The ballroom lights had been dimmed just enough that the projection behind Matt stayed sharp. Rows of growers, co-op reps, seed salespeople, and logistics managers filled the seats. A cluster of students in blue FFA jackets sat together near the front, cords and pins catching the stage light each time they shifted.
Matt stepped up to the podium, adjusted the mic once, and let the room settle.
“Buenas tardes, I am Matthew Marmaduke. Several months ago I was asked to speak on migrant labor and the success stories so many hear about, people who came to work in my orchards and fields and stayed on to find success. Social media has blown that topic wide open in the last few days, and I am not sure I could contribute much more to it. Lizard People International have shown they have real teeth in their biting commentary on the subject, and I would hate to take away their fun. My offices at the Freehold and AgriSolutions can still answer any questions you have on that subject.
“What I am going to talk to you about is something more important, the V’ren. Our whole lives we have known someone built the beacons. That was not the V’ren, who have brought us new knowledge about the wider galaxy. It will take a long time to decide what to do with that knowledge, and how to process its implications. I am not a conventionally religious man, but I will start this conversation with a passage I think it does all of us good to remember. From Matthew 7:1–2, ‘Judge not, that ye be not judged. For with what judgment ye judge, ye shall be judged: and with what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you again.’
“Let us begin with this. No matter what new developments and technologies I talk about today, the physical constants of my borders remain.”
Matt let that sit. Somewhere near the back, a merch rep shifted a stack of branded tote bags off the aisle. Someone’s tablet chimed, got silenced fast.
He clicked the remote. The CCA map filled the screen, old borders traced in different shades.
“This is the CCA. Its borders were decided on 317 years ago, with 5,002 members, a number that has been fixed in centuries of reverified contracts. This is the original size of the Marmaduke Freehold. These are the lands inside the CCA borders that were neither guarantor land claims nor public corporate territory, lands that for three centuries were sponsored and protected by various CCA members. Locally, we call them private fiefdoms, and that has been the most popular and accurate term over the last three centuries, so I will make no apologies for using it.”
A few people in the front row, older men with seed company badges, nodded like they had heard the phrase their whole lives and were pleased to hear him say it out loud.
Matt flipped to the next slide, then the next, until the map shifted to a denser web of highlighted corridors.
“Through one entity or another, this is the land I control today. What you will notice is that I am still constrained by the Port of Memphis and Ames Depot as the places I can ship goods out to the rest of the world. That is about to change. This is Elkhart, Kansas, and by this time tomorrow it will be a third functional inland port facility. I invite the freight haulers of the Ten Tribes and Denver Free Zone to make use of it. They may cross the border at these four locations free of charge. We will have roads right up to the border with their respective territories, and it will be up to them to finish the road in their own lands. As we speak, I am transmitting to the governing bodies of both countries my offer to connect those roads to their existing paved roads free of charge.”
There was a soft murmur at that, phones coming up as people snapped shots of the four little highlighted crossings.
Matt let that sink in too.
“Do not get me wrong, I will not be building them a super highway, just continuing the road I have already built between five hundred and seventeen hundred meters from their present spots. I will take questions for the remaining thirty minutes I was allocated. You, in the front, with the FFA pin, you seem to have had one even before I dropped that bomb.”
The kid he pointed at, a dark haired boy with a national FFA officer pin on his lapel, flushed but stood up anyway. A few of his friends elbowed him and grinned.
“You mentioned physical constants on your borders. If the Ten Tribes and Denver Free Zone build out their roads, what guarantees do they have that you will not start charging tolls later once they are dependent on Elkhart?”
“They would be in the same spot they are in now, choosing whether or not they want to do business with me,” Matt said. “They do not have direct access to my grain or other goods today. Even if they decide later to pay something at Elkhart, they will still have access they do not have now.
“The fact is, I charge tolls elsewhere to maintain the roads I am legally required to maintain under the CCA transit agreements. That is a flat fee per vehicle, and it seems more fair than taxing my entire realm for a road most of them never drive. I have no interest and no compelling reason to put tolls on these roads.
“What Elkhart will have is a port service fee of zero point two five percent of cargo value to maintain the yards, the parking, and the connecting lanes inside the port itself. That fee is baked into every receipt. If you do not think that is fair, you are welcome to keep paying one percent at Ames or three percent at Memphis.”
A woman in a co-op polo in the second row let out a low whistle at the comparison. On the aisle, a man with a Memphis Port Authority badge kept his face politely blank and wrote something down.
Another hand went up, this time from a man with a faded denim shirt and a logistics firm lanyard.
“Sir, you said Memphis and Ames still constrain you. Are you planning to reduce your use of Memphis if Elkhart works as advertised, and what does that mean for the workers and long haul drivers who depend on that port now?”
“In the short term, yes, some of my outbound cargo will be redirected through Elkhart instead of Memphis,” Matt said. “That is the point of building a third option. As my grain production grows, total volume will go back up and every outlet I have will be busy again.
“As for workers and long haul drivers, let us be precise about who we are talking about. No foreign truckers enter my territory. Cargo that leaves Memphis on their rigs transfers at controlled yards on my side of the line, to my tractors and my crews, on roads I own and maintain. That is how it has been for years.
“The men and women driving for Memphis do so under Memphis law. I do not run their hiring hall, and I do not decide whether they are allowed to cross a border. In fact, Memphis will not even let its single people get near that border for fear they might walk away and not come back. That is their choice, not mine.
“What I control are my own employees and my own roads. None of my people are losing their livelihood over Elkhart. Quite the opposite, I am already hiring more drivers and yard staff through Marmaduke Logistics to handle the additional flow.”
A couple of independent haulers near the back exchanged a look at “hiring more drivers,” weighing opportunity against politics.
A third hand went up, this one belonging to a woman with a Ten Tribes trade mission badge.
“You invited our freight haulers to cross at four points free of charge. What about inspection, customs, and security on your side of the line? Are we going to be stuck in a queue while your people check every bolt and pallet?”
“I hope not, that is not profitable for any of us,” Matt said. “The fact is I do not think that we will import all that much at first, and we already know what is going out. There should be no hang ups because of that.”
She nodded slowly, not entirely convinced, but not ready to argue further in front of the room.
A man in a suit from the middle aisles lifted his hand, tie loosened, conference badge crowded with sponsor ribbons.
“You opened with migrant labor but shifted to the V’ren. Are you promising similar long term opportunities and protections for V’ren workers inside the Freehold, or are they going to live in a separate legal category from the rest of your labor force?”
“The Freehold and the V’ren Trust have parallel and reciprocal agreements in such matters, just as I do with several other polities,” Matt said. “They are not a separate underclass; a V’ren under my law has the same workplace protections and recourse as anyone else.”
That drew a few approving sounds from the student cluster and a more skeptical frown from a man with a CCA compliance badge.
He was the next to stand.
“From a CCA contract law perspective, how are you justifying creating a de facto third inland port without a formal amendment to the existing transport framework? Have the guarantor firms already signed off on this, or are you daring them to stop you?”
“There is nothing de facto about it,” Matt replied. “The land Elkhart sits on was originally guarantor land inside the CCA map. Every one of those guarantor firms has already transferred its claims to me in my own name, in accordance with the rules that govern the sale of non-member lands. That process is older than any of us in this room and it has been audited to death.
“On paper and in practice, this is now one of my private fiefdoms, not CCA common carriage ground. The transport framework was written to allow exactly this kind of consolidation, so there is nothing to amend. I am building a port on my own soil, at my own expense, and offering access on published terms.
“If any former guarantor has a problem with that, they are welcome to make me an offer to buy it back. My price will reflect the value I am about to create.”
That got a low ripple of laughter from the back rows, the kind of sound people make when someone says something true and slightly impolite.
Near the aisle, a man wearing a DFZ lapel pin lifted his hand.
“You quoted Scripture about judgment and measure. How do you apply that to the way your patrols will treat Ten Tribes and DFZ drivers at those free crossings, especially if their governments and yours are not on friendly terms?”
“We have opened up the port roads to commerce,” Matt said. “If you plan to immigrate to our territory then there is still a procedure for that. If you are planning on being a tourist there is a procedure to do that too. If they cross the border against their country’s wishes, that is between them and their country as always. If individuals have been tossed out of our lands and attempt to return, that is between us and them, and not their government. This is the same as it has always been within my lands.”
The DFZ rep watched him closely for a moment, then sat, satisfied or at least out of ammunition.
Another hand, this one from an older woman with a Denver co-op badge.
“You said you will not build them a super highway, only extend what you have already built. If their councils come back and say no, are you still going to finish the Elkhart facility, or does this offer vanish if they refuse to pave on their side?”
“That is between them and their truckers,” Matt said. “I offered to do something beneficial for both sides, and if they say no thanks it is on them. I made that offer largely because right now I have the material and manpower onsite. They might not get the same offer later, and that is on them.”
A younger guy in the back, wearing a battered ball cap with a tiny V’ren pin on the brim, raised his hand last.
“On the V’ren specifically, you said someone else built the beacons. If we are about to move more freight, more people, and eventually more technology through your land, what safeguards are you putting in place so that whatever is out there in the wider galaxy cannot simply walk in through your new ports?”
Matt did not hesitate.
“As I have said before, there is damned all we could do to stop a determined interstellar civilization if they show up and start making demands or walking through my port shooting up the place like space cowboys.”
A few people chuckled nervously at “space cowboys.” A few did not laugh at all.
Matt glanced at the clock on the back wall, then back at the room.
“I have time for maybe one more quick one before they drag me off stage to sign things,” he said. “Make it a good one.”
“What does Mexico gain from this move?”
“Good question, and one I was hoping would be asked,” Matt said. “Mexico does not need my grain, though they have never complained about getting more of it. What they need is an export route for their own goods that does not run through Memphis.
“Elkhart, tied into the DFZ corridors, gives them a second door. If they can move product up through the Zone and across my border at a known cost, they have leverage they do not have today. That is what they gain. both freeholders and the v’ren trust would love to see more fruits and vegetables from Mexico that we can’t easily grow ourselves.
