The ethos effect, p.20
The Ethos Effect, page 20
“There he is!” someone announced.
Van wondered what celebrity had been on the shuttle. Some rez-songster? He glanced around, but no one seemed to be near him.
Beyond the groundcar lane, someone was waving a banner, on which were written the words “Welcome home, Van! Bannon’s own hero!”
Him? A hero? Before he could react, a group of media types moved toward him from his left. He hadn’t seen them at first, concentrating as he’d been on seeing whether any of his family had come to meet him.
“Van? Or should I say Commodore?”
Van turned, half-squinting into the afternoon light, taking in the long-faced but still-youthful-looking—and familiar— commentator. “Is that you, Ashley?” At that moment, Van thought he saw Sappho and her children in the crowd, but he didn’t see Arturo or Margaret—or his fathers, either.
The commentator laughed. “The first words from a returning hero. Yes, it’s me. Now ... how about a few words for the people of Sulyn. You’re the first recipient of the Star of the Republic in years. How do you feel?”
“I’m glad to be here.” That was mostly true. “I’m looking forward to seeing my family. It’s been several years.”
“Spoken like a true son of Sulyn. For those of you just tuning in, this is Commodore Van Albert, the RSF officer who single-handedly and without weapons prevented the assassination of the premier of Scandya. Why did you do it, Commodore?”
“It had to be done. No one else was in a position to act.”
“As simple as that? Didn’t you think about the danger of eight armed assassins?”
“Not until I was in the medcrib recovering.” Van managed a rueful laugh, still wondering what all the media hype was about. “Then I had a lot of time to think.”
“We understand you were retired after the incident. Would you care to comment on that?”
“That was a decision by the RSF. According to the doctors, I’m fully recovered, and able to do anything I ever could.”
“What do you think you’ll do?”
“Spend some time with my family first. Then ... we’ll see.”
“Thank you very much, Commodore. We wish you well. And that’s it from the Bannon shuttle terminal, where one of Sulyn’s sons has returned home a hero in three systems.” The professionally bright tone vanished from Ashley’s voice as he stepped forward, and said, far more personally, “It’s good to see you. Mairee and I worried when we’d heard you’d been wounded.”
Van glanced from his former classmate toward the crowd on the other side of the groundcar approach lane, smaller than it had first appeared, but still waving banners and signs for the media. “This ... this was a little surprising.”
“You don’t think we’d let a real hero slip into town without notice, do you?”
Van smiled.
“Or that your family would?”
“Don’t tell me ...?“ Van began.
“There they are.” Ashley pointed to Van’s left.
A long charter-type pale green groundcar eased up. Two familiar faces appeared—those of his fathers—the narrow and serious latte face of Dad Cicero and the broader and smiling darker face of Dad Almaviva.
“Are you going to stand there and gawk?” called Almaviva, his booming bass voice riding over the dying cheers. “You’re going to miss the curtain.”
That had always been Dad Almaviva’s favorite expression with his three children. Whenever they threatened to be late, they were going to miss the curtain. Dad Cicero had preferred to suggest that he’d haul them up before the bar. For years, Van had pictured being dragged up before a huge iron bar, until he’d finally understood what his advocate father had meant. Somehow, not knowing had been more frightening.
Dad Almaviva bounded out of the groundcar and threw his arms around his son. “Van!” His voice rumbled as he hugged Van.
Dad Cicero stood back, more reserved as always, waiting for Van to survive Almaviva’s crushing embrace. Then he stepped forward and gave Van a much lighter and quicker hug, but it was as demonstrative as Van had ever seen his advocate father in public.
“I’ll get your stuff,” Almaviva said. “Everyone’s going to meet us back at the house.”
Van ended up in the rear-facing but lushly upholstered seat, looking at his fathers.
Dad Almaviva was smiling broadly. “You didn’t expect that, I’d wager a full stage.”
Van had never understood how one could wager a full stage, but the familiar words were more than welcome.
Dad Cicero was smiling faintly, almost as if relieved when the groundcar eased away from the terminal.
Van had barely settled back when Dad Almaviva asked the first question.
“How long did the trip from Tara take...?”
“Did you have a chance to get to the opera in New Oisin?”
“... heard that Alygnia was doing The Fall of Denv... Have you heard him?”
Dad Cicero offered an amused smile, then leaned back and listened.
The drive back to the villa took nearly half an hour, but then, with all the answers Van provided, he scarcely noted the time. The villa was on the north side of Bannon, in the low hills separating the city from the badlands.
When the chartered groundcar pulled away from the circular drive, Van realized he’d never even seen the driver. He lifted a duffel and the carry bag and started for the portico shielding the front foyer, but Cicero had slipped ahead and had the door open.
Van glanced at the stone ledge on the right wall of the entry foyer, catching sight of a bonsai cedar. “That’s new.”
“I suppose so,” replied Cicero. “I’ve been working with it for almost thirty years, but it’s only been here for the past two. It gets the morning sun from the skylights and seems to like it there. So I never moved it. The Silysia didn’t like it there.”
“Let’s get your stuff back to the guest suite,” boomed the stocky Almaviva. “Sappho and Arturo and their children will be here any moment.”
Bemusedly, Van followed Dad Almaviva, carrying one duffel and his smaller bag. Cicero followed with the other duffel. After depositing all his gear, Van washed up quickly and hurried back to the great room.
The villa was little changed from what Van remembered. He thought the tan of the exterior stucco was a shade lighter, and the reddish roof tiles slightly more faded, but the great room, with the huge hearth that was seldom ever used except as an open space in which to place Dad Almaviva’s latest floral creations, looked almost the same. The greenhouse was doubtless still unchanged, although he hadn’t looked, and certainly Dad Cicero’s study and Dad Almaviva’s studio were the same.
Sappho was the first to come bursting through the door— tall like Cicero, but even lighter-skinned than Van, with flaming golden red hair. She practically launched herself at her older brother, giving him the kind of hug that Dad Almaviva always bestowed. “I’m glad you’re back—and safe.”
She released him and turned to the two girls who stood back shyly, one reaching to Van’s chest, the other barely to his waist She looked to the taller. “You remember Lesnym ... and this is Farah.”
Van bowed slightly. “Lesnym... Farah.”
“Aelsya will be here as soon as she can. She was on call, and, of course, some idiot working on a groundcar put his leg and foot in the wrong place.” Sappho snorted. “When you teach, you hope students grow up, but some never do.” She grinned. “You look good, really good for someone they thought wouldn’t make it.”
“I need to work on the conditioning,” Van admitted.
Sappho began to usher Lesnym and Farah toward the great room, murmuring, “Your granddad Almaviva will have some special treats, I know...”
Van was about to follow her and the girls when the front door opened again, and three more figures stepped inside. “Arturo!”
“Van.” While Arturo looked like Almaviva, and hugged like him as well, if with a hint of Cicero’s reticence, he had Cicero’s logical and legal mind and worked as one of Cicero’s associates. “I’m sorry we couldn’t get to the welcoming ceremony...”
“It’s enough that you’re here,” Van replied, wondering why Arturo had even brought up the matter. It wasn’t as though Van kept score. When he stepped back, he looked to Arturo’s wife. “Margaret. It’s so good to see you... and Despina.”
“It’s good to see you. Everyone was so worried when we heard about the trouble in Scandya. But you look good.” Margaret was small and petite, with a golden olive tinge to her skin.
Standing beside her mother, Despina clearly took after her father’s side, almost as tall as Arturo, but her hair was a lustrous wavy brown and her eyes a brilliant green. She smiled shyly.
“You have grown, young lady,” Van announced. “And uncles always say embarrassing things like that.”
“Always,” the teenager affirmed.
Van gestured for the three to precede him into the great room.
No sooner had he stepped onto the green tiles of the floor there than Almaviva appeared, wearing his splattered cook’s apron. “Everyone must be famished!”
“Is that a command, Dad?” asked Arturo. “Be thou famished and empty the board?”
“Just about,” replied Sappho.
For that moment, Van was glad to be back in Bannon.
Chapter 34
Much later, after Van’s brother and sister and their offspring and spouses had departed, and the villa had quieted under the night sky of fall, Van looked from the worn leather armchair where he sprawled across the great room toward Dad Cicero.
“Now that everyone’s gone, what was that welcoming demonstration about?”
Cicero gestured to the more slender Almaviva. “It was that dad’s idea.”
“You always say that when you two agree,” Van pointed out. “What were you two up to?”
Dad Cicero looked at his eldest son. “There was a lot more to what happened on Scandya, wasn’t there?”
“Yes.” There wasn’t much point in evading Dad Cicero, as all too many opposing advocates had discovered over the years. “There were hints everywhere, but I never could find out anything, except by circumstantial evidence and by what wasn’t there.” Van looked at his advocate father. “How did you know?”
“Something I heard from Al Lingoneer.”
“Is he still the director general of Sulyn TransMedia?”
“For another few years.” Cicero offered his cool and logical smile. “He’d received a message sometime back, and then a follow-up last week. From the RSF media office. They usually like to offer all sorts of publicity about RSF accomplishments. You know, the hometown girl or boy makes good. This was different He was told that you’d been through a great deal, and that the RSF really thought that your privacy ought to be respected. AI wasn’t told not to run stories or get interviews—just a request to respect your privacy. He asked me. We agreed that it would be up to you, and then the two of us here decided for you. We thought you needed the biggest story you could get when you got here. Dad Almaviva figured out how to put it together. He even made sure there were some pros there.”
“You two.” Van shook his head.
“We did what we could for our boy,” Almaviva said. “Whether the RSF wanted it or not. Things haven’t been ... well, let’s just say that New Oisin has once again begun to regard Sulyn as a trouble spot.”
“Do you think we were wrong?” asked Cicero almost simultaneously.
“Probably not. I’ve had the sense I’ve been followed ever since I left Scandya. I haven’t been able to see who it was.”
“You want to tell us what you can?” Cicero pressed.
Van nodded. “It all started when the Fergus was suddenly ordered to Scandya...” Once more, he went through the entire story, trying to not forget or skip anything. Neither father said a word, just letting him talk.
When he had finished, Dad Almaviva looked at Cicero. “You were right.”
“So were you.”
They nodded almost in unison.
“Why did you say that bit about New Oisin?” Van asked. “What’s happening?”
“Nothing yet,” Almaviva answered, “but the university just got ‘guidance’ from the Ministry of Education on the need for more accurate information on students and faculty. They want even more demographic information—in the guise of being better able to tailor programs. That usually isn’t the reason for that sort of thing.” He shrugged. “Just a feeling.”
Van nodded.
“What are you going to do now?” asked Cicero, his eyes catching Van’s.
“Work more on getting back in condition and trying to find a job as a pilot. I miss it.”
“Do you think you can?” asked Dad Almaviva.
Van shrugged. “I won’t know if I don’t try. Do either of you have any ideas?”
“Sulyn Trans-Arm... but they don’t care much for me. Not after I won that judgment against them for the fabricators.”
“What you did was right Even the Justiciary wrote an opinion that supported you all the way.” Then Van laughed, ruefully. “What’s right doesn’t matter. It’s only what’s expedient.”
“And profitable,” added Dad Cicero. “That’s the problem today. It’s the modern ethos effect.”
“The ethos effect?” asked Van.
“I’ve heard this before,” commented Dad Almaviva, “but you haven’t, Van. It’s the subject of his latest article for the Legal Review.”
Van waited.
“It’s an outgrowth of the commodification of law. I won’t cite the legal opinions and the more recent laws passed by the Republic’s parliament, and our assembly, but, simply put, it’s what happens to ethics and morality in a civil society when economics reigns unchecked.”
“I thought you believed in the market economy.” Van held back a grin. “You were always telling me that any other system was doomed to painful failure.”
Cicero did grin, showing even white teeth against his flawless latte complexion. “I’m talking now about when economics reigns unchecked, and that means when the negative externalities of not following an ethical course are not included in the marketplace. That was the problem in the case against STA.” He shook his head. “I’m digressing, and I’ll never finish. Old time laissez-faire economic systems simply assumed that everything had a price, and that, if left alone, supply and demand would balance at an optimum price. As a general rule, it works fairly well. Or it does so long as there’s an independent moral system underlying it.”
Van was tired, and he knew he looked dazed.
“Let’s try it another way,” Cicero said. “Assume everything has a price.”
“Everything does—eventually,” Van pointed out.
“Does that mean that ethical behavior also has a price? And that, if it is scarce, it becomes harder and harder for the average citizen to purchase?”
“I don’t know about that.”
“Look at history. How many societies were there where ethical behavior in trade and government were not the norm, but where bribery was necessary merely to ensure that both merchants and functionaries did their jobs? Then, in the worst cases, whether or not the job was done depended not on ethics, but on market power, on who could pay the highest price. In some societies that was obvious. In others, like the Noram Commonocracy, that aspect of the market economy was far from obvious. They had an elected government, and everyone could vote. And they had a seemingly open legal system. But that system was based on the assumption that an adversarial system would provide the truth and justice. At times, it did, but only when both advocates were of close to equal ability and when the issues were relatively simple. Most times, the court ended up deciding for the party with the most resources, unless the case happened to be one that was truly egregious. The same thing began to happen with the legislative bodies, because once large nation-states developed and semimodern communications emerged, the number of citizens represented by each legislator grew so large that only those candidates with the resources to purchase those communication services could reach the citizens. So, in the end, both the laws and their interpretation became commodities purchased by the highest bidders. This still would not have been a problem, except that the so-called common people opted for what was called ‘bread and circuses’ and voted for those legislators who levied higher taxes on the richer segments of society in order to pay for public services first for the poor, then for even the middle classes. Just before the Commonocracy collapsed, only ten percent of the population owned something like three-quarters of the assets and resources, and those few were paying ninety percent of the taxes.”
Van frowned. He understood the history, but not where his father was going. “I’m missing something.”
“I’m getting there, Van. It’s complex, and that’s why it’s happening again, because no one really wants to understand complicated structures. We always look for simple answers, and they’re usually wrong.” Cicero took a sip from the tall beaker of water beside his chair. “Because the rich controlled the wealth, the legislators really only looked to them. So those who were wealthy had effectively bought the government and the legal system. Both became economic tools. The system lasted for a long time because these people weren’t stupid. They factored in the negative externalities of environmental problems, and those of the worst social and economic problems. In a sense, the economic system worked. What eventually brought the system down was the perception that, for all the appearances, there was no ethical basis to the system, the feeling that ethics were relative to wealth, and that the wealthy had no ethics and bought their way out of being ethical.” Cicero laughed. “What’s ironic is that they had it totally backward.”
Van was definitely lost. He just shook his head. “I can’t say I understand at all.”
“The loss of ethics by the wealthy was a symptom, not a cause. What brought down the system was the unwillingness of the everyday citizens to live up to their own responsibilities. They allowed themselves—in fact, they pushed—to be corrupted. They insisted that public benefits—education, public safety, transportation systems—all be paid for by the rich. That doesn’t work economically unless you allow the rich more income. Once, the head of a business might have made between ten and a hundred times what one of the workers might. At the end of the Commonocracy, some heads of multilaterals made thirty thousand times what their workers did. At the same time that these so-called common people deplored the excesses of the rich, they filed hundreds of thousands of frivolous or semifrivolous claims against businesses and governments for millions or hundreds of millions of credits, often for trivial injuries. Most of them did not even bother to vote for their legislators, then complained when the elected officials—”
