The Grand Council

Overview

The Grand Council is the ruling council of the Vellari. It meets in Tidehall on Thalassa-Nine, the Vellari ocean homeworld. Its members are the heads of the old ice-hauling houses, the Vellari families that own the tug fleets.

Most worlds and stations in the Drift are dry or have bad water. Vellari tug fleets fly out to the cold edges of star systems, catch comets and chunks of ice, and tow them back to dry worlds and stations. There the ice is cut up and melted. Most fresh water in the Drift started as Vellari ice, and that is where the Council gets its power.

Tidehall

• Tidehall is a big stone hall on the Thalassa-Nine shore. Its lower floors are under the sea, and many members swim in instead of taking the stairs.

• The house heads meet there each season to decide where the big haul fleets will go.

• The harbor outside is full of tug crews waiting for orders. The bars along it serve fried fish, brine pickles and cold water that actually tastes good.

The ice-hauling houses

• Each house owns a fleet of tugs. These are big, slow ships fitted with nets, harpoon lines and cargo clamps.

• A tug crew can spend months in the dark on one run. Crews are usually family. They play cards, mend the nets and keep the water tanks full so their skin does not dry out.

• The biggest houses have hundreds of tugs. The smallest have one old tug and a lot of debt.

• The houses with the most tugs have the loudest voices on the Council.

How it holds power

• Where the ice goes. The Council sets each season's haul routes. Friendly worlds get their ice on time. Worlds that cross the Council find their ice late, short, or not at all.

• Relief hauls. In a drought the Council sends free ice to worlds that cannot pay. This makes it loved on the Rim, where one relief tug can save a town.

• Bounties. The Council posts some of the biggest bounties in the Drift, and nearly all of them are on ice jackers.

Ice jacking

Ice jacking is the Council's big problem. Pirates and syndicates hijack loaded tugs, put the crew in a lifeboat if they are lucky, and sell the ice at a dry dock where nobody asks where it came from. One tug of stolen ice can pay a gang for a year.

The worst wave came in the year 82, when syndicates hit tug after tug on the Salt Crown corridor. The Council answered with armed escorts and bounties big enough to bring in every hunter in the sector. Ice jackers still work the Salt Crown run, and their faces are still on the bounty posters in every Vellari port.

Across the Drift

• Core. Core worlds pay well and get their ice first. Many Core people have never tasted recycled water.

• Mid. Farm and factory worlds need huge amounts of ice. Their governors spend a lot of time being polite to Vellari house heads.

• Rim. Rim towns live on relief hauls and cheap ice. They love the Council when the tugs come and curse it when the tugs are late. Most ice jacking happens out here.

Weak spots

• Ice jackers. Tugs are slow and far from help. The Council cannot escort every one.

• Rivalry. The big houses fight over the best routes, and the small houses say the Council only serves the rich ones.

• Resentment. Dry worlds hate needing Vellari ice. Some of them buy stolen ice just to spite the Council.

What it means for a crew

• Water is sold by the ton at every dock. Vellari ice is the good stuff. Cheap water is recycled and tastes like it.

• Escorting a tug is steady work. Hunting an ice jacker pays much better.

• Selling stolen ice is easy. Getting caught with it by a Vellari crew is not.

Reputation

On the Rim, the Grand Council is the reason a lot of towns are still alive, and people say so. In the Core it is just the people who send the ice. Ice jackers see it as rich, slow and easy to rob, right up until they see their own face on a Vellari bounty poster.