(Editor's note: This entry fits between entries 76 and 77.)
Badiah Sinclair called me the night before the Ganges Pass demonstration.
“This thing they’re going to do, you have to help me talk them out of it, Ray. I need your help,” Badi said.
“It’s a little late for that, Badi, they have to do what they have to do,” I replied. “You don’t give people their hope back and then jerk it away again arbitrarily.”
“This isn’t arbitrary. You don’t understand – ImagCorp could destroy Sirius 4’s entire economy if it withdraws all of its licenses.”
“Why don’t we withdraw? What if we refuse to play by their rules anymore? Will they really risk losing an entire planet’s worth of business?”
“You say ‘an entire planet’ as if our population is equivalent to Earth’s, or even Barnard’s Star. The risk is on our side. I can’t allow people into that facility.”
In hindsight I should have listened less to what Badiah Sinclair said and more to the tremor in his voice and the anxiety in his eyes. But his words were defiant, and I matched him word for word.
“You can’t allow this to happen? It’s out of your hands. You’re going to have to arrest us all.”
“Ray, please, I’m begging you, don’t force the issue.”
“Sorry, old friend. The issue is forced. I couldn’t talk the workers out of doing this if I wanted to. And I don’t want to.”
He still seemed to be trying to form the right words when I broke the connection.
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