we can't compete with frenkish imports, you know this. you were one of us. you rode the bramble-ox with us, you dueled with sabers with us in the academy - i cannot fathom why you support this left-wing plot to erase us. why must you be a traitor to your class?"

stolipu's hand went for his black hair and his eyes went skyward. the Trader bubbles hung directly overhead, as if the world were a globe suspended from them by invisible threads. their next visit would be in three months. stolipu needed to monopolize supply by then.

"it's those damn Traders again, isn't it," the baron sighed. "trinkets, stolipu."

"i've told you. they sell us only what we can already make, just a bit better. pistols and watches." his grey fingers cradled the jeweled Trader knife in his pocket. "before that, knives and mirrors. they match our level of production, but they flew here through space just as they fly through the air on their visits. they are far, far beyond us."

"even if your fantasy about the peddlers is true," the baron chided, "so what? they've been up there for five hundred years, and by all common sense they will be up there five hundred more. why now?" he gestured around the garden. "i own an estate. why must i give up my life?"

"the Traders need one thing from us. we have nothing to offer except our plants - they buy flickle-leaf, they buy shub. they seem to need it. if we can corner them on it, if we can control the supply and prevent sellers from breaking the line, we can take what we need from them instead of the trinkets they want to give us. we can leap so far ahead, baron, that we won't need those twenty years of impossible peace. a hundred years of progressive development in a hundred days."

"no railroad bill," the baron responded. "you can bring the upper house to the barba tree, but you can't make them eat. they will not accept consolidation, or anything that smells like it."

stolipu slumped, his eyes still tracking the Trader soap bubbles.

"but i can try to get you a cartel. the estates will have to be convinced to eat a massive loss, but we can sell them on it with fear of the peasants and kedets. just once."

stolipu's eyes shot up. it was something.

"but if this fails, they will have you shot in front of the deme, stolipu. i'm warning you. this is not the academy."

"that isn't the first gun pointed at me today."

the baron got up to leave.

"one more thing, baron."

"what is it?"

"no mention of this by telegraph."

% over, left

the customer world hung suspended under cai trindley's fingers as he worked the ship's information console. it was almost time for the next trade, and he needed to be ready to move.

the planet rendered under the glass was pockmarked by a hundred points of light, each a covert tap in the customer's telegraph network. the taps were designed to nestle between the twisted pairs of telegraph wires, siphoning power and broadcasting encrypted captures up, far too miniaturized for the customers to find - or reverse engineer even if they did. lines of tap-lights slung their way across the rendered western continent, dense trunks coming together in the capitals and fresh spurs racing with long gaps out to the war front. the customers were finally developing, even beginning to pick up some radio and basic cryptography under the duress of war. trindley's job as factor-at-arms was getting harder by the megasecond.

but not fast enough. 16 gigaseconds was far too long a lurk. trindley wanted out. and that meant the customers needed to develop something worth selling.

he took a sip of shubtosin liquor, distilled onboard the ship from plant matter purchased from the customers. trading with customers during the lurk was extremely out of distribution. but so was a 16 gigasecond lurk. the caffeine bioreactor strains had died halfway through the first gigasecond, and a radhani ship ran on stimulants. it had been necessary, but it had been dangerously entangling. the ship was falling apart. if they didn't get away from this shithole rock soon, trindley thought, they would be living on it permanently.

a telegraph filter-monitor pinged trindley with an alert on an encrypted keyword. the machines ground for a few seconds breaking the weak cipher, glowing letters jumping one by one onto the upper left screen.

IMPERIAL TELEGRAPH № 2217
CLASS: STATE            CIPHER H
FILED: FRONT HQ, 405    RECEIVED: CAPITAL, 452
TO: MINISTER STOLIPU
FROM: FIELD OFFICE OF HIS MAJESTY, WESTERN FRONT

ARTICLE IN PAPERS ON REFORM BILL DISPLEASED MAJESTY STOP
HE REJECTS COOPERATE DEME POSITION STOP REFORM FROM HIS
MAJESTY ALONE STOP EMPHASIZE ARTICLE 3 STOP DESIRES TO
DISSOLVE DEME STOP PRESENCE REQUESTED AT WEST FRONT STOP

trindley rubbed a temple. he liked stolipu. there was a customer with vision, a rare thing. they had a common interest, and the man would need trindley's help at the next trade.

% over, right

tram fen slipped into the white polyester bathrobe with a shiver. the hot shower helped, but the chill of coldsleep always clung to her bones for the next half a megasecond of a shift.

a panel in the wall dispensed pills - reanimation supplements, various vitamins, and a large dose of powdered shubtosin. she gulped them down with a swig of sink water in her hand. the water tasted sulfurous.

the communicator next to the panel squawked. "tram! you're awake!"

ugh. trindley. "tenderfoot. is anyone else awake?"

"um, let me check... uh..." she could hear trindley frantically pressing buttons, trying to find the right controls. "just jan down in engines. everyone else is in coldsleep, ma'am. a megasecond 'til wakeup for the next trade, i think."

she'd have to check herself when she relieved him. "thank you, trindley. signals updates?"

"they seem to have gotten into some kind of war... hard to tell what's going on, lots of messages and they've improved their ciphers. it's on the... western continent, yeah. only been ten megaseconds or so, but heavy casualties already, i heard."

"comms?"

"we have their telegraph lines mostly bugged. not much broadcast radio, yet, and definitely no 'net, which is making my life difficult. if we seeded the technology..."

as if anything could fail to make trindley's life difficult, she thought, frustration rising in her chest. she tried to feel the shubtosin pushing against the chill. "i've explained this a million times, trindley. if we give them our technology, what happens? they're locked into our path, begging for crumbs at our table. would they develop their own science further, their own institutions, their own ships? no. we'd be their teachers and benefactors, not their trading partners. there's a thousand radhani ships out there with our technology, trindley. it's all the same basin. we need these people to develop something that will make this lurk worth our while."

"crumbs from the table? they're fighting to the death over crumbs. stolipu's telegram said- i mean- then what? we're stuck here."

tram, dried, shrugged off the bathrobe and into her duty fatigues. "so be it. imagine if evolution had such mercy on our less-fit ancestors. we'd be stuck as some kind of physically and mentally deficient fish. it would be cultural destruction, trindley. now prepare to be relieved."

"yes ma'am."

% all in the middle

a swarm of flickle-flies buzzed in front of the deme's square pillars.

stolipu lay in the square in front of the deme, in a pool of blood, shot.

opalescent ships sank under the horizon, to return again twelve hours hence.