Cam is dipping a grilled cheese sandwich into a bowl of tomato soup when he feels the summons. He goes ahead and grabs it. Doesn't even drop the sandwich.
She shrugs. "I dunno, you're the scary magic bossman. Just keep her away from me and I'll be perfectly happy."
"Let me know if there's a problem with her being around you. Do you need someone to help you separate living quarters or anything?"
"I'll shove all her stuff out the door. I won't break it or anything. She can come get it whenever, or you can have someone ferry it, I don't care as long as she doesn't try to bother me."
Cam texts one of the island residents who's volunteered to be on tap for miscellaneous tasks and tells them to come escort the stabbing victim home and haul the perpetrator's stuff to a different apartment on a different floor. He gives the stab-ee a lollipop. He leaves to fly around his island and contemplate policing and his available personnel.
Steel has been mentioning that she's bored of being the shuttle service. Half a dozen people have volunteered to work thirty hours a week pretty much wherever in exchange for the free stuff. A fair number more said they would be willing to work for pay in the fiat currency he hasn't implemented yet. Only a few of them have talked to him enough to get a decent impression of their personality, and of those, a man named Yerin is by far the most diligent and fair-minded. He's in the 'will work if paid' category.
Where is Steel, at the moment?
(Yerin is also a shaper, though not graduated from a university like Steel)
Cam sends her a note: Apparently you can't just put a bunch of people on an island and expect them to behave in a civilized manner just because their material needs are looked after for free, who knew? Contemplating policing options and smallish legal code (although it remains my opinion that almost no one avoids stabbing others solely because it is illegal to do so). Thoughts?
At least a vague legal code is necessary so people can't reason themselves into doing unpleasant things. Attaching strong social stigma and material consequences to stabbing and other undesirable behavior should help. Most people here aren't properly used to technology so I have no idea how they'd react to technological sorts of monitoring and enforcement. Kell relies on shows of force, which I think just drives the unpleasantness into the shadows. How about a police phone that anyone can call and the police will come attend to their trouble? That wouldn't be too much different than actually not corrupt police patrols.
Yeah, an emergency service line is solid. The island's small enough that response time should be good if I give the cops airbikes or wings.
They should have override on doors. Which means they'll need to be very trustworthy, I think.
Cops have to be trustworthy solely because people will listen to them and I may find myself obliged to arm them. Letting them into private homes is another matter. Maybe if and only if someone has called them or I hand down an express exception.
I more meant so a hypothetical criminal cannot lock themselves behind a door for a week.
She's back with mail and packages and twenty-two immigrants, two and a half hours later.
"How do you feel about being on the police force and letting somebody else drive your bus?"
"Hm. I could be part of the police force, but I don't really want to do it forever. I'd rather keep learning engineering in the long run. But until you find someone else, certainly."
"Okay. I'll have equipment worked out and an emergency call system set up by the end of the day. You can use your discretion in picking other people to fill out the force; you people have to sleep so you'll probably need at least one more, more likely three or four. I'll send you a copy of my list of who wants to do things."
By the end of the day, presumably having received equipment and the far end of an emergency line, Steel has the best four candidates from the list, including herself, arranged to be available for policing 24 hours a day. No patrols are taking place yet, but she plans to implement them as the population continues to increase.
Since the stabbing incident, one of the slang names for the island has risen to near-unanimity. "Entromei," a portmanteau of the Tlane words for "merciful" and "home".
One day a representative of the Telra Senate contacts him though Steel. He would like to talk to the ruler of Entromei about entering a trade partnership with the Republic of Telra.
"Steel, you want to come along as my advisor and make sure I don't overmuch annoy anyone?"