All the world's a stage

I remember hearing my uncle once say "Life ain't a cabaret. It's a Gorram circus." At twelve, I didn't know what he meant. By twenty, I understood. And by thirty two, I'd come to the conclusion that he'd far understated the truth of it. Now? Now I was resigned to being part of the floor show.

In some ways, literally, since the town council had gotten a burr under their collective saddles to put on a faire and invite everyone within shuttle range to come join the party. I'd managed to dodge taking a turn in the kissing booth or dancing for anyone I wasn't interested in sleeping with, but I hadn't managed to escape dancing with a couple of folk at one of the several dances, or managed to avoid giving one of my "famous" Mayorial speeches.

"How are you fine folk doing? Having fun? Shiny! Go spend some coin."

It was all in good fun though, and the townsfolk had a good time. It was nice watching the town's younguns enjoying the kind of carnival most of them had never seen, and their parents getting in on the fun. It was the kind of portable carnival that used to frequent the smaller, rural, towns on Ariel. A few rides. Some games. Various performers plying their trade. It was the kind of show "sophisticated" core folk would scoff at, but for folks on a remote mining colony it was pure magic.

We needed some magic.

The Faire gave me some additional perspective too. While I'd been spending a lot of time in the office, and a somewhat smaller measure on the Orbital helping 'Brina supervise the crew installing the new expansion, I hadn't been spending as much time feeling the town I called home.

When I'd arrived we'd been a barely viable mining colony that Weyland Yutani had effectively abandoned to its fate. The Alliance issues hadn't helped the population much. By the time Colonel Silvermane had reestablished control of the 1st Marine Raiders, there were barely four hundred people living on Hale's Moon.

But then things started to get better. The mines started pulling down a small but steady profit. We started to get some coin from a growing trans-shipment operation, and with it people. The smugglers were still around, but most of the pirates and raiders who'd used us as a waypoint had gone for seedier digs elsewhere. Probably on account of our acting civil with the Alliance authorities.

Independent minded folk may not have liked that, but I do what I think is best. They elected me Mayor and that means doing what's right even if it's not always expedient. Fighting the 1st would have been a lost cause, being as the Sun Tzu's got more people cleaning their decks than we've got colonists.

When they evacuated Blackburne, we offered them up what little we had. Hospitality, land to build new homes, and folk willing to help them build. New families. New folk. Wasn't always smooth. People getting used to having new neighbors, or adapting to a new culture on a new colony. But we got by. Our numbers swelled. Had to have been over five hundred by the time it was all said and done, and the increased growth brought more people to our little slice of Heaven.

After the Alliance cracked the dome on Caliban, and x0x0 agreed to give Krenshar and his a slice of the land Blue Sun had leased from the colony to call their own, the numbers swelled even more. The Destiny Reservation was a bit isolated socially, by choice, but they were part of what made Hale's Moon what it was. Just as much citizens of our little world as anyone else who called it home.

But it took a traveling Carnival for me to step back and see the actual changes that've come to our little world. New buildings. New businesses. New people. Don't know that "thriving" is the word I'd use to describe a colony of maybe six hundred people, give or take, but we were certainly holding our own.

That was what mattered.

I'd been too focused on other issues to see it. Helping 'Brina with the platform. Taking care of "Anna," who was already showing signs of taking after her mother. My Intel role for Tag. All very important. All part of who I was. But I still needed to see the people who made this little slice of Heaven what it was. They were part of who I was too. Something I couldn't lose sight of.

I might have moved Wave Equation to a hangar on the Orbital, but that didn't make the colony any less my home.

It just gave me a different perspective.