Gregory went over his notes one last time before walking onto the speaker platform and taking his seat on the stage before the council of Avon. Of the 670 voting seats representing the various estates, one hundred and thirty would vote with him just because the owners were both paranoid and cheap. Gregory had contacted those of his 'converts' in the remaining four hundred forty houses as had influence with the owners to promote his proposal. He expected this should net him perhaps another 60 or so seats. Special arrangements had been made with a select group of elder scions to see to it that their owners would not show up to vote. A very nasty stomach flu caused by a water-borne virus had swept these selected estates, leaving the elder sons in a position to occupy their voting chairs for this particular session. This was expensive, but an efficient way to get what he wanted.

Gregory needed to secure this planet quickly and didn't want to spend time beating down estate doors with mercenaries - better if they just invited him in. His procurement office had been hard at work handing out lucrative supply contracts with as many of the moderate estates as possible, so he felt he could expect to raise the 51% he needed without a problem. Luckily, his moving the seat of his operations here, and the general increase in the local economy St. Croix had brought to Avon over the last couple of years, had pre-disposed the landowners to view him with a certain cheer and a feeling that a brighter future was breaking.

All the members were seated, and the elderly Reginald Townsend, the current meeting's monitor, approached the podium.

Reginald was one of the pat votes. Unlike most of the others, his estate raised cattle, and so was in a constant battle with the predatory wildlife to secure the safety of his herds. While the alien spoor of imported animals usually put local fauna off, the cattle were genetic hybrids, able to eat most of Avon's indigenous plant-life without harm, and their scent was close enough to attract carnivorous attention. Gregory had talked with him personally about his civil defense proposal, and had patiently listened to a detailed diatribe about the dangers to the colonists from the 'fierce and combative beasts' that 'infested' Avon. Gregory did not bother to point out that the colony had never suffered any but the most accidental losses from the wildlife, or that Reginald's estate likely attracted the attention it did because of the large number of poorly maintained slaughterhouses on his property.

Instead he had commiserated, focused on the benefits of establishing troops on the estates that could defend and patrol the properties against the depredations of wildlife and invaders. Reginald's eyes had gleamed happily when Gregory explained that his company proposed to underwrite the expense of maintaining the militia as a civic duty, only requiring the landholders to provide necessary barracks space. After all, St. Croix had its own extensive security issues anyway, and it was a shame not to move ahead and develop the kinds of protections established worlds routinely provided their residents. Oh, of course the company expected to supply the barracks themselves, as part of the defense package.

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The rest of the meeting had involved Reginald poring over estate maps with Gregory, pointing out the most attacked portions of the estate, and the best unused sites where barracks could be built. No, there was no problem getting the proposal on docket for the next council meeting; Reginald would see to it himself.

Reginald banged his gavel and waved for attention. "As a first order of business, I would like to welcome back among us, landholder Gregory Saint Croix, who is gearing up his estate for full time production. I understand he is moving his mining company headquarters here."

There was a moderate burst of applause, somewhat more enthusiastic from those members who had negotiated well-paying supply contracts with St. Croix.

"The order of business today...," Reginald droned on in his piping tenor about road maintenance quotas and co-operative export allotments indicating the document numbers involved, and the voting order of the proposals. It was basically like a meeting at a farming co-op, on a slightly larger scale. There was a minor scuffle over the road maintenance agreements, which Gregory was forced to sit through. Finally his proposal was set forward, the carefully prepared documents his office had distributed earlier were recognized, and he was called to the podium.

"We stand here today at the beginning of a new and profitable era of growth for the communities of Avon," he began. "We need to start looking at what that growth means to us in terms of our own security, well-being, and safety of our property, and our families."

There was much more of this; his researchers had pulled together a truly inspired address based on some of the most compelling speeches ever written, and Gregory was an expert orator, skills honed in hundreds of business and civil situations.

The agreement itself was a social contract that allowed St. Croix to supply workers to maintain vital inter-estate roadways, animal control, and should the need arise, community defense. All without requiring a tax base or raising levies, of course. Individual estates need not participate in terms of providing on-estate 'civil resource housing', but that was encouraged, and alleviated an estate from providing other minor obligations that were mostly in place to give an overall group effort feel to the contract. Since it did not deal with export concessions, it was completely within the landholder charter to consider, and did not need to be passed through the scrutiny of the off-world export conglomerate's more savvy lawyers.

His address concluded to a louder rain of applause than his introduction had drawn, and Gregory felt confident when the ballot was called.

He gained an astonishing seventy-six percent of the vote, and had the pleasure of receiving a vigorous handshake from that teary-eyed old fool Townsend. They would all be singing a different tune shortly, as his mercs started moving out and setting up their mobile barracks and surface-to-air missile launchers, but by then it would be far too late.