Chapter 1

April looked at the cubic critically. It was on the half G deck, which lowered the price quite a bit. She had asked about full G cubic initially and was told there were now only eight residences maintained on Home at the full G level. Mitsubishi politely declined to make usage information public, so she had no way to check the agent’s information and she refused to ask her how she got that number. She knew a lot of the level had been converted to businesses, a lot of entry hatches were just numbered, so she hadn’t realized just how many had gone commercial.

Growing up, she hadn’t appreciated how privileged she was to be able to sleep at home with her family, not to mention she had her own tiny closet sized bath, but she certainly valued it now. Her grandpa had helped build M3, not as a distant investor but as a working beam dog and sank every buck he had into the initial auction of private spaces. It was a great investment, but more importantly, it allowed him to bring his family up. Leaving Earth had always been the primary goal of his working life.

When she insisted she was still interested in full G and asked a price, she was informed that in the rare event such a property came open, she could figure a hundred square meters of floor area would run seven to ten million USNA dollars. Even figuring her recent inheritance from her brother that was still a staggering number to her. That’s why the half G level suddenly looked much better. It ran to a third of those prices.

Children were required by regulation to spend at least their eight hour sleep period in a full G. Most families did that by sending their child to a tiny business that had hot slot beds and a single shared bath. They could miss a few days for something like an illness, but were expected back as soon as they were not contagious.

The full G was needed to stimulate the growth of a normal bone structure. Indeed, residents were encouraged to add a couple hours a day of vertical full G time to the sleep hours. Most did this by taking their meals at the cafeteria in full G. This was required until a person was twelve years old, or fifteen hundred centimeters tall, whichever came first.

April was still growing approaching sixteen, but she would be slowly growing for a very long time, because she had Life Extension Therapy. What that did to the mix was anybody’s guess, since her’s was the first generation to grow up in mixed G with LET. She figured she’d have enough full G exposure to keep her body able to function at that level. If it resulted in her being a hair shorter at full growth than she would have on Earth, that was OK. Being compact was no disadvantage to a spacer. Indeed, being much over two meters made it almost impossible to use standard acceleration couches and P-suit parts.

The cubic was on the inside of the torus, with a sloping overhead along one side. The one uncovered viewport looked inward at the new ring being built off the hub. That was where April ended her walkthrough, enjoying the view, while she considered if she wanted this to be her home. It was a more interesting perspective than looking outward at stars streaking by. Even if there was a ship or something to be seen on the outside of the ring, it went by so quickly it was in no way a relaxing view. Her friend Heather lived in a similar cubic and she had seen all sorts of tricks to maximize utilization of the area with the low overhead.

The construction of the next ring up was interesting. There were all sorts of suited workers and bundles of material being moved about and the open framework of the next ring was fascinating without a skin covering it yet. April could see, through the new ring, behind the end hub, the ragged crescent of the Rock trailing them in orbit. Mitsubishi hadn’t moved them back to a parallel orbital path since Jeff had sparred with China. That placement complicated navigation a bit on approach, but she couldn’t fault keeping the protection it gave them from a direct ballistic attack.

On the plus side as a home, the entry door for this cubic was only twelve meters from an elevator, which was very convenient and that elevator dropped to full G less than a quarter of the ring away from the cafeteria. Some people might not like having the elevator spoke right near their view port, pretty much filling a quarter of the view to one side, but April thought the long taper of it ascending to the hub on one side of her view was a dramatic perspective, just as her Hawaiian home had a much more interesting view, perched on the end of a wooded ridge, than a home would in the middle of a flat plain.

The agent wasn’t talking the place up. In fact she wasn’t chatty at all. She’d ignored April’s bodyguard Gunny when she hadn’t introduced him and ignored him like a piece of furniture. But then she was standing off to one side, doing a pretty good furniture imitation herself, letting April form her own conclusions about the cubic. April would never have guessed the agent didn’t sell the place harder because she intimidated the woman.

“How long has this been empty?” April asked the agent, turning away from the view. The floor covering, some of the small items left behind and markings by the lighting controls, suggested that a Japanese speaker had lived here. Oddly there was a faint odor of tea lingering but nothing unpleasant.

The lady looked surprised. “Just today, the fellow cleared out yesterday. The Sakura Pharmaceuticals company he worked for is in a bit of money trouble on Earth. That’s been in the news. They still have a production lab on the north end, but they only need three shift workers to oversee the equipment and can’t afford to maintain an on-site administrator. He’ll do it remotely from Japan now. Residential cubic doesn’t sit vacant, dear. You are the first to look at it, then I have a showing at eleven hundred and sixteen hundred. I’d be shocked if one of you three doesn’t take it.”

“What if more than one of us bids on it?” April asked.

“If you bid less than the three point seven million asked, I am obligated to present the offer, but I’d advise the company to leave it on the market for a second day. I think I priced it very accurately. There is a shortage of materials, so the new ring is building slowly, yet almost all the cubic there in this price range is either pre-sold, or has rental agreements. Mitsubishi is holding back half the new cubic to lease instead of sell. I suggested to the pharmaceutical company that they would be better off to rent the space and retain ownership as an investment if they don’t have to provide living space, but they are eager to have the cash.”

April considered the possibility that one of the other interested parties would bid over the asking price. A glance at her com said it was 09:17. “I accept your offer at full price. I have the cash to do an immediate wire transfer if you can have the papers ready this afternoon. That should be a plus if they are looking for cash. The other buyers might need financing, or time to liquidate something. I want you to communicate this now and the offer is valid no later than 10:30.”

“That’s smart, but what if they want to hear the other two offers?” she asked.

“That’s their privilege. However, if the other parties don’t make a full price offer, I’m going to lower my own to the range the others feel is a fair market value,” she warned. “I appreciate this is what new cubic is going for, but I wonder if they will offer as much for used? Surely some of the amenities, like lighting and environmental systems, are more advanced in the new section and just like a ground car they only have so many hours of service life in them, before they will need replacement.”

“I’ll text it to them right now.” If she was offended by April’s reservations on the price she didn’t show it at all. After a few seconds of fingers dancing on the keys she folded the pad away. “It’s up to them now. I’ll contact you when they get back to me.”

“Thank you.” April checked the time when they stepped out in the corridor, curious how long it would take her to reach the cafeteria. The answer was slightly less than four minutes plus elevator wait. That was close to the time from her folks’ apartment, so she was happy. She could take the stairs that spiraled around the elevator shaft if she wished, but it was narrow and the angle increased as you went up, until the top level was a hand rail and ladder without flat treads. Most folks, if they used the top section, just slid down the rails like a fireman’s pole. Or pulled up it hand over hand on top since it was so close to zero G.

Gunny and she would have a late breakfast, delayed by viewing the cubic.

Heather and Jeff were meeting her for breakfast tomorrow. She could have invited them to look at the cubic with her, but then she would have had to reveal all the price information in front of them, or go off with the agent to bid. She loved them both, but they were not all joined at the hip. They still had customers and secrets they didn’t share with each her. She suspected there were things they didn’t share with each other.

Jeff for example, hadn’t shared the existence of the biggest of his private weapons systems with them until after it was in place and active with five huge warheads. Since then, he had expanded that part of the system to an even dozen warheads, replacing the one expended on the Chinese and capped building them at that for now. They were upgraded in new maneuverable buses with decent decoys and jamming. More than that, they not only fell at orbital velocity, but now accelerated in the drop phase at another six G, making interception even more difficult.

Her phone gave a priority ding, just as they sat down. “You own the cubic,” the lady told her. “Can you meet me at our offices at 13:00 and do the closing?” she asked.

“Sure, I’d be very happy to do that.” To Gunny she just gave a thumbs up. He simply nodded.

Chapter 2

Otis Dugan didn’t smile easily. His serious demeanor complimented his physique. He didn’t have the bulked out mass of a body builder, but there was very little fat to be found on him and he moved with the balanced grace of a dancer. His alert posture and his habitual scanning of his environment spoke of someone dangerous, even to men who couldn’t articulate precisely why they felt that aura of danger after meeting him.

He was a Chief Warrant Officer, recently retired, with a long stint before that as a E7 Specialist Armorer. He knew every sort of small arms the North American military used in intimate detail and quite a few of the foreign and civilian arms special forces seemed to collect along the way and forget to destroy or turn in. He was every bit as expert in their use as he was in their care. That he considered his body just another weapon to master, was an obvious extension of his world view.

Safety Associates of Atlanta had happily employed Otis the two years since his discharge. They also employed a lot of common rent-a-cops nationwide, in retail stores and manufacturing facilities, but the reason they bought his more exotic expertise, was their very expensive personal protection services for celebrities and executives.

Like most truly dangerous men, his biggest asset was not strength, or lightning fast reactions, but intelligence and mental dexterity. Otis was brought in, not to stand watches like a younger man, but to be involved in planning and corporate liaison. He had advanced in the company already to making the pitch for such high end services to the customer.

He was signing these contracts for the company later today, to provide such a package to one of the many small specialty studios, for their off-lot film shoots. Most of the work was still routine, guarding actor’s private trailers and providing drivers away from a secure production lot, but on rare occasions a film shoot put a star or an executive in very dangerous territory, the very worst being a public ceremony, where others controlled the security environment. That would call for his personal attention, running a team hands on. He also had to plan for such contingencies to be fulfilled on very short notice.

After a quick contract signing at the new customer’s studio in LA, he’d be back in Atlanta on a late plane tomorrow. He was dressed in conservative business attire. His suit was far from his best, but a practical combed wool blend that would travel well and he could trust a hotel to clean without damaging it. Neither the suit nor his accessories were flashy enough to attract unwanted attention. That was an important consideration, because even if he wanted to go through the hassles of sending a weapon through in his luggage, the People’s Democratic Republic of Kalifornia, as he called it, didn’t offer reciprocity for his Georgia CCW, or anyone else’s for that matter. Not even for a security professional. He hated the naked feel of going unarmed, but not enough to call in one of the company’s local men to protect him. It just didn’t seem to project the image he wanted to his subordinates.

It was a shame they couldn’t FedEx the documents around instead of meeting, but there were too many signatories, scattered in too many places. Safety Associates would be fulfilling this contract internationally. The studio shot Nufilm, or video and had agents and subsidiaries, on every continent but Antarctica. He’d have flown back this evening but he’d been advised by his secretary that the President was scheduled in town for some sort of building dedication. Who knew what that would do to the flight schedules? Better to relax in his hotel until tomorrow.

He’d rather wait for them to clear the whole mess up, than to get trapped on a plane in a taxi queue for ten or twelve hours, waiting for the big boys to wrap it up. He was flying conventional for economy too. Safety Associates didn’t throw money away on flashy travel. The ballistic flights, orbitals especially, would all be cleared to fly first when they sorted everything out from the mess a VIP visit would make. The peasants in subsonic econo-airliners would be released to fly dead last. It might be past midnight before everything was back to normal.

Safety Associates had been his second tier choice. Coming home from the service he’d found folks not much friendlier than the natives where he had served in the Trans-Arabic Protectorate. He was ready for a new start in a new place. The only place really fresh and new was off world, but finding a position there was harder than he’d imagined. They had enough high grade applicants they could be picky and they were.

He’d sent resumes to a couple companies on ISSII and New Las Vegas when he first got out of the service, but nothing had come of it. A discrete inquiry to casino security on a working trip to New Las Vegas for Security Associates had bombed out too. He could have found work as a mercenary easily, but his skills were too lethal and direct for most domestic security or private investigators.

He had the price of a shuttle ticket in his accounts, but after that he didn’t have enough to live more than a few months at the cost of living in orbit. So going up without a firm offer of work didn’t seem prudent. He wasn’t sure what they did with the homeless up there. They probably didn’t just shove you out of the airlock. But somebody would be pissed for sure if they had to pay for a ticket down to be rid of him. Somebody who would likely make sure the cost of it would be taken from his wages for the next twenty years.

Applying to a foreign hab was a problem. If his boss found out he was looking for an off world job he might fire him, but he was sure he could still get other security work. On the other hand, if the government got wind of his interest in a foreign habitat, then his loyalty could be suspect and a person could be blacklisted for any work connected with the Feds. That made it far too risky to try, unless it was a last desperate measure.

The seat he was in was too narrow for him in the shoulders, despite being one of the Explorer class seats. Flying subsonic was one thing, but he wouldn’t fit back in the cattle car. He had the window seat and could twist sideways rather than intrude on the other seat, but it was occupied by a boy of about twelve who was with the couple in the row behind. That made it much more comfortable than flying with an adult beside him.

The kid played a computer game plugged into noise canceling headphones and then slept most of the flight, obviously a veteran of air travel, with no nervousness or awe like a newbie. His parents in the row behind were an unremarkable upper middle class couple, dressed for comfort, not business. Otis didn’t sleep where he couldn’t lock himself in. He wasn’t diagnosed as hyper vigilant, but his attitude was common in a veteran.

He’d walked to the lavatory twice, which helped him endure the boredom and restlessness. If you went too often the crew would mark it as suspicious behavior. The three movie choices were insipid and he didn’t want to work where someone might read his screen. The news was the same old - same old. Another boatload of English had drowned trying to escape to Ireland. The only variation this time being that they went down in bad weather instead of being shelled by His Majesty’s Royal Navy. The Australians were having dust storms blow in from South East Asia so bad they were having brown-outs, because the automated cleaners couldn’t keep the solar collectors clean. Sometimes he wondered how much of Indonesia could blow away, before there wasn’t anything left. In the end he turned it off. He knew from firsthand experience how bad things were overseas. No reason to think it would change anytime soon either.

The man directly in front of him slept, having grabbed a pillow before they even took off. The fellow beside him in the aisle seat stayed awake like Otis. The one time he had gotten up and walked to the toilet he had gotten Otis’s attention, because he examined everyone in the cabin much like Otis had. Indeed it seemed to amuse the fellow a little when Otis returned his stare without embarrassment. He was perhaps a couple years older than Otis, in fact he looked a bit like his older brother, with a little grey at the temples and a neatly trimmed moustache.

The engines eased off cruising power and the airplane slowed enough he felt himself shift forward a tiny bit. They were starting the long descent for landing.

An attendant came back from the flight deck and said something to a man in an aisle seat further up front, on the opposite side. Something about the tension in her stance caught his eye. The man got up and came toward the rear of the plane, with the uniformed attendant following. When he was close, but still about two rows away, he produced a badge case and displayed it to the attentive fellow in the next row forward.

“Mr. Polzinsky? You are under arrest sir.” His right hand, hidden behind him, came around with an automatic pistol held in close to his side. He had his finger laid over the trigger guard with good discipline, muzzle dipped toward the floor slightly, but Otis had definitely heard the safety being taken off and the hammer was back.

Otis checked the pistol out quickly. The light caught familiar lines of engraving under the muzzle so he knew it for an Ed Brown made weapon, although he couldn’t really read it at this distance. That was reassuring. Anybody carrying six thousand bucks of pistol instead of government issue likely knew what he was doing with it. He also favored the 1911 model himself, though he liked the modern 12mm Hornady cartridge over the old .45 ACP. Otis was so close to the fellow’s line of fire that he welcomed any small comfort to be found regarding the man’s competence.

The man he’d thought sleeping, directly in front of Otis, turned in his seat and produced a set of cuffs holding them in close to his chest.

“Air Marshal, I don’t know who you think I am,” the man protested, “but you must have me confused with someone else.”

“No sir and we’re not Federal Marshals. Look closer,” he suggested still holding the ID folder out, “we’re ONI Protective Services. If you’d turn slowly to your left and put first your left and then your right arm behind you my associate will cuff you.” He was attentive to the point he refused to blink and Otis felt sure the slightest twitch on the seated man’s part would be fatal.

The fellow complied, slowly enough not to alarm them. Otis was relieved when he heard the cuffs ratchet closed. The seated agent felt the man’s arms and waist band before ordering him up.

“I’ll have people meeting me at the gate, or their driver at least and we can get my identity cleared up with no problem,” the fellow was still protesting.

“Yes sir, I’m sure they would vouch for you,” The agent agreed. “We’re quite aware you have deep local resources. That’s why we’re not getting off the aircraft in this jurisdiction. We’ll remain in the back of the aircraft for the layover and return to Atlanta on its normal turn around.” The ONI agents ran a wand over him in the aisle and Otis hoped they would do a full manual pat down in the rear before they got too comfortable.

The boy beside Otis was quite awake now, watching the drama with rapt attention. He leaned out looking back as the agents escorted the fellow out of first class cautiously. The attendant went ahead of them telling the passengers to stay seated and not interfere.

The speakers instructed them to belt up again. Otis had left his latched, just loosening it a bit. The boy turned and looked Otis in the eye for the first time, obviously excited at the arrest, but too well trained to speak to a stranger. Otis knew better than to speak to a strange child in public too. That was a quick way to get a trip to the local lock-up and a court ordered search of his home and computer spaces. Instead Otis turned and looked out the window at the rooftops flashing by and growing closer. They must be under a thousand feet now and the airplane’s wheels went down with a clunk.

Chapter 3

April had a lot of issues to settle with Heather and Jeff. She told Gunny she wanted her privacy this morning for breakfast. He just lifted an eyebrow and didn’t object. Gunny probably thought it was some sort of lovers spat or something, she thought in a foul mood.

Not least of what she wanted to hash out was that Heather had accepted her real estate customers suggestion and declared herself sovereign. When the administrator of Armstrong had pursued them across the moon to their new homes and tried to arrest them, it had been a brilliant expedient to confer authority on her quickly. However, April still disapproved that she’d not dissolved the arrangement after saving the refugees. In fact, Heather had instead accepted the fealty of the remainder of the Armstrong people when she returned. That wasn’t sitting well with April.

She, after all, was owed a lot in Heather’s development for her support and transportation services. April had not known she’d be owning a lot in a kingdom. One whose existence was likely to be quickly disputed by other powers.

That bothered her enough, but the cherry on top was that Heather named her and Jeff as peers. She was getting a lot of involvement she hadn’t asked for, but she certainly hadn’t asked to be Dame Lewis!

Her partners were already at a table as she expected. Jeff had barely started on his meal, because he was busy waving his hands and talking to Heather. Heather was further ahead, because she was methodically eating while she listened. April got a tray, heavy on calories and protein both, as she was gene modified and needed the extra fuel.

“How long are you here?” April asked right away.

“Maybe three days,” Heather allowed. “When are you coming to visit?” she countered.

“When you have a shower,” April answered without hesitation.

Jeff thought that far funnier than she intended. He launched into a description of the horrors of moon dust that did absolutely nothing to change her mind about the shower.

“Look, you don’t need an entire sanitary plumbing system,” April insisted. “How about just a shower stall standing on a base tank. The mechanism vacuum distills whatever is in the base to an overhead insulated tank. Total capacity say thirty or forty liters. It heats it on a timer when you expect to use it. The base tank has a one liter trap for the solids that get distilled out of the waste water. You remove that and dump it outside every few days. The only loss is what gets carried out on your skin and the humidity lost with the air getting in and out.”

“Thirty liters isn’t much,” Jeff objected.

“You set the temperature at one level. No mixing. You have a momentary contact switch that gives you a quick blast to get wet. You blast – shampoo your hair – blast again, soap up your body. Hit the other switch and it runs steady to rinse off. You have a selector to pick fine mist to make it last or a heavier spray, maybe pulsing,” she speculated. “And it isn’t just for you. It is a product to sell. Broken down to assemble or in a box ready to bolt in.

He liked the manufacturing part of the idea.

“A sealed box,” Heather said dreamily, “that could fit in the back of a Russian rover,”

Jeff just looked at her open mouthed.

“You have that much headroom in a rover?” April asked.

“You can just barely stand straight in the rear. You couldn’t stand it on top of a holding tank,” Jeff insisted. “You’d have to put a thin centrifugal lift pump in the floor drain in one corner,” he said, immediately visualizing it, “the motor spinning it just outside the stall, with a waste tank and then a holding tank vertically beside the stall,” He drew it in the air with his hands as he spoke. He looked at Heather again and realized he’d just admitted it was not only possible, but he basically had the whole design in his mind already. He bowed to the inevitable. “I’ll draw it up tomorrow and let the specs to a prototype shop,” he promised, before she even asked.

“So I understand your refugees are willing to pay for the stuff they took from Armstrong when they fled,” April reminded her. “Have they ever got back to you and named a price or negotiated at all?”

“No, not only are they not talking, but even though the Lunanet satellites are active again they won’t take calls. They tried to sucker a bunch of people back to Armstrong because they need their skills, but they won’t send a contract ahead. When you can’t call in or out you know it’s all a lie. I see why they want their critical techs back. They are asking how to run systems that are failing on them without experienced workers.”

“I heard about the lawsuit some of them filed. I understand their motives,” April agreed, “and most of the accusations seem entirely accurate, but I wish they hadn’t named President Wiggen on that list of defendants. In talking to the woman she is one of the few USNA politicians who doesn’t irrationally hate our guts. I doubt the woman had anything to do with, or was even aware of, the oppressive atmosphere at Armstrong.”

“I hear what you are saying. Wiggen is one of the few things we have going for us, keeping Home and North America from war again and yet they have a point. If she didn’t know about it, she did have a responsibility to know what her government was doing. If her underlings hid things and kept them from her, well, it is her responsibility to keep that from happening, if she is really in charge.”

“You may regret setting such a high standard for yourself,” April pointed out. “As Queen of the Moon, you have a lot of head-strong, smart subjects there already. Are you really going to be able to keep them from slipping something past you ?” This was the first talk they’d had about Heather’s new position.

“I’m not Queen of the Moon,” Heather assured her, refusing to be baited. “I am Sovereign of The Center of the Moon, which is a very limited thing and administrator of the Central Lunar Ranches. I advised them against this very suit, but they did not take all my advice. I will not limit my subjects’ freedom to file in other jurisdictions, although I agree with you about Wiggen. If you hadn’t been a trip wire on your recent trip down to Earth and precipitated the Patriot Party coup attempt before they were ready, I doubt we’d be worrying about Wiggen. She’d have been dead by now.”

“My advice,” April volunteered, “is to get everything you can from the Earthies while she is in power. We really don’t know what is coming after her. and it wouldn’t surprise me if they try again, so you might not have a couple years. If you can get a write-off of the rovers and stuff they took, I’d think about dropping at least some of the terms of the complaint in turn. If you can get real freedom for the folks left behind in Armstrong who didn’t escape that’s the biggie isn’t it?”

“I’d think so. If they all insist on being vindictive it will disappoint me. I’m going to quote you about yielding on some points, if Armstrong reciprocates. You don’t seem to realize it but they respect you.”

“Do they respect me or Dame Lewis?” April asked darkly.

“Now April, be reasonable,” Heather pleaded.“If something happens to me I want to give both Jeff and you the authority to have a say in what happens to Central. If it were a corporate structure I’d have named you to the board as officers. If it were a legal partnership I’d have named you as junior partners. It’s a sovereignty, so you are named as peers, as are my first subjects and heads of household Dakota and Ted. Do you suddenly have some irrational hatred of monarchies? I seem to remember you heartily recommending involving the King of Tonga to me as a partner in this adventure. Did he mistreat you when you lifted through Tonga that you’ve changed your mind?”

“It’s just a general feeling I’ve picked up from history lessons and things people say, that monarchies are outdated and tend to end up harsh, despotic. The object of bad jokes about ‘Off with their head’ and such. I feel uncomfortable being identified with one.”

“If you see me being despotic I’m sure you won’t be shy to tell me. In fact if you just see me being stupid I’d really appreciate your saying so.”

“So, we don’t have to wear funny clothes or do any rituals in your kingdom?” April asked.

“Absolutely not. It’s a responsibility not a privilege. In fact, nobody is obligated to address people by their titles. If somebody addresses you as Dame Lewis it will be because they respect you and want to.”

“Or because they want to be sarcastic and know they can get my goat that way.”

“In which case it is political expression I dare not stifle,” Heather asserted.

“Great,” April agreed, grinding her teeth. “How benevolent of you.”

“I think April is right about one thing though,” Jeff spoke back up. “It’s to the good for now that President Wiggen stays in power and whatever small influence we have on Earth we should hope she remains and do anything we can to encourage that. We have no agents in place, so we are sort of at the mercy of people like those two lieutenants you had rescued, whose agenda just happens to agree with ours. and that’s kind of scary.”

Chapter 4

Otis sat still after they landed, letting all the aggressive people who enjoyed jostling each other recover their things from the overhead and elbow their way to the door. The couple behind him were on their feet before the seat belt sign went out, pushing their young boy between them to squeeze past those recovering their things from the overhead.

When most of the crowd had cleared, he pulled on fresh sheer gloves. The increased spread of disease made them simply prudent, but he resisted wearing a mask or a nosie in public like many people did now. He recovered his one small carry-on and compact computer and made his way to the exit.

When he talked to the studio yesterday, they had insisted they would send a driver to meet him. He’d said they didn’t have to bother, but he suspected they might ignore that, as they had repeated that they would be happy to pick him up. He refused to play - How many times must I tell you to mean it? Sure enough, there was a man in a chauffeur’s outfit standing well back, holding a card that said - Duggan. He was looking concerned, probably because the plane was almost emptied.

“It’s just one G in Dugan chief, but thanks anyway,” he said holding the small case out for the flunky to carry.

“Yes sir, but, uh, close enough for government work,” he said in the oddest stilted manner.

Otis looked around, wondering why the man stood so far from the exit.

“Dead spot for the cameras here,” the fellow said at Otis’ inspection, smug at how bright it showed him to be. “Would you follow me please?” he invited, turning away. Otis was hard put to keep the fellow in sight, as he was still stiff from sitting. But why did he care about cameras?

Outside the terminal, instead of meeting a car at the curb like he expected, they walked around the building, to a small lot for employees. The fellow looked back once, to see if Otis was following, but made no effort to let him catch up. Instead of a normal limo, or simply a full sized car, which so many businesses used now trying to look greener, they headed straight for a mildly stretched Jeep Dunestar. The big grey box had a driver behind the wheel already, which surprised Otis. The second man implied they were a security team instead of just a driver. Usually when people were hiring Safety Associates they were getting security for the first time, or expanding on very informal in-house arrangements. Otis wondered if they were replacing these men, or if the company would be asked to absorb them in their organization. He couldn’t remember the contract addressing any existing personnel. The man didn’t display any hostility, which was quite professional, if he was serving his soon-to-be replacement.

The fellow held the door for him and handed him his case as he entered. The interior was set up with seats front and rear facing each other, with the driver partitioned off. Even with the slight stretch it was cozy, although so wide three could sit without crowding on each bench. He hadn’t expected anyone else would be sharing his ride, but there were two men already seated on the rear bench, so he took the front. He settled in and made polite eye contact with his companions. He was prepared to ask if they too had business with the studio, but one glance told him they were very tense and expectantly waiting to speak to him. How odd.

Whatever was going on they weren’t just some other businessmen, waiting to share the studio limo. Then the fellow holding the door gave a nod to the older of the two that was an obvious OK, before he went up front with the driver.

Otis suddenly realized with crystal clarity that the misspelled placard and the man’s awkward reply, had been sign and counter sign. What were the odds of such a random exchange working? Infinitesimal certainly. His phrase must have been embedded in his statement, certainly the whole thing wasn’t a match, but the fellow accepted it, probably even admired it as slickly conversational compared to his stumbling reply.

“Go ahead Henry,” the fellow who was dressed a little nicer than the other instructed. He hadn’t reached to switch any intercom on, but the Dunestar pulled away smoothly with no delay. His fancy cowboy boots and pearl buttons amused Otis. In other circumstances he’d have asked where the hell he’d left his horse.

“Give us a minute to get away from the terminal,” the same fellow advised. “There are cameras that can see through the tinting,” he said waving a hand at the dark windows, “and there are laser systems that can read sound off the windows of even a moving vehicle.”

Otis nodded agreement, he was aware of such systems, but why would anyone use them on this vehicle and why was there was such need of secrecy? The first thought that had flashed through his mind, was that the studio deal had fallen through for some reason while he was in the air and they had dispatched a couple middle level executives to try to mollify him and make apologies for the wasted trip. But that wouldn’t require such secrecy, nor explain the explosive undercurrent of emotion he read in these two’s body language.

One thing he’d learned was not to run his mouth when he didn’t understand what was going on. He’d wait for them to explain what they were doing and why.

He leaned back in the seat and tried to have much more than a poker face, working at looking bored and managed after thinking about how a yawn would feel, to trigger a real one. That produced a blink that shouted disbelief from the number two man. Whatever had them so uptight, they expected him to share their tension, not yawn.

Whatever was going on, Otis was starting to think it was going to be very, very, bad when he finally did figure it out.

Pretty Boy, as Otis had tagged the leader, waited until they were on the expressway ramp to speak again.

“Damn, you are good,” he admitted. “I was shown a picture of you. Not that great a pic, you have a reputation of being camera shy, but I have to admit if I was holding the picture in my hand I’d have let you walk right past me at the gate.”

“You should see me as a she,” Otis adlibbed. “When I do the transgender thing with a blond wig and heels I can glare at everybody, daring them to say something and they all look down afraid to make eye contact.”

The fellow’s laugh seemed genuine, not strained. He shook his head, probably trying to get the image out of his head and addressed his underling. “OK, give Mr. ‘Dug-gan’ his things,” he ordered, giving Dugan a sarcastic double pronunciation. The second fellow, who Otis had already decided he’d designate as Loyal Minion, dug in a case and produced two pistols in clip holsters. One was a .22 with a long old fashioned suppressor and the second was a modern silent 9mm, with the special oversized long cartridges that used a binary powder.

When the bullet was well on its way down the barrel, the cores of the powder grains were uncovered and the chemicals exposed caused an abrupt termination of the propellant burn and a quick drop off in chamber pressure. The stubby can on the barrel end held a silicone rubber bladder and silver wool heat sink which finished off what little of the pressure wave that wasn’t suppressed behind the bullet.

“Whichever pleases you,” Minion offered.

“You can never have too many guns,” Otis informed him and took both, tucking them away comfortably like old friends. That didn’t raise any objection from the men. He took the time to make sure each had a round up the snout, even shaking a round of the 9mm by his ear, to make sure it was the proper compressed load that went with the late model gun.

Taking both meant these fellows had one less weapon than whatever they were personally carrying. Handing guns back to them seemed a bad idea. If he got arrested carrying these in California he was dead meat, but at this rate that didn’t seem likely to be his biggest worry.

“IWI,” Otis said patting where the 9mm had disappeared. “Very nice,” he complimented them on the silent Israeli weapon. “A recent serial number too, so it isn’t as temperature sensitive as the early models.”

“Always glad to meet a connoisseur,” Pretty Boy quipped. “Here is your deposit slip and account number for the upfront fee. This is a debit card associated with the account.” The red card with a gold cross had a taste pad. Once you pulled the Mylar tab and touched the square it could only be swiped thereafter by the person who was imprinted on it.

“There are no other signatories to the account and I assure you the other half will be deposited within minutes of word you were successful. In the event you are not successful, well, we all assume you won’t be concerned about it,” he smiled.

Otis didn’t say anything, certainly didn’t ask, “Successful at what?” He did give the man his standard new recruit stare just to cover up his own inner turmoil. It had the desired effect. No matter how they tried to be nonchalant, it was written on their faces these two were afraid of him. Or who they thought he was anyway.

“Really,” the man said visibly regretting the word as soon as he said it. “Not that we expect you to fail or we wouldn’t be here. I understand it would be foolish to stiff you.”

Otis looked at the printed teller slip. It was dated two days ago at the Bern Branch of Credit Suisse Bank for twenty million EuroMarks. He tried to think of the exchange rate and couldn’t. It was - one hell of a lot of USNA dollars.

“Here is your key card for the Sheraton. Your room is directly across the hall from a room that will be vacant when President Wiggen is making her dedication speech tomorrow morning. It’s a clean shot just under two hundred meters to where she will enter at the back of the building. This is a master key card for the entire hotel,” he said offering another. “Wiggen’s security may scan the building for thermal sources before or during her speech. Everything above the third floor on that side of the Sheraton is supposed to be kept vacant tomorrow.”

“There are counters for that,” Otis assured him. So that’s it, he thought in wonder. The bastards are going to put Wiggen out of office in two years, but they can’t wait for a sure thing and want to kill her now. He was disgusted. She was just another politician and probably a flaming jackass like most of the big shots they guarded turned out to be. But at least she’d had the guts to surrender to Home last year, when the orbital habitat had waged war on them. Certainly she wasn’t the mental case the previous President Hadley was rumored to have been.

“These are vital to leave behind,” Pretty Boy said, giving him a transient alien ID card on a neck chain. It was the black sort that indicated a citizen of Home. He had a small zip seal bag with used tissues and other trash. “This is to be emptied in the room waste basket. It has DNA linking to the ID of the Home national, collected back when he was a USNA citizen.”

The spacers weren’t using those ID cards anymore. Did these fellows really not know that? He decided not to ask, instead he said: “Will the ID show on the computers when the press hack or bribe their way in and check the name to see if there really is such a file? Somebody will do that, sure as hell.”

“Don’t teach Grandma to suck eggs,” Pretty Boy chided him. “It’s all scanned in as a valid ID, with a long and detailed history.”

That level of computer access convinced Otis the two sitting there were Patriot Party. It was sort of amusing they didn’t, couldn’t, wear party pins. Wearing a party pin in public today would be suicide. They had recently tried to pull a coup on Wiggen and been handed their butts. But nobody else who would have the assets and nerve to push through such an assassination, or would really benefit from it. Even those opposed to Wiggen were happy she was in office instead of the Patriots by coup.

This meant they plain didn’t give a damn who knew it was them after the fact, which said a great deal about how they intended to rule. The realization of what danger he was in swept over him like a wave and he was shocked to find he enjoyed the adrenaline jolt. He hadn’t felt this alert and alive since he was in the Trans-Arabic Protectorate, being shot at. The feral grin that came to his face at the adrenaline rush didn’t have to be faked and made his welcoming committee uncomfortable.

“Everything you requested is in the rear of the Dunestar. My driver will drop us off at a different parking deck and you can proceed with the Dunestar to the Sheraton. Here is a map, the key card works for the parking entry too. I’m sure you have resources, but here’s five thousand in used bills. Consider it a tip so if you have need of any small items today you don’t have to risk using any cards, just a little extra protection for both of us.”

Otis knew military personnel from all over before his recent retirement and despite the government’s efforts to cover up, it was painfully obvious a lot of his friends could not be contacted any more. With one of them serving on a carrier, that likely meant about four thousand of his fellow crewmen were missing with him. Entire bases he used to receive supplies from and route traffic through, were just missing from address lists now. He was frustrated that it was too risky to inquire of their families, even where he knew them, because they could lose survivor benefits if they disclosed what they knew about their missing relatives.

The United States of North America had gotten its butt royally kicked and these Patriot Party creeps were in denial about it. They were covering up the full extent of the damage, but anyone in the service knew too much to piece together to be fooled. The new party’s intention was to take the USNA back to war with Home as soon as they could and get even more of Otis’ buddies killed. Otis somehow found that a bad idea.

“That should be sufficient,” Otis agreed. “Please don’t try to have me watched. If I suspect someone of being a tail I will kill them without hesitation,” he warned.

“That’s not my job,” Pretty Boy shrugged. “I won’t be contacting anybody who would give a shit until after this is all over. If you see anybody, what the hell, whack ‘em. If they are that easy to make I doubt anybody would miss their services.”

Otis made up his mind right then he was going to screw these guys. Not just turn them in and help the government run them down, but take their money and humiliate them. They were the worst sort of every creep he’d ever seen playing hard core like a game and indifferent to those under them who they regarded as just stage props - spear carriers. With the kind of money he was getting he could emigrate off Earth and not worry about having a job lined up. With that kind of funding he could even start his own firm easily.

“Nice doing business with you gentleman,” Otis said as they pulled in a parking deck and stopped. “Now go away,” he snarled.

Chapter 5

“The two lieutenants and the two security guys who defected from New Las Vegas appear to be very compatible and are talking about opening a private security company,” April informed her friends. “I was glad, because I felt responsible for setting up the situation that made the station security guys flee from NLV.” She needed to talk less and finish her breakfast.

Heather and Jeff exchanged a glance, but didn’t say anything. April felt responsible for everything and had a definite rescue complex. It wasn’t her fault how President Hadley had treated his people, or mistreated them. “How about that vacuum rat, who turned the Happy Lewis free from the dock grapples on ISSII back when the war started?” Heather asked. “Did he settle in and get a job here?”

“Well, Eddie gave him a big enough reward for saving our butts that he could have started some sort of business of his own, but he doesn’t have that mindset. Dave found him a position with one of those former workers of his that splintered off and started their own shop. I’ve seen him three or four times and he seems happy. He’s a real solid sort,” April asserted.

“We seem to be accumulating a lot of refugees,” Heather observed.

“I think that is all for the good,” Jeff said without hesitation. “We always had fairly good screening to keep the mentally unstable and the criminal from coming up. The sort that are leaving Earth now are self selecting for decisiveness and obviously for awareness that things are steadily getting less desirable down there and we have something better to offer them here.”

“If only we can keep it,” Heather said worried. “I hold my breath waiting for some junior fascist to tell the Assembly we have to license every sort of activity and start making lots and lots of laws, for our own protection of course.”

“Don’t worry too soon,” April advised her. “We have the right to challenge and duel and my Granddad, Jon, Gunny and Eddie, have all talked and recruited others. There is a very unofficial group, party if you will, that doesn’t have a name and doesn’t want to even officially exist,” she explained. Jeff and Heather looked at each other, intensely interested now, because the three had formed just such a secret pact before the war. “Don’t slip and give them away, but if anyone stands up and tries to bury us under a new flood of government control, they will either end up on the next shuttle to the mudball, or have to stand to the fire of a half dozen of Home’s fastest, most accurate pistoleros.”

That got a slow satisfied smile from both of them.

Chapter 6

They left Otis alone in the Dunestar in one of the upper levels of the parking deck, which was almost empty. His newly met companions all exited to the glass elevator enclosure and caught the lift without looking back. Otis took the driver’s seat, started the Dunestar and drove back down two levels to where most of the spaces were filled and there were people walking about. Parking off in the corner of a nearly empty level was a stupid way to stand out and make people wonder what you are up to.

Otis looked for security cameras and parked well away, backing in since there was no sign prohibiting it and several other vehicles were aligned that way. First he walked around back and lifted the hatch, confirming what sort of equipment they had left for him. Then he pulled his cell phone and called Keith anderson, the head of Safety Associates in Southern California. The man didn’t expect to see him until the signing this afternoon and he’d undoubtedly be interrupting his work, but he needed some help right away.

“Keith? Otis here. Yeah, I got in OK and I’m set for the signing later. I ran into some complications and I need a hand right now. This isn’t any kind of bizarre test or anything. I do need you, or somebody, who can scan a vehicle for tracking devices and dispose of it for me. Also I need a ride away from here and have some things to haul and I’ll need a vehicle until later this evening. By ‘dispose’ I mean take it to some bad assed nasty neighborhood and park it on the street with the keys hanging in the ignition. I’d try not to park it in front of any security cameras. Or if somebody knows a chop shop sell it to them, not too eagerly though, get the best price you can to avoid suspicion. Yeah, that’s good.”

“I’m in a grey Jeep Dunestar at the Century Medical building on Sepulveda, on parking deck level ‘D’,” he looked and gave him the license. “And Keith, do you have anybody with the shop who shoots a .416 caliber Tac-Tech Barrett? Great. Would you have him loan you a round of ammo and a bullet puller? Well stop and buy one if he doesn’t load his own. I also need a set of golf clubs in a bag, a big one, with a cart. I don’t care what kind, just not antiques. They can be any length, used cheapies are fine, but wipe them for prints and spray them down to inhibit DNA testing.”

“Oh! Run a couple names for me too, passive search only, not a directed inquiry, see if the Feebs or Interpol has anything out on a Polzinsky, white male, European features, unaccented American English, shy of two meters, eighty kilos, pushing forty, moustache, no beard, graying at the temples. - I don’t know, assassinations, gun running, war crimes, that sort of thing. -Yeah, no shit. and a Home national,” he said, reading the data off the black card. The picture on the card was horrid. He described it as best he could, but every quality of the man was a non-descript medium.

ONI knew somebody was meeting Mr. Polzinsky, if that was his name. Could be they knew his real name. No way did he intend to remain associated with this Dunestar. If the Navy didn’t have a tracker on it the creeps who gave it to him probably did. Crap, could be both of them following it around on a map. The very thought gave him the shivers. He decided to take a walk until his people got here. There was no point in standing beside such a trouble magnet.

Otis found a coffee kiosk in the lobby of the medical building. He got a latte with a hefty top of whipped cream and grabbed a handful of napkins for the inevitable mess. He tipped the fellow exactly twenty percent, not enough to remember him as cheap or generous. He walked around outside, taking a different route back to the Dunestar and saw Keith drive in past him as he walked up the ramp.

He was pleased to see his man backed in on the far side, away from the distant security camera. They both went to the rear and opened their vehicles. Otis opened the big case on the floor and Keith looking over his shoulder let out a long whistle. The long barreled .416 Barrett was the military model, not the civilian version. It had the long tension sleeve barrel and a computerized Nightforce scope, with integral laser range finder and Doppler wind correction. The lumps of self adjusting servo motors projected from it instead of manual adjustment knobs. The compartmented case included trigger and barrel tools, cleaning necessities and two ten round magazines loaded with Hornady match ammo.

There was a window breaching charge, that could be wired to the gun’s electronic ignition. It would open a hole a few milliseconds ahead of the gun firing so there was no danger of deflection off the glass. The whole rig was way serious overkill for a two hundred meter shot. To the point where Otis doubted the pro had specifically requested this gun. A cheap hunting rifle would have been plenty and less likely to be tracked. In other circumstances he’d have been tempted to substitute a lesser gun and keep this for himself. It was a lovely piece of equipment. However, given what a serious crime the weapon was associated with and its unknown provenance, it was much too dangerous to keep.

It was way too much gun, unless, he reflected thoughtfully, the gunman didn’t intend to use the hotel room they provided at all, but planned to shoot from a more distant point of his choosing. Something he’d keep in mind. There might be other reservations or shooting sites, that the police could find and other people involved in setting those up, who Pretty Boy wouldn’t have known about. He mustn’t assume everything was as presented.

Otis moved the gun and several other items to Keith’s minivan. Otis could read the alarm in his eyes to have the illegal gun in his vehicle. Several sworn officers that worked for Keith shot the .416 or .50 caliber Barrett for their agencies or the Guard, not California cops, but Federal. Barrett didn’t sell to California, so the state hated them and pointedly didn’t issue private security permits for the big rifle. Possession broke so many laws in California, a grand jury would be a week making a list. Otis was his boss and he trusted him, so he didn’t object - yet. Otis was pretty sure he was near Keith’s limits though. He had the bullet puller, the requested round and a man in street clothing who must be his disposal driver.

“I have Phil rounding up the golf bag,” Keith assured him. “He’s supposed to buy one at a used sports equipment store and park a couple blocks over on a residential street waiting for one of us. We can meet him there or call him in on the phone. You know, Wiggen is coming into town tomorrow. That’s a hell of a bad time to be riding around with this in the van.”

“Wherever he parks is just fine,” Otis said. “The sooner we’re out of here the better.” He pulled the bullet, poured the powder on a coffee napkin and pinched just a couple grains between his fingers to drop back in the neck of the brass cartridge. He replaced the bullet, tapping it home with the back side of the puller and chambered the round. “This will be a lot less of a problem in just a minute,” he assured Keith.

“Uh, Otis…” Keith started to say something in alarm, as Otis tilted the rifle over to get at the trigger. He fired it before he could object. The gun made a funny thump, but no real bang to Keith’s relief. Neither did he have a hole from the back seat out through the front grill, as he likely would have been made with a full powered round.

Otis ran the cleaning rod down the bore. He was satisfied the bullet was lodged, fully engraved on the rifling, about two inches forward from the throat. He took a magazine and made sure it still accepted a standard round and ejected it properly. There was no visible bulge on the barrel. If somebody checked both magazines were still full. The empty brass went in his pocket.

“I have to leave this rifle somewhere this evening,” he explained to Keith. “No way do I want it to be a functioning weapon.” It was a nasty thing to do to a sweet weapon, but if something happened to him he also didn’t want anybody to be able to ‘take over’ and fulfill his mission for him. If that should happen, well, with a little bit of luck whoever tried to use the gun would get a big surprise, if they didn’t check the bore. The thought made him smile.

“Here,” he told Keith’s man, “shake this powder off the napkin, over the edge of the deck.”

The man nodded an acknowledgment, but was checking out the Dunestar with a laptop. He must be the bug finder too.

“It’s cold, sitting still. Mind if I start it and circle the deck if I need to?”

“Be my guest,” Otis invited him.

He went around once slowly, then surprised Otis by whipping around fairly fast. Otis didn’t want him calling attention to them, but he pulled in after one quick round. He got out and went to the rear of the vehicle, fiddling with something.

“You had two hot spots,” he informed Otis. “First your remote start fob was emitting. That doesn’t have anything to do with the vehicle, it just runs all the time. Second there was a transmitter in the spare tire valve, that didn’t come on unless you were moving. Both are dead now, but you don’t have a spare tire until you get a new valve stem in the rim.”

“Good work. You ready to go dump it?” The fellow gave him a mock salute and climbed back in. He never did get the man’s name.

“Let’s go get my golf bag,” he told Keith. “Then I need the van for a couple hours to check into the Sheraton. Your man with the golf bag can take you back can’t he?”

And that was the second coincidence he didn’t deserve, Otis thought, fingering the key cards in his pocket. He’d had a reservation at the Sheraton from three weeks ago, before Wiggen was announced to be visiting the city. No need to find an excuse to enter the building or risk trying to get a room at the last minute when they were probably sold out. He wasn’t sure if he’d even look in the room the conspirators had provided. He was still thinking on how to play it even now.

*

Otis checked in to the Sheraton uneventfully. He had two throw away phones in his pocket he’d bought on the way. They were busy enough at the checkin desk that no one objected or offered a hand when he piled his own luggage on a cart and took it up to the eighth floor. There were two security cameras visible on each floor, one pointing down the hall and one covering the elevator. It was dubious anyone was monitoring them in real time. Their deterrent value was in reviewing them if a crime occurred. They would undoubtedly be reviewed after an assassination attempt originating in the building, but not before.

The room was average, boring really. He dumped the bag of trash he’d been given in the toilet and ripped the bag into smaller pieces he was sure would flush. He looked around the room trying to decide where he could hide the spacer ID. He rejected the Gideon Bible. Taped to a drawer bottom or table bottom was too well known. He finally saw the cheap floor lamp in the corner had a slip joint half way up. He pulled the brass-plated tubing apart and rolled the ID up around the cord. When he fitted it back together he wiped it down to be uniformly shiny. The key cards went inside the plastic cover of the hotel room service menu. It was a slide in folder so they could change inserts, but a very tight fit.

He considered finding the cleaning cart room and using one to access the shooter’s room. But he had nothing with which to disguise himself as a cleaning lady. Pushing a cart down the hall after checkin hours started would draw attention immediately. Anybody from the hotel he ran into would want to know what the hell he thought he was doing. In the morning all the carts would be in use and the only way he could get control of one would be to bribe or incapacitate a cleaning person. The only reasonable thing he could think of, after considering all sorts of ploys, seemed to be to brazen out his movements as soon as possible, before everyone was on alert status for the visit in the morning.

Once his things were in his room, he took the luggage cart in the elevator, back down to the parking deck. He got in the minivan and pulled on dark pants over his khakis, rolled up his sleeves and put a crushable hat on that was part of his usual kit, to change his appearance. Then he ducked down, using the van to shield himself from the security camera and came out from behind a car further down the row wheeling the golf bag. The luggage cart was still in the elevator when he called it back.

This trip in he had only the golf bag on the luggage cart, laying on top of the thin rifle case. Once someone saw the familiar golf bag, they’d assume the case, of a similar length, was just more golf gear. It likely shielded it from view of the high mounted security cameras completely. Otis kept his head down, so his face was hidden from the security camera by the floppy brim. As an added disguise he drew a gang tattoo on the back of his hand with his pen and made sure the camera saw it. It would come off easily enough with a disinfectant wipe. Going directly to the room he swiped himself in, without a guilty look either way in the hall. The suite had the look of one used as an apartment instead of for travelers. His conspirators probably knew the owner was on a trip or something.

The desk, dragged into the middle of the room, made a fine shooting bench. It took less than five minutes to refit the barrel and position everything. Just for insurance, besides the plugged bore, he turned on the scope and changed the zero point up a meter and a half meter to the right, deleting the history. He positioned the window breaching charge clipped on the edge of the curtain, instead of on the glass where it might be visible with binoculars and wired it up to a brand new throwaway cell phone. The drapes were only open about an inch. Hopefully that wouldn’t bring anybody from the coming security team to inspect the room. The golf bag was unimportant, assuming Keith sanitized it properly, so it was left in the corner of the room.

Otis left, walking from the Sheraton along the street, until he found a place for lunch. The dark pants went in the trash can in the men’s room; the hat rolled up was tucked under his waist band. It was a pleasant walk back to his room, where he cleaned up a little and flushed his gloves and wipes from removing his fake tattoo. He put his clothing out for the hotel to dry clean over night, in the little bag provided, dressed with a jacket and no tie instead of a suit, this was California after all and drove the minivan back to Keith.

A stop at a print shop got him a memory card his computer could read. While Keith finished up business to get ready for their signing, Otis sat at the small conference table in his office. He opened a throwaway mail account and contacted Credit Suisse. A few minutes work had the account balance shifted to a new account he was sure had no cosigners. Something he’d have been unable to do without an initial account. A little more work sent half to a new account at First Caribbean on Grand Turk. Unlike the Swiss bank, you didn’t have to be there in person to open an account. This evening he’d spread the money around even further, safe from clawbacks. He’d leave just a couple thousand in the account the new card serviced.

While Keith spent most of the time on his own phone, Otis pulled out his small computer and opened a program called Lineup Artist. He worked quickly, familiar with the program and proficient with it. He made a face for each of the three who met him at the airport, concentrating on the senior player. In a half hour he had likenesses that would have taken him days of back and forth with an expert artist, or forever if he depended on his own freehand drawing skills.

The easy part done, he considered what to write. He got a sheet of paper from the mid-stack of Keith’s printer and wiped the table clean changing his gloves again.

“FBI - Imperative we inform you there will be attempt on life of President.” he started. He intended to imply he was speaking for an organization and leave a few articles out and print some of the letters in a form that would suggest a well educated Eastern European who had learned English in a British setting. He printed, working to make it different than his normal printing. An expert would find subtle similarities, but only if they had a decent sample of his writing and were already on to him.

“We find ourselves able to frustrate this scheme by communicating, but unable to halt entirely on our own. Your Mr. Polzinsky returned to Atlanta by ONI only the first layer involved. On enclosed chip please find artist’s best rendering of men working directly with your suspect. If attempt made on President then you will know these words true. Strongly suggest you remove President Wiggen from area under strictest security when this happens. If you temporarily refuse to divulge President’s condition and imply she is receiving medical attention, will prevent launch of backup attempt planned. We have identified second attempt layer for you - next is up to you. Sincerely – Friends.”

It wasn’t perfect. It might cause them to pull Wiggen out of the event entirely, which wouldn’t bother him too much. It might cause a more intense search, which would find the sniper’s nest. It might be, probably would be, ignored as the work of some demented flake. Certainly no real intelligence agency would communicate this way, he was pretty sure, but once the attempt was validated, could they afford to ignore the warning and recommendation? He didn’t think so. It was after all cheap insurance and all the plans would already be in place for an emergency removal to medical attention. If they went along with it and the implication was that Wiggen was injured, he might just get the second payment in the Swiss account. That would be delicious.

“I need some DNA spray,” he told Keith.

“That stuff is illegal in California now, you know.”

“I hope that doesn’t mean that you didn’t spray the golf bag down as I asked.”

“No, I’d have told you if we couldn’t. I just wanted to make sure you knew. They’re getting smarter too. Instead of outlawing a particular reagent, they outlawed any chemical agent that interferes with the replication and identification of DNA residues for criminal analysis.” He rummaged through his drawers and brought Otis a can that proclaimed it was Acme Premium Glass Cleaner. When he applied it to the paper and chip it was more a fine fog than a spray.

“I want this delivered today to the FBI, through at least three cut-outs. The last two should be somebody you have never used. A courier service or a cab. and they need to be watched, so we have positive confirmation of delivery.”

“I’ll call some off shift people in. I need to have somebody else boss it, so we can get over to the signing.” He didn’t ask Otis what was in it.

*

The studio signing was anticlimactic, after the other events of the day, but he got fully engaged in it, assuring the executives more by presence than words what a wise choice they’d made. A couple times Otis caught Keith giving him a thoughtful examination. When they were back in Keith’s van he finally spoke.

“You’re working for somebody else too.”

Otis didn’t say anything. I am, sort of, he reflected. They just don’t know it yet. Certainly several players would gladly pay him to do what he was if they only knew. Wiggen’s own party and even the off-worlders who would be hurt when she lost the office, now or later. If he could get that to translate to gratitude after the fact - that was a whole different question.

“No answer?”

“You didn’t ask anything.”

“Does John know about it?” he asked, refusing to play that game. He meant John Trumble, the CEO of Safety Associates.

“No, I got recruited on the plane. But John would approve. He’s made his politics plain to me and this mission fits them. I have the authority to sign the company to contracts and I have my own morals to serve too.”

“You figure you’re on the side of the angels then?”

“Always. Have you ever known me to do something dirty? Illegal maybe, but actually wrong?”

“No,” he sighed, “and when you spiked that gun it just reassured me you were the right kind of fellow to support. Contacting the FBI reinforces it. I wouldn’t have done half of the things you requested today for somebody else. I hope you know that.”

“It will work out fine,” he assured him. “The most important part is wrapped up already. Now it’s just tinkering with the details.”

“Something to do with Wiggen?”

“You’ll know tomorrow.” Otis promised him with a wink.

When they pulled in at the Sheraton Otis pulled out the two silenced pistols and laid them on the console.

“You might hang on to those for us. Might upset them at the airport if I forgot and tried to board with them.”

“Sweet Jesus, man. What if I get stopped on the way home?”

“I guess you better be an exemplary driver this once.”

*

Otis didn’t want any further entertainment and just ate in the Sheraton. It was good, but overpriced like most hotel food. His expense account would cover it. He was more aware of value because he hadn’t had much money growing up. It had been a struggle for his mom and dad, both working, to stay in something like a middle class lifestyle with two kids.

After dinner he walked around outside. Across the street and in front of an office building, there was a decorative terrace with a small fountain. It appeared most everyone was gone for the day. There was no foot traffic at the main door and the parking lot was almost empty. He walked slowly giving himself time to examine it. He walked up to the rail around the fountain and worked his way around three quarters of the way until he was standing sideways to the building Wiggen would enter in the morning. It was directly across a huge parking lot and street from here, with his Sheraton sitting on the left. There were coins in the fountain and he dug in his pocket finding a few dimes. While he picked them out, he peeled off the sticky back on a web cam that looked like a bolt head. When he gripped the rail to lean out and toss the coins, he firmly pressed the camera on the vertical aluminum support. It was a good three hundred fifty meters from here to the only entry that looked possible for Wiggen to use in the morning.

They would likely jam cell phones right around Wiggen as she moved, but if they jammed data wireless it tended to be a tight bubble around her, not this far away. He sat on the edge of a planter and accessed the camera from his phone, zoomed in on the door and centralized it. Then he carefully erased the address the phone had automatically recorded. After a bit he planted a second camera. Not so much as a back-up, but it was better than throwing it away and he didn’t want to take it back to his room. There were several public wireless nets hot on the plaza, so he set the cameras to different ones.

Back in his room he made a pile of pillows and got comfortable. He had several new books in his compact computer and time this evening to enjoy them.

A firm knock on the door interrupted his immersion in the book. “House, unlock,” he called and then realized it wouldn’t do that here, like at home. It was a plain mechanical deadbolt on top. “Coming,” he corrected and sat the computer aside on the bed.

The pair in the hall were mid-thirties, in nice, but off the rack suits and the shoes screamed they were cops.

“Hmm, not local, not military,” he checked out the haircut and ties. “You boys gotta be Feds - probably FBI. Why don’t ya come in and make yourselves at home?”

“Thank you,” the man seemed indifferent to his analysis. “You are correct. I’m Special Agent Pilato and this is agent Harriman.” He offered ID and Otis made the gesture of really looking at it, since it seemed expected.

“We’d like to ask you a few questions. Do you have any objection?”

“No, not as long as you answer one of mine first. Am I a suspect in some criminal act? If so I’m afraid I’d have to lawyer up on general principles. If you have questions about third parties I have no problem talking to you.”

“Would you mind me seeing what you were reading when we came in?”

“You’re welcome to look at the item displayed. If you want to do a general search of my computer or phone I’ll have to ask you to get a warrant. The comp has all sorts of private information about Security Associates and my boss would have my head if I just casually handed it over.”

The Special Agent nodded an acknowledgement and picked it up. Otis expected him to toss it back down after a few sentences, but he obviously read it all the way to the page end.

“This is damn good stuff. Who’s the author?” he asked.

“Michael Z. Williamson, the novel is ‘Better to Beg Forgiveness’.”

The lesser agent looked uncomfortable at this chatty exchange. Unlike the older agent, he’d looked pissed ever since Otis had ID’d them as Feebs.

“Do you know why we came to speak with you?” he asked, probably out of turn.

“Oh sure, President Wiggen is in town and I just flew all the way across the continent to be in the same city. I’m a shooter, an actual competent one. So that scares you guys. Hell of a shame the government needs to train people like me, it makes your job harder, but no way around it unless they go to all mercenaries instead of a citizen army.”

“Leaving aside the political tones of that you are correct. Can you tell us why you are in town and when you expect to leave?”

“I’m here to sign a contract with Yani Cinema for security services. I work for Security Associates out of Atlanta and we signed the papers up this afternoon. My local man Keith anderson drove me over there and dropped me off after. You can check with the studio people that I was there too. I might mention this was all arranged and we made reservations, before it was ever announced President Wiggen would be in town. If I’d known I’d have re-scheduled it for another week.”

“Why’s that?” the Special Agent reasserted himself.

“Because I don’t like to fly back at night, but if I try to fly out in the morning I can get caught in all the jammed up traffic and flight delays from President Wiggen being in town. No telling if she’ll leave early or late and I could get stuck sitting in the plane for five or six hours waiting to take off. We moved my flight up to tomorrow, so all that will be sorted out before I board.”

“And do you feel resentment over that, Mr. anderson?” the under agent asked.

“Don’t be a horse’s ass.” Otis told the younger man. “Of course I resent it. I won’t play this childish game of any hint of dissatisfaction being the same as disloyalty. I served with officers who needed help to tie their shoes in the morning. I did my job and ignored what I couldn’t fix. I swore an oath to protect the United States and its constitution. That didn’t end just because I’m no longer active duty. I don’t know Wiggen, but I’d do anything to protect her, or any other serving President, even if she irritates me. Shit, just about everybody irritates me. You sure as hell do. It’s almost my frigging hobby. I think your computer will tell you I mean all that.”

“With a probability of 97%,” the senior agent agreed. “Nevertheless, I need to follow procedures and ask if we can look around the room and your vehicle.”

“I don’t have a car. That’s why my local man drove me here and back. I hate rental cars and dealing with them. Feel free to look around. If I make you too nervous here, you can always move me out by the airport and upgrade me to a nicer room. I wouldn’t argue with you at all.”

“I doubt my supervisor would buy that. We don’t usually get put up in anything this nice when we travel.”

Otis recovered his computer and sat in a chair by the table. Putting his feet up on the other chair. The agents checked under the mattress and in the drawers, It was interesting that one grabbed all the tissues in the bathroom dispenser and checked behind them, as well as in the toilet tank. They looked at the Gideon bible, but just a cursory glance, they didn’t fan the pages thoroughly. They’re just going through the motions to cover their butts, Otis decided. They didn’t check the backs of the curtains or take the grill off the bathroom exhaust fan.

*

If he were doing these interviews, Otis would leave an underling in place to observe each person interviewed after the agents left. Any precipitous flight or flurry of communications would be a tip off that something was awry. So he leaned back and relaxed to enjoy his book. If they had anything concrete on him he’d be in an interrogation room being sweated, especially anything from the airport.

Otis believed they really were just scrutinizing anyone with military service who suddenly decided to rush to the same town President Wiggen was visiting. There were always a lot of know mental cases and political extremists to check out too. Probably local cops would be running most of those down. They should have his letter by now, but he didn’t expect that to be taken seriously, or to affect their routines until it was validated in the morning.

Chapter 7

“We have a new client coming to talk about banking with us tomorrow. I think you will want to be there,” Jeff told April. “A Mr. Santos, I believe,” he said casually.

“Papa-san!” April said, face lighting up. “Is his wife with him? Any of his cloud of minions? He came in last week with the lieutenants and he hasn’t listed himself on station com and I haven’t heard from him. I was starting to wonder if he went back off station,” she admitted.

“I believe you are correct. He and his wife had some business with Jan over at ISSII. However he came back and has rented some industrial cubic. He had a private shuttle flight come in and closed the dock off to public access and view for a few hours while he unloaded it. In fact, he may have been your lieutenants’ first security customer, if I’m not mistaken.”

“I knew that. I should have realized that meant no minions. His household had all sorts of interesting people,” she said, remembering her trip down to Earth.

“Well, you can ask him about that, if you come,” Jeff suggested.

“Of course I want to see them, they are dear friends.”

“That’s excellent certainly, but don’t forget I want you to see them officially, as an officer of the bank. Is 1500 at Heather’s OK with you?” he asked, standing up.

“1500 is fine. Is there anything Gunny shouldn’t hear? I would expect to have him along, if that’s OK.”

“Sure, why isn’t he with you this morning?”

April looked embarrassed. “I was afraid we might argue more than I wanted him to see. I was pretty hot about the whole royalty thing.”

She never did get around to telling them about her cubic.

Gunny was there when she got home. She didn’t recount her conversation about titles and such, but when she told him about Santos he perked up.

“I’d like you along,” she said plainly, before he thought it was another private conference. They spent most of the remainder of the day in personable silence. April was happy he wasn’t mindlessly chatty. On the other hand when he did have something to say she listened up, because she was finding his experience and maturity a valuable asset. Quite different than say, her grandpa, but still valuable in a different way.

April went to bed in her old room. She realized she wouldn’t be doing this much longer. It made her feel funny. It might not even be here soon, unless her mom kept it as a guest room. Her mom might decide to tear it out and blend the cubic back into the common volume, like she was going to do with her April’s brother Bob’s old room. If she had no morbid nostalgia for that room, she had even less reason to preserve April’s.

In the morning she was still thinking about it. “Gunny,” she said on the way to breakfast, “I may get that cubic fixed up and move into it before your month contract runs out. It isn’t as big as my folks’ place and I can’t see splitting it into two bedrooms each with a tiny bath. Especially not for such a short period of time. Would it bother you for a week or so, to share a bath with me? I just might leave that ugly little bath in there until you are gone.”

“That wouldn’t bother me, but where would I sleep?”

“I thought I’d get a sofa bed,” she explained. “IKEA has a line that is engineered super-lightweight to ship to remote areas. For a fee they package it even lighter for orbital freight than just air freight. They are a lot more comfortable than the old steel spring and frame sofa beds and don’t forget it’s on the half G level, so it’s a lot more comfortable on just about anything.”

“I can see that working, but I need a little privacy. I don’t want to try to dress in a tiny little wet closet bath. If we do that I want some kind of curtain or screen that goes around the corner where this sofa bed goes. I’m not prissy, but I don’t want to dress and undress in front of you.”

“That would be easy to do. I can do a curtain on a ceiling track and it would be nice later, if I have overnight guests who’d appreciate a little privacy too.”

“Is your bath in your room the same as the one in your brother Bob’s?”

“Yes it is. I imagine it feels like a coffin to you?”

“Not as bad as you might think. I’ve used some mighty cramped lavatories on military planes,” he explained. “But you might consider installing two of those. I’d rather somebody else exposed you to all the realities of living with a man. and if I use the shower I’ll need to walk there and back to my curtain with at most a towel around me. You may not care for a hairy old man walking about like that and I’m not sure it is a healthy thing, with which I’d be comfortable, for our personal or business relationship.”

“I was planning on a little bigger bath for my place, one that actually has a separate space instead of the shower head in the same enclosure as the toilet. I got kind of spoiled on Earth. It will take up about two and a half square meters, instead of one and a half, I think.”

“Big enough to have a bench to sit and get dressed?” Gunny asked.

“No, although I could look at that. How about if I had my bath and one like you have right now? With the entry cut off by your privacy screen?”

“That’s four square meters tied up in baths. Do you want to be stuck with that even after I’m gone?” he asked dubiously.

“Yes, actually I think I would. If I have dinner guests they can use the other bath instead of sending them into my private bath. Then I can put my entry in my bedroom just like I have it now, which I didn’t want to do with one bathroom, because I’d need to send people through my private space in my bedroom.”

“I think I have a better idea. Have two baths but share a common shower stall. Have a frosted glass door on each side and a solid sliding door that is opaque and sound absorbing to cover the shower entry if you want to use your side. When the solid door is shut it locks the glass door too giving you total privacy.”

“That’s brilliant,” she admitted. “With interlocks so only one side at a time will open. I’ll describe it to Jeff and have him detail the design.”

Chapter 8

Otis had set no wake up call for the morning. He’d gone to bed early and knew his internal clock was still on Atlanta time and he’d be up early whether he wanted to be or not. He took a dip in the hotel pool when he woke at dawn and packed his few things up for the late afternoon flight. The reports he’d requested on Polzinsky and the Home native were in his e-mail and he set it to unencrypt them.

He wished to be in a public place and visible in a way that could be verified this morning, so Otis left the bag in his room ready to leave and asked the desk for a limo to be scheduled for him to go to the airport at two in the afternoon. The reservation made perfect sense, the FBI might check details like that. The fact that he had scheduled the ride so early would speak well of his intentions. Then he went to the hotel restaurant and ordered an extensive breakfast.

The television over the bar was visible from his table. He didn’t have to ask it be changed to a channel covering the President’s visit. That was good, he didn’t want to demonstrate an interest. There were already talking heads going over the events of the day and waiting for her to show. The camera briefly showed a hallway that looked industrial, with a bare concrete floor. It ended at the inside of a double steel door, with a foursome of Marine guards posted.

Otis pulled his web cam up on one of his cell phones and compared the outside of the door he was monitoring. It certainly looked the right size and style. He was pretty confident it was the only doorway she could be using, unless he’d made a huge mistake. He zoomed the outside camera in as tight as it would go until the door appeared a mere ten meters away.

He placed that phone face down in his attaché case. The camera behind him looked out over his table and the camera at the other end of the room had its view blocked by the upright side of his case. He put it face down just for his waiter. The other cell he primed with the number of the window breaching charge in the room with the rifle. He put it back in his pocket with exaggerated care, like a grenade with the pin pulled. A touch of the send button would wreck the entire scam if not sent at exactly the correct time.

While the kitchen processed his order he prepared a FedEx envelope addressed to Keith. There was a drop box in the lobby he could use. He dropped an encrypted e-mail on him at his office suggesting he would receive two phones and it would be in everyone’s interest for them to be totally destroyed. By the time Keith got them he’d figure out what they were involved with and be very happy to comply.

Looking at the opened e-mails the identity of the gentleman arrested on the aircraft seemed dubious. The only thing that made Otis believe they had the right man, was several reports of an assassin with similar Polish names. He suspected they were all the same person.

Over his breakfast he read the file on the man from Home. The fellow appeared to be off Earth right now. That made framing him for the assassination difficult. How would he do it if he were setting up the operation? The best way would be for someone to lift to orbit on commercial transport using the ID. But they had given him the alien’s card to leave in the room with the rifle.

If they intended to lay it at the fellow’s feet they had to either have some credible story of this person taking a shuttle up, or they needed to trap the gunman in the room with the ID on him.

Neither made total sense to him. Of course it was a part of the surrender terms that nobody was supposed to be hindered from lifting to Home. Otis didn’t for a moment believe the USNA would honor that, if they could get away with detaining somebody secretly. But if they intended to allow it to happen today, then there was probably some sort of directive to honor the agreement that would be fresh and in effect for one day only and they could ‘correct’ or ‘clarify’ it tomorrow. Indeed the idea might be to use the assassination to destroy the free travel agreement too. Today might be the ideal time to make his getaway. Tomorrow might well be much more difficult. The fellow was on the small side for Otis to impersonate, but if he did he should get a buzz cut before trying.

It would be hard to throw away his books and clothing in his apartment. The few back at his hotel room didn’t matter at all. His legal records and business papers too, although he had electronic copies of those. He had a few weapons of which he was fond, but no family heirlooms. The State of New Jersey had confiscated those from his grandfather before he could inherit them.

It would be hard to just walk away, but this might well be the very best opportunity. Maybe the last. People did after all lose everything in war, or even just from a fire and got on with their life just fine. How much would most of those things mean to a new life off Earth anyway? How many people had the chance to leave the United States of North America with the cash he had sitting in numbered accounts right now? Last he’d heard they were limiting what you could take out of the country physically to a dollar shy of Ten-Thousand. Absence from the country for over a year without government sanction was prima facie evidence of having renounced your citizenship by your actions and triggered fines they took from any accounts you left behind.

Otis called the Swiss bank and got the same fellow with who he’d worked before. He informed him to expect another deposit today and gave instructions for how it should immediately be dispersed and added a Home bank as a destination. There were only three banks listed in their directory. If none of it came in he’d not be embarrassed. After all deals fall through, payments get cancelled. But if it did go in it would be protected without him rushing to do it manually. He’d not want to be making foreign calls, or might be too busy running.

What was going to happen when the window breaching charge went off? He’d thought about that yesterday, but he envisioned agents rushing to seal off the room with the shattered window. Now, when he examined the idea again, he had an uneasy feeling the entire building would be sealed off. He and every other person in the building, could be held for seventy two hours. That would mess up his plans to leave Earth. He weighed the odds and changed plans. The talking heads on the TV above the bar speculated the President should arrive in the next ten or fifteen minutes.

Otis never had trouble being decisive, it was a strength really. He laid money on the table, closed his case and walked out of the restaurant heading for the lobby doors. His computer and his attaché were all that mattered. A bag with a few clothes and toiletries in his room was nothing. The spacer ID in the lamp might never be found. The hidden key card he hated to leave, somebody might misuse it, but he had bigger concerns. He killed the camera feed on the one cell and got Keith online.

“Keith, Otis here. I need a ride. I’ll be at the Pacific Pancake House west of my hotel. Come yourself if you can get away, or send a driver, but I need the ride as soon as possible. Bring a pair of hair clippers and drive the van, so I can use the dash outlet. I can’t talk right now,” he told him and he set the phone back to the web cam.

A brisk walk let him beat Keith to the Pancake House and get seated. It was getting past peak for breakfast. They were bussing tables faster than seating new arrivals and it was clearing out. He asked for a booth with a view of the door so he could watch for a business associate.

It was the sort of restaurant that catered to families, so there was a flat screen TV set in the wall for each booth that took dollar coins. After ordering an omelet and a pot of coffee he fed it coins and got a news channel. The talking heads were different than those he was watching at the hotel. When they cut away to a view of the doors where the President should appear it was a different angle. None of that mattered to him.

His server dropped off a carafe of coffee and went away. On the TV they went back to the doors and kept the camera pointed there. On his web cam a procession of heavy vehicles turned off the road and actually drove over the grass right up to the loading dock and rear entry of the building. Two of the Marines inside came out and they propped one of the double doors open all the way against the rail on the landing outside. On TV the bright rectangle of the doorway was just a glare from inside. You couldn’t make any detail out through the contrast.

In the view from his cam the agents formed a corridor. Some faced outward, some clustered around the President as she was walked the three meters from the vehicle to the concrete stairs that climbed to almost the floor level of the building. It was six steps up to a square concrete pad about three meters on a side with a steel rail all around and a slight threshold up into the hall.

An agent on each side climbed the stairs with the President. They refrained from touching her and she didn’t move to take either’s arm, but they kept her from using the hand rail on either side by their presence.

When Otis saw her blond head appear, set lower between the two agents as she neared the top, he reached in his pocket and hit the send bar on the phone. The crack of the window breaching charge came clearly over the TV.

The unexpected report made the President miss her last step to the top level. Her dress shoe caught the edge but slid on the steel edging pitching her forward. Both agents grabbed at where she’d been, but she was scrambling to catch her balance, past recovery, arms wind-milling.

Three very fast steps carried her forward, losing ground each step until she hit the slight threshold that fully tripped her. She hit inside flat on her face on the concrete, breaking her nose. The blood that squirted in a double gush down both sides of her white jacket looked far worse than the actual injury.

When the back of the President’s head dropped from view on his web cam Otis turned it over and shifted his view to the TV. President Wiggen appeared through the door with both arms thrown back and high, like she’d been struck with great force from behind. When she landed on the floor she slid forward about three feet before she rolled over on her back. The bright blood on her front looked horrible and before any more could be seen a jacket was thrown over her and a hand appeared to cover the camera lens.

Nothing more being visible on the TV, Otis checked the cell again. Almost everyone outside had a weapon in their hands now. An agent at the base of the short stairs outside had both hands in a sports bag at his feet. When he straightened up he had a squat cylinder over his shoulder and turned to the left. Before Otis could pan the camera back a swirl of dust and the smoke of an expelling charge announced he’d launched a mini-missile at the window, where the hole in the glass would be obvious to the world.

The TV was still black with the camera lens covered, but apparently it was still transmitting, because there was a hash of raw noise from the blank screen announcing the missile detonation. Barely on the heels of the TV a deep thud shook the restaurant windows, even though it was a full city block from the hotel.

Otis switched to the other web cam he hadn’t zoomed in. Across the street thick black smoke poured out of an open rectangle in the side of the hotel. The missile had blown out the flimsy outer wall and windows and the glow from within said the room was gutted by the thermobaric round, right out to the concrete walls. Otis shut down the phone and pocketed it.

Chapter 9

April hugged Papa-san and Mother as soon as she stepped in Heather’s place for their meeting. She saw Sylvia wasn’t there. It was a kindness to allow them to use her home for such an important meeting. Sylvia’s had at least twice the floor area of her new place. Even though she was determined not to clutter her new place up, she doubted all of them would fit there without it seeming crowded. They had Jeff, Heather, herself and Gunny, the Santos and apparently the ex-lieutenant Eric Brockman was a guard for them just like she had Gunny. That made a mob on Home and Sylvia’s was one of the few homes she knew that could seat that many without dragging out the folding chairs.

The place was impressive from the moment you stepped in. The entry was an L-shaped lock and the panel facing the outer door was a thick one piece glass slab backlit by the living area. It was deeply carved and subtly tinted with a fabulously detailed swamp scene. A life size Great Blue Heron shared the cat tails and lily pads with frogs and fish, dragon flies and blackbirds. Calling it museum quality was no exaggeration, because Heather’s mother had art in museums and lesser galleries, as well as the palaces of Arab princes and penthouses of successful executives.

Heather offered drinks just as smoothly as her mother would have, April thought. She also had pretty little finger food trays on the low table April liked so. The stone slab that was its top had a wealth of fossil sea shells oriented all different ways. Papa-san set his drink down just a tad harder than necessary and laid his hand on the table. Between the sound and how it drew the warmth out of his hand he knew it was real stone. April could guess he was calculating what something like that cost to lift to orbit.

The table and leather sofas on each side were arranged on a huge oriental rug which defined the living room, without breaking the space up with screens or stub walls. The wall coverings mirrored and defined the area similarly.

The gracious touch was mixed with hard practicality. Along the area with a lower overhead was a hydroponic garden and no effort was taken to hide it behind an opaque curtain. Instead natural sunlight came through the translucent curtain from a long viewport for a few minutes on and off as the habitat rotated. When the natural light faded the area didn’t go dark as a sensor ramped up grow lights wired above each plant carefully.

“Do I understand correctly this is your home, Miss anderson?” Mama-san asked.

“It is, but I live in my Mother’s household,” she explained. “She is visiting on the French habitat Le Navet right now. An old friend happened to lift for it and she took the opportunity to visit with him after hours, when his business is concluded.” April suspected who that would be, but refused to ask what might be taken as gossip until she had Heather in private.

“Surely they didn’t name their space station The Turnip?” Santos objected.

“No it has a long bureaucratic name that includes the agency and names the French state, in a title that takes half a minute to recite. That’s just what everybody called it for the shape.”

“I find this very gracious,” Mama-san decided. “I have not seen much beyond our hotel rooms, so I was getting perhaps an unfavorable impression. “I can see now there is much you can do with private spaces.”

“My working spaces are very cramped and utilitarian,” Jeff explained. “Not to mention scattered about. I have rented cubic beside my tiny apartment that you might say is my drafting space, as well as working at Dave’s our spaceship fabricator and in a zero-G cubic April’s grandfather loans me.”

“Do you have dedicated cubic for the bank then?” Papa-san asked.

“The bank exists basically in one laptop computer and as secure storage and back-up on ISSII and the Moon. Perhaps you have seen the very elaborate offices of The Private Bank of Home, on the corridor just around spin from the cafeteria? If I had built that fancy an office, even in rented cubic, we would be running a deficit instead of a profit. I don’t see us having dedicated cubic for the foreseeable future,” he admitted. “When the time comes to expand my offices for design work and other things, I will still conduct the bank’s business from there or from private places like this,” he said, indicating the apartment with a wave.

“But what shall you do for secure storage? What if your customers want a safe deposit box, or want to deposit hard assets to their account?”

“In that case we’d hold them temporarily at the Private Bank vault, but transport those things to the lunar surface at Central on the Moon. We have a tunnel boring machine and expect to expand that capacity very quickly. It is our intent to take the important parts of our lunar site below the surface. The critical parts really deep. Kilometers deep.”

Chapter 10

“OK, take our bags to the car,” Pretty Boy ordered Loyal Minion after they watched the same scene on TV as Otis. “I’ll pay ‘Mr. Duggan’ and we’ll be headed south from here. Then we’ll head east from near San Diego. We have a long drive so use the bathroom if you need to and get us a couple bottles of water from the vending machine.” This was the first he’d told the underling what they would do after the assassination.

“Don’t you think you should wait for confirmation she’s dead?” Loyal Minion asked. The look he got back was not friendly. Pretty Boy didn’t appreciate his sudden assertiveness.

“Just asking,” he said defensively. “Crap, It’s not my money,” he reasoned further, holding his palms up in a pacifying gesture.

“You saw her literally propelled through the door by the shot. She was hit badly enough to blow blood right out of her nose so it had to be a chest wound. I don’t care if they had the operating table sitting right there to just lift her on to it. A .416 will make such a mess from any abdominal hit she’s a goner. Do you want that snake looking at his bank account in a few minutes and thinking we shorted him?”

“No way! That guy scared the crap out of me. That’s one stone cold killer.”

“Well, the possibility occurs to me our bosses might decide to save a big chunk of change by removing the funds now that the job is done. I’d like to finish this up before they can think on that too long and decide to do it,” he explained as he worked the keys. “Because guess who our Mr. Duggan would blame if he gets stiffed?”

“There,” he said, hitting a final key. “It’s a lot of money. I even thought about trying to steal it myself, but not after seeing ‘Mr. Duggan’ in the flesh. That sucker was so cold he was yawning, bored, the day before popping the President.”

“You don’t think the protective detail nailed his ass right there in the hotel room?”

“I won’t bet my sweet little butt on it. He had maybe ten seconds to get out of the room. You could do it in five or six if you moved. I wouldn’t be surprised if that guy beats us to being on the road, headed out of town.”

Chapter 11

Otis wasn’t quite that far ahead. His server brought his omelet and related, all upset, that something apparently happened to the President just down the street. Otis nodded gravely and agreed what he’d seen on the booth TV looked bad. He took a few bites just for appearance sake and left a good tip. Keith’s van was pulling in the parking lot, so he paid his bill on the way out and hurried to meet him before he came in.

He deleted the memories of both cellphones when he got in the van, removed the batteries and chips, before he directed Keith to stop and threw them and the unused envelope in separate trash receptacles.

With both phones gone he directed Keith to the airport. His computer chimed and he opened it. The e-mail was the automated response he’d requested from the Swiss bank. As he watched the amount in the account ran down in steps to just a couple thousand EuroMarks, as the bank followed his instructions. He closed the computer deeply satisfied.

He leaned over and used the clippers he’d requested, first with a number two and then a number one comb. He brushed both head and pants legs thoroughly to leave any loose hair on the floor and looked in the mirror. Damn, he looked like a recruit, but that was how spacers wore it.

When the number of emergency vehicles going the other way got to be too many to ignore Keith turned the radio on. They still were not clear if Wiggen had been hurt or not. There was no clear public announcement and the commentators sounded gravely concerned.

When they neared the airport the turnoff to the domestic terminal and local air services was blocked off by local police cars with flashing lights. A flashing arrow told you to move over and two officers with bright traffic batons urged everyone to pass the sealed off lanes and keep moving. As he hoped when they continued down the loop road, the ramps for air freight and the international/space terminal was still open.

“You don’t seem very worried about Wiggen,” Keith suggested, not commenting on the buzz cut at all.

“I’m not. Somebody tried something, but those boys on her detail are sharp. I mean we have some good men and we have considerable assets. But those guys play the game at a whole different level. I have every confidence that she’s OK. It’s just smart of them not to rush to say so. People who can arrange an attempt on the President’s life might very well have the means to set it up in depth. A premature announcement she is OK might trigger a back-up attempt, just waiting in the wings.”

“You seem to have given it a great deal of thought.”

“You bet. I game things out in my head all the time, just like I’d do if we were asked to handle them. We can both be glad we don’t have to provide Presidential security. Eventually somebody gets through no matter how good you are. Then there’s no excuse good enough. That’s why the Navy is handling her security detail now, when the Secret Service dropped the ball with President Hughes, there was no way they’d just get told to try harder next time. When they fail the whole agency is going to be replaced. The Secret Service is doing well just to have escaped being disbanded, at least that wasn’t their whole mission, they still have counterfeiting and stuff. and you better believe the Navy knows how bad it will damage them if they fail. Lots of other very bright fellows didn’t want to be tasked with Presidential protection, when they were looking to stick somebody with it.”

“You figure they use outside contractors?”

“Well, sure, but you best believe they’d keep that under real tight wraps.” When Keith didn’t say anything Otis looked over at him again. “Real tight,” he repeated.

“Got ya,” Keith acknowledged. “I’ve forgotten I asked already.”

Chapter 12

“Tell me in a general way what you expect your bank to do and what sort of philosophy it is directed by and what sort of business it intends to underwrite,” Papa-san asked.

Jeff went on for a long time. To the point April was getting overwhelmed. But she watched Papa-sans face and paid closest attention to which points interested him. Speaking of being late in the economic cycle and favoring capital preservation didn’t surprise him. Papa-san just nodded agreement and let Jeff go on. That was no surprise to her either.

Her attention was drifting, but when Jeff said, “As April pointed out when we were discussing the first Global Depression,” she came back aware and listening instantly. She just hoped it wasn’t a lead in to a joke, but when he finished the thought Papa-san just nodded agreement, she saw with relief.

When Jeff talked about low leverage and reserves, Papa-san slid forward on the edge of his seat and they lost her in very little time. It took them two hours and speaking a utterly foreign language at times, before Papa-san was satisfied. Heather suggested they would need a break and a meal soon, so she offered to prepare supper and feed all of them.

She looked at April like she expected her to volunteer to help. April knew her kitchen, but had no desire to miss a single word of this conversation, even if it veered outside her grasp occasionally.

“April is also an officer of the bank,” Mama-san pointed out. “I think you should have at least two of your board at this talk. I am a little lost to parts of this, but I am very competent in a kitchen. Would you do me the honor of allowing me to help? I realize that one’s kitchen is a private matter, but I offer it with every respect.”

“I’d be delighted to have you,” Heather agreed. April knew her voice and face and she meant it, which was a great relief to April. When you have valued friends meet there is always the worry they won’t hit it off.

“Thank you,” Jeff piped up, “because I have had April doing economic research for me and I’d like her to hear this.”

Yeah, right, April thought and worked at keeping a straight face.

“My little brother Barak will be coming home soon and joining us for supper,” Heather told Mama-san,” he makes a good scullery maid and can give us a hand.”

“Barak taught me to make pancakes,” April said, defending him automatically. “I fear he’s still a better cook than I am.”

“And he has a sweet crush on April,” Heather added. “He isn’t shy to say so.”

“Then he is a young man of taste,” Papa-san declared. “with Life Extension Therapy I think we are going to see that such minor age differences don’t mean much anymore.”

That was a very interesting idea. April had never considered it from that perspective before. Barak was smart and fun and could cook, give him six years to mature a bit and he might be very interesting indeed.

Chapter 13

The airport had a well stocked wireless toy shop and he got the most expensive set of wrap-around spex they had, with all the memory it would hold. They were de rigeur for spacers. He transferred everything from his computer using a different encryption scheme. He also bought the loudest bright Aloha shirt he could find and changed into it in the men’s room. Nobody in their right mind would wear such a thing if they had any reason not to call attention to themselves.

A kiosk was better than dealing with a live agent and he bought a lift ticket direct for Home in thirty-five minutes. There was another in twenty minutes for New Las Vegas, but he could save fifteen minutes at this end and get arrested in USNA territory waiting for the Home shuttle at the other end.

He used his Safety Associates card because it was a numbered card requiring no ID. It was unrevokable, so people accepted it with just a number on the face. He’d simply have to pay John back when he informed him he was quitting. He had enough to pay cash, but that too raised a huge signal now that would get him scrutinized.

He killed time until near boarding and then assumed the correct body language, hands held a bit away from his body, very light on his feet like a dancer with his weight forward and a face masked with utter arrogance.

“ID,” demanded the security agent at the gate.

“I’m going to Home. That is not subject to question or restriction.”

“What ID do you have, sir?” the man asked. He made ‘sir’ sound like an insult.

“I have no need of ID,” Otis assured him. “Free people have no need of ID to travel, except in so-called free Earth countries.”

“Did you destroy your USNA identification already?” the man asked grinding his teeth.

“Not everybody on Home was a Norte Americano,” Otis assured him. “I was a citizen of the Principality of Monaco,” he informed him. “A relatively enlightened Earth government, but one with which the question of dual citizenship has not been settled, so I don’t carry or use their passport until we get a proper ruling on the matter.”

When the man looked like he was going to speak again Otis held a restraining finger up and looked in the upper right corner of his spex and then quickly in the left upper corner.

“I’d appreciate it if you gave me your undivided attention and didn’t entertain calls while I’m speaking to you,” the man said angrily.

“I’m not taking a call,” Otis bluffed him. “I logged onto HomeNet, because I don’t care for your attitude,” he growled, “You people know better than to impede travel to Home. I want my friends to know if you break our treaty by refusing to let me board. I can’t stop your nation from arresting me, but I can see to it they get reprisals, like China just experienced.”

“You people are fanatics,” the agent accused him, but he waved him through the gate and there was a visible sheen of sweat beading the man’s forehead. He had heard about China then.

Otis made a point of lingering a heartbeat to look at the man like examining a particularly disgusting garden slug. Not hurrying to move on in relief at the man’s wave. He let his mind have free reign and thought several truly evil thoughts about exactly how the agent should die.

If the biometric sensors read anything off him, he wanted it to be rage and not fear. Then he went up the tunnel unhurried, haughty as the King of the World. When he finally made his seat he ran out of adrenaline. His knees were shaking so bad he was amazed he’d made it this far. He belted himself in with quivery hands and leaned back, a look of irritation still painted on his face to cover the turmoil.

He kept his eyes closed all the way through the roll out and climb on the carrier jet. Even when it separated and they made the shaky transition to hypersonic flight, he was aware they could still abort. When the orbital started its final burn however he finally relaxed. He was free and relatively well to do, even by Home standards and had a whole new life in front of him.

Chapter 14

Headed south out of LA, State Highway Patrolman Jesus Rodriguez listened to the radio chatter about the situation unfolding around the President. Traffic was flowing nicely about four over the limit, the most the public auto setting would accept without scolding them. At ten over it refused the command unless they declared an emergency. He eased his cruiser along just a little bit faster, looking each car over as he passed. Quite a few people were uncomfortable under his gaze.

Not a few adjusted their settings guiltily and eased off back to the speed limit as he passed. It tended to slow traffic a bit, but not as badly as actually stopping someone. Then far too many stupidly kicked it off auto approaching his lights, as if the computers didn’t see a traffic stop far ahead of them and adjust. The public safety spots always told them not to, but it never convinced all of them, especially the older drivers. That always slowed things down well below the limit.

He passed a car with three kids in the back seat. Kids were easy to read. These were belted in properly and you could tell from their open faces nothing bad was going down in the car. Their dad was not as easy to read. Who knows, maybe he had a history with the police. Not a few had grudges and sometimes they were reasonable grudges, Officer Rodriguez knew.

He passed a junky car with two young Hispanics. The glare he got from them didn’t mean they were up to anything. Even though he was as Mexican looking as them, he saw that look on the face of a lot of immigrants, legal or otherwise. To them he was thick with La Migra, even if he didn’t wear the same uniform. Mexicans were free to travel anywhere in North America, in theory. You never knew though, they might be Hondurans or Sud Americanos.

The next car he passed was two white guys. They were closer to the speed limit than the ones behind or ahead. A gap was opening up in front of them as the traffic ahead eased away. The ones behind wouldn’t pass them while his cruiser was in sight. The passenger looked straight ahead, obviously aware of him, but refusing to look. The driver was sitting too straight, both hands on the wheel. He glanced at Jesus, trying to keep a neutral face, but his nostrils flared a little, giving his nervousness away. If Jesus had more probable cause than his expression, he’d pull that one over in a second. He was dirty about something Jesus was sure.

A half mile down the road his fax chattered and spat out a portrait of three men. The second he wasn’t sure of, but the first one looked to be the driver he’d just passed.

“Station nine, this is JR solo in cruiser 316, southbound on 5 just past Garden Grove. I have a possible match on the drawing we were just faxed. Light blue full sized Chevy with a California plate, but I didn’t save it. Driver is a possible match. There is a companion in the vehicle, but I can’t make him. I’m about a half mile forward and will maintain spacing. Do you have a unit that can come up from behind and see if they flush?”

“316, we have a county sheriff on the ramp working traffic about a mile behind. He will catch up and flip the lights on them. Be prepared to block.”

“Roger nine, thank them for the assist.”

He watched in the mirror. A dark brown cruiser came up fast from the rear. The computer opened up the lane in front of him and he looked like he would pass the target car. Then he slowed and fell back slightly, before pulling in behind and turning his flashers on. The car immediately went manual, pulled on the shoulder and put its emergency flashers on, slowing. He pulled off too. They were stopping so easily he’d probably have to back up a ways to be of any help to the sheriff.

*

In a suburb of DC in Virginia, a fellow in faultless battle camo sat watching the plot of a GPS tracker superimposed on a satellite view. His golden plus pin was in violation of regulations worn on a duty uniform. Nobody however was going to say anything about it to Col. Allister. They were all his handpicked men. Not a few of them wore the emblem in private gatherings too.

He was disappointed to see his men pulled over. He was looking forward to having quite a discussion with them when they returned. Too bad that wasn’t going to happen now. He typed in a code, swung open a safety cap off a switch and flipped it.

*

Jesus was backing up steadily on the paved shoulder, twisted around in his seat, looking out his rear window at the vehicle stopped in front of the sheriff’s car. He’d backed maybe half way to them when the car vanished in a white flash, that left purple blobbies floating before his eyes. He ran off in the dirt a little, running down a reflector on a steel post and got stopped before he backed over a mile marker. His rear window was crazed and there was an immediate pile up beside the explosion as cars swerved or were pushed aside by the blast. There were at least a dozen cars and one big truck piled up in the first two lanes and he saw another big truck go sideways further back as the ripple of collisions traveled back up the road.

“Nine we have an explosion of some kind. Repeat - the vehicle stopped by the sheriff has exploded. I can’t see what is happening at this time. The car pulled over was about a hundred meters behind me when it detonated. We have a chain reaction accident from the incident. It’s an ongoing accident. I can hear vehicles impacting still. I have vehicles on the shoulder between me and the sheriffs car now. Please dispatch multiple emergency vehicles and back-up for an officer likely down. It’s bad enough we may need a Life Flight. I will proceed back on foot to see if I can render aid to the sheriff.”

The line of cars that made it off on the shoulder were not in very bad shape. He could see in passing that some out in the second lane were crushed badly. There was no hazard to walk back on the shoulder. Just a dribble of cars on manual kept moving past the pile-up over on the inside lane. When he got back to the site of the explosion the crater extended half way into the first lane. There were only a few massive pieces of the vehicle left. He could see the engine block with the transmission still attached. On the embankment was what he thought were a couple wheels.

The Sheriff’s cruiser had the front windshield blown out. The hood was gone too, peeled back and blown away. Fortunately the deputy was wearing a full face helmet with a ballistic shield. That had become standard for pursuit runs, the helmet attached to the seat back almost like a race car driver’s. The man had followed correct procedure and put it on before coming down the ramp onto the expressway. His vest stopped most of the rest, but he had lots of small lacerations on his hands and forearms, nothing life threatening though. Simple concussion had apparently knocked him out. That could be a problem. He might still have brain damage or hearing loss if he wasn’t treated quickly.

The deputy stirred while Jesus was still calling a continuing report in on his hand-held and started screaming. He grabbed something off his lap and heaved it out the window like a live grenade. It seemed an unreasonable reaction, until Jesus looked closer at what he’d thrown. It was a very nice cowboy boot, with a foot still in it.

Chapter 15

The table sat them all without putting the center leaf in. Heather had pulled out all the stops and put on a linen table cloth, the good china and real silver. Heather stealthily dropped the lighting slightly too. If Papa-san wasn’t impressed his wife was, looking very happy.

The meal was beef shawarma, rich with baharat spice, ringed with grilled carrot and zucchini, Syrian rice, diced tomatoes and onions and slices of pickled turnips. A rose wine in a carafe was pretty and a large plate of hummus was formed in a ring with a pool of pistachio tinted olive oil in the center. Barak was working away to one side, grilling fresh pita and piling the little footballs in two baskets.

“We usually have Fattouch with this, but I ran out of time,” Heather apologized.

“I hardly think we’ll go hungry,” Papa-san appraised the table, eyes big.

“We do have dessert,” Barak assured them brightly.

“Are you going to stay on Home?” April asked. Hoping to steer talk away from business at the dinner table. Jeff would continue nonstop if you let him.

“Yes, we are going to be neighbors actually. We’ll be in the new ring,” he told them, making a sort of general wave of his hand towards the view ports. “Part of what we attempted this morning was encouraging the construction people to give priority to those who are already owners and waiting to move in.”

“I was speaking with a lady recently who brokers cubic. She didn’t hold out much hope for the construction to move along, what with the material shortages,” April said.

“No, even when you try to throw money at it, they just laugh and tell you it doesn’t make any difference,” he admitted. “I’m afraid we are resigned to staying in the Holiday Inn for about two months.”

“That seems a terrible waste of money. The Holiday Inn is expensive, way beyond how nice it is,” Heather told them. “We had a safe-house there for awhile and nobody was happy being cooped up in it for very long.”

April had to give Papa-san credit. He only twitched slightly when she said safe-house.

“You might even do better staying at New Las Vegas for awhile,” Jeff suggested. “They keep the rates down and offer incentives to keep folks in the casinos,” he explained.

“Unfortunately I’m not far enough along establishing my retirement that I’d be comfortable staying on a hab under total USNA control,” Papa-san admitted.

“Oh,” Jeff said, cluing up slightly.

“Gunny, I need to speak with you,” April said, getting up and walking back to the far end of the living area. He followed along without argument. “Would you be willing to stay in my brother’s old room for a while longer?”

“Sure, that’s easier than splitting a bath with you actually. I even wondered if I could just rent from your folks instead. I hardly ever see them after all and I have no need to eat there.”

“It never occurred to me to ask. I just figured if I was moving out my bodyguard would too. I’m thinking to rent out my place to the Santos until their cubic is ready. The bath there is ugly, but it’s functional. We can find enough second hand stuff to outfit the place temporarily. It saves them a ton of money and gains me a few points with them. I’m part of the reason they aren’t happily at home in Hawaii.”

“I agree, if we can do them a favor they are fine people to have owe you one, but will your mom mind us staying longer?”

“I had no move out date with my mom and we had no set arrangement for you past the end of the month. But I’d kind of like to keep that open too. Let me call her and ask.”

Gunny didn’t want to talk about his own employment as just a side issue. He kept quiet.

April got her mom directly instead of her voicemail and had a short earnest conversation. “She says we’re golden to stay as long as we want, both or either. She said you are polite, quiet and don’t leave a mess.”

“Good, let’s see what the Santos say.”

Everybody knew they were up to something and looked at them expectantly when they came back in.

“Papa-san, Mother, I have some cubic that is sitting empty. It has a bath, ugly, but clean and functional. If we found some furnishings to fill it temporarily, you are welcome to stay there until your property is ready.”

“What did you intend to do with it?” Mama-san asked. “I don’t want to interfere if you had other plans.”

“Not to mention any cubic has great value up here,” Papa-san added. “If you had a sale pending or other renters lined up, I don’t want to rob you of income.”

“I just bought it, closed on it two days ago. I hadn’t even told Heather and Jeff yet,” she hurried to add, because Heather was looking so surprised. “It’s been a long term goal to move out of my parents’ place, so I was going to remodel it and move into it. However, Gunny and I are still comfortable at my folks and I just confirmed with my mom we’re welcome to continue to stay there.”

“What is this place like?” Mama-san asked. “Compared to our hotel room, or to this cubic,” she said with a sweep of her hand.

“Way bigger than any hotel room. It’s on the same half G level as this apartment. About half as long, but just as wide like this with a tapered overhead. It’s about a third of the way against spin,” she said, pointing which way that was with her hand. “It has covers on two of the view ports right now, but I think you could probably see it from here.”

“Show us in the morning,” Papa-san suggested. “And find out what rent is normally for a place of that sort. I’d love to rent it, but insist on paying you a fair price. We inquired for a rental, but none were to be had, private or from Mitsubishi.”

“OK, meet you for breakfast at 0900,” April offered and got a nod.

“I can tell you what that sort of place rents for,” Barak offered. “It should go for ten-thousand dollars USNA a month, or a little bit more,” he said confidently.

“How would you know rents?” Heather asked, not so much doubting as surprised.

“People talk around kids and say stuff they won’t around other adults.”

“Yeah, I used to get a lot of good information that way,” April remembered.

“You still look young, but you convinced everybody to treat you like an adult,” Barak accused her, as if it were an error. “I’m going to milk it for all it’s worth.”

“That would indicate a capitalization of about three million,” Papa-san declared.

“Yeah, that’s about right,” April agreed.

“Does anyone want dessert?” Barak asked.

“I’m all talked out, tired,” Papa-san told them. “Let’s do that dessert and we’ll go off to our hotel room. We have more bank business to iron out, but let’s do it fresh, another day soon. What are you serving up?” he asked Barak.

“Rum cookies and ginger ice cream. Do you want coffee with that?”

The answer was yes – all around.

“This is as fine a cup of coffee as I’ve had,” Papa-san announced in a bit. “Certainly the equal of any we bought in the islands.”

“It’s a Kona-Jamaican blend,” Heather admitted.

“My newsreader pushed a priority call through,” Jeff announced, surprised, looking at his com. “Wow, somebody tried to shoot Wiggen this morning in L.A. and they have been sitting on the story hard until she was safely in the air. She was doing a factory opening show and tell and they tried to get her with a rifle going in the back door. They did a fake hospital run like she was hit hard and took her back to her plane instead. What a mess again,” he said. Gunny certainly agreed with that. He still identified with his old service and immediately wondered who was at her elbow and who drove her away. Somebody he’d helped train likely.

“Well at least we know where April is,” Barak noted. “They can’t blame it on her!”

April looked at him horrified, but everybody else cracked up.

*

“What is it?” President Wiggen asked. The chain was the flat smoothed out links of a curb chain, like jewelry but stainless steel. The plastic badge had a poor quality photo so average it might have been a computer composite. The head of her personal security, Wainwright, dangled it invitingly, but she refused to reach for it.

“This was rolled up and hidden in the stem of a floor lamp in the room our suspect occupied. There were also a master-pass and key card hidden in the room service folder. We believe the key was used to enter the room where the breaching charge broke the window.”

“Is that the room the shot came from?”

“President Wiggen, there was no shot.”

“Well there was one hell of a bang!”

“Yes and it was all from the window having a hole blown in it. It’s a very advanced technique to keep the bullet from acquiring a slight deflection piercing the glass. Frankly at two-hundred meters with a .416 it wouldn’t be necessary. But the weapon found in the room had a bullet lodged in the barrel. It was deliberately sabotaged, so if someone tried to use it there would be a nasty explosion and a burst barrel.”

“Perhaps it was intended for me, but it was a bad round and lodged in the barrel?”

“There was no empty brass cartridge in the chamber. Nor ejected in the room. There were two magazines of ten shots each in the case, not even inserted in the rifle. They were fully loaded with Hornady Match ammunition. If I had to bet between a round of Match ammo failing to ignite, or Air Force One failing to deliver you safely to your next stop, I’d bet on the Hornady round working every time,” he told her.

“Oh.”

“However that is not a factor, because the bullet was from an entirely different manufacturer. It was military/police ammo and far too common and widespread to track. That just affirms it was lodged there deliberately. There was also no hole or impact crater anywhere near where you were entering the rear of that building. and just to frost the cake, the computer which directs the advanced sight on the weapon had extractable memory. It was altered to make the weapon shoot wildly off target from the previous unrecoverable settings. Someone left the weapon there, only after making very sure it couldn’t be used to harm you.”

“So who was this man?”

“We are 99% sure this it was this fellow,” he produced a photo of Otis Dugan dressed as a Chief Warrant Officer. He had an impressive rack of citations on his chest, a big smile and he was holding an elaborate silver loving cup in the crook of one arm and a target in the other hand, with a group of holes that were all in the smallest circle.

“Just out of curiosity, how far away was he to shoot that target?”

“A thousand meters. That man didn’t miss you at two hundred meters.”

“So why him?” Wiggen asked, bewildered.

“Otis Dugan flew into LA on the same flight from Atlanta as this fellow,” he produced a photo of Polzinsky. “This fellow was deemed so dangerous he was not allowed off the same flight. We are still holding him in connection with a number of possible crimes under a half dozen names. He seems to have a fondness for Polish names though.”

“What does one have to do with the other? Was Dugan a back-up for Polzinsky?”

“This is what strains credulity,” the agent admitted. “It appears Dugan had to know of Polzinsky’s mission. At least three weeks ago, going by his reservations. He had a perfectly legitimate business appointment for the security company employing him, which he kept. However it also appears he was booked into the same hotel,” he said, lifting a dubious eyebrow. He did not believe in coincidences. Not at all.

“He met a limo and rode off with three men and a driver. He had made no arrangements for a rental car, or a pickup from his company for himself. We have video of him walking out of the terminal following a man who met him. A man who knew a null spot in the terminal video coverage. So if they exchanged tokens, or pass words, or signs, we will never know. But they accepted him.”

Wiggen looked at the photos. “They’re close but not that close,” she decided. “You might look at him and take him as the fellow’s younger brother.”

“And the spacer ID doesn’t fit anything. They’ve stopped using them, so why would he have one? Was it his pass to ID himself? Polzinsky didn’t have one on him. Why didn’t he destroy it? I can’t imagine any way the man would lift it off Polzinsky on the plane. It would be worth your life to try.”

“It seems like it would be worth your life to pass yourself off as a professional assassin to a bunch of crazed fanatics and ride off with them too.”

“Well yes, there’s that too.”

“So why didn’t we have people waiting to pick up the people meeting him?” Wiggen asked.

“We didn’t know anyone was meeting him. and if we had the situation was so thick with peril we wouldn’t have risked an agent to approach them like Dugan did. It would be suicidal unless we had the manpower there to surround and overwhelm an armed group. We’ve been stretched too thin for that sort of contingency with,” he grimaced, “other recent events.”

“So, whoever Dugan was working for had better intelligence than my own security?” she asked and managed not to sound accusing.

“That’s the size of it, no matter how much it hurts me to agree and stepped in and impersonated a world class assassin, made sure his plot could not be carried out and we strongly suspect faxed pix of the people who picked him up to the FBI, before the whole thing went down. I hate people doing my job for me. He was visited in his hotel room the night before by the FBI, who searched the room and found neither the spacer ID, nor the key-cards to the shooting. He brazened it out with them, gave them a hard time actually and read a book while they searched his room.”

“But you found the stuff later?”

“Yes, but in fairness it took a much higher level search. It took eight expert agents over an hour to find them both and they spent another three hours before quitting. We knew by then something had to be there, so not to give up.”

“What about the pictures he sent? Any leads on them?”

“We can’t tie him to the pix directly. The one fellow we still have no ID on him. The vehicle he was picked up with is either a duplicate vehicle, or a duplicate plate of a legitimate limo owned by a transportation company. It was provably in Sacramento all day. Two of the men in the art work were eventually pulled over by State Highway Patrol assisted by county sheriffs. When they pulled off on the shoulder the car blew up with injury to the deputy and damage to both patrol cars. The explosion was massive enough to crater the roadway and cause a pile up.”

“What about the security company you say he works for? Surely they had to be involved in this. They made all his reservations and chose him to be there at this time?”

“I agree, but I can’t make a thing stick to them. We interrogated them and the business in LA hiring them. It appears to be a perfectly legitimate business decision. We pressed it to the point they threatened a defamation suit, if we caused their new customer to withdraw. They insist Dugan made no special request to be assigned the California deal. What am I supposed to charge them with?” he asked, spreading his hands, “preventing your assassination?”

“Where is Mr. Dugan now? Is he in custody for questioning, or did you allow him to return to Atlanta?”

“That’s the kicker. He bought a lift ticket for Home with his company credit card. He was in the air before the slime balls blew up. His boss informs us, that being meticulously honest, he has already paid them back for using the card for personal expenses and apologized for quitting without notice. The owner said he’d hire the guy again in a New York minute and to hell with anybody who doesn’t like it.”

“Home just saved my bacon, didn’t they?” Wiggen asked. She didn’t say again.

“I can’t prove it, I can’t prove much of anything here,” he said frustrated, “but it sure looks like it. and it all tells me that Home militia has an effective and extensive intelligence network, likely with sleepers and support people in North America. If you’d asked me a week ago I’d have told you they didn’t have any intelligence assets in North America, maybe not even on Earth.”

“The militia? No, Jon has been Spox for them, but he wouldn’t lift a finger to save me. All the Home people ever involved with me, have revolved around April Lewis as a fixed point. That group is quite different than their militia.”

Wiggen paused and looked thoughtful. “How about the possibility he just stumbled into the situation and brazened his way through?”

“Please, don’t insult my intelligence. He’s a visual match and has the means to be accepted and then has every skill and device to systematically thwart their plot at hand? I supposed he just happened to want to emigrate anyway and grabbed the opportunity without a thought to abandoning all his possessions? He didn’t clear anything out of his Atlanta apartment. It’s beyond coincidence. That’s not all that has been happening,” he said and drew a deep breath. “Remember the former agent whose file you had pulled, Santos, who hosted Miss Lewis in Hawaii?”

“Yes, he was drowned in the Drake passage, wasn’t he? His yacht went down.”

“Well, he seems to have lifted for Home from the Canary Islands spaceport since his drowning, along with his wife and an agent the Chinese government seems to want very badly right now. On the same flight was a woman who also appears to be on our State Department detain and question list and several others we are trying to identify.”

“Do they run special bargain charters for defecting spies? Free champagne if you show your agency credentials?” she asked, incredulous.

“I know. If you wrote all these improbables up as a spy thriller, the editor would chuck it in the waste basket, as too farfetched and silly to ask readers to suspend disbelief. But tell me, who else right now wants you to remain in office more than Home? You’re the only one right now who isn’t hot to blow them out of the sky the first chance they get.”

“If any of this gets out, it will look like I’ve only survived by being protected by a foreign power,” Wiggen predicted. “My polls are bad enough, that would kill me and I have to deal with this lawsuit in the world court. I can’t afford to look weak to the voters in any of it.”

“Then if you can’t reach an accommodation with them to settle the suit, I’d recommend you move very aggressively to rein in the lunar colony. Bold action looks better, even if it isn’t the bold action you’d prefer,” Wainwright suggested.

“I’ve already put the executive, the surviving one, under arrest and issued orders to resolve most of the issues brought up by this legal action. It was a can of worms up there, I admit.”

“And are you getting independent confirmation those orders are being followed?” he asked pointedly. “They have a history of ignoring them, so I wouldn’t assume it is fixed.”

Wiggen looked funny at Mel, getting a slowly twisted smile. “I think you have a point there. I’ll try to settle, but if it can’t be done I’ll make sure the public sees me arrest them and that their actions were not what I wanted or ordered. I’ll appoint a special investigator today. One with enough power to get the job done. I wanted to say they wouldn’t dare, but they did dare.”

“People do understand, underlings don’t always do what you wish,” Wainwright asserted.

“You know, speaking of underlings doing the unexpected, the bodyguard I forced on Miss Lewis decided to accompany her back to Home.”

“You mean he agreed to emigrate?” he asked genuinely surprised. “Who did you send her? If you’d sent one of my active duty men, scheduled to your own guard roster, I’d have known about it.”

“She insisted on a single guard and wanted somebody older and asked for an expert shooter, somebody really good. So I sent her Master Sergeant Tindal, Gunny they called him.”

“You sent somebody to her who knows every detail of your personal security? Who trained my men and knows their strengths and weaknesses and helped write the very procedures and manuals they use?” he was clearly outraged.

“Why so upset Mel? Didn’t we just conclude they moved Heaven and Earth to keep me from being assassinated? She’ll hardly turn about and use him against me, right?”

“Of course not, but as you said your polls are looking poorly. In two years it may be my unpleasant duty to guard one of those Home hating politicians. What if she and the Master Sergeant aren’t as fond of the people’s choice then, as they are you now?”

“Oh.”

“I do believe I shall resign if you fail to win the election.”

“Mel, the opposition is talking criminal sanctions against my whole administration if they win. You may need to worry about running for your life instead of resignation letters.”

Chapter 16

“It isn’t much volume, can’t you fit another ten kilos on the manifest?” Jeff asked.

“I’m not going to play this game,” Ross told him, “it kills you. If you add ten kilograms, that becomes the new maximum gross lift weight. Then in a couple weeks you’ll want to add another couple kilograms. They never ask you to lift ten kilos lighter. It nibbles away at your margin for error, until one day you have what should be a minor problem and find yourself fifty meters off the landing pad and out of juice.”

“OK, what can we strip off the ship that is ten kilos and unimportant? I’m riding this thing too and want to live just as bad as you.”

“You designed it. Are you telling me you left ten kilos of dead weight on her somewhere, that doesn’t matter? When we repaired the Happy after it was shot up you redid all the braces and mounts to pull higher G. Run it like that to take advantage of the higher efficiency.”

“I don’t want to let anybody know we can do over nine G, unless we need to do so. Let’s keep that little secret in reserve. How about if we fly with a half load of missiles? We seem to be in a lull action wise.”

“How about if you ride with no p-suit?” Ross counter offered. “Since things are so peaceful you won’t miss it.”

“I won’t change the gross weight,” Jeff agreed. “We have a big load-out of fresh food. I’ll substitute some freeze dried this trip. We’re running a surplus of water anyway.”

“What is so important you’ll eat dried stuff to get it to the moon?”

“As pilot you have to know the manifest, but this is confidential. We have a client who is depositing metal with our bank and I’m reminting it. We want to spread it out for security. Some will go to other stations and some will be buried in the Moon. This load is four hundred new gold Solars. Twenty-five gram coins. It has to go next load because of client expectations. We just started doing business and it would look bad if we couldn’t do what we promised.”

“OK, give me a five percent hazard bonus, or you eat the dried crap.”

“No problem. I like the teriyaki chicken and the shrimp Alfredo.”

“Wait a minute. That’s ten kilos of coins. What were you going to do? Stuff them in your pockets?”

“Oh and a foam board box with plastic coin tubes. They are really light,” he asserted, caught out.

“A magic box and tubes that don’t mass anything?” Ross asked, grinding his teeth. “If it says ten kilos on the manifest, short the packaging mass, that is falsifying it.”

“I’ll make sure we’re under weight if I have to fast,” Jeff promised, seeing anything over zero was a lost cause to defend. “I have two days until we load out and leave. I can lose three or four kilograms if I exercise.”

*

“I had the carpet and walls cleaned. The sofa and love seat don’t match,” April said, frowning at them, “but they are clean and the cushions don’t slump. You have a decent wall screen and some extra Hardoy chairs if you have company. It really needs a low table in front of the sofa doesn’t it?”

“You fret too much,” Mama-san told April. “When we were newly married we slept the first half year on a camping mat, in a Tokyo apartment half this size. We sat on the floor around a shipping crate for a table. It wasn’t at a comfortable half G either.”

“If you want me to get my kitchen installed ahead of time so you guys can use it I’d be happy to do that.”

“We have the cafeteria and we’ll keep a few packs of self heating stuff here, for if we have an off day and don’t want to march to the cafeteria. If you have it installed you can bet something will need torn out again when you do the rest. It’s only for a couple months.”

“All right, you’re sure easygoing. It feels weird being a landlord before I ever had a real chance to be a homeowner.”

“You have your Hawaiian home,” Papa-san pointed out.

“But I never got to spend a night there. It never felt like home. I’m not sure I’ll ever get back to use it. Com me if you need anything,” she offered at the door, reluctant to leave.

“We shall,” Mama-san assured her, waved American style and closed the entry on her, firmly.

Papa-san made a brief call on his hand com and they relaxed on the new-to-them sofa.

In about five minutes Chen and his wife Huian were at the door with luggage. Papa-san set the entry to their hands and welcomed them.

“Are the children not interested in seeing their new place?” Mama-san asked.

“It was near time to report for their full G sleeping period, so they remained in the cafeteria which is near the nursery. They’ll see it tomorrow. Our son is trustworthy to get himself and his sister there,” Huian said tensely, like that might meet with disapproval.

“No criticism implied,” Mama-san assured her. “We didn’t coddle our daughter like North Americans. We lived in Hawaii, but we didn’t adopt the culture when it didn’t suit us.”

“How badly do you want to keep our sublease secret from Miss Lewis?” Chen asked.

“I don’t expect either of us to skulk around or lie. It’s not forbidden. It’s just a long standing habit to keep my business to myself. It has avoided so many complications over the years.”

“Do you want to run our households on staggered shifts or the same shift? Chen asked.

“Trying to be quiet on staggered sleeping shifts is hard. Main shift seems to be for business. The other two shifts have active maintenance and things like ship repair, but things like personal services and retail are on Main. Why should one of us miss that? Let’s do the same shift, but staggered wake-ups, so we are not all wanting the bath at the same time. Say 0600 and 0700?”

“That sounds good. Who first?”

Papa-san took a bright new gold Solar from his pocket and flipped it carefully in the unfamiliar half G. The trajectory was a bit odd. “Call it,” he said, snatching it from the air and slapping it on the back of his other hand, covered. “Scenic face, or assay tail?”

*

The gossip news site was tacky, catty, trashy and vulgar. It needlessly presented itself on the screen as garishly flashy too. April used serious rating sites for business reputation or reviewing hardware, but didn’t approve of sites like this, that just spread personal rumor and gossip. The sad fact was it had far more readers than serious journals with reputable news. It was sited in England, but had readers in America, Europe, a serious number in Australia and the moneyed parts of Asia. To April’s irritation, it apparently had readers even on the habs and the Moon. She received a note that it mentioned her and to check it out with a link provided, but not a hint how the sender found it, amusing or otherwise. It might be something important if ignored, she worried.

The lead story, right at the top of the first page, showed her table at the Home Social Club last month. She’d been waiting to visit the club when they had live jazz, after her grandpa informed her she was part owner of it, among other things she’d inherited from her brother Bob. She happened that day to be showing a kindness to a couple who were having a hard time finding their way around the corridors. After showing them their way, she and Gunny had supper with them at the cafeteria and invited them to join them and her gramps at the club later where they had gotten along well with them.

She really didn’t think having supper with her grandpa and new friends was newsworthy. The blogger gushed in detail at how everybody was dressed, as if it was amazing they didn’t all show up naked with bones in their noses, spacers known to be wanton heathen savages and all. When the writer felt it necessary to report the huge Marine in dress was not a love interest, but her bodyguard April had to laugh out loud at the ridiculousness of it.

The couple James and Elena Alphonse were described as ‘royals’, which was at most technically true. They were distant relatives of the Spanish king, but certainly not in the secession, to properly be called part of the royal family. They were middle class executives at best. But the article tried to make them sound mysterious and exotic.

Attention was drawn to her grandpa’s hair coming in dark. That was just despicable to invade his privacy that way. Yes, it showed he’d been getting Life Extension Therapy, which was nobody’s business to advertise his medical information. If that bothered any fanatic Earthies they could all go twirling to hell in the same giant hand basket. They also made a point to display a picture with him leaning back and the grip of his Singh laser showing under his dark blue tux. As if that was any rare thing on Home.

What she didn’t really pick up on in her irritation was how the three pix looked to Earthie eyes. It had apparently been shot from a table further along the same wall. She dimly remembered another two tables for four there. They had the jazz musicians for a background, as well as the door to the gambling room that was marked Poker Pit / Tuesday and Thursday, with none of the usual Earthie euphemistic shyness. The ice bucket with a Magnum of Champagne was in the foreground and looked as big as the Happy Lewis at dock. Most Earthies only ever saw Champagne in a video and didn’t know a Magnum was anything but a big pistol.

Gunny was ripping into a lobster that looked big enough to be the lead alien in a science fiction horror film and the bounty spread on their table was shocking to a culture of self denial and constant propaganda about scarcity. Some skinny whiner would wring her hands and bemoan that they were enjoying themselves, while people starved in Ethiopia or the Sudan, or wherever there was a famine this year.

Nobody could explain how starving themselves would magically transport a single calorie to where it was needed, but it wasn’t about facts, it was all about image and feelings.

April had strong feelings that it was all stupid.

The fact was that she missed another core aspect of the pix, which was that she looked like a million bucks. Three or four million easily, in the bespoke dress and jewelry. The bare arms were too risqué for North America too, though the Europeans would snicker at that.

The tone was slightly scandalized that she could drink and be in a place with gambling at her age. and then the author dropped the big bomb that the server was overheard saying it was the owners table. Said owner being the lovely Miss Lewis, treating her friends and family lavishly. She was burned up at that public revelation of her private business more than anything.

April considered the whole thing and decided that dignifying it with any response was a waste of her time. If these people didn’t have a life they could grub after whatever small satisfaction they got from following hers. She closed the site and made no reply to the sender.

Tomorrow April would be condemned in classrooms and pulpits all across the country, a counterproductive act, which simply alerted her fans in the unlikely event some kid didn’t get a text and link from his friends, to go view it.

In Honolulu Frank Fabbri and his friend John clasped hands and whirled around, hooting and doing a happy dance. The amateur pix did a surprisingly good job of showing the lovely detail of his dress. That didn’t always happen with a black dress, but in the dark club it was not excessively backlit. The fine detail of stitching and tiny pearls showed plainly. The De Luco jewelry looked wonderful. The middle pic was focused in tightly on April and the diamonds looked bright and big.

She was lifting a delicate deep flute of faintly pink tinted Champagne, laughing charmingly, but luckily her arm didn’t get in the way of the necklace. Whatever sort of camera the snoop used to shoot the pix, it was good enough you could even see the tiny bubbles in the Champagne. Frank was aesthetic. He’d drop a bragging note to the site right now, that the dress was his handiwork, while the article was fresh. Big bucks spent freely could not buy advertising as effective as this.

By the day after tomorrow there would be knock-off copies of her outfit in big cities. Frank would make a pro-forma objection to being copied, but file no formal legal case. It was really more free advertising. His customers didn’t shop in knock off dives, so he lost no business. Very little irritated parents and authorities today more than emulating a spacer in look and style, especially with the bare arms bucking the trend of public prudery.

The club scene did remind April of something though. The young man Gabriel had turned her down to do some graphics. Ben Patsitsas the author did his own book covers, so she knew he was an artist and could do what she wanted. She called him on com and was lucky to catch him answering.

“Ben, I’ve seen your book covers. I’d like to commission you to do some art for me, not a book cover, but a sign for a club in which I have an interest. Yes, to hang in the corridor,” she confirmed. “It should be round or oval and at the top I want ‘The Fox and Hare’ like you see on English pubs. Then across the bottom, ‘Wo sich Fuchs und Hase Gute Nacht sagen’. In the middle I’d like a fox on the right and a hare on the left facing each other. They should be clothed, however, like fairytale characters. I can see the fox in a cute little vest, maybe with eyeglasses and the hare in a jacket or sweater, with a German style pipe. They are standing on snow and in front of a woods that has lost its leaves. The sky behind the trees is in dusk, but cloudless, with a pink to violet shading. The snow reflects and picks up these colors. Do you think you could do that? Tapping glasses together? I suppose that fits the business. Can you do one with and one without? The one without, have them doing a very short bow or head nod to each other. Whenever you get it done is fine. It’s not like it’s for an opening or anything. Thanks Ben.”

*

Some people would have rented private cubic for a private business meeting. Sweeping a new and unfamiliar place for listening and recording devices could be difficult. Those used to more of an agency environment rather than corporate customs might have arranged a meeting in a park, or a small restaurant picked at random. Eric didn’t have the money to spare.

The seven men gathered around a table in the Home cafeteria. They picked one off to the side, away from where everyone gathered by the coffee pot. That and simply how all of them looked, large and dangerous, gave them all the privacy they needed. They each brought their own breakfast to the table and waited on Eric to say why he asked them to come.

“I’m Eric Brockman. I’m a former protective detail officer for the President of the United States of North America. I’m a native of the American west by culture and no longer associated with North America. This is my partner Isaac Friedman. He has a similar background, although he is a New Englander.”

“We were fortunate enough to retain our freedom by coming to Home, but we are in need of employment and security in various forms is what we know. I’m interested in forming some sort of security company, or failing that a mercenary company. Two people are not enough to conduct much of a business, except perhaps a private investigating company. We’ve had one small job already providing dock security. There is also the challenge of securing financing, because we fled with little in the way of assets.” No need to say things had improved a little.

“I’ll let each of you introduce yourselves, saying what you feel is important. Isaac do you want to add anything?”

Isaac itched to stand, but didn’t want to call attention to their group. He leaned forward. “Eric is too modest to tell you, he was recently combat handgun national champion. He is an accomplished shooter. I’m not in his class, but he just spent the entire winter season training me. I’m as good as he can get me, so consider me at least a competent shooter.” He leaned back done, but looked to his right to invite the next speaker.

“I’m Christian Mackay. I also have a partner,” he gestured to the younger man, “Dan Holt. We are also unable to live in North American jurisdictions. We both have experience working security for New Las Vegas. So we are up on zero-G dexterity, casino liaison and non-lethal weapons. We arrested a couple Homeland Security officers, loaners from the Postal Inspectors and Naval Intelligence. Dan here broke his fellow’s nose and I, well, I probably got carried away. I dislocated my fellow’s shoulder and broke the opposite collarbone and stunned them both, my guy in the face. He was starting to irritate me,” he admitted. That got smiles all around. “No way they can ever forgive that from a couple local cops.”

“What did you two do to be unwelcome in America?” Dan directed back to Brockman.

Eric looked at Isaac and he shrugged, as if to say, “What are you going to do?”

“We shot the President and uh, most of his immediate detail. They were going to put us against the wall and shoot us, because Hadley was off his nut and running things by decree. He was angry we dragged him out of the Deepwell bunker before it collapsed.”

“Well that’s gratitude for you,” Gunny acknowledged.

“I know you,” Brockman said, looking at Gunny hard, trying to place him.

“Master Sergeant Mack Tindal. Call me Gunny. I was third, in the combat handgun nationals, where you placed first.”

“What else do you do?” Eric wanted to know.

“I’m an armorer. If it’s small arms I pretty much know it and what makes it work. I do training and evaluation. Set up testing regimens and remedial help for shooters having troubles.”

“How did you get kicked out?” Isaac asked bluntly.

“I was caught between factions when they tried to do a coup on Wiggen and I had no confidence I wouldn’t be unfortunate collateral damage, so when I had a little problem guarding Miss Lewis in Hawaii I joined her in evacuating to Home.”

“What sort of a little problem?” Christian Mackay inquired.

“We were having a pleasant barbeque around the pool and aircars started dropping in the woods nearby and a Chinese nuke sub decided to lay a cruise missile on us. Ruined the party.”

“You had assets to deal with that great a threat level?” Mackay asked amazed.

“In theory I did and found I was cut off from all of them. Miss Lewis had to handle it all herself. If you get to know her you’ll find she doesn’t have a subtle bone in her body. She went straight to heavy laser fire and orbital bombardment to solve the problem, but we still found it advisable to evacuate a compromised position. The retreat involved other people and resources I’d rather not discuss,” he informed them, making an obvious conclusion.

“Like the rest of you so far, I got caught up in North American politics,” Otis Dugan admitted. “I’m another ex-military gun mechanic and just spent two years working for Safety Associates of Atlanta. I recently had to visit Los Angeles for them and was on the same flight as a fellow intent on visiting the city for the purpose of assassinating President Wiggen. He nearly succeeded too,” he added.

“I watched the Navy boys arrest him and escort him back to Atlanta. They never let him off the plane. However they did not cover as far as anyone picking him up. When I got off they mistook me for him and I got handed their operation on a platter to bust. I wanted to emigrate off world anyway, now was a perfect time because I doubt they would show proper gratitude for my interference, like Brockman and Friedman here found out, no good deed goes unpunished. I hated to leave my boss so precipitously, because he was treating me well, but I fled on the first shuttle I could book.”

“I don’t know,” Brockman told him. “Our principal was off the wall crazy. Are you sure they wouldn’t have thanked you? Given you a reward even?”

“The government seems deeply infiltrated with Patriot party and other radical elements. It’s hard to know safely with whom I’d be dealing. Their gratitude might last as long as Wiggen stays in office and then I’d get my proper reward in their eyes. I might get a Freedom Medal I wasn’t allowed to show anybody, but I doubt their largess would extend to allowing me to keep the fee the assassin was paid,” he predicted. That got a round of hooting laughter.

“How about you?” Gunny directed at Lee Chen, “I was told you’d be here and informed Brockman after I told Miss Lewis I needed a few hours off. I was told very little about you except we have mutual friends unnamed. What do you bring to the table?”

“I too am a refugee. I am persona non grata in China. I am however free to travel on a Vietnamese passport. I also have fled to Home but find myself too poor to retire, given the prices we found here. My skills are more agency oriented and I have active contacts in Asia that could be of benefit. I also appear to be the only one with a family. That will color my view of risk taking. I’d hesitate to do mercenary work, unless no other employment presented itself.”

“Will that be a hindrance other ways?” Gunny wondered. “Will you be worried they may be taken hostage, or slip and reveal something?”

“I was in Vietnam when it became obvious it would be prudent to leave. I dropped a code word on my wife and she and the children got themselves out of China with no hard exit plan laid out for them. They not only secured transportation, but helped other families of agents leaving. My wife and twelve year old boy killed the chief police agent in charge of preventing them from leaving, when he attempted to arrest them. I don’t think they will hold anyone back. Indeed I’d not hesitate to use them as assets, in the proper circumstances.”

Ruby chose that moment to approach their table and set a vacuum flask of coffee on the table for them. “Whatever mayhem you rough characters are hammering out, if you need an expert space ship pilot with combat experience and a proven history of destroying both USNA and Chinese spacecraft, come see me. My man Easy is the best hot pilot on Home and he’d be cut to the core if something went down and he didn’t get a piece of it,” she promised them. Then she turned and marched away without waiting for a reply.

“Well, we seem, transparent,” Chen said dismayed.

“I wouldn’t worry about it,” Gunny told him. “I’m assured nothing gets past Ruby,” who he named, since she hadn’t bothered to introduce herself. “I am also assured by reliable sources she holds information rather tightly,” he promised. Brockman and Friedman shared a significant look, but stayed silent on the matter. “I doubt anybody watching thought we were a book club meeting,” he pointed out.

*

Back on the Moon, Heather was looking at samples of the sintered iron products the Armstrong people were making. There was a rifle barrel, threaded objects and gears using ingenious forms and cores. However, creating panels big enough for airlock doors was going to be challenging. Jeff was experimenting with spraying and sintering them in layers like a 3D printer instead of pressing and lasing them. The density was slightly better too. That might be to the good, because the microstructure from the first method was perfect for retaining lubrication, but she was worried all but a surface layer was still somewhat gas permeable and would leak if both the surfaces had any cracks or damage at all.

“Do you have your com off?” Johnson asked from the com shack.

“Yes, it’s set for you, April and Jeff. Anybody else can wait until I get some work done,” she said firmly.

“I think you should take this call,” he insisted.

“Connecting,” she said begrudgedly. It was President Wiggen waiting, looking right in the camera. Heather actually smiled. “I thought you disliked me too much to ever call,” she said surprised. “At most I’d have expected an underling. What can I do for you?” she offered, quite pleasantly.

Wiggen blinked a few times, like she wasn’t expecting such a warm welcome. Then she unaccountably smiled too. “I had my doubts a sovereign would accept a call from an underling,” she told Heather. Serious or taunting Heather couldn’t tell for sure, but she was smiling.

“I’m not that full of myself yet,” Heather informed her. “I have not started terrorizing my peasants to build palaces, nor started collecting gold plated weapons, as is traditional.”

“But you are allowing your people to pursue a case before the world court, that is embarrassing us all out of proportion to your size and resources,” Wiggen accused gently. “This legal case is just another embarrassment that my opposition can use against me. Do you really want to do anything that helps put one of the anti-space crazies sitting in the White House?”

“I actually advised my people to not pursue that case,” Heather informed her. “If they wish to do so I will not go to the extreme of forbidding it. I helped them stop being oppressed, but my justice won’t reach to make them whole, so I can hardly deny them that justice wherever they can get it,” she reasoned. “If I make them shut up and accept the treatment they fled here to avoid, then in their eyes I will have joined those oppressing them. How long do you think I’ll remain in charge here in that case?”

“But the court is for states,” Wiggen pointed out. “they couldn’t file with just your permission, it had to be with your cooperation. Besides, I have directed the abuses that were listed be corrected and I specifically told Armstrong not to pursue payment for the things taken that were necessities of survival. That seems to me to have gone a long way towards making them whole as you say.”

“Your people just give you a briefing summary, don’t they?” Heather asked. “I bet you never saw the actual World Court document, you were just told it existed.”

“Yes, of course I operate from summaries, I do have a country to run and frankly there are not enough hours in the day already to wallow through legal papers.”

“I know the feeling,” Heather allowed. “If you had the whole thing in front of you, then you’d see it was not filed for The Central Lunar Kingdom, it was filed on behalf of the Kingdom of Tonga. Your people apparently didn’t find that significant. We have a special relationship with Tonga, that has certain reciprocal rights guaranteed for each of our citizens to enjoy in the other’s territory,” she explained.

“The King is very worried his subjects here will not be safe, nor their property rights respected, until we have normalized relations with Armstrong and by extension the entire USNA. He will not even allow them to come up here until it is resolved. I could not overrule him without a breach and the agreement is important to us,” she assured Wiggen.

“So far your people in Armstrong have not done what you say you ordered. They will not pass com calls either way. They have tried to lure critical personnel back, because of problems with systems, but refused to reply when any inquiry was made about wages or conditions on the basis of it being a re-hire. Nor to offers made to act as consultants. If they didn’t intend to ask for equipment back, or payment, they never communicated that to the people holding it,” she added.

“I wouldn’t believe you, if you hadn’t been right before about my administrator taking it upon himself to chase after his eloping employees. I’ve given the orders to correct every complaint in the legal brief and I had the acting head of the colony returned under arrest.”

“Elopement is far too gentle a term for serfs fleeing for their freedom,” Heather told her, but calmly. “From a practical point of view, the administration over at Armstrong is corrupt from the top down. I doubt you will get compliance to anything but their own local desires, until you remove everyone who had any administrative authority,” Heather predicted.

“I’ll straighten it out if I have to rotate the entire population out,” Wiggen promised grimly, grinding her teeth. “I appointed a special investigator and he will crack heads if he has to, in order to see my orders followed down to the least detail.”

“Thank you for believing me,” Heather said and meant it.

“I’ll get back to you,” Wiggen said. “Oh and when you speak to your friend April, tell her I said thank you,” and gave a big wink before she disconnected.

What was that all about? Heather wondered, mouth hanging open.

Chapter 17

April had a plate of pecan pancakes rolled around sliced bananas, surrounded by a ring of sliced strawberries and buried under a mound of cinnamon whipped cream. Wanda dusted the top of the whipped cream with nutmeg. She was getting to be almost as good a cook as Ruby.

Dr. Ames, A.K.A. Jelly, came off the serving line and lifted an inquiring eyebrow to test if he could join April. Gunny was running a business errand for her. She gave him a little wave and pushed the chair opposite her out with her foot. They hadn’t spoken recently.

“Are you still whipping all the vacuum rats at handball and betting on it?” April asked.

Jelly had the good grace to blush at that. He hadn’t known until now she was aware of his little money making side line.

“That well ran dry. It took awhile, but despite a deep reservoir of gigantic egos, the young fellows finally had to concede I’m the All-Home zero G handball champion,” he boasted.

“Until you sell your reflex enhancing treatment to a better player,” she predicted.

“In which case I shall play for just the love of the sport,” he promised her.

“Are you able to support yourself now with the gene business?” she inquired, hopefully.

“Almost. I’ve been getting some clients from off Home. I’m well along on having some new services and I got your man Gunny to sell me some cheek swabs so I am trying to see what about his genome makes him naturally fast. It’s very interesting,” he avowed.

“What kind of new stuff are you pushing?” April asked.

“I have a modification that makes your body produce vitamin C,” he informed her.

“A whole big bottle of it is pretty cheap,” she reminded him. “And I like an orange juice most mornings anyway,” she added.

“Yes, but Jeff and his minions are speaking of very long voyages. It simplifies nutritional requirements in a closed system. You’d be immune to scurvy and it would breed true.”

“Still only attractive if the voyages are years,” she insisted.

“They might be. Einstein might be right and slow is the only way to go to stars.”

“I was supposed to ask you about that and never did. How about freezing us, or at least letting us hibernate, so we don’t run out of food and go nuts of cabin fever on a trip?”

“I have not even started to look into hibernation,” he admitted. “It is complex and highly variable. It’s not the simple thing people draw in a cartoon, of a bear in a cave.”

“So you have looked into freezing people?” April immediately pressed.

“A little. You might need a gene that flooded your system with a sort of antifreeze on some trigger, like some fish use. But there is no telling what it would do to a mammal. It might have very adverse, even lethal effects. It might make you stupid, or sterile, or susceptible to heatstroke, or for all I know even make you stink,” he predicted. “Nobody has even tried it on a mouse.”

“Are there any other routes worth trying?” April asked.

“Yes, actually. How about just not dying?” he asked.

“How does that work?” she asked dubiously.

“Well, people used to go off on sailing voyages that took years when their life expectancy as an adult was in the thirty-some-year range. If you lived long enough, even a few hundred years, you could do a sub-light voyage and not begrudge the years it took. Take a vessel the size of this habitat. There would be enough things to do and work to accomplish, you could stay sane and happy if it took twenty years to reach your destination. Time dilation is on your side at serious fractions of C,” he pointed out.

“Maybe,” she allowed. “You might have practical political problems separating yourself from the majority of mankind so long. What if they all figure out how to do some things that change the whole economy while you are gone? Next thing you know, your colony might as well be an Amish community when the next Earth ship comes in thirty years later and the crew all have imbedded cranial computers and flying belts?”

“But the ship crew might invent and perfect things after they leave Earth. Chances are the mob will have more inventors, granted, but starship crews would likely select for very smart people. They may have a colony and when the next Earth ship comes by the colonists are the ones swooping around in flying belts,” he suggested. “Anyway, the Amish would probably tell you that flying belts are a very poor predictor of a rich happy life. Having a fresh world to explore and settle, without pollution and hostile neighbors might trump that.”

“I agree about the hostile neighbors,” April said. “It’s starting to get tiresome not knowing which Earth faction will give us grief. I don’t have a solution for that.”

Jelly looked surprised. “Well move us,” he said with a shrug. “We are so close to Earth it fills half the sky. It colors our perspective on everything. Everybody on Home wants to be away from Earth, but this close it still dominates us. I don’t think how far would even matter to most of them, if you asked the Assembly for a vote. Move it out to where it takes them more effort to harass us, or even move it over circling the Moon,” he said like it was obvious.

“I doubt Mitsubishi would object as long as it is commercially viable. We’d still have zero G manufacturing areas. We moved Home to duck behind the Rock so I know it is possible. It doesn’t come apart if you nudge it over carefully,” he insisted.

April had this stunned look on her face, that turned to sheepishness. “Somebody else told me the same thing and I ignored him, I mean just totally ignored him, because he was younger than me. I hate it when people do that to me. I’m so embarrassed.”

“Who was this visionary?” Jelly asked, amused.

“Heather’s little brother Barak. We were sitting talking and said how nasty Earth is and he said to ask Jeff about putting a drive on Home and moving it further away. He mentioned Mars I believe, but the principle was the same, even if the objective was perhaps too ambitious.”

“So did you do as he requested and ask Jeff?”

“No, but I will,” she promised. “I’ll give him proper credit too.”

Her plate, unlike Jelly’s, was empty. She pulled her mug to the edge of the table and leaned back. So are any other mods near ready?” she asked.

“This is confidential at this point,” he warned. “I have been exploring increasing strength. It’s complex. Changing the muscle fiber itself is easy. Not impacting endurance in exchange for a burst of speed is more difficult. and there are factors like altering the attachment points and the connective tissues too. I don’t think any of us want to change our proportions and look like a chimp,” he explained.

“It’s not something you can fully test with a mouse either. I did something that most of my North American colleges would find abhorrent,” he admitted. “There was a young man in Pacifica, I’d rather not be more specific than that, a fisherman. He got a particularly nasty form of soft tissue cancer that they can delay, but not cure. He had no insurance and I offered him what was a fairly large sum of money for the financial environment in which he lived, to try a modification. He was aware there were risks, but it benefited both of us, fortunately without any harm in the end. The kid was a strong swimmer and worked heavy labor on the deck of a fishing boat. So he had very prominently developed musculature,” he explained.

“Here he is before any modification,” he said and turned his pad around to show a photo. The young man had bulky muscles, not like a weightlifter and bodybuilder, but prominent.

“This is four months after the modification, so it had significant time to propagate and be expressed.” He split the screen and showed both.

April looked back and forth between the two frontal views. “Are you sure this is the before picture?” she asked of the left split. “The difference is small but he looks thinner to me in this one,” she said tapping the right. “Look at how this line here is softer,” she said drawing an arch with her finger, where a crease defined the division between muscles. “I don’t know what to call it. Bodybuilders must have a word for it,” she guessed.

“Hmm, definition is the phenomena. I’m not sure there is there is a word,” he took the com back and was obviously doing a search. “Cut,” he finally said, distastefully. “That is too graphic for me, but it’s what body builders use. I never looked at those sites before.” He turned the screen back to her in its previous state. “The fellow got heavier because there was a bone density increase, but he lost muscle mass slightly although he tested half again as strong. Then his illness was presented more fully, so we discontinued any further testing and I let him enjoy his last days with his family without any more intrusion,” he explained. “My money allowed him to leave his family something to cover the loss of his income. Due to his health we never really tested anything having to do with endurance.”

“So it will be a while before this is marketable?” April asked.

“Yes, I wouldn’t put it in my own body yet and you know that is my test for selling anything, it definitely needs further human trials.”

“I think that is a moral marketing standard for you,” April agreed. “For somebody else who was a real risk taker it might not work.”

“I have no idea what they are doing in China,” Jelly admitted. “Nothing would surprise me.”

“They might do radical things, but just keep in mind, if you have a useful process they didn’t already develop on their own, they won’t show the slightest hesitation to steal it.”

April started putting everything on her tray to leave. She didn’t eat off the tray like some.

“That’s what I’m seeing. But thanks for reminding me,” he agreed. “I’m near having a suite of rooms available, so I can administer a modification that is propagated as an infection,” he explained.

“A lot of my customers don’t have a home environment that lends itself to isolation while they self infect and then progress to being non-contagious. Some live with extended family, some have servants who would be awkward to send off on vacation or dismiss and hire new. Some just have work that would demand intrusions even if they are sick, to sign documents and such. It will expand my customer base and improve my margins, when I can finally afford to offer an isolation suite. There are some things I want to do that can’t be done with a viral vector. You need stem cells and they need a period of isolation too.”

April remembered all the small businesses her brother kept feeding five percent of their gross to him for his support. Jelly was too smart to pay five percent. He could just be a little patient and keep it all. But if she offered to fund a suite, April bet he had plenty of other uses for the money.

“I’d fund your isolation suite for a three percent cut of your gross,” she offered.

Jelly’s eyebrows went up sharply, then settled back. “I think I’d rather wait and keep it all,” he said firmly, but he had thought about it.

“Or maybe two percent and I get future mods when they come to market.”

“Just you, not your family and friends like our last deal?”

“Well, me and anybody in my immediate household. I’m moving out of my parents’ place pretty soon, I bought a place of my own, I have no idea what will happen in my life. Not the hired help like Gunny though,” she made clear.

“A husband maybe?” he said grinning.

“Spouse or spouses,” she agreed. “Have you ever read, ‘The Moon is a Harsh Mistress,’ by Heinlein? Home has no law on marriage, we might try polyandry, line marriages or just about anything you could write as a contract,” she predicted. “And we might still have traditional religious marriages. Who needs the state for that?”

“But is there a preacher to be had on Home to do a religious ceremony?” he asked.

“Fred Folsom conducts some sort of religious service in his cubic every week. I’m not real sure exactly what his theology is, but he has a small crowd gather regularly to talk. He does charity work too. I’m betting if somebody wanted a public exchange of vows and a community blessing, he’d accommodate them.”

“Well,” he said surprised and standing to leave. “I’ll consider that offer,” he promised.

*

The USNA lunar freighter Pagosa Springs was not a combat shuttle, but what it lacked in amenities for Space Marines in armor, it made up for in immediate availability. It was commandeered and the flight crew having previous military service was subject to recall and taken too. President Wiggen was not interested in any reasons for delay. She wished her infuriatingly independent lunar colony to be brought to heel right now, not in a week or a month. The expected shipment of food, spare parts and an additional hydroponics unit was going to have to wait. Fortunately, little of it had been loaded.

The shuttle was going to land with no radio communications and their flight plan was classified and suppressed. The control tower was a fused depression anyway, but they did not wish to give anyone opportunity to cover up evidence, hide contraband, or at worst prepare to physically resist them.

The Marines were suited up when they left Low Earth Orbit. It was difficult to suit up in zero G without the usual racks and auxiliary equipment in a combat vessel. It would be a long time in a suit, perhaps two days, but some of them had worn suits for a week in exercises. This time might be a little easier, because they each had a small unauthorized device they’d bought privately that was supposed to absorb suit odors.

The military was funny about approving new equipment. They couldn’t buy so much as a shoelace without altering it from civilian specifications. Special forces had their own culture about adapting non standard weapons and equipment. All they cared about was whether it worked.

They were pretty comfortable and able to use a zero-G toilet without taking the whole suit off, just some over armor and open the waist. The hold was able to mount eight acceleration couches, frames really, sized for space armor, on scaffolding dividing the hold into ten sections. The two extra sections held arms and ammo and a few suit spares and rations.

They were backup. The real trouble for the colony was one quiet middle-aged bureaucrat, with no armor or weapons. Brian Dean Hartug III reported directly to President Wiggen and was authorized to do anything needed to bring Armstrong into compliance with her orders. He carried his authorizations in a plain small folder and intended to finish his business without raising his voice.

They were in a hurry and wished to avoid provoking the Central people, so they did a tangent burn and were going straight to a descent from the transfer orbit. They had to take hold for a small corrective burn three hours out. Not long after that the pilot came on the intercom.

“Lieutenant Carlson, I was told to advise you the armed merchant Happy Lewis declared an emergency to local control at Home in order to jump queue. They filed a flight plan for lunar orbital insertion at a high inclination and left Home dock about five minutes ago. Apparently they were uncomfortable seeing there would be a deep space USNA vessel in the lunar proximity and no Home vessel.”

“Well, they have decent deep radar coverage then, to have seen us leave. That’s interesting. One can understand their attitude,” Carlson said, knowing all about the recent unpleasantness. “Do you know if their orbit will have a ground track over Central or will it be over Armstrong?”

“Either would be practical at this point. Control has not said, but if I were flying her I’d likely be looking to establish a fairly circular orbit that passed over both of them. That would give you maximum flexibility.”

“Can you give me some estimate how long after we land we’ll have them in orbit over us?”

“Uh, they will be in orbit well ahead of us and come around the back side and overpass the Earth face within the hour after our arrival, or they may land of course. I can’t get you exact numbers until we see their orbital insertion burn,” the pilot explained.

“How can that be, when they left after us and had to leave from a random window instead of an optimum transfer?” Carlson asked, confused. He wasn’t a navigator but it didn’t make sense.

“The Happy Lewis left dock and they went straight to a fourteen G burn about a hundred meters from the station. It was so spectacular they already have a video of it posted for the space nuts. I have to admit, it looks more like a missile launch than a manned ship.”

“I see. Could you send that to my pad?” Carlson requested. “How long do you think you could function doing a fourteen G burn? How can they do that?”

“A couple minutes maybe? I’ve experienced a bit more than eight G, briefly and I wouldn’t even want to try it without a dead man’s switch. What is the point of finishing your burn if it kills you? You could suffocate on your own tongue, if you passed out under that much acceleration.”

“You think they have some kind of anti-gravity?” the lieutenant speculated.

“My guys called it inertial compensation, when we were brain storming the question, but there’s another possibility. I heard a couple of guys arguing that they may be gene altered to take high G. Those folks do genetic alterations as casually as you’d get a tetanus shot, or take an asthma blocker. We had no idea they could pull fourteen G, nobody has seen them do more than nine before today.”

“Then you don’t really know what their upper limit is still, do you?”

“No, unless we get some inside information, we just have what we’ve seen.”

“I’m not too thrilled to have them in my sky while we are sitting, vulnerable, on Armstrong field,” the lieutenant said.

“That doesn’t seem all that ominous to me,” the pilot said, surprised at his concern. “Now I’d have been really worried if he was doing a burn with an intercept solution for us.”

Carlson hadn’t thought of that possibility.

*

“I have someone I want you to meet,” Gunny told her. “This is Otis Dugan, who just moved to Home. He’s another one who won’t be welcome back in North America. I’ve told him quite a bit about you, so he understands where you stand and that makes him feel free to tell you about himself. I think you’ll find his story very interesting.”

April sat and let him talk. She had just a few questions, mostly because she was not familiar with Earth. Despite visiting Earth a couple times she had never stayed in an Earth hotel. She had always stayed with friends or relatives. Neither had she ever ridden in a plain old jet airliner.

“I suspect I got credit for what you did,” April admitted. She related how Heather had passed along a wink and thank you, from Wiggen.

“I’m surprised Wiggen will talk to your friend,” he marveled. “Politics is so status and ego driven and they guard access so jealously. Most politicians would feel it beneath them to speak with a couple teenagers.”

“Politics is about power,” Gunny said. “If you control the functional equivalent of nuclear weapons, things that would otherwise matter, like your social status, fade in importance.”

“I heard about Jiuquan,” Otis revealed.

“There has also been some conflict, to the point of shots being fired, on the Moon unfortunately.”

“Well, that I didn’t know. None of your friends came to harm I hope?” Otis asked.

“My friends? No, but there is peril and it is unresolved. President Wiggen keeps issuing orders the administrators at Armstrong ignore. This is even after the top executives were killed and the ranking successor recalled.”

“If there is continuing conflict, be aware a bunch of the security professionals who’ve come from Earth lately are discussing opening an agency together. We might be of use to you, if say, you need site guards on the Moon.” Otis felt good to get in a sales pitch.

“So far the conflict hasn’t been the sort where you need something like a perimeter guard,” April explained. “Heather had the smarts to see a com breakdown as a possible precursor to an attack and did an emergency launch of the Happy Lewis. They just lifted in time to avoid a cluster bomb attack on their landing field. My grandpa and my friend Jeff Singh, intercepted the attacking spacecraft and hailed them to surrender, which they refused, so they destroyed them in lunar orbit. Armstrong had a follow up craft to assess the bombing run and Heather’s people destroyed it without any further damage, although it did fire on them. The Happy Lewis did a surveillance run on Armstrong and was fired on and damaged, so they destroyed the third and last USNA spacecraft on the moon, sitting on their field and put a ten kiloton weapon in the field building that was emitting targeting radar. They also did a camera run returning home and saw two formations of rovers. One of refugees and one of USNA administrators determined to make them return. Heather saw little reason to try to talk with them after questioning the refugees, so she just walked an artillery barrage across them, destroying them. Nobody has had any kind of face to face exchange with small arms.”

The horror on Otis’ face had grown with the telling. “Surprise attacks? Cluster bombs and kiloton sized weapons? This is a small interplanetary war, not some property line conflict.”

“Well yeah, that’s a fair summary. But we try to avoid that word. If it would get to the point we declare a formal war again, it’s going to be very messy,” she promised. “I hope it doesn’t come to that point again. I appreciate what you did for Wiggen. I know my friends Eddie Persico and Heather anderson and Jeff Singh will all be favorably disposed to you for keeping Wiggen alive a little while longer. Others too. She is the only thing keeping a lot of those idiots from wanting to fight us again. Are you in need of any help?” she inquired, kindly. “If you abandoned your belongings to flee to Home, we can find somebody to give you employment. There is a labor shortage here anyway.”

“Thank you. The things I abandoned on Earth had mostly sentimental value. I’m in a good place financially,” He certainly wasn’t about to tell her why. “The only thing I’d ask of you is an introduction to these people, if I need to approach them for business. Your reputation is such that would be valuable to me.”

“Sure, you come with Gunny’s recommendation, so I’d be happy to do that for you. Call me any time. We aren’t very formal up here. I’m in the public com directory,” she told him.

“What do you think?” Gunny asked in the corridor.

“She’s so young,” Otis said, dismayed.

“You’ll get used to it. I’ll introduce you to her grandpa. He’d got white hair to offset her youth. But it’s in the process of coming back in black. Pretty soon there won’t be anybody on M3 who looks really old.”

*

“Everyone else is starting a business,” April’s mother said with a smile. “I guess I should see if I have what it takes.”

“I have no doubt you have what it takes,” April said wholeheartedly. “I just wonder, are there enough children in the right age groups to support this business?”

“Mitsubishi says there are seventy-seven residents under eighteen years of age. At the rate they are building the new ring and talking about another already before the one is even finished, I think that number will go up. I’ve decided if I can get six students for at least a half day program, then I’ll give it a try. I also see value in getting established before others.”

“Where are you going to do this?”

“Why, right here dear,” Faye said, gesturing at their home, surprised at the question.

“Do you have to do much, make many changes?”

“Well, obviously make one of the cupboards hand-locked, for poisons and sharp things. Some storage for floor mats and folding chairs and supplies. I’m going to leave an extra bathroom for students and staff from the bedrooms when we tear them out.”

“Staff? You aren’t going to do this alone?”

“That’s pretty difficult. If one child needs your attention to clean up in the bath, or if they get a bump or cut bad enough to take them to the infirmary, or you take them out on a field trip, you need another hand to help keep them all counted and in line. I believe you know the young woman, Doris. She is interested in working for me.”

“Doris is a very nice girl. Very mild mannered. I think she’d be great with kids.”

“I’m given to understand she was treated harshly. In some people that leads to them doing the same themselves. I believe she is the opposite. She finds it repugnant.”

“How does dad feel about this?”

“I don’t think he has real strong feelings one way or another. We don’t need the money desperately, like we did a few times when we were first married. But if it’s something I want to do he’ll be supportive. He’d probably be the same way if I announced I was going to write a novel, or represent some faction to the Assembly. Your father has never been hard to get along with, dear. Sometimes easier to be around than me,” she admitted. This was a new candor April had never heard. It made her a bit uncomfortable.

“I’ll be putting out some ads after remodeling, with a six week lead to our opening. I’ll offer half or full shift classes for ages six through fourteen and tutoring on site and supervision for ages fifteen through eighteen. I’ll feed them and try to socialize them as much as formal instruction. If they have any serious medical issues or allergies I won’t take the risk. Also if they plain don’t want to be here, or have issues of aggressiveness or other mental problems, I will refund their guardians and dismiss them.”

“Well that is far enough ahead Gunny and I should be moved out,” April said, relieved. “How many days a week are you thinking?”

“Six days maximum. Every other day, or two days a week, or three is fine too. I’ll be flexible to whatever the family needs. The motivation of parents wanting a few hours of privacy and quiet, after years of being with a child all day is a powerful force.”

“I’m glad for you. I know you genuinely like children. I’m still not sure I do. I’ve been around so few it’s hard to know.”

“You spoke very favorably of Barak, Heather’s brother.”

“He’s a really good kid. He actually taught me how to make pancakes and he has had good enough ideas I need to bump them up to Jeff to consider.”

“Children are very much like big people. You may not care for one, but if it is just a matter of personality and not overt behavior you can’t accept, then it is a test of character to get along with them anyway,” she asserted. “I’ll have various people come in and talk to the class about their work or experiences. I might invite you in some time, depending on what my class is like, what ages and interests.”

“Me? I can’t imagine what I’d say to hold their interest. You should get somebody important, like Mr. Muños or Jon.”

“Yes dear,” she said, smiling. “I’ll keep them in mind, too.”

Chapter 18

Jeff and Heather were on Home. They had planned to take another load of supplies to the moon, when the Happy had made an emergency run back to lunar orbit to provide protection for Central. Likely they would be there until the intentions of the USNA spacecraft going to Armstrong were certain. Then the Happy would drop the short load of freight that had been loaded before returning.

Jeff and Heather were at Heather’s family cubic again. Heather and April were on one sofa, Barak wedged between them. Jeff and Gunny in the corners of the opposing couch. Heather and Barak’s mom was home again, but busy working on another art commission.

“Your grandfather insisted, after we got shot up over Armstrong, that I get qualified on the Happy Lewis,” Jeff told her. “You should be pleased to hear I am officially an apprentice pilot, for both orbit to orbit and lunar landing,” he told April. “I sat second board coming back from the Moon and intend to get my Master’s ticket eventually.”

“That’s great. I want to get landing qualified sometime too.”

“I have a fellow, Mo Pennington, coming who has actual tunneling experience. He’s agreed to consult with us and demonstrate what to do in various situations, like making an entry through the soft surface debris, or how to detect and shore areas of cracked rock,” Jeff told her excitedly. “He’s bringing his family to Home and his wife Linda and children are going to stay on Home until we have more infrastructure on the Moon. He’s going to do a couple weeks on, couple weeks off for at least a few months, maybe a year if we can keep him busy that long .”

“Is he an engineer?” April asked.

“Yes, he has a degree in mining technology, but more importantly, he has actually worked in three different hard rock mines. and talking to him, he seems very sensible about the differences like no water seepage and very low seismic activity. He also seemed agreeable to part of his compensation being in real estate. “

“What’s he like?”

“In his thirties, so me being young isn’t as big a barrier as with somebody in their fifties or sixties. He seems to be athletic, he mentioned bicycling and running. He already wears his hair short, so I didn’t have to talk about how long hair is difficult in a pressure suit. We’ll have to train him on p-suits and vacuum safety, but that’s a given with almost anybody we’d hire.”

“Well good. Doing a good job with your tunnels is so basic to your future I’m glad you are not just faking it. I mean, once you have a hole through solid rock you can hardly go back and decide it should have been smaller, or canted down seven degrees instead of five. Where is he from? Another German?”

“No, he’s North American. Canadian if that makes any difference,” he added. “Mo Pennington is his name, if you can tell anything about his ethnic origins from that.”

“Some of the Canadians have never been happy since they were pressured into the continental union, same as some of the Mexicans. There are still places in Quebec that North American Federal Police don’t walk around alone after dark, because they tend to have ‘accidents’,” she explained and added an eyebrow lift, because Jeff could be naïve about human nature sometimes if you didn’t make it explicit enough.

“He’s from British Colombia. I’ll watch to see what his feelings are, not pump him. It’s a temporary position and not defense related, so I didn’t limit it as far as USNA citizenship. and neither asked nor made any hints about Home or Lunar citizenship. I just figured he’d spend at most a year with us on contract and go home. I’m pretty sure the land is a long term investment for him; part of his pay, not to stay and live on it.”

April didn’t say any more, but she remembered how firmly Gunny said working in a foreign country could make the USNA authorities question your loyalty. Was Gunny oversensitive because of his military background, or was this engineer being foolish and damaging his career back home? She saw Gunny get a sour expression at the whole story, but he said nothing. It was not her problem either, she decided.

“Also, I’m designing two landers,” Jeff announced. “One is for a dedicated route, LEO to the Moon. I’ve been convinced by several people, but Dave especially, that it has to be optimized for the route to be economical. I’m also designing an Earth lander, but it will serve as a base design for any planet with an atmosphere. This first one will be optimized for an Earth landing and the ability to climb back to orbit without refueling. That is rather difficult. I have to use aerobraking for the majority of the descent. It is just outside our ability to make a reasonable sized vehicle that would do a pure powered descent and take back off like one of the old Apollo lunar LEMs. It would be huge and the discarded stage it left behind would cost a fortune. The limit is not power density, but the reactive mass needed in the Earth’s gravity well. I’m assuming we may need to make an opposed military landing so no refueling is possible.”

“The plasma engine produces so much more thrust now, that the old designs, surely that would be much more efficient than using conventional rocket engines,” April protested.

“The plasma engine won’t work in the atmosphere. Or rather it would work until you land and shut it off. You can’t restart it without a pretty decent vacuum. Even if you could initiate the required ionization the components would burn up in an oxygen atmosphere before it flushed itself clean. I suppose if you designed the throat narrow enough you could maintain the engine at an idle and keep the atmosphere swept out of the reaction chamber. Like an old diffusion pump. But it would be awkward unloading or loading, with the exhaust running cutting a hole in the pavement so close at ten or fifteen percent power. and you couldn’t do that for more than a few minutes. The plasma drive is way more efficient, but it does still use up reactive mass. Just proportionally less of it.”

“Couldn’t you pump down the drive chamber to vacuum to take off again?” Barak asked.

“Not with a big hole where the exhaust goes out,” Jeff explained. “It’s like eight centimeters across right now. Nothing would pump it down against such an opening.”

“Put a plug in it,” Barak suggested.

Jeff just looked at him, mouth hanging open.

“If you crank that sucker back up at full power, I bet it blows the plug back out like it wasn’t even there,” Barak guessed.

“Robotic arm to slap a thin, domed, aluminum disk over the throat,” Jeff said, nodding, “from a magazine of a half dozen or so disks, flush the chamber with argon to remove any oxygen, pump it down to a decent vacuum. Yeah, if you start it at a high enough power level the plasma would vaporize a thin throat cover like a sani-wipe,” he agreed. “The drive is very much like a big plasma-arc cutting torch. How did you think of that?” Jeff demanded indignantly.

“It seemed obvious,” Barak said and shrugged.

“If we need to start quickly you could have a tank that was open to vacuum in orbit. The internal volume of the ionization chamber is low, maybe two liters. We could reduce it with careful design. If you had say, a thirty liter tank, you could open a line to it and suck almost all the flush gas out of the chamber. That would take care of something like eighty percent of your pump-down. The tank would be wasted volume if you didn’t need it, but wouldn’t add that much weight at all since it would just hold vacuum.” Jeff’s eyes were focused off in the air, he likely had the whole thing half designed in his mind. “Or even seal it in orbit and land with aerobraking. Then you are ready to take off again immediately.”

“Seems to me that Jeff is our detail man,” April pointed out, smiling at Barak. “But Barak is really handy to have around to point out what is obvious. That reminds me. I was supposed to ask for Barak how hard it would be to move the whole of Mitsubishi 3 out of LEO and off far enough the Earthies would have more trouble shooting at us.”

“Oh, he asked me himself quite a while ago. I have a process all written up to use four ships grappled at the south dockage to push us out of orbit. We would slow down the spin again like they did when they ducked behind the Rock. We should be able to switch over and move to a lunar orbit in a month,” he assured her. “We can assume a halo orbit near L1 or better yet L2. We’d make a slow circle seeing mostly the far side, but a big enough circle to see the Earth past the moon. We wouldn’t be tucked behind it. Trying to sit right on the Lagrange Point itself is too difficult. It’s meta-stable and you constantly need to expend propellant to stay there. The most difficult part is likely to be convincing the Japanese owners to move their property.”

*

The Pagosa Springs landed without any warning on Armstrong Field, as close to the mass of buildings as the pilot dared. That was very close indeed, less than six meters from the paved edge of the field and almost that close to the crater that intruded on the pavement from where the control tower and flight operations used to be.

Lieutenant Carlson had to dissuade Administrator Hartug from marching up to the nearest dome himself and demanding entry. When he suggested that was a good way to get his butt shot off Hartug gave him a look that said, ‘they wouldn’t dare’. He ignored the silence and spoke to the look, assuring him these fellows had defied the President’s direct orders and irrationally dared far too much already.

Hartug frowned a tight lipped, irritated frown, but inclined his head yielding to Carlson.

“Very well. If you think there is real risk I’ll defer to your judgment. I’m not keen to expose your people to unnecessary risk either however. I hope you will minimize your hazards?” he asked.

“If we wanted no risk at all we’d have just bombed the place from orbit and started over,” Carlson pointed out. “That’s our job to take some risk in order to salvage something of the situation. It’s likely the number of people in actual rebellion is fairly low, but you can assume they are the ones in charge of the arms locker and communications equipment.”

“How well are they armed compared to you?” Hartug asked. “I was not briefed on that.”

“They had a dozen Tasers, six long guns and ten pistols. They also had four rocket propelled grenades than would take out light armor. Damned if I know why. Maybe somebody thought the Chinese would come overland and invade them. It was foolish and a hazard to our ship too.”

“That seems most unlikely.”

“I agree and I’m trained to be a professional paranoid. We expect the majority of those weapons were lost, when the Home people wiped out the rover force sent out to retrieve the personnel who left Armstrong without permission. Having only four RPGs I’d be shocked if they didn’t take them all. But I’d be equally shocked and surprised if they didn’t leave a few pistols to keep the rest of their people in line.”

“What do you propose to do then?”

“Use our force to approach that larger building. It has antennas recently mounted on it so it must be the replacement for the field dome that was destroyed. We are armored up and pretty much immune to small arms. Let us secure the building and we’ll bring you in when we are sure nobody is going to assault you,” Carlson suggested.

“Very well. I can see that is your function. Just don’t be too quick to resort to shooting. I’m here to tell them what the new arrangement is. If talking will resolve it, I’d like to talk. That’s my function.”

“I’ll avoid conflict, if at all possible,” Carlson assured him.

“Proceed then Lieutenant.”

Carlson took four men, armored up, with carbines to approach the building. To look less aggressive, he had them sling the carbines on their back rather than carry them at the ready. He left a trooper aboard suited up and sealed, except his faceplate and left two men with heavier weapons outside, to guard the ship. He checked again with the pilot before leaving the lock, but there was no radio communications on standard ship or suit frequencies.

The big building had a lock facing the field and paved parking marked off, but no rovers parked next to it. Loose regolith thrown from the crater was shoveled away from around the lock and a path to pavement, but along the wall it was still piled at the base. Nobody had started to back fill the big hole yet or repair the landing surface. Next to the lock was a small sign indicating it was temporary field control and communications, just as they had suspected. When he pushed the illuminated square that should have opened the lock, nothing happened.

Carlson dug in one of the many small pockets along the inside of his arm. He extracted a patch cord, plugging it in the back of his right hand and inserted the jack in the port alongside the lock controls. “Hello, in there. Is anyone monitoring the intercom?”

“Yes indeed and we see you on camera Lieutenant. I’m Jesse Silverson. I’m the current Armstrong administrator given the removal of the others.”

“We are the security detail for Administrator Hartug, who is present on our vessel. We want to inspect the facilities and determine no threat exists to him, before we bring him in pressure to speak with you. I’d urge you to put any weapons in the arms locker and secure it locked before we bring him in. He is acting on orders direct from the President. I’ve read them myself.”

“And what does he intend to do with us?”

“You best discuss that with him. I’m merely charged with keeping him safe. I don’t speak for the man at all. Now will you unlock the controls here and allow us to inspect the administrative spaces?”

“No, I don’t believe we want to do that,” Silverson said, still polite. “We are aware the previous administrator removed was imprisoned and we still have no idea what charges he may face, but we are very aware he is being charged before the World Court even if no charges materialize before the USNA courts. Why should we submit ourselves to the same indefinite detainment and uncertain charges? You do intend to arrest us don’t you?”

“I have no orders to arrest anyone. I’d expect that would depend on what you agree to do when you speak with Administrator Hartug. I’d only expect that if you were defiant and refuse to start accepting orders from President Wiggen. But locking us out is not a good start.”

“And yet we have that World Court case hanging over us still. I don’t hear anyone denying its validity. I don’t see how you can refuse to eventually arrest us, if you are delivering acting director Crawford up to the Europeans. The four sub-directors and three of our subordinates, all feel they will be betrayed. So we dare not submit.”

“Be realistic. Your position is not tenable. You know we had to set aside your delivery of supplies to use the Pagosa Springs, so you are already behind on supplies and you are not self sufficient. If you defy us long enough we will set charges on the door and let ourselves in.”

“That would be a public relations nightmare,” Silverson warned. “Do you really want to be responsible for a massacre?”

“What exactly are you saying? You can suit up and we certainly wouldn’t surprise you. You can’t do my guys much damage with small arms. We’re armored up. Are you threatening mass suicide?”

“If it was just we seven holed up here, yes. However, we have everyone gathered here. The entire of Armstrong. We did not however, allow them to keep their suits on. I fear by the time you force entry and come in, it will be far too late to sort them out and get everyone in gear.”

“I have to talk to Mr. Hartug about that. I’ll be back to you.”

“You do that. We’ll be right here.”

Carlson considered using his radio, but they could listen in. “Fan out and keep a watch. Don’t fire unless fired upon. I’ll be right back.”

It wasn’t far to the ship. Seeing him returning Hartug was waiting inside the lock.

“They’ve taken hostages.”

“Who are they?”

“I spoke to Jesse Silverson. He claimed to speak for all four directors who had administrative responsibilities. Also three of their underlings who have decided they cooperated sufficiently that they will be considered guilty too.”

“Guilty? Nobody has charged them with a crime.”

“No, but come on sir. They have net access and know their previous boss is sitting in prison after he was recalled, charges or no. It doesn’t take much thinking on it, to see themselves joining him easily, they are aware of the international charges even if we have not charged them. None of them believe you are going to give them a stern talking to and go away. I certainly never thought that either.”

“Well this complicates things, that everyone has already decided what I shall do. Do you think they have the will to actually harm people they have lived and worked with long term?”

“Well like you said, the talking part is up to you. I came back without getting into any deep discussion with Director Silverson. I only spoke on audio com with him and you lose a lot not seeing a person face to face. He sounded disturbingly calm though. He indicated the hostages are all unsuited, so that if we blow pressure to get in they die.”

“And what are their demands?”

“He didn’t make any demands.”

Hartug looked surprised for the first time. “That’s bad. That’s usually the first thing they announce and loudly. Perhaps it’s time to let me speak to them. Don’t you think?”

“That’s why I came back,” Carlson agreed. “You might try the radio. If they will speak to you on com, there’s no need to go jack in at the lock like I did and expose yourself.”

“I’ll do that. Why don’t you pull your men back, to create a less tense situation and I’ll try speaking to them in about a half hour. I’d like to consult with some hostage negotiation experts at State and have a meal and make myself presentable before calling them.”

“And let them sweat a little bit?”

“Perhaps that too.”

*

The shuttle ride wasn’t everything Eric expected. The motors didn’t exactly roar and shake the vehicle wildly. It was more an oppressive hum and the vibration just made his nose tickle funny. The only person visibly terrified was his mother and she wasn’t really any worse than when their dad took the car off automatic to take them to their grandpa’s beach house.

Indeed most of the people looked bored. The fellow across the aisle from them had belted in immediately, promptly going to sleep and not stirred the least for the takeoff or transition to free flight and rockets. The G forces hadn’t been exactly crushing, but it was hard to imagine ever being so blasé about it you slept with your mouth hanging open, snoring through the whole thing.

His sister Lindsy pressed her lips in a thin disapproving line and glared at the man in perfect imitation of their mother when he stumbled aboard. Erin recognized the condition because he’d seen it in his uncle Mat on several occasions. His uncle Mat explained it was from too much fun. The funny solvent odor about him confirmed it was the same malady.

The motor cut off sharply and the cushions under him expanded back until the belts were snug again. His sister Lindsy made her squeaky mouse sound. He ignored it because she was always being dramatic about nothing. He looked however at the next noise. She had the bag from the seatback over her face and was gagging. They didn’t allow them any breakfast so she couldn’t have much of anything to bring up, but she kept trying a long time.

He’d taken the pill they’d offered, but he’d bet anything his sister hadn’t, or had faked taking it and spit it out. She simply hated anybody telling her what to do. If he told her she had to breathe she’d probably pass out trying to prove him wrong.

His mother looked back between the seats ahead of them and demanded he help his sister. But when he asked exactly what she suggested he do, she had no idea. It seemed a very personal endeavor and if he expressed support he expected from long experience it would be taken badly.

The few pushes and bumps to get them docked didn’t seem to help Lindsy. The opposite, really. When they docked a crew member came back and suggested she switch to a fresh bag and removed the old one. Then another towed her out behind the family, like a big party balloon.

The station was really interesting, but they sort of rushed through with Lindsy moaning and she had her eyes clamped shut so she missed everything. The crewwoman handed Lindsy off to a station security guy, who handled her for them all the way to the elevator. They had enough trouble moving themselves, but he ducked back out of the elevator and assured them she’d have some weight pretty soon.

The guy was right, they had enough weight to stand soon enough, but he obviously didn’t know Lindsy and the high drama she’d likely display for days. She acted frail. You’d think she’d been shot or something. He’d have liked to slap some sense into her, but she had twenty kilos on him and he had a scar from the last time they fought and she bit him.

His father would have let her crawl on the floor, before he’d allow her to hang on him, so his mother ended up with her draped all limp on her shoulder all the way to the Holiday Inn. The manager was so alarmed at her act he asked if they needed directions to the infirmary. His own inquiry if they had a mental facility was probably a mistake he’d pay for later, but worth it.

Everybody was hungry because they made you board without breakfast. Fortunately the cafeteria was nearby and they got ready to go over there. His mom called the front desk and asked if they had someone to sit his sister Lindsy. If she suddenly was well enough to go to dinner it would spoil her act. She knew her mom would bring her something anyway. The man looked at her out of the screen with a funny expression. “Is that the girl you just had in the lobby?” he asked.

“Yes the blond girl.”

“Excuse me, but is she mentally or physically challenged that she has special needs?” he asked, confused.

“No,” his mom said, irritated, “but she is sixteen. We follow the letter of the law and won’t leave her alone until she is eighteen.”

“Ms. Pennington, there is a nursery on this level for children to sleep over at full G. They might accept her for a part shift, if you’d care to call. The facility is mostly for sleeping however. As far as the law, there is no such law on Home. You will find that there is very little legal custom carried over from North American law to Home. Most folks on home regard a sixteen year old, or even younger, as safe to leave alone if they are not impaired in some way. Do what you feel correct, but the hotel doesn’t offer sitting services.”

“Very well, we’ll figure something out,” she said and disconnected with a sigh.

“Dare we leave her here, or will she flood the place before we return?” she asked her husband. Eric apparently didn’t need to remind them of the plugged toilet incident. She kept flushing it until the water coming down the stairs had alerted them to a problem. It had been too embarrassing to come tell them about it getting plugged up, because it involved bodily functions, but somehow flooding the upper level until it ran downstairs hadn’t embarrassed her at all.

She’d been fourteen then it was true, he bit his lip and kept silent. Somehow the fact he never flooded the place or set the cat on fire, or used their dad’s work phone to download slash never earned him any credit. In fact some days it appeared to him being a mess and a hazard got you more favorable attention than acting sane.

“The toilet looks to be powered,” his dad pointed out. “They seem to have some pretty good engineering here ,” he said, pointing out the Do Not Cover warning by the air intake high on the wall and visible sensors. “I’m going to go eat dinner. If Lindsy needs to lay here and pine and moan, she can do so without my help. If you want to stay here hungry and pat her hand and reward her for that ‘I’m a delicate little flower crap’ go right ahead. I told you a year ago I was done with that and I meant it.”

“We could leave Eric with her,” his mom considered tentatively.

“Eric is fourteen,” his dad pointed out, angry. “If you are leaving the fourteen year old with the sixteen year old, because he has better sense, something is mighty screwed up.”

“Well he’s a boy,” his mom gave tentatively as an excuse. Missing what an insult that was.

“I refuse to sit her anyway,” Eric informed her. “If you leave me here I’ll walk out after you leave and try to find my own dinner. I’m hungry too, you know. She ignores me anyway. If I told her stay out of the refrigerator she’d be in the hotel booze before you got back, just to show me she doesn’t have to listen to me.”

“Oh my God! They leave alcohol unlocked, where children might get in it?” His mom looked in the refrigerator as Eric already had and was horrified. “Mo, put all this all in a bag and take it to the front desk. and tell them how upset I am they’d leave such a hazard in the room!”

“Bring it along yourself if you want,” her husband said. He had fresh socks on and was tying his sneakers back up. “Eric and I are going to dinner.” He gave Eric a wink on the side she couldn’t see and got up. His wife scrambled to get the beer, wine and tiny single-serving booze bottles in a ice bucket.

“You stay here,” she ordered her daughter. “You may watch video, but no trying to access adult channels. and no use of the com to call your friends. You can text and visit your usual sites if you wish, but I’m going to inspect your log when we get back. Understand?” she asked.

That got a sullen nod that wasn’t real agreement. But Eric was in the corridor and her husband going out the door so she hurried after them.

The desk man accepted the alcohol rather indifferently. “Ma’am there are coathangers and bedding in the room too. If she is determined, she can find something to harm herself. I just want to point that out, given your apparent low expectations. We are not responsible for people at special risk. We don’t rent any padded cells,” he said bluntly. Eric give him a wink and was pleased the man had almost no reaction, just a twitch of the eyes. The fellow picked up on what a danger his sister was earlier than most.

“No, no it isn’t that sort of a problem at all,” Linda denied. “She’s a normal teenager, just a little high strung and sheltered,” she asserted. “She’ll be fine.”

Eric hoped for his sake the man got that disclaimer on the surveillance recordings.

Chapter 19

“Hello? Director Silverson? This is Administrator Hartug on the spacecraft. Could we establish a link and conference on com?”

“This is Jesse Silverson. What would you like to tell us?” he invited. This was awkward. Terrorists usually are quick to speak and slow to listen, but he kept putting the burden of the dialog back on him.

“Could we have video too please, so we can effectively speak face to face?”

“No, I don’t think so. You will have the best software to detect any slight doubt or hesitation on my part. I can chop off the dynamic range of my voice and we are dealing with our bare words and not playing games guessing each other’s veracity. I like that better.”

“Very well. What exactly do your propose to end this impasse?

“Oh that,” Silverson replied, like they might discuss the latest Cubs game. “We had in mind we vacate Armstrong and allow you to install whatever new administration pleases you, but we have no desire to go back home in cuffs and spend the rest of our lives in courtrooms and prisons. Look at the plus side, you avoid the expense of jailing us long term and the embarrassment of having us extradited.”

“That has some appeal,” Hartug admitted. “It falls within the envelope of solutions that President Wiggen requested. She basically wants her orders followed and doesn’t have any particular personal vengeful agenda to punish anyone. She certainly didn’t want this international court case. But if we return you to Earth I don’t see any way you’d avoid that. Even if we returned you to South America or Japan I believe you’d end up extradited to The Hague.”

“How about if we stay in space? Find one of the other moon colonies or orbital habitats that will let us enter and we’ll go there. There is a small matter of transportation you’d need to supply, but it looks to us as if your ship is large enough to take us. You can stay here and we’ll send it right back once we are safely delivered and you should be going back home in five or six days at most. There are plenty of supplies and accommodations here to let you wait in relative comfort.”

“How do you know we wouldn’t just dock at a USNA controlled habitat?”

“Well, we intend to take several of our associates here with us. We’ll leave them in the ship when we dock. We certainly know the various habitats by sight, so that is no problem.”

“I’ll call and see if we can get somebody willing to receive you,” Hartug offered. “What do you propose if nobody wants you?”

“I’d rather not make threats. It would be a small matter for the USNA to sweeten the deal to make offering us asylum more attractive. I suggest you think along those lines,” he said and disconnected.

“Lieutenant Carlson, I suggest you pull in your men outside. I am going to need to make a number of calls before this will be resolved. It’s likely to go past the time you’d like your men to be bottled up in a suit. They can rest and be fresh if we need them out there again.”

“Thank you, Administrator. I’ll keep one sealed up just inside the lock in case somebody approaches, but we can rotate that position in shifts too.”

“Lieutenant, is there anything in your orders that would preclude us staying here a week or so, if we had access to the various accommodations and services in Armstrong? I’m considering sending the Pagosa Springs away, back to Earth orbit and then they’d return for us.”

“No sir, we are fully at your disposal. I’m sure they have air for us and we even have our own rations for that long. If you don’t mind me asking sir, what would the Pagosa Springs be going to fetch back to us?”

“She would be removing our trouble makers rather than returning anything.”

“I didn’t see that one coming,” Carlson admitted. “If I might suggest sir. It is terribly expensive and wasteful to deadhead an empty vessel across space. If you send her back to Earth orbit, then it would make sense to restore the original load we removed before returning to the Moon. It would add a day or two to our stay, but save millions of dollars.”

“Thank you Lieutenant, I’ll inform you when we have something definite agreed upon.”

*

When the Penningtons went back in the corridor it was near the start of first shift and there were a lot of people going every which way purposefully. It had been late in the off shift when they arrived off the elevator and they’d only passed one person going to the Holiday Inn. Linda grabbed her husband’s sleeve and held him back. “Let’s go back in the hotel,” she urged, “something is going on, look at these people. About half of them have some sort of gun. We better call the police and report this.”

“Linda, if half the people are walking around with guns don’t you think the police are well aware of it? Do you think they are locked in a closet somewhere and haven’t been out today? I’d point out they are just going about their business. Nobody is waving them around and wildly firing. What exactly would you report? Nobody is threatening you.”

“I’m scared just to see them. It’s enough to make me scared somebody could hurt me. How can I feel safe?”

“How can you feel safe in Vancouver? About half the people around you every day are bigger and stronger than you. They could hurt you if they wanted to and they certainly wouldn’t need a gun to do it. You are afraid of everything and I’m tired of it. Go back to your daughter you’ve taught to be afraid if you want. You can both cower in the rooms and maybe wait until the middle of the night and slink out when nobody is about.”

“Will you bring us something back?”

“No, you didn’t have to come up here. I could have worked the assignment alone and come back every six months on leave. You are the one who insisted we stay together. If you can’t deal with it, we’ll get you and the kids a ticket home.”

“People who are apart that long end up divorced. I’ve seen it too many times.”

“You mean you saw it with your father. I’m not your father,” he reminded her forcefully. She might have said something, but not in front of Eric. “Let go of my elbow, it looks ridiculous and either come along or go back to the rooms.”

“I’ll come, but this is a terrible place,” she muttered.

The cafeteria was pretty busy. There was a line of seven people moving along. A few helped themselves to a very simple buffet and self-serve coffee. There were little knots of people talking and they tended to the side close to the coffee. There were two ladies, one at the counter and one at the moment tending the coffee urns.

Linda was shocked to see she was pouring coffee beans in a hopper. They fresh-ground and brewed real coffee. That was an expensive luxury back home. Mitsubishi had earlier served liquid concentrate, but people had started bringing their own coffee, or buying it down the corridor and ignoring the house coffee, so they’d been shamed into upgrading recently.

The menu board wasn’t what she was used to. In North America if you didn’t order a balanced diet from three separate color coded lists you were charged a twenty percent surtax. If you just ordered from one and it was more than four-hundred calories, it was another five percent added on.

“We’re new here,” Mo informed the lady behind the counter. “I’m going to be working here, not just visiting. Is there some sort of a membership or residents discount?”

“Are you Mo Pennington? ” Ruby asked. She got a confirming nod. “I’ve been expecting you. I have cafeteria cards for you and your family from your employer, just a moment.” She disappeared in the back and returned quickly with the cards.

“Mo, Linda, Lindsy and Eric,” she read off and handed them to him. “You have access any time. The cafeteria is always open. If you want something special not on the main board, we try to accommodate you, but there may be a special charge. Otherwise it’s a short buffet with an quick order counter. There is another place at the other end of the station. They serve mostly workers and have a little different rules, but your card is good there too. What would you folks like this morning?”

“There aren’t any limits or required items?” Linda asked. “How do we make sure our kids eat sensible and not just eat junk?” she asked. “Back home they had to eat what their school serves and we got a report if they’d thrown too much away.”

Ruby snorted through her nose. “Not my business to raise your kids. If you want we can restrict their cards to only serve them when they are with you. There isn’t much served here I’d call junk. I suppose you might have some kid try to live on pancakes or cheeseburgers if they have never been free to pick their own stuff before, but I’ve never seen any that didn’t get tired of one thing eventually and branch out to new stuff.”

“I’m not sure I like your attitude,” Linda informed Ruby tight lipped.

“I’m not sure I like your altitude,” Ruby snapped right back. When that just got a confused look she just said, “Think on it. It will come to you eventually,” she promised.

“We’ll figure out something,” Mo told his wife, eager to move on because he didn’t need any time to think on it and he handed her both her card and the children’s. “I’d like the pecan pancakes and sausage with a fruit cup and a glass of orange juice, please.”

“Hot or mild sausage?” Ruby asked.

“I don’t believe I’ve ever had spicy,” he said. “I’ll try that please.”

“That’s the only way the southerners and Mexicans will eat it,” Ruby explained. “What would you like ma’am?”

Lindsy was kind of overwhelmed with the choices. Not needing to follow government guidelines and no need to count the cost it added up to was new too. “Give me the same,” she said picking the easy way out.

“And you kiddo?” Ruby asked Eric.

“He’ll have the same too,” Linda quickly said.

“Give me a plate. I’ll get my own off that little buffet,” Eric said, angry at being bullied. He knew damn well her Highness the Princess would have gotten anything she wanted.

“You want the kids’ cards restricted then?” Ruby asked poker faced.

“No,” Mo said. “There is no reason not to let the boy pick his own breakfast but control freak pettiness,” he asserted. “It’s my job paying for the cards. Is there any reason I can’t restrict all three of the cards if I want?” he asked.

Linda was staring at him mouth hanging open. “You wouldn’t dare!” she insisted.

“No reason I know of,” Ruby agreed, blandly. “The master account is in your name.”

“None of them are restricted,” he told Ruby. “But keep that in mind,” he warned Linda. “If you want to be unkind you might get back some of your own medicine.”

Eric, wisely kept quiet. He’d have been happy with the same breakfast, but decided saying anything more right now was dangerous. He picked a safe balanced breakfast off the buffet, getting a fruit cup and bowl of oatmeal, but he did get walnuts and raisins for it.

My, what a happy little family, Ruby thought, once they were all seated well away from anyone else by the far wall and carefully ignoring each other.

*

“That seems workable,” Wiggen agreed. ” I will have the French ambassador approached with the plan. Let me see what I can do with him before we speak with anyone else. They are very likely the only ones with their own sovereign orbital properties who would take them. and he’s right, there is a little matter of difficulties over some cheese. It is the sort of public thing I can trade to them for a small favor that has sentimental value, but little real economic impact at all.” She actually smiled thinking about it.

“The French have their own small lunar colony too, don’t they?” Hartug asked her.

“Indeed they do. It is a joint endeavor with the Italians, Portuguese and they occasionally host a few Swiss or Poles or whoever they are in a mood to entertain. How hard could a couple extra Americans be to fit in?” she asked.

*

The Penningtons walked back to the hotel in less than companionable silence. Linda glaring at every armed man that passed and double for the women who she considered traitorous to their sex. It left a lot of people wondering what exactly was that strange woman’s problem.

When they entered the lobby the desk attendant quickly called to them. “Excuse me, your room is unusable. Your daughter is here in the manager’s office. Would you come and see what you can do for her?”

They went around the desk and followed him into a surprisingly large room. Lindsy was sitting in a desk chair wrapped in an aluminized emergency blanket. Her hair was wet and there was a bit of foam still clinging to one ear. Their luggage was sitting in a puddle, dripping wet.

“What happened?” Linda asked alarmed.

“Your daughter decided to smoke a cigarette in your rooms,” the manager explained. “The chemical signature is very distinct and was noted by the sensors to Fire and Rescue when the fire suppression system activated. It is a breach of contract. If you read your terms of use, we treat our internal spaces the same as public cubic. Fortunately it is just a private matter with us. If she had deliberately created an open flame out in public spaces, they’d likely be putting you on the next shuttle down. The Assembly has a very low tolerance on safety issues. We will be adding a cleaning and refurbishing surcharge of six-thousand dollars USNA to the room fees. Would you like me to call for a transport cart for your luggage?”

“Can you move us to a dry room?” Linda asked. “Or will ours be cleaned up and dried by bedtime?” she wondered.

“I was not sufficiently blunt,” the clerk said, frowning. “You are no longer welcome here. If you wish to go down to the Radisson we will say nothing to them about this episode. I’m not saying they won’t find out about it from others. However we don’t welcome back guests who are a safety hazard. There is not sufficient allowance made in our hotel air system for removing cigarette smoke, or other dense smoke for that matter and smoking leads directly to such events as bed fires that are a serious danger to a significant volume, not just your rooms. We are in a closed volume and all very, very fond of breathing. You may have noticed, if we have a serious fire we can’t just throw open the doors and run outside.”

“Are you going to report this to the police for minor in possession of tobacco?” Linda asked horrified at the possibility.

“There are no laws on Home about the possession of tobacco, marijuana or any number of drugs outlawed on Earth. We do have very strict regulations about open flames and polluting the common air. May I suggest that when you travel to another country it would serve you well to actually investigate what they have as laws and customs? Since you are not my customer and will never be my customer again, I will tell you something frankly madam. You are a damned fool. Would you please remove yourself and your vile offspring as quickly as feasible? I won’t even bother to tell you the language the young woman used on us. I’m sure you’ve heard it.”

“Yes, we’ll take that luggage carrier if you’d call it,” Mo told him. “Close your mouth dear, it looks silly hanging open. We’ll get Lindsy changed when we have some new rooms. But not changed enough I fear,” he said glaring at her. She was indifferent to his anger.

*

“The French have offered to accept the four directors on their space station and the three underlings at their moon base,” Hartug told Silverson. “It’s working out better than we thought. They have no visa and residency restriction on station like down on Earth. A transient can stay as long as he wishes. The fellow I talked to laughed and said you can afford it or you can’t. That is how you qualify. Do you think that is acceptable?”

“That might actually be better,” Silverson said surprised. “There is some animosity between the technicians and their bosses. In fact one such pair was a romance and the difficulties and legal problems killed that relationship. The three feel they were just following orders and their bosses got them in this mess.”

“However, I wonder if it is so expensive if we may have a hard time finding work and fitting into the culture? I speak French. I was raised in a diplomatic household, attended a private French school and used French as much as English until I was about sixteen, but the others are going to need to quickly study the language.”

“President Wiggen has already invested some political capital by letting a trade matter slide with the French. We discussed this aspect of it and decided we will quietly provide some support through one of the agency witness protection programs. It’s worth it frankly, to be rid of you. But if you reveal that to the media, or try to milk us for an unreasonable run when you could be self sufficient, well, in that case we’d hang you out to dry,” Hartug warned him bluntly.

“That seems a fair warning,” Silverson allowed, but he was rattled a little. It was the first threatening thing Hartug had ever said. “How do we work this? Physically that is?”

“Our troopers will suit up and march over to the far edge of the landing field. If you want to send somebody to confirm none are left aboard you may. Once they are safely away you may board with whatever hostages you like, or if you prefer, you are welcome to myself to guarantee your safe delivery. All of you will go to the French station and your three techies will take a regular supply ship to the French moon base. After you are aboard and satisfied there is no ambush, our soldiers will march back to your administrative building.”

“They understandably would like to confirm the air plant is not sabotaged or anything before the Pagosa Springs lifts. The flight deck on the vessel is very secure. Neither of us have any chance of forcing access to it without rendering the ship unflyable. The crew are commandeered just like the ship and frankly don’t give a damn about you or me and just want to get this over and go back to their commercial endeavors. If you want to check their understanding of what is agreed upon between us you can talk to them.”

“No, I know pilots. They wouldn’t agree to some double cross that would put their ship at risk if you put a gun to their head. That sounds workable to me. I tell you what. We are going to bring four hostages, unless, do you by any chance play poker?” he asked Hartug lightheartedly.

“Yes, but not with you.”

*

The Radisson wasn’t as nice, but the man didn’t ask why their luggage was dripping and he ignored the fact their daughter was still damp, though Mo made Linda hold her well back from the desk hoping it wouldn’t be obvious.

If most USNA laws were no longer in effect on Home, what were their views on corporal punishment? Mo wondered darkly and where could he buy a length of rubber hose or a high voltage cattle prod?

They trudged down the hall silently and got in the rooms before anyone spoke. The rooms were even smaller and plainer than the Holiday Inn. Eric went straight to the room com and called up the video news. He wanted to look like he was ignoring the argument he knew was coming, but he listened carefully while watching the news. There was some sort of big argument in Italy about gene therapy. Apparently some big conference of Cardinals was infected with a virus that made them healthier. That was bad? It must be, they were calling it terrorism. and some Spanish guy was being kicked out for exposing them all to it. The price of corn was way down. Apparently people thought there was a lot of it, but the corn harvest was a state secret in the USNA, so nobody knew for sure. The people who bought corn were buying a whole lot more, which for some reason made the farmers unhappy. Wasn’t that why they grew it? To sell it? Would the news make more sense when he was older? The Canadians were complaining there were too many moose, now that hunting was illegal and cars on auto-control braked for them until there was a line of cars a mile long sitting stopped with a moose standing there in the middle of the road looking at them. A fellow in Quebec put his car on manual and tried to crowd the moose off the road, but it took exception to this and kicked his car pretty much to junk. He got a ticket too.

“Where did you get cigarettes young lady?” her mother started in on her loudly. “We’re not even here a day and already this is the effect this horrid place has on our family. Tobacco not illegal indeed! I suppose you could walk in one of those stores and just buy them like a pair of socks or a sandwich?” Eric sat still watching the screen, but his attention was on them now.

“Oh please, you are so clueless, I got those back home in school. You can buy anything in school. If a student can’t get it you ask around and one of the teachers will have it. Mr. Baumgartner in citizenship class swapped me for them.”

“Swapped? For what?” she asked, dreading the answer.

“For a bag of old stuff from the back of the pantry you would have thrown out pretty soon. You check the dates and toss it like it turns into rat poison on the magic date. I’ve seen you. Lots of people can’t be so picky. Teachers don’t make enough to eat hardly.”

“And why would you want that filthy stuff? Haven’t you heard anything about how terrible it is for you? My God, do they sell hard drugs at Cambridge High too? and to think we moved there mostly for the good schools!”

“Oh, yeah, I know that all the stuff adults spend most of their time trying to get, is bad for you,” Lindsy agreed. “You or dad never tried a cigarette, or had a drink when you were kids. You probably didn’t have sex until your first anniversary and you’ve never skipped brushing your teeth before going to bed. I concede you are officially Righteous Beyond All Human Standards,” she allowed, rolling her eyes in disdain. Eric was very still. Now was not the time to be noticed.

“I never knew you felt that way,” Linda said, shocked.

“Lindsy honey, I know a lot of rules at home seemed stupid. A lot of rules at my work are stupid,” her dad admitted. “So I have to deal with it too. We only follow them to avoid being punished and it’s very tempting to go around them, if you think you can get away with it. But honestly, it is different up here. They have actual reasons for these rules. Being in space has real dangers, but the rules make them manageable. I’m going to work in a pressure suit on the moon and I’ll be required to go through a check list and item by item make sure everything is right before I go outside. If I mess up it isn’t a ticket from the school compliance officer, I die, rather unpleasantly.”

“I hate to hear you teaching her to ignore rules,” Linda complained.

“I’m trying to appeal to her to think. God only knows the school hasn’t tried to teach her how to do that. and I certainly don’t think she’d have picked it up from “You Bet Your Life” or “Birthday Boys” on the TV. I think there must be a brain rattling around in there somewhere and I’d like her to try using it, because if I lose this job and we all get sent back to Vancouver, I won’t have very good prospects for another job.” He stopped and let that idea sink in.

“Do you really want to see what it’s like to live on the negative tax? I can assure you we wouldn’t be living in a nice condo and going to the good school with an indoor track and a swimming pool. We’d be in public housing and ride the bus and get the heat-up meals. Think about that.”

“Give me the rest of those cigarettes,” her mom demanded. “I want to see them flushed down the toilet and gone for sure.”

“They’re back in the other room on the table, all soggy and ruined.”

“Lindsy, I’m more concerned about your lighter,” her dad said. “It was having an open fire that got them so upset. I don’t even want you to be able to accidentally start a fire. Would you get it for me please and I’ll ask how to dispose of it safely.”

“Can’t you just toss it in the wastebasket?” Eric felt safe to speak up again with his dad.

“No, it has a little reservoir of flammable gas. It has stuff that sparks. I’m an engineer, trust me on this, I bet they have a special way of taking stuff like that out of circulation.”

Eric nodded, surprised, but interested. Stuff sure was complicated here.

Lindsy got in her purse and dug around until she found a plastic disposable lighter. She handed it to her dad without any drama or funny faces. “I’ll try not to get us kicked out,” she conceded. “But I’m not sure I might not mess up just by accident. I don’t know what else might be against their rules. I mean, nobody handed us any handbook or anything when we came in. How is somebody supposed to know?”

“I just assumed they pretty much kept all the same laws from North America,” her dad admitted. “That’s what break-away colonies have done before, kept the same legal system. Obviously I was wrong. I’d guess there must be something on the local net. We’ll look and see what we can find before we do very much at all. We’re supposed to meet my new boss tomorrow and he’s going to show us where you’ll stay when I’m off working. We can ask him what we should be aware of too.”

“If you go shower I’ll lay out some dry clothes for you,” her mom offered. “The luggage is wet but everything inside should be dry and we need to get a bag or something from the hotel for laundry. I have no idea if you send it out, or go to a do-it-yourself place or what,” she admitted.

“I’ll do a net search,” Eric volunteered from the com console. “I like doing searches.”

*

“Hello,” the man on her screen greeted her. “I’m Brian Hartug, a special administrator for President Wiggen at Armstrong. Are you Ms. Dakota?” He inquired politely.

“Yes I am. What can I do for you Mr. Hartug?” she asked cautiously.

“At the moment nothing of which I am aware,” he said. “I’m just calling to inform you that the last four people with previous administrative authority have been removed from Armstrong. There were also three technicians removed, who had no depth of authority, but seemed entirely too zealous in supporting their supervisors in questionable actions.”

“Oh, I’m sure they were just following orders,” Dakota bit off sarcastically. “In the best tradition of all the loyal minions down through history, who were needed to stack the bodies and shovel the graves back in.”

“I can’t fault your anger and I’m making no excuses for them. However, I was told you’d want to know they are gone and unless someone else here is hiding a repressive urge, I don’t think there is anyone left who will try to manage your communications or impose any restrictions on your movement, or what you may own. I’ll be here a week or a bit more and I’d appreciate if you let me know if you have any difficulties. I haven’t yet decided who is going to be at least temporarily in charge. I’m just starting on some interviews. But you should have no further trouble placing com calls or traveling here,” he hesitated, “or more to the point, leaving Armstrong should you decide to visit.”

“Are they under arrest then? Did you ship them back to the USNA?”

“That was my original intent. However when I arrived here at Armstrong with a small contingent of armored troopers we were unable to gain entry or conduct any interviews because the ones holding power presented us with a hostage situation.”

“Those scum would threaten their own people?” Dakota asked amazed. “I mean they were willing to shoot us, after we’d left and they felt we were an enemy. But to threaten the people who stayed! You have to work with those folks elbow to elbow. They eat with them! How could they be that evil?”

“The capacity for evil unfortunately doesn’t seem to be rare in humans. But let me tell you, I felt it was a very credible threat. They had everyone gathered in one building with them and had denied them access to their pressure suits. It rather tied our hands as far as breaching the building with explosives to gain entry. I’m fairly certain we could not have aided them to suit up in time to avert a massacre, so I reluctantly acceded to their demands.”

“I hope that doesn’t mean you gave them any sort of a pardon,” Dakota said scowling. ‘Tell me you didn’t do that please. I didn’t think President Wiggen would do that. She was quite put out at the disrespect for her authority.”

“No, but they requested our transport to leave and stranded us here until it, or something else comes to relieve us. My understanding is they intend to go to the French habitat and ask asylum. Now if they will grant it is another question,” he posed, trying to avoid admitting it was a setup. “However the French do have a strong history of allowing entry to people we’d find repugnant, if not outright terrorists. We’ll see what happens,” he said as if it was unsure.

“Surely France being a European nation will allow extradition to the Hague,” Dakota said confidently.

“One would think so,” Hartug agreed easily. “You certainly can add your voice to the matter, having an interest as you do.”

“Wow, just wow. That took off in a direction I didn’t see coming. I have to talk to my people here and think on this. We’ll try calling old friends again and if there is any problem we will give you a call. Do you know if they are still looking for help from us on some of the practical matters like the air plant?”

“I haven’t been tasked with resolving matters down to that level of detail,” Hartug said smoothly. “I’m not even aware of any problems with the production of air. But since I’ll be staying here and hopefully breathing for at least a week I’ll certainly ask about that and encourage them to speak with you again if there is any real need,” he promised.

“Goodbye then, Administrator Hartug. I believe we’ll speak again,” she predicted.

Chapter 20

“This is my own apartment,” Jeff explained to the Penningtons. “I’ll be spending most of my time on the moon while Mo will be working for me. I’ve only been using it a few days here and there. I realize it is smaller than you are accustomed to. It is usually considered space for two, but we are having a severe housing shortage and a volume big enough to configure for three rooms just isn’t available now. I rent this, but there are no three bedrooms on the market and to buy that much cubic right now would be a wait, even at a price of couple million USNA dollars. I’ll have a sofa bed brought in so your boy can sleep in the big room. I’ll just stay in my business offices while you are here. It has a bath and I can sleep on an air mattress after business hours. In a half G an air mattress is quite comfortable.”

“Can you do that without getting in trouble with the authorities for using commercial property for residential purposes?” Mo asked.

Jeff looked at him oddly, like what he was saying didn’t compute. “Oh, that’s Earth Think,” he said smiling. “There is no zoning authority in that sense. Mitsubishi owns the physical structure, the actual habitat. But the only rules they have are the necessary ones to keep it from losing physical integrity or making it wobble. I can’t remove load bearing structures or move mass in or out faster than the balance system can compensate. The entry is an airlock, it has to remain functional in case of pressure loss, although I could replace it with a higher grade manual lock instead of a pressure sensing lock,” he mused, like he would consider doing that.

“I guess as your new employer I should do a safety orientation. If there is a pressure drop the inner door to the lock closes and seals. You have to manually open and close it and of course the outer door won’t open unless the inner is sealed. There are two emergency suits in a cabinet in the lock. You can put them on in there, but it’s easier to bring them inside and do it flat on the floor. I’ll get one and show you.” He went back inside the entry alcove and returned with silvery roll sealed in a clear envelope.

“We call these One-Size-Doesn’t-Fit-Anyone suits,” he explained grabbing a ring and pulling it the length of the roll. The silvery suit took up a significant amount of the available floor space stretched out flat.

“The inside is really slick, so if you start your feet in the tops of the legs like this,” he did so leaving on his shoes, “you can sit and extend your legs, then grab each side of the open suit and slide forward until you are all the way against the crotch. You see my legs are too short to get my feet in the boots? That’s why we say it doesn’t fit anyone. You pull these tabs on each calf and it bunches the material up around your ankle until it’s short enough to fit,” he said, demonstrating how to adjust them until his foot was at the bottom.

“If the pressure is actually falling and you are in a hurry, you can of course seal up first and then laying on your back get all the adjustment tabs pulled until the arms and legs and body length fit. Just don’t get too excited and say pull the legs up too short or you’ll be walking around with the crotch half way down to your knees.”

He reached back and found the arm holes, shrugged them on and raising his shoulders, lifted the helmet over his head with both hands. He then laid back flat and grabbed the big red pull lanyard at his crotch and pulled it upward, sealing the front seam, until it locked with an audible snap almost to the base of his neck.

“To get it back open you need to squeeze on each side of the slider,” he said, voice muffled somewhat by the suit. “It takes a bit of force since you wouldn’t want to do it accidentally. The air cycling and CO² scrubber activate when it seals. I’m going to open it back up again right away, because the fee to recertify and roll it back up is much less if the air pack reads less than five-percent used and doesn’t have to be recharged.” He did so, wiggling out of the suit in reverse.

“If anybody wants to try it, now is your chance,” Jeff offered with a wave at the suit laid out flat on the deck. Eric stepped onto it and slid in the legs pretty easily, the arms and helmet were harder for him to reach because he was so much shorter. He pulled the front seal up but stopped short of closing it and got back out. He didn’t pull all the tabs in to make it fit him because then nobody else would fit in it. His dad went through the motions too. Linda declined and Lindsy, watching to see what her mom would do, quickly passed also.

“So they will roll this back tight and seal it in a new cover and use it again?” Eric asked.

“Yes, but they turn it inside out and inspect it for any tears or snags. Most folks who wear Earthie style dress shoes with a heel, cut the corners of their heels off at an angle so they won’t catch if they need to use a suit. They’ll wipe it down with a sani-wipe and weigh the chemical canisters in the air pack to make sure they are within spec. It costs about eight-hundred dollars USNA to recertify and pack, but if they have to replace a canister or patch a tear the figure doubles.”

“So you just spent eight-hundred bucks to show us how to use it?” Eric asked wide eyed.

“Yes, but isn’t it so much better to really do it than watching a video?”

“Have you ever actually had to use one of these?” Linda asked.

“No, I’ve been on M3 half my life and there has never been an actual pressure emergency,” he admitted. “I do wear a suit anytime I’m in one of our small ships or working on the moon, but it is a bespoke suit, cut to fit me exactly and it is much heavier and tougher. You’d have a hard time hacking a hole in the fabric with a regular pocket knife and it has elbow pads, a built-in insulated seat and over boots and gloves. I own a thruster pack and helmet lights and stuff, to use it for zero-G work too if I want.”

“It seems like a lot of expense for something you never use,” Linda said.

“I bet you had a fire hydrant in front of your house down on Earth, didn’t you?” he asked.

“Yes, we did and before you ask, no, we never saw it with hoses on being used,” Mo admitted.

Jeff just nodded, acknowledging he’d gotten the point. “I’ll call and make sure you have four suits in the cabinet this shift,” he promised. “I’ll leave the plants,” he said waving at them. “Almost everyone has them because it keeps the air cleaner. They all have a little stick jammed in the dirt. When it starts turning blue, if you’d put a little tap water in the pot I’d appreciate the help keeping them alive.”

“We are off schedule, because it was deemed prudent to send our ship quickly to the moon when a USNA vessel went there suddenly. It should be back in three days, so we have about five days to fit you for a suit and do some training before it turns around. Sound doable?” he asked Mo.

“It does, we need to ask what we should read to acclimate ourselves to Home? I had sort of expected you’d just keep the USNA legal model and slowly modify away from our laws as you saw need. Now we found out there are no drug laws and the regulations from Mitsubishi have more force than the laws we are used to. Is there a handbook or something available?”

“You know, someone did mention to me that Mitsubishi has an orientation document they keep current for the vacuum rats and beam dogs. I’ll get a copy and send it to your com. Do you folks have station com registered yet?”

“No, how do we do that?”

“You can do it right on the desk com there. Just pick the communications icon. I removed this desk from my call points so it will ask for an ID. Click on the registration line and it will ask for names the way you want to be listed. There will be a numeric ID after the name, if you want to let somebody contact you without sharing your name, but either will connect you. I suggest you get spex though. Just about everyone finds them indispensible. They will build you a 3D map and guide you point to point.”

“I’m not sure I approve of children having such a luxury,” Linda scowled.

“Up to you, they are cheap and nobody here thinks of them as a luxury,” he added.

“Define cheap,” Eric said, remember the suit expense.

“I think the cheapest basic ones are about a hundred-fifty USNA. About like a cheap pair of cloth shoes. Mine are pretty decent,” he said, touching them, “they ran about six hundred a year ago. Probably four-fifty or five hundred now,” he guessed. “They go obsolete faster than I want to take time to learn new ones. On Home folks tend to buy the high end ones.”

“They cost more down home,” Eric confirmed. “What happens to the old ones?”

“Now that’s an interesting question,” Jeff said smiling bigger than he had before. “I think I have three or four old pair in my junk bag. I hate to throw them away if they still work. Would you like me to courier over a couple pairs for the kids? The newer ones still have detachable cameras, but they lack the death rays that shoot out of the temple pieces,” he joked, stabbing forward with both index fingers to illustrate.

“That would be nice,” Mo agreed before his wife could nix it. He knew she wasn’t going to appreciate that death ray joke. “We can keep in contact with them that way. I’m sure they don’t need the latest tech. I had a question I neglected to ask in my interview. How exactly are you going to pay me? I mean where will it be deposited? Do you need my account information for my Earthside bank?”

“I could wire the money through the Private Bank of Home, but it seems like the wire fees on both ends would add up too fast. I was going to pay you monthly in advance. That’s the custom up here. So I opened an account in the Private Bank and your first month’s wages are there already. They can transfer to North American banks as you need instead of automatically. If you want to make other arrangements that’s fine – just tell them you don’t want to sign the account cards and they’ll give you cash instead. I have a transfer account between my own bank and the Private Bank so you could get cash every month if you wanted. But it’s handy having a bank card.

“Why don’t you pay me through your own bank?” Mo asked, puzzled.

“When I say, my own bank, I don’t mean the bank where I’m a customer. I mean the System Trade Bank where I’m a director and have an ownership interest. I was concerned there are too many opportunities for a conflict of interest to pay employees in one venture through another in which I have control. I’d be really nervous to be paid that way. and the System Bank has no access to North American settlement services, so that makes it awkward too.”

“Now I understand,” Mo said. He kept a straight face but was rattled. This kid looked to be eighteen, nineteen maybe. He’d worried if he actually had the means to pay him.

“Are the taxes taken out of it? I never filled out any forms.”

“What taxes?” Jeff asked. “You don’t owe Home any taxes unless you volunteer to pay them. So far everybody who did so wanted to become a citizen. You haven’t indicated any desire to declare as a permanent resident or citizen and it isn’t necessary for your job. Any USNA taxes are between you and them. I’m certainly not going to be an agent for a foreign revenue agency.”

“What is keeping me from going around and asking people if they have old spex to sell cheap and reselling them on eBay or The Mad Closet to make some money?” Eric interrupted.

“Nothing of which I am aware,” Jeff said, thoughtfully. “Those are Earth corporations so you are too young to contract with them, but I assume you’ll think of a dozen ways to work around that. The Private Bank will open accounts for you regardless of age. They would undoubtedly act as a proxy for you and open an auction account. and shipping is cheap on the down leg. But do you have the capital to buy the glasses?”

“You mean the money?” Eric asked.

“Yes, or anything to trade or something liquid that could be hypothecated to the bank to raise cash money. An Earth account, or valuables.”

“No, I brought some stuff from home, but it’s kid stuff. I doubt anybody would give me anything for it. They said we had eighty kilos of personal lift and my clothes took most of that and my mom let me bring some seashells and a few books, but most of our stuff got packed away and put in storage.”

“What books?”

Eric looked at his mom right away. “You can tell him,” she allowed.

“I have “The Mote in God’s Eye”, “Have Space Suit - Will Travel” and “Treasure Island.”

“The 1911 edition?”

“Just an acid free reproduction of the 1911 edition,” Eric corrected. “None of them are allowed in our school back home. If I took one to school they’d confiscate it. Having it at home is just antisocial, but they wouldn’t come take it,” he said, with no certainty at all.

“This does not surprise me,” Jeff said grimly. “How about the seashells? Where are they from and how did you buy them?”

“I didn’t buy ‘em. We’d go down the coast and I picked them up on the beach and took them home. They’re really pretty and I packed them very carefully so they wouldn’t get smashed. I had them all laid out in a row on my window sills back home. But it doesn’t look like there is any place to display stuff like that here.”

Jeff smiled. “Spacers tend not to put out little nick-nacks. They have a mentality that they can become missiles under unexpected acceleration. I admit that is unlikely in something the size of Home, but it’s human nature that those sort of habits get ingrained.”

“Do you ever move it at all?” Linda asked, surprised.

“Yes, the last time they moved it you could see your coffee slosh over to one side of your cup. Otherwise it was pretty tough to tell it was moving. Eric, if you took some of your shells, maybe a few that are not your favorites and put each of them in a frame with a map showing where you picked it up and a short letter describing the circumstances and establishing the provenance, that is the provable history of its origins and chain of ownership, I believe you’d be surprised what some of the station dwellers would pay for a little reminder of ordinary Earth things like walking on a beach.”

“I have pics of me on the beach too, but when I was younger.”

“That would go in the frame nicely too. Didn’t you save any money when you got a little?” Jeff asked, eyebrows all screwed up like it was hard to understand such a thing.

“I get an allowance, but I have to save it for college.”

“I see,” Jeff said, like he didn’t. He refrained from asking, “All of it?”

“Trouble is, I really like my shells and I don’t know if I’ll ever get to go back to the beach and get more,” Eric worried. “I don’t want to sell them off. I think I’d regret it.”

“Then you probably shouldn’t. I’m afraid you’ll have to think of some other service to offer people and build up to your spex trading idea. I’ll leave that to you to figure something out.”

“My dad told me his grandfather used to go cut lawns and shovel snow from people’s sidewalks as a kid. But they don’t let kids work like that now and you have to have a business license and a tax number and be insured and everything now, before you can work.”

“I’m sure that is true back home on Earth, but on Home there are no licensing laws or age limits. If you can figure out something people will pay to have done, you can do it, as long as it is OK with your folks,” he added, seeing a very unfriendly look from Linda.

“So, do you folks have any sweatshops yet, with little kids working twelve hour days assembling something?” Linda asked. Mo looked alarmed at the hostile tone she was taking with his new boss.

“There are so few children on Home I doubt they could fill a shift. Most parents want to see their children devoting the majority of their time to learning. But many of them see doing as the best way of learning. My father used to take me into Lucent with him and let me see how he designed nanoelectronic systems. I could go over and play at a lab bench and work with my hands making simple circuits and take things like the junk spex, of which we were speaking and modify them. It was very educational. It was in no way a sweatshop.” He finally seemed a bit put out with her tone, which made him reconsider.

“I tell you what Eric. I like how you think. I can see you have been in a system that stifled any real opportunity to accumulate capital. Here,” he said, flipping him a coin. “If you go into the Private Bank with your dad, when he sees about his pay, they will open you an account against this. It’s issued by my bank. Consider it a personal loan with no collateral. If you succeed in your business ideas I’d be happy to get it back and any profit you care to share. If not, well we both guessed wrong. I’ll take the risk,” he decided.

“And I’ll see you start of first shift day after tomorrow,” he told Mo. “We’ll do a suit fitting and start getting you squared away. Does that work for you?”

“That works. Where though?”

“Put my name in station com and it will show you my business offices. and unless it is messed up, it shouldn’t show this cubic.” He nodded and headed out the door suit under his arm.

“I’m surprised you didn’t object to him giving Eric a loan,” he said after the door was sealed.

“Yeah a single coin,” Linda said unimpressed. “It looked to be about the size of a quarter. Big deal. How much can their local funny money be worth?”

Mo put out his hand and Eric reluctantly gave him the coin. Twenty-five grams Platinum it claimed on one face. Heavy little thing for its size. The last time he remembered seeing it on the news, platinum was running about twenty-thousand dollars USNA a Troy ounce. An ounce was a little bigger, but not all that much. He handed it back with a warning look not to say anything. Eric knew exactly what that look meant. Linda was off on something else with Lindsy already.

*

“Welcome to the Scientific Research and Industrial Production Orbital Station of the French Nation,” the young lady welcomed them. “We have some consultations scheduled for tomorrow with the immigration authorities. We have some strictly perfunctory forms to fill out and necessary interviews to carry out, but they are simply formalities, your asylum has been approved on the highest levels. We will have translators available and take you to a hotel right now, so you can rest and refresh yourselves before dealing with those tedious details.”

“That’s very kind of you,” Silverson thanked her switching to French. “My associates have started studying French, but I’m afraid it has only been a few days and they only have a handful of simple phrases. I was fortunate that I was in a diplomatic family and until I was sixteen went to a French private school and used French every day with our household help and out and about the city with my mother. If I can be of help with my people let me know.”

“But of course. You do speak exceptionally well. and you have the cutest accent,” she allowed, perhaps flirting with him a little. “Where was your family posted?” she asked, curious. “The Ivory Coast? Or perhaps St. Martin?” she guessed.

“Actually it was Paris.”

“How lucky for you!” she said still smiling, but it had turned brittle and forced.

Silverman smiled back, too late to say oops, too late to say sorry. He just hoped she didn’t have the authority to make their lives miserable. He hadn’t meant to cast any aspersions on her accent at all. Damn.

*

“I may build it, but I sure as hell won’t ride in it,” Dave informed Jeff gruffly, looking at the plans. “At least not down into the atmosphere,” he qualified his objection.

“We’ve done computer modeling and it should vaporize the throat plug and blow it out against atmospheric pressure. The exhaust should keep the air out of the chamber right down to sea level. With a good margin actually. It’s a lot like the old style diffusion pumps on steroids.”

“At a steady state,” Dave protested. “What about the back pressure and reflected wave from the initial pulse?” he asked, skeptically.

“That’s a little harder to model,” Jeff admitted. “It should be well within the pressure levels known to standard engineering practice.”

“In what?” Dave asked directly. Dave was pretty hard to slip past with smooth phrases.

“Firearms. We’ll build a hefty safety factor in the first drive, about like a howitzer breech in fact and think about reducing it after some real world experience.”

“It isn’t very pretty,” Dave said, looking at the drawing.

“Ugly as sin and it will fly like a brick going sideways, but it will shed most of the heat of hypersonic passage in the displaced plasma instead of accumulating it in an ablative heat shield. Otherwise it would need refurbishing every third or fourth flight.”

“Which means it will shed a shock wave that will bust windows on a corridor fifty kilometers wide if you take it below about twenty-five kilometers,” Dave warned.

“Hey, take a full speed pass at five kilometers and I can save the expense of bombing them,” he said, not entirely facetiously.

“We’ll run the numbers, so you don’t do it accidentally, but yeah, the overpressure is going to be fearsome. OK, I’ll build it for you on one condition,” Dave agreed, making up his mind.

“What’s that?”

“You run the first one as a drone, like a robot freighter. I don’t want to be the guy who enabled you to blow your silly little butt to plasma. We wire it up with extensive stress and strain sensors and measure the crap out of the thing, tear the drive all the way down to basic components after, if it survives and do checks for gross deformation, as well as microscopic surface inspections and crack detection. Then maybe, if it looks golden we trust a human in the crazy thing. It’s damn scary and right on the edge of the development envelope I gotta tell you.”

“Agreed, but this first one should still be a real human rated shuttle, with eight seats, two with acceleration neutralizers, not just a scale size. In fact being able to run it as a drone means you can lift bigger loads or two extra people without the mass of the pilots. That might be critical to do some time.”

“Also, we drop the first one on a remote island or off in the middle of Antarctica. If it blows up trying to lift no harm to anyone and if it fails, but is sitting there stranded you can bombard it out of existence safely,” Dave demanded.

Jeff just nodded an easy agreement. It seemed reasonable.

“You got it,” Dave said satisfied and offered his hand. “I’m thinking six weeks on the rack for the basic build out. Then another two weeks for fitting internals and special systems.”

“And no mounts for special weapons, you’ll notice. Too much risk of having them captured. Just missiles. But make sure it has a decent coffee maker,” Jeff reminded him, taking his hand.

*

“Ms. Lewis, I’m Linda Pennington and this is my daughter Lindsy and my son Eric. I inquired and found there is no active school on Home, but was informed you intend to start one soon. Could you tell me a little about how and what you intend to instruct and if you will have groups appropriate to their ages?”

“We have eleven students signed so far from six to seventeen. Everybody will be instructed in a common area. We’ll form groups according to ability and age for the subject at hand. Some things like art or languages might have a wider age range than reading or mathematics. I will have an assistant to help me all day long and occasionally others. There are already a number of independent tutors on Home, used by the folks who homeschool. I don’t pretend to be proficient in mathematics, so I will use a gentleman who teaches trigonometry and the calculus. I can teach simple algebra and plane geometry myself. Are you planning on blending my instruction with some of your own at home?”

“That’s a good question,” Linda admitted, a little taken aback. “I never considered formally instructing them myself. It is rather viewed as, antisocial, in North America. I’d have to see what resources I can find. I wanted them with other children as much for the socialization, as for formal instruction.” and to give myself a sanity day, she thought, but didn’t say aloud. “Do you think there will be any hostility toward them for being North American?”

“I haven’t seen children thinking that way,” Faye told her. “They usually have to be taught by adults to dislike foreigners and you might be surprised how little animosity is directed at North Americans by Home citizens. They do tend to speak very harshly of the North American government, but neither you or your husband are politicians are you?”

“Hardly,” Linda laughed. “I’m a housewife and he’s a mining engineer.”

“In any case I wouldn’t tolerate that sort of mindless prejudice,” Faye told her. “I expect to have courtesy and respect, or I’ll send the student home. If they demonstrate it is too deeply ingrained to stifle I’ll remove them as a student. I intend to make a profit but I won’t deal with foolishness and stress to make a few extra dollars.”

“What is your tuition schedule?” Linda inquired, trying to appear unconcerned.

“I’m starting at three-hundred dollars a day per student. Half days for two-hundred. If a student doesn’t have a cafeteria card I put their lunch on mine. I may charge for exceptional expenses like hard copy books or really exotic tutoring and expensive art supplies. But I’m projecting what I can afford to provide in the future, with a bigger class and lower costs. I hope to grow into that.”

“Oh my,” Linda said stunned.

“Oh, I know I’m low balling it,” Faye said, completely misinterpreting her shock. “It’s not like I need to do this to eat. Don’t be afraid they’ll just get baby-sat for that. I think you will be pleased with what they tell you when they come home.”

“Would you consider taking my two Tuesdays and Thursdays for now and we’ll see how that goes and what I can add at home for now?” she suggested. That was absolutely all she could afford.

“Certainly. The first couple days will probably be interviews,” she explained. “I will be asking what they have already studied and finding out what they are interested in doing and perhaps a very little testing if it seems useful. That will give me a chance to find out their personalities a little bit and they mine of course. I expect the children with special skills to teach others. I keep telling them that you don’t really know a subject, until you can explain it to others.”

“Well, that’s an interesting take on it,” Linda said surprised. “It makes me think back to my mother. She could cook up a storm, but she didn’t teach my sister or me how to cook. I wonder why?”

“I wonder if it wasn’t too hard to teach both of you?” Faye speculated. “Did you get along with your sister or were there sibling rivalries? If she had picked just one it would have looked like favoritism, but if you argued, she likely didn’t want that in her kitchen while she was trying to work.”

“That’s very perceptive,” Linda admitted. “My older sister was a very strong personality and bossy. I think you might just have the right of it.”

And you are you sweet and mild of personality and lack aggressiveness? Faye wondered silently. Somehow she doubted it, but she smiled and accepted the compliment.

Chapter 21

After his father settled all his banking business, Eric slid off the chair and stood against the desk. “I wonder if I can do some business with you?” he asked very tentatively. The fellow had a sign made up with his name on his desk. It said Irwin Hall, with no title.

“Sure, that’s why I’m here all day until 1700,” the fellow assured him, very friendly.

“I would like to make a deposit and ask your advice on how business is done here.”

“Certainly. Let me open an account for you and get your signature. You’re new just like your dad so you likely don’t have a hanko either do you?”

“No sir, but I will get one if you think I should.” It felt strange, but good, that this adult was speaking to him as an equal and he wasn’t smiling a condescending little amused smile, or constantly eye shifting to his dad, to make sure each statement was OK.

“Yes, your dad is going to simply deposit wages and pay bills. He really doesn’t need one. But if you are going to actively do business on Mitsubishi 3 it would be best to have one. You go down the corridor anti-spin,” he said pointing the way, “and you will come to a door with a Japanese flag and writing on a plaque by the door. That’s the Japanese consulate. Among other things he will very kindly make you a registered hanko. You want to guard it closely. It obligates you on a document just like your signature. Although the new ones won’t print unless your thumb is on the end and they’re pretty hard to hack.”

“Are they expensive?” Eric worried.

“I’m not sure if you would think so or not. Last time I knew, they were running about eight-hundred dollars USNA. Do you regard that as expensive?”

“I’ve never had that much money before. I guess I better find out how much this is worth,” he said and laid the One Solar coin on the desk. Eric hated to give it up. It was really ‘da point’, as the kids said now and he’d have liked to just keep it forever. On one side it showed Home with just two rings not the third they were starting on and the Rock way closer behind it than it really was. The Earth was behind, not the full face of it, but an intruding arch, filling about two thirds of the coin face and the full moon floating in the area of the heavens left over.

But on the side he put up to Mr. Hall it had no graphics and inside a thick raised rim said: System Trade Bank of Home, 25 grams Pt – 99.9999 Pure - One Solar – 0000000217.

Irwin slid his working mat to the side and keyed something on his hand computer. He dropped the coin on the hard desk surface and read the screen. Satisfied it rang true he keyed a request into the computer and made an inquiry of the System Trade Bank. It informed him Solar 0000000217 was the simple property of Eric Pennington, previous owner of record, Jefferson Moses Singh.

“Well, you are certainly playing with the big boys,” Irwin told him. That sounded like a compliment, he was pretty sure.

“Mr. Singh gave it to me as a personal loan,” Eric told him. “He said he liked how I thought and he’d take the risk I might fail,” he explained.

“The thing is, Platinum has shown a steady climb in value, in both USNA dollars and EuroMarks. I’d be perfectly happy to cash this out at today’s spot price, but I don’t think I’d be serving your interests to do so,” he admitted. “Right now twenty-five grams of Platinum has a spot price value, per my screen, of sixteen-thousand-seven-hundred-seventy-eight dollars USNA,” he read off. “I suggest you deposit this in a Solar denominated account and we will hold it for you by serial number. We will loan you funds to a dollar account with this as collateral.”

“So I’ll still own this coin?” Eric asked, all smiles. That sounded good to him.

“Yes, but it will have a lien on it. If you lose money instead of showing a profit and you can’t make up the amount you borrowed against it, we would sell it and only give you the difference. We bankers are very heartless and unyielding about that, I hope you understand.” He was joking a little, but just to soften the point, he was serious.

“Well, sure. I understand. So do you put, uh, the spot price you called it, in my dollar account?”

“No, we never loan the full value of the collateral. What if Platinum goes down to fifteen-thousand dollars USNA tomorrow? That leaves us in a scary position doesn’t it? and you want some safety built in for the nature of the loan.” He was obviously enjoying teaching Eric these things, Mo realized. Well, Eric was making it enjoyable, listening intently.

“Have you ever run a business before and had to plan and deal with all these things?”

“No sir,” Eric said, humbled again.

“Well then, we have to take that into account,” Irwin said spreading his hands like it was obvious. “However if Jeff Singh says he likes your business plan I’m not about to second guess him when he is assuming the risk. The Singh clan is very well regarded on Home and you are well connected to have his approval. I’ll advance you up to twelve-thousand dollars USNA, in a draw account against the Solar. I’d give you two other pieces of advice. One, you pay interest only on the portion you draw. So don’t ask for more dollars in the account than you really need at the moment, to keep your expenses down. and secondly, most new businesses fail. Sometimes the best sounding ideas just don’t work for no rational reason at all. Sometimes things that look incredibly stupid to me take off and make money hand over fist. But if you see that the trend is down and you are steadily losing money, don’t wait until you have run through all your funds to bail out. A great deal of business smarts is knowing when to cut your losses and preserve what funds you have left for your next try. People who keep trying generally do find a winner sooner or later.”

“Thank you, I’m going to be buying things from a lot of people. Will they want cash or should I get a card like my dad?”

“Most people here do a transfer with their pad. Everybody wears spex,” he said, touching his, “but they are awkward doing a cash transfer. If you are doing business a pad is so much more handy, to just turn to show them stuff on the screen, instead of fiddling around getting a transfer to their spex. I’d suggest getting a pad too, as a necessary business expense.”

“Do people buy new pads all the time like they do spex?” Eric asked, suddenly even more interested and attentive.

“Oh, yeah. As soon as a new port comes into common use, their old one can’t handle a new operating system, or needs more memory. Some people change pads like they do footies.”

“Would you keep a secret for me? Can I ask my banker to do that?”

“You certainly can,” Irwin said. It was his turn to be surprised. “I have what they call a fiduciary responsibility to you. I’m obligated as your banker not to do anything that would harm your business or your money. You need to look that word up on the net and read until you understand it. Now there might be other people you deal with who don’t have that duty to you. If you want you can get them to sign what is called a nondisclosure agreement, but I’ll tell you right now, what you get people to sign doesn’t mean much, unless you already know you can trust their word without a signed agreement.”

Eric nodded seriously. “Thank you, I appreciate knowing this stuff. I intend to buy old spex. Jeff says just about everybody has a couple pairs jammed in a drawer or a bin somewhere. and now, from what you said about pads, I bet there are a ton of them sitting unused. I’ll check, but I bet they cost a lot more down on Earth.”

“The chips are made up here, that’s why they are cheaper.”

“Do you have an old pad at home you want to sell, that’s good enough for me to use for business?” Eric asked.

“No, but I have one in the bottom drawer right here, that’s about a year, or a year and a half out of date. Would you like it for a hundred dollars?”

“I’d love it for a hundred dollars and you set it up for me and show me how to do transfers,” Eric told him.

“Good boy, you asked for an added value. But next time offer eighty dollars and the extra work too. All I can do is say no and I might have counter offered ninety,” he explained.

Eric nodded at the lesson, with a canny expression.

*

“It’s fit to you, so when you are done working for me consider it part of your severance pay,” Jeff told Mo. “At ten hours a day, it has a projected service life of six years, so it should have lots of good hours left in it when we are done. If you go in and out two or three times a day it drops the hours a little and requires more service.”

“It doesn’t look like the ones the guys outside Home wear. I saw some of them working yesterday.”

“Oh, those are hard suits. They are pretty heavy, with a high center of gravity. Even in lunar gravity the momentum can be hard to handle. But they are safer doing heavy construction and they stay flexible at higher pressures than a soft suit. The ones you saw are powered significantly too. But you need special seats to use them in a ship or rover. One of those hard shells can go over a hundred-fifty thousand.”

This suit will run forty-seven thousand dollars USNA. Your suit is already a little more advanced than mine. I don’t feel any big urge to upgrade, but your air-pack will run a couple more hours and it is more resistant to cuts. It’s safer. The suit will call for help if you stop moving for thirty seconds and your heartbeat or respiration indicates distress. It can even activate a built in defibrillator if you need it.”

The gloves and helmet faceplate lock closed when it’s in vacuum and it has tourniquet seals at ankle and wrist instead of just elbows and knees. The sole is a shallow chevron tread instead of lugs, it doesn’t hold regolith and get packed up with it.”

“Everything is expensive up here!” Mo said.

“Pretty much. Except a few odd things. You can buy a course of drug treatment specific for colon cancer for seventy dollars USNA. Same drug down on Earth they charge you near ten-thousand. But you need a lot more cheeseburgers and footies than drugs.”

“You need to practice putting the suit on until you can do it half asleep, with your air swirling away and get it perfect every time. It doesn’t take much of a hole to take the pressure below breathable levels in seconds in a small ship like we fly. Most of us won’t even take a helmet off in flight. We just open the face plate. I lost pressure in the Happy Lewis a few weeks back and it was nice to just reach up and slap the faceplate home. We were spinning and maneuvering and if I’d had to get a helmet on, well, I might not be here.”

“Is this something common?” Mo asked alarmed. “What sort of a failure took your pressure down that fast?”

“No, not common at all. That’s the only time I’ve experienced it. We had just experienced a little run in with a USNA spacecraft in lunar orbit and were asked to make a pass on their field at Armstrong and survey what else they had there.” Jeff hesitated. “Well, actually Heather asked us to “return the favor” and they’d just cluster bombed our field, so we planned on doing something. But when we came in pretty low and close, they burned a hole through us with a laser. Pretty well opened her up from one frame rail to the other. There was no reason left at that point to hold back, so April’s Grandpa had the conn and he’d already designated their one ship on the field to eat a mini-missile, but when the suckers shot a hole through us he laid a ten kiloton missile on their field building, housing the targeting radar. It’s not real smart to shoot at him. He didn’t get old and grey by hesitating when things go bad.”

Mo stared at him in horror, mouth hanging open.

“That’s why the Happy ran back to the moon suddenly the other day. The USNA sent another spacecraft to the moon and we were concerned they might get aggressive with Central again. But they just landed at Armstrong and then took off for the French habitat. Thankfully it was nothing to worry about after all.”

“You destroyed a USNA spacecraft and bombed a surface facility in Armstrong?”

“Well, we ended up destroying three USNA spacecraft that day. The stupid suckers kept shooting at us. What could we do? That’s all they had on the moon, three, so obviously they had to stop.”

“Isn’t Home in a state of war with North America after that?”

“This was at Heather’s real estate venture, Central, it really isn’t Home. Although if they had kept it up the Assembly might take a dim view of them continuing to shoot at Home citizens, wherever they might happen to be. But we have never gone before the Assembly and asked their help. None of us really want war. It’s bad for business and I don’t think they realize how badly it could get out of hand, if they want a real war of survival type contest. So we really haven’t needed to bother the Assembly. We’d just as soon keep it a private matter.”

“A private matter,” Mo mumbled in shock.

“Heather was worried about having proper authority to deal with such things, she was concerned she’d be labeled a pirate or criminal, so the refugees, the folks who fled to her place from Armstrong, asked to swear fealty to her. Since she is a sovereign now she can properly deal with another state if they attack.”

“They asked?”

“Innovative wasn’t it?”

“You-are-all-insane,” Mo declared flatly with utter certainty. Unthinking and unconcerned how he was addressing his new boss, he was so rattled.

“A lot of people think so,” Jeff agreed, immune to offense. “But sane, or flipped out totally off her nut, she still has hundreds of nuclear equivalent weapons and accurate, robust, delivery systems. The really smart thing to do, if any of them demonstrated any smarts, would be to act very politely with her. If too much grief comes at her again out of Armstrong she’s likely to walk a grid of tactical weapons across them and make it a parking lot as they say. She can easily do so from Central. I’d hate to see that happen.”

“Where did she get those sort of weapons?” Mo asked. “We heard nothing about it on the news.”

“We make them ourselves. It’s certainly not my business to refute or enlarge on North American news,” Jeff asserted. “We just sort of assume that anybody bright enough to make it up here knows their news is being managed. But you look like you are having a hard time absorbing this. Why don’t we go get some lunch and take a little break? You’ll find it easier to get your mind back on the suit after a decent lunch. I tell you what, the other cafeteria for the working folks is closer. Let’s go there and you can check out a new place. You might even like to bring your wife down to this end sometime, for a little change of pace.”

“Yes, please, let’s take a break,” Mo agreed, glassy-eyed.

*

“Mr. Hall, do you have a moment?” Eric asked, standing before his desk again.

“Of course, Eric. What can I do for you?”

“Do you have the papers we signed the other day?”

“Certainly. I’ll have my assistant bring them to the desk,” he said and sent a text off. “They are identical to your copies you know. Is there a question on any of them you want explained?”

“No, well one question, but I have my hanko now and I would just feel better if I use it on them. It seems like all my stuff should be signed the same.”

“That’s fine.” A younger man laid a folder on the edge of his desk and departed without comment. Hall pulled the summary sheet and signature card out and slid them across the desk.

Eric looked at how Hall’s company hanko imprint was positioned and with exaggerated care put his mark beside his own signature the same way. He looked very satisfied and tilted the paper to see the rainbow effect of the printed symbol, before giving them back.

“There was a question?” Irwin reminded him.

“Oh yeah! We didn’t really talk about the interest on the money I get in the draw account. I saw at home it says three percent. Dad said that sounded pretty good. But I wonder, is that what everybody pays? and if I want to borrow more sometime, can I negotiate that just like the cost of a set of spex?”

“That is a very good question. Interest rates are much more negotiable the bigger the loan. I have to decide how much risk the bank is taking again, so the collateral is very important. Not only how much it is worth but how easy to sell.” He put his hands together in front of him in a steeple and got into lecture mode.

“I didn’t talk to you about interest rates, because you are getting the best rate I allow the bank to offer right now. If a fellow came in and wanted a loan against a diamond ring with a six carat stone, I would be very cautious. It might be very valuable, but very few people have the money free to buy such a luxury. I might not be able to find anyone on Home who wanted to buy such a large valuable stone. I might have to send it down to Earth and whoever sold it for me down there would want a fee to handle it for me. and just the fact I send it off out of my control is another risk factor. I’d have to pay to insure it.”

Eric nodded his understanding. It made sense and Irwin explained things well.

“But your Solar coin? Platinum is sold every day, in every country on Earth. There are markets open somewhere twenty-four hours a day to buy or sell it and there are even people who will write you insurance against the price going down too far. Platinum and gold are among the best things you can own for collateral. I’d charge the same three percent for a loan against a London Good Delivery Bar,” he assured Eric. “Which is the ultimate banker to banker money.”

“What is that?” Eric asked scrunching his nose up. It sounded weird.

“Come with me,” Irwin offered, smiling. He led the way into the vault. In the back was a plain featureless brushed steel door. He laid his hand on a touch pad to the right of it.

“Irwin Hall and customer Eric Pennington. I am not under coercion and nothing will be added or removed this access,” he said to the computer, that must be listening somewhere. It analyzed his voice and hand and believed him. There was a sound of gears whirring faintly and the door opened rather slowly compared to most powered doors. Inside was anticlimactic, a plain room with simple shelves and two chairs with a fold down table.

“Sit,” Irwin told him, pointing to the far chair. Eric did, but watched closely.

Hall pulled on some gloves from a box of them, went to the shelves and picked up a gold bar. It wasn’t all that big, a little longer than the zucchini bread his mom made, but not as tall. It was obviously heavy though, Irwin needing the taper built into it to pick it up. That’s why it was small face down, Eric realized.

Irwin nodded at the table and Eric pulled it down between the chairs. Irwin laid the bar on the table and sat in the other chair.

“Do I need gloves too, if I want to pick it up?”

“Nah, everybody should experience that much gold in their bare hands at least once in life. Just don’t dig your finger nails in. It’s so soft it’s possible to mar it and scrape away slivers under your nails. I put it on the table because it can get away from you. It can break your toes quite easily if you drop it.”

“Oh man,” Eric said. “It is really heavy.” He kept both elbows on the table for leverage to heft it. The face was stamped with an oval and some funny letters, the N and the F backwards from English. It also said 2058 – 12.440 Kg - .998.

“That’s a London Good Delivery Bar,” Irwin informed him, grinning.

“How much is it worth?” Eric asked.

“Call it ten million dollars, USNA. Plus or minus a bit.”

“Wow, who owns it?” Eric asked, big-eyed.

“Well now, you want me to keep your secrets. Don’t you think I should do the same for the owner of this bar?” he asked. “And you should keep my secret too,” he pointed out. “If nobody knows we have this bar in here, they can’t be plotting to come steal it.”

“I didn’t think,” Eric admitted, blushing furiously. “I won’t mention it,” he promised.

“I thought you’d enjoy seeing that,” Irwin said, grinning. He got the bar and put it back. “Is there anything else we can do for you today Mr. Pennington?”

“No,” Eric said, folding the table back up. “And thanks a lot.”

*

“I don’t get it,” Fredrick complained. “I can see this is useful. and certainly they are delighted to have somebody else do it, but why you?” He handed out the electrostatic filter to Silverson. It was nasty with black grime, some of which fell away in little crumbs. Some filters were brown, some gray. All disgusting. He had a big smear of it under one eye, like a pro football player who forgot one side.

They would bag the unit and when they had a cart full, take them down and hand wash them gently with a big soft brush. It usually took three times before they rinsed clean. Except the one near the deep fat fryer in the kitchen. That one had taken all morning. The cheerful maintenance tech, who had shown them how to do the first one, had explained there were four-hundred-eleven of them in the habitat. That meant by the time they got to the last one, the first would be ready to be serviced again. You had to test them for spark-over voltage when they dried and run a log on them too.

“I’m the only one who spears French, so I’m your baby-sitter and I get to call for help if you get in trouble,” Silverson explained. “Just keep at those language lessons, so we can advance to something better than this,” he pleaded.

“If we needed help their emergency number is 112 just like ours in North America is 911. I can’t believe they don’t have somebody in the call center that speaks English. Did you hit on that cute young woman that received us the other day and get on her bad side?”

“You wouldn’t believe me if I told you.”

“Try me.”

“She took an instant dislike to me, because I speak better French than her.”

“You’re right, Fredrick agreed. “I don’t believe you.”

*

“Let’s just sit and talk a bit, I’ll tell you about myself and then you can tell me about you. I’m Faye Lewis. My husband manages the actual physical habitat for Mitsubishi. My father was one of the men who came up and built M3. He already had saved back quite a bit of money from his work and investments, so when they had the auction to sell off some of the cubic after the hab was done, he had enough to buy a pretty large compartment in the full G section for us to live and a compartment in the zero G North Hub too.”

“Is M3 the same as Home?” Lindsy asked.

“Almost. M3 is the habitat owned by Mitsubishi. Owned by the North American subsidiary that is. M1 and M2 were built by the Japanese branch of the company. When they were done they were run under Japanese law. If you go over and visit them they have no English signs in the corridors like here. and they don’t have all that much traffic with the other habitats. Not just here, but the rest of them too. Both are pretty industrial and they haven’t done anything to encourage tourism. In fact neither has a hotel, so if you would insist on flying over to one they don’t make it easy to stay overnight. Home is the political unit, the country. The folks here were smart enough to see stealing the physical habitat would work against their independence. You might say we are a country without any real territory, but it has worked to make Japan our ally instead of enemy.”

“They sound antisocial,” Lindsy decided. “Prejudiced too,” she decided after a pause.

“Xenophobic is a very accurate word for that,” Faye taught her. “The Japanese do keep their culture isolated. If you live in Japan you are always an outsider. If you have children after you have lived in Japan thirty years, they are still foreigners to them.”

“You can be born there and you aren’t a citizen?”

“Exactly. and we only have a hundred or so Japanese here most of the time. They consider it a hardship post to live here. But back to my father. He was saving and bought this big apartment for a reason. It was his long term goal to get us all off Earth. So when he had the room for us, we were anticipating it and we left California and joined him. By that time I had a child, Bob, my boy, who was two when we came up. I had been working as a teacher in California and had to quit that. There was no need for teachers here. There was one other child on the hab when we arrived. I worked at other things, secretarial, lab work, inventory for construction supplies. I had my second child April, who is about your age now and after her my husband was in his present job and doing well, so I didn’t work as often. Later when there were more children I started getting back into education. I did tutoring and formed a local education association. It’s only now that we have enough children on Home that I think we can support a private school.”

“I’m pretty sure I know who your girl April is. Doesn’t she wear mostly black and she has kind of a fashion following?

“She has been shown a great deal in the Earth media, yes. But she doesn’t promote herself that way, or try to cash in on the fashion industry. I avoid mentioning it to her, because it just irritates her. She’ll grumble something to the effect that they should get a life of their own.”

“I saw a pic of her recently, but she wasn’t in black leather and ballistic cloth. She was in a club wearing something slinky and expensive and a bunch of jewelry that looked like a million bucks,” Lindsy enthused.

“Good, I’m delighted she is branching out.”

“You didn’t see her dressed like that?”

“April is emancipated. She’s a legal adult on Home. She has a room still in our cubic, but it is separate and has its own bath. We come and go and often don’t see each other, or just say hi when one of us passes through the main room. She recently bought a section of residential cubic at half G, so I anticipate I’ll see her even less.”

“How does this emancipation thing work?” Lindsy asked, very, very interested.

*

All the security pros were having breakfast together, as they did frequently. “We have a gig for a crew of four over on New Las Vegas, if two of you want to come with us,” Mackay and Holt offered to the group.

“It seems unhealthy for us to go to a USNA territory hab,” Isaac spoke up for himself and his partner Eric. “I’m supposedly dead, but I’m not ready to test that, or the transit rights of being a Home citizen. Thanks anyway.”

“USNA territory is dicey for me too,” Otis Dugan declined.

“We are both Home citizens now,” Mackay pointed out, “and since so much work involves at least transiting USNA territory we are determined to test our transit rights and insist on them.”

“Best to test it armed to the teeth and in a mob of armed friends,” Otis agreed.

“Chen? – Gunny?”

“How many days?” Chen inquired.

“Three full days and parts of two. The guy is Toni Buscemi, a Chicago business man. Read that Mafia boss. He wants to gamble and live it up, I imagine far away enough from home not to be a spectacle and safer too,” he speculated.

“April keeps telling me I’m free to ask for time off, but I worry something will happen in my absence,” Gunny fretted.

“I’m stuck here. I’ll keep an eye on her for you,” Brockman promised.

“Got nothing else to do then,” Gunny said, his usual brief self. “Chen it’s been two weeks, did your modification plateau out yet?”

“Try it and find out.”

Gunny shifted his weight a little like he was drawing. It was just a feint. Chen drew a small automatic, but by the time he had it slightly above the edge of the table Gunny had a full sized pistol extended at arm’s length, finger safely laid outside the trigger guard and pointed harmlessly a couple centimeters to the side of Chen’s ear. The hammer however was not back, in the interests of safety.

“Damn, you are not human!” Chen exclaimed disgusted. “You are so fast now, what would you be like if you got the treatment?”

“If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it,” Gunny quoted Yankee wisdom. “It might just as well mess things up and slow me down, I suspect. You are faster than ninety-nine point nine percent of the people now. Be happy with that, but stay aware there might be somebody faster than you.”

“You keep reminding me,” Chen grumbled.

“Keeps you humble,” Gunny agreed.

Chapter 22

“What about you?” Fay asked Lindsy. “What was your life like before you came to Home and what do you want to learn and do here?”

“My life has been boring. I’m not allowed to go anywhere with friends. I can’t pick what I wear or use make-up. I have my com pad looked at every few days by my mom and she flies in a tizzy if anything I’ve said is true.”

“Give me an example of this campaign against truth,” Faye asked, dubious.

“Oh, if I say anything about my teachers. Sorry, you seem to be an actual human being, but some of the teachers they gave me… They seem to have the soul sucked out of them before they are allowed to teach. If you ask a question they don’t know the answer, then you are a trouble maker and if you question the correctness of something they did say, they go ballistic.”

“Ah, I see.”

“Do you really?” Lindsy asked skeptically. “Or do you want me to pretend everything is just fine, joy, joy and not make waves like everybody else?”

“I’m here,” Faye said, putting her tea mug down in front of her. “You are over here,” she said, taking Lindsy’s mug out of her hand planting it on the table in front of her. “Your mom is over here,” she said pulling an empty mug from the rack and positioning it well to the side.

“From over here, I can see what motivates you,” she said pointing at Lindsy’s mug, “and I can see what motivates her,” she said waving at the empty mug. “I’m detached enough not to be totally invested in either of you. I’d like to have you as a student, which could give me some satisfaction and I’d like to take your mom’s money, because that’s what other reward you get from a business. But neither is strong enough motivation to play the ugly game you all had to play on Earth,” she explained, with a dark look.

“Here, I am a private school and business. I want to make my student’s parents happy, but only within the limits of accomplishing the goals we agree on. Neither the parents nor Home can tell me what to do. If I don’t like what your parents demand I can tell them to take their little darling back and educate him or her themselves. I don’t need the school or the income to survive. If my student is a horrible abrasive person, who makes me or the other students unhappy and doesn’t want to be in my school, I’ll send them home. It doesn’t matter if the parents want them here, I’m running a school not a prison. The public schools you went to had to accept basically every student who lived in their district. I don’t.”

“If the Home Assembly tried to tell me how to run my school, or that I had to indoctrinate patriotism in my students, I’d tell them to go to hell and inform my family we need a second revolution already.”

That rattled Lindsy. At home a teacher who used that dirty word would be suspended. One who repeated it could be fired. and besides revolution she’d said hell…

“So if I don’t want to be here I can go home? Lindsy asked, unbelieving still.

“Not only that. I’d refund all your Mom’s money. It’s stupid to make anyone unhappy with you so early in starting up a business. In a small community that matters a lot.”

“At home if I skipped a day they would arrest me, if the cops saw me out on the street. I’d never get in the mall, or on a bus, but security or the volunteer snoops would call the cops. and then they’d fine my folks for my truancy.”

“I suspect you are finding it hard to believe, but Home is not North America. I assume you have never been to another country before?”

Lindsy shook her head no. Not seeing the point yet.

“Maybe if we spoke a different language and wore weird clothes it would be easier to believe we really are different,” Faye speculated. “We have almost no laws. If your mom decides to home school you, or your brother, nobody is going to come by and stick their nose in her business. Nobody will demand you take standardized state tests. There are no Social Services or Family Court.”

“What if I think one of your tutors is stupid?” Lindsy asked. Always ready to provoke.

“I’d be shocked. Boring, irritating, repulsive, or even just on a completely different wavelength than you maybe, but none of them have tutored for private fees, where they can be dismissed at will, by being stupid. If one drives you bonkers sucking on his teeth or tapping his foot on the deck I’d encourage you to rise above letting petty issues distract you. We all need a certain level of socialization. None of us can run amok down the corridors eliminating all the folks we find irritating, no matter how attractive it is on occasion. You can always kindly tell them what they are doing irritates you.”

“But if you are really a bad match and their style of instruction just isn’t helping you I’d dismiss them and see who else we could get. It happens. There are a very few subjects so exotic that only one person tutors them. I believe Ms. Hoarsh is the only one who teaches fine furniture making and Jonathan Truboni is the only one who teaches saber, but I somehow can’t see you taking up either,” Faye joked.

“Saber?” Lindsy asked dubiously. “Is that some kind of software?”

Faye drew an invisible saber, cocking her wrist convincingly at the end and swirled a horizontal moulinette, ending with her elbow bent vertically looming over Lindsy. You could almost see the glint off the blade it was so convincing.

“That’s what I thought you meant. Not my thing.”

“Yet it is offered at many Earth universities and is an Olympic sport.”

“Are you going to contact my old school and get my transcript and grades? Lindsy asked. ‘Are you?’ was definitely a step closer to yes, than ‘would you?’

“Lindsy honey, my opinion of the public schools Earthside is so low, I don’t see any point in it. I trust neither their system or their motives. Figure you start fresh up here.”

Lindsy leaned back and actually relaxed a little. Maybe she’d try it a few days. After all if it was horrible she could go home. She’d told her she could. There would be hell to pay with her mom of course, but they couldn’t throw her in jail for it, she realized now.

“What day do you want me to come back?” she agreed.

*

Mo was demonstrating the difference between professionals and amateurs to Jeff daily. There were all sorts of potential pitfalls he’s prevented them from building into their entries and foundations. He had lots of good ideas on how tunnels should be shaped and how you terminate them and change direction so a shock wave doesn’t propagate. He demonstrated how to fuse multiple layer of regolithic glass one on top of another with wire acting like rebar to bind them together and extend the melt zone to build a monolithic whole.

Right now they were examining the ‘bricks’ that were removed from tunneling and flung to a stockpile by a catapult Jeff had designed. The bricks were breaking up. He eventually intended to use then as a counterweight on a beanstalk extended toward L1, so their busting into odd lengths would complicate sending them up the beanstalk sometime in the future.

“See?” Mo pointed at several fractured bricks in a high speed photo of them leaving the catapult. “They are breaking up from acceleration when you toss them. They might not break up near as much landing. We’d have to get them to fling intact, to find out.”

“I’m sure if we stacked them carefully in the catapult bucket they’d be OK,” Jeff said, “but it’s way too labor intensive. It will be bad enough if we have to skid them up by hand once, to go up the elevator.”

“Have you ever taken an old shotgun shell apart?”

“I’ve never fired a shotgun,” Jeff told him, “you don’t see many.”

“The old style shot, lead balls, are really soft. To the point they all get squished flat if you just shoot it with them poured bare in the cup that sits on top of the powder.”

“This has something to do with us?”

“Oh yeah. You pour some buffer in that is a powder of little plastic beads. It supports the balls enough they don’t squish each other under acceleration.”

“Ah, but we don’t have much plastic handy,”

“I’m betting if you just load the catapult bucket up with enough regolith it will buffer. and in the absence of any air it should all be together at the other end when it lands, to help significantly there too.”

“Well, it’s cheap enough to test.”

“That’s a three percent breakage instead of about twenty-five,” Jeff said later, after they dug into the new layer and counted. “I’d call that a success.”

*

“Did you know that you can live in Japan for years and if you have a baby there they still don’t consider them a citizen? Lindsy asked her mom. “I think they are xenophobic and just a little full of themselves,” she said indignantly.

Linda looked at her daughter like a Robin wondering if it had somehow missed a cowbird egg in its nest. Lindsy never came home from school in Canada and started babbling about Japanese xenophobia and citizenship. In fact she seldom wanted to talk about anything. Maybe that school was worth three hundred dollars a day.

*

“Mr. Buscemi,” as lead on the job Mackay acknowledged his client with a polite nod at the lock, but he didn’t offer his hand. Perhaps because he didn’t care to extend more than professional courtesy, or perhaps because he had both hands full of tangle gun. He had a lethal black Air-Taser cross draw on his left hip and a full sized Sig on the right side. Next to the Taser was an outsized Arkansas toothpick with an ornate silver wire wound grip. Full face spex wrapped around his face with a thin mic boom.

Buscemi had four associates crowded behind dressed almost as nicely as him. They were all large, swarthy, visibly fit and couldn’t hide the fact that Mackay and Holt surprised them by being in casual clothing, Mackay in khakis and a nice Cutter and Buck shirt and Holt in jeans and a sweater instead of suits, but with full tactical armor vest and spex.

The younger man had the same Taser and pistol combo and you could see the faint glow of a targeting grid reflected off the inside of the spex on his face. He wore a thin pack on his back that looked like a camelback, but a black nozzle projecting over each shoulder tracked where his eyes roamed. The nozzles didn’t dispense sports drink. If that wasn’t enough he carried an auto-loading shotgun with a double row powered magazine.

“I hired you guys because I understood you could carry locally and there was no way I could get the Feds to allow my boys to carry on transport,” he explained. “I just didn’t realized you’d be so blatant,” he admitted, rattled.

“We are citizens of Home,” Mackay reminded him, “we can carry anything we please openly crossing USNA territory. I find that many people are less prone to test you, if they can see they are dealing with a serious force right up front. But if you like, we’ll change after delivering you to your hotel and affect a less militaristic appearance.”

“No, no, I think I might get used to it,” Buscemi allowed. “It’s a culture shock though, let me tell you.”

“You should visit Home some time,” Mackay suggested. “About half the population goes visibly armed in public spaces. Plus whatever fraction feels better to carry concealed.”

“I’ve seen pictures online from European sites. I didn’t know whether to believe it, or if it was some weird government propaganda designed to make you guys look like nut cases.” He shrugged. “You don’t know what the hell to believe anymore. Ya know?”

“If you would follow the line,” Mackay nodded at the short queue of other passengers, “we have a couple associates securing the area outside the zero G zone. The bearing there is a natural choke point of which we are more concerned than any other area in spin.”

“I wondered where the other two were.”

“Just to clarify a point,” Mackay inquired, “do you wish us to extend our net of protection over your associates also?” he asked, with a nod at the four thugs.

“Sure!” Buscemi agreed, surprised, “they’re like family. Hell a couple of them are family, extended family, but for real. You have to protect your own,” he solemnly assured Mackay.

Mackay nodded an acknowledgement and softly said a few words in his spex.

The Chicagoans handled themselves pretty well in zero G, Mackay had to admit. Not with any polish of course. But at least they had the sense not to refuse the motion sickness drugs, or one or two of them would have been puking sick for sure.

He and Holt hammed it up a little, jumping with a roll-over from surface to surface to accompany them, landing in a squat with both hands on their weapon without needing to reach out and steady themselves, or touch a take-hold. Holt in particular put himself upside down to them a couple times, knowing how disorienting it was to new people. The moves made parkour look as exciting as square dancing.

On the other side of the bearing Gunny and Chen were waiting spaced well apart. They were not armored up so it wasn’t until they paced along accompanying them that it was apparent they were part of the team. Chen was in loose black pants and a black silk shirt. He had the obligatory spex, but wore thin five-toed footies. If he carried a weapon you couldn’t tell. A thin Frisbee drone ominously followed him against the overhead and swept side to side silently.

Gunny looked like he was ready for a nice afternoon at the races or a pleasant picnic. He had on tan slacks and suede ankle boots, a chocolate brown blazer and a dress shirt with an open collar. He had the same serious spex however and his open jacket made no effort to hide the grips of a brace of big pistols just inside the jacket. Nothing in the world could conceal the size of him, or the dainty way he moved like he was half as big as he looked to mass.

Mackay and Gunny took point and Holt and Chen followed their charges, the Frisbee making occasional sprints out front to survey their path.

At the elevator Mackay suggested Chen and Gunny accompany two each of the goombas to the casino level and the armored up duo would ride down with the Caporegime, once a safe reception area was ensured. After two loads went down another car stopped, but had several couples obviously on holiday from their dressy casual clothing and the shopping bags.

“We’d rather wait for an empty car,” Mackay politely requested and none of them insisted there was room, but looked relieved to pass and hit their level button again.

The group was re-assembled on the outer casino/hotel level and a Station Security pair passed them in the corridor. They didn’t bat an eye, as Mackay had been sure to inform them they would be on station. As they passed Gunny gave them a salute that had no sarcasm in it at all, so crisp and natural the older security cop twitched and had to force his arm back down against reflex and nod instead.

“We’re tired and off our normal clock,” Buscemi reminded them at the hotel. “We’re going to eat in and sleep. We won’t go to the tables or clubs until tomorrow, so you can come back, say about ten o’clock tomorrow.”

“Would you like a guard posted in the hall?” Mackay asked.

“Nah, the owner here and I understand each other,” Buscemi explained. “He knows nobody gets told what rooms we are in, or that we are in house for that matter. You’d call more attention to us in the hall than you’d help.”

“Tomorrow then,” Mackay agreed, happy not to run night shifts.

*

“So that’s how I came to Home and gives you some idea of who I am,” Faye told Eric. “What should I know about you and what would you like me to help you learn here?”

“I like being outside. Not going to do that much here, am I? I can learn anything you want to teach me,” he said, almost defiantly. “I’m learning to do business here. I like that because I never had a chance to do it at home.”

“Really? What sort of business are you doing?”

“I’m trading in obsolete spex and com pads,” Eric informed her. “Do you have any old com pads or spex stashed away you don’t use any more? If you do I’ll pay you cash money for them. Up to a hundred dollars for pads that have at least one add-on port of some kind and seventy-five dollars for spex that have stereo cameras.”

“I do,” Faye admitted. “But I don’t want to do other business during the school time for which your mother has paid. How about if I bring them day after tomorrow and we can do a deal at lunch time?” she offered.

“That’s fine. I won’t ask the other kids here at school. But it seemed to be what we were talking about anyway.”

“Indeed it was, no ‘bad’ ascribed to you at all. Do you have an allowance to fund your acquisitions?” Faye asked. “I find far fewer of the children have an allowance than when I was a little girl.”

“I’d rather not talk about family,” Eric said guardedly. “I don’t care to talk about myself all that much,” he added. “When I do I usually end up saying something that gets me in trouble. Just say, I have a silent partner to fund my business.”

She was amazed he even knew the term.

“I do not intend to run to your parents with every little thing you say, even if I disapprove of something. I can think of no faster way to erode a person’s trust. Neither do I intend to pump you for information about your parents, or your sister for that matter.”

“Down home the teachers constantly tried to ask sneaky questions of us, to see if our parents were subversive, or if they went to barter meets, or keep a secret garden. If they let it slip their parents smoked in the house, even out in the garage, or kept a gun, or bet on football games, they’d be in foster care and never see them again, fast as can be.”

“My sister is being weird for her. She hasn’t been in trouble in weeks. In fact, I can’t remember the last time she socked me when she knew nobody was looking. She set off the fire sprinklers the first day we were here, staying in the Holiday Inn and when my dad had a heart to heart with her about how rules up here are different and they really have reasons for them, she seemed to believe him. I wouldn’t mind if it lasts awhile.”

“Indeed, I know what you are talking about. People down on Earth are constantly arguing about silly things. It’s quite true a fire up here is a very dangerous thing, even more so than down below on Earth.”

“That’s what the guy at the Holiday Inn said. You can’t open the doors and run outside.”

“Nope, no air outside and this is all the air we have in here,” she agreed, gesturing around her. “That’s why station kids all learn how to stick a patch on a leak practically before they are properly potty trained,” she joked.

“Well, I don’t know how to patch a leak,” Eric said, eyebrows lifted in concern.

“Oh, my goodness. We’ll fix that right now.”

She stood up in the corner where she had gone off to speak, away from the others doing their lessons. “Class!” she called with a different voice, Eric had not heard her use before. “Class! Save your files, mark your book. Set your lessons aside. I need to know something right now. Who doesn’t know how to put a patch on a pressure leak?”

His sister Lindsy raised her hand, as did a little Oriental girl and even though he’d just discussed it with her Eric raised his hand, so the other kids knew too.

“I will get the patch kit and tell you about it. I’m calling maintenance and asking them to bring the leak demonstrator over.”

There were three main parts to a patch kit. A number of fairly thick flexible disks and squares. You peeled a film off the back by a tab and slapped it on flat-handed. There was a bigger sheet to patch a long crack or seam. It wasn’t self adhesive, but there was foam you could put on a crack and slap the sheet onto, or put the sheet over and foam the entire edge. A laser candle emitted nontoxic smoke when you held the button down. That allowed you to see a non-obvious leak, or test a patch to see it was working.

About the time Faye was done explaining the parts of the patch kit, a big black man with almost no neck and a bald head came in with a funny sort of rolling board. But it was neither a backboard or whiteboard, it was a panel of metal wall, like their bulkheads and it was all stained and scratched up where a bunch of different patches had been applied and scraped off.

“I’m Jon,” the big guy told them before Faye could introduce him, not offering a last name like most adults did. “I’m head of station security. The people you see at the lock when you come in and out on a shuttle work for me. If you have trouble. If you are afraid of somebody hurting you, if you think somebody is in the panels or an equipment room that doesn’t look like maintenance, or think something is busted on the station like the water or the electric power or com is acting flaky, or there is a leak like we are going to practice on today, call me. If you call 911 on com you will always get one of my people or me. If you are wrong and mistaken, I’ll never yell at you or call you stupid. I had a little girl call me a few weeks ago and tell us something was wrong with the power. I sent my lady Margaret to their cubic and the power was fine. But the hair dryer the little girl was using was more than a little wonky. It was speeding up and slowing down and getting way too hot. She was right something was wrong, but just needed some help making sure exactly what.”

“We’re going to patch some leaks now. The guys who haven’t done this before, come on up close where you can see real well. It’s just kind of a refresher for the rest of you.”

Jon took a hose from the back of the panel and went to a vacuum port on the outside bulkhead. He inserted it and opened the valve with a special key.

The patch kit was still open on Faye’s desk, with the rolling panel beside it.

“We’ve got a leak here,” Jon declared. “Who wants to come deal with it?”

“I can hear it,” a boy named Malcolm, about twelve years old, declared.

“You have really good hearing then, come on and fix it.”

He came forward and listened by the panel going to the left side and swung his head right and left. “Right there,” he said pointing. “I can see a little pit.”

“Would you use the candle so the others can see how it works?”

He took the candle, held the button down on the side and the white smoke came out in a thin stream going right in the hole. The hole was so little you couldn’t see it from two meters away, but when he moved the candle around the hole, the smoke went right to it from the entire circle.

“How are you going to patch it?” Jon prompted him.

“Oh the smallest is plenty,” Malcolm said. “Want me to do it?” he checked for sure.

“Please.”

He took the circular one, black and flexible, gripped the little ridge it had on the back and peeled the film off the front with the tab that hung out. One confident motion planted it flat over the pin-hole. He then used the candle all around the patch without being prompted. It hung in wisps without streaming. He took his finger off and waved his hand through the smoke to disperse it.

“Do any of you three want to try it?”

“I’d like to,” Eric asked. “Just to feel how hard the patch is to peel and stuff.”

“One hole coming up special order,” Jon told him, grinning. Jon smiled a lot, but it didn’t have that fakey quality so many adults had. He produced a tool from the back of the roll-along and positioned it away from the recent patch. There was a rubber cup protecting the business end of the tool and when he pressed a button they couldn’t tell what happened underneath.

This hole seemed a little bigger and this time had a definite whistle. Eric did the candle thing very briefly because it was obvious. The new hole had a little sooty ring around it too so it was more visible. Eric grabbed the next bigger patch and ripped the cover off the adhesive. He planted it firmly, not tentatively, with one thrust. The candle showed it was a good patch. Eric was very satisfied.

“Who’s an expert?” Jon asked, switching something in the back. “I got a big crack here, not a fiddling little hole. Who will save my delicate little butt from asphyxiation?” he pleaded. That got giggles. There wasn’t any part of him obviously delicate in the least and it was just far enough on the edge of vulgarity to have an adult say butt that they were shocked, but enjoyed sharing the forbidden a little. Down below in North America it would be far worse.

“I can handle that,” a boy about Eric’s age said confidently.

“Ah, Barak,” Jon said knowing him by name. “Go to it.”

Barak approached the panel with the candle. It weakly sucked smoke, but on a line a half meter long instead of a point. He took a marker from his pocket and made a mark at both ends of the invisible crack. He unhesitatingly took the foam and foamed an oval around the leak, then took the plastic sheet and doubled it over. He shook it out like shaking a tablecloth out and swung it smoothly to suck down flat on the foam. He brushed with his hand flat, from the center out to spread the foam out under the plastic and then lifted the double thickness he’d made and shot foam between the layers closing it and spread that again with his hand. Then he sprayed the entire perimeter in one motion.

“Masterful,” Jon praised him. “I wish half the adults could patch like that. Two layers are of course, better than one. and the way you swished the sheet in from the side, he mimicked the motion. You looked like a matador trying to tease a bull. The sheet went down flat, with no big wrinkles, which is a plus.”

“You might wonder why you need to be able to do this. If there is a big problem and my security people and the maintenance folks and a lot of other adults are all going to be running around fighting fires and patching really big leaks, then we will appreciate and need your help taking care of the little leaks like this.”

“Thanks Jon. I’m glad we got everybody current on this. We’re a little late going to lunch. Would you like to come along with us to lunch?”

“I’d enjoy that,” Jon said. “And if anybody has any questions I’ll leave the seat across from me open and you can come ask me,” he offered.

*

At lunch Eric was very surprised to see his sister go over and sit opposite Jon. “Ah, what can I tell you M’lady?” Jon offered.

“Are you really bald, or do you shave your head every morning?” Lindsy asked. Faye looked stricken, but Jon laughed so hard he had to cover his mouth.

“Feel it and you tell me,” he challenged.

Lindsy felt, tentatively at first and then hard, carefully back behind the ears and neck. “There isn’t a little stubby bristle anywhere,” she declared. “No way you could do it that carefully every time. You really are bald,” she declared, surprised.

“You’re right and now you have revealed one of the Mysteries of Home,” he declared.

*

“Come on in” one of the goombas casually invited them in the suite the next morning. He seemed much recovered from his ordeals. Buscemi was in good spirits too, sitting back from an amble breakfast. There were five places. That was interesting. Mackay wasn’t sure if Buscemi would eat with his lieutenants. He wasn’t at all certain what the social order was like within crime families. Gunny assured him, in some interesting detail, that April’s friend Eddie could tell him anything he wanted to know about La Cosa Nostra.

They decided to dress a little less aggressively this morning and picked lower profile under armor instead of the higher grade stuff that rode on top. Neither did they have long guns and although Hall had on the backpack auto-aiming gun, he’d thrown a light windbreaker over it and the snouts were laying curled on his shoulders like some strange necklace of black metal.

“I have some good news,” Buscemi informed them. “I was able to obtain some help from local friends and my boys are packing now. They will have a fellow at the outgoing shuttle to collect all the hardware, so we don’t need your services any longer.”

“If that is your judgment. Certainly our contract can be terminated at will. We do know local custom and have zero G skills, but if you think you’ll be OK without us we’ll be going. If you’d just scan our fee to my pad we’re done with each other.”

“I’ll send it around when I’m back to my business offices,” Buscemi said, waving it away as unimportant. “Shortened to one day instead of three, of course.”

“No. We are due the three days we contracted, even if you withdraw early. I insist,” Mackay said with no particular rancor, but firmly.

The fellow who must be the head goomba looked so sad and shook his head. “You don’t ‘insist’ with the Capo. It isn’t respectful,” he explained, spreading his palms like he was laying the matter before them to see.

Mackay wasn’t done talking yet, but the goomba to the left of Chen worried he might be and reached inside his jacket. Chen knew he wasn’t going to offer them gum, so he proceeded on the assumption they would be taking them all down.

Chen suddenly had a polymer covered iron rod in his right hand, coincidentally the same length as his forearm. He swung it backhand without even looking to the right. He’d checked the distance to that fellow when they all stopped moving and knew where he was. It smacked him across the forehead with a surprisingly soft >POCK!<. He folded limp as an over-cooked noodle.

The fellow drawing the gun was by this time showing some wrist again and Chen swung over hand with a will. The wrist made a much more satisfying crunch and the gun fell to the floor. The silly boy leaned over trying to recover it left handed. Chen gave him an unhurried and restrained love tap above his ear, so he joined his friend on the floor.

The chief goomba was caught by the movement with his hands spread wide gesturing to make his point to Mackay. He was far too slow anyway, but that really left him in an awkward position to respond. By the time he had his hand on a pistol butt Gunny had stepped past Mackay and drawn and extended his Sig. It was cocked, with his finger inside the guard and jammed under the man’s nose. He just pushed and walked him back against the bulkhead in three fast steps. He drew the pistol to the side and the man didn’t even try to duck. He just closed his eyes and grimaced. Gunny backhanded him on the side of the head and there were three on the floor.

The juniormost goomba was the smartest: he had both palms showing, standing very still. Both the muzzles hanging over Hall’s shoulders had come alive like startled snakes and were both pointing from each side directly at the fellow’s nose.

The whole action had taken a little more than three seconds.

“Are dollars OK, or would you like EuroMarks?” Buscemi asked, fumbling with his pad, sweat beading up on his flushed face.

“Dollars are fine.” Mackay swiped his com pad past the offered port and checked the total carefully. “A free word of advice,” Mackay told the man mildly. “People on Home are different. There are very few sheep and victims to be found. I know a teenage boy on Home who has no military experience and you’d think he couldn’t walk out to buy a sandwich without getting rolled, to look at him. The Chinese decided to steal one of his little space ships a month back. He dropped a fusion bomb on their spaceport rather than let them steal from him. Destroyed his ship and the main Chinese spaceport and most of a town of a million and a half people next to it. There’s a crater there now five or six kilometers across. If they had not backed down, then I really worry how many more he would have send down on their heads,” he explained.

“If you mess with Home you aren’t setting yourself up to avoid windows the rest of your life. You’d have to worry if they will find the house you are in and drop a Rod from God down the chimney, or if they know what neighborhood you are in, they might decide a ten-kiloton warhead is a sufficiently surgical strike. If you really, really, pissed them off, they might decide Lake Michigan needs new big Chicago Bay on the South end.

“Why haven’t I heard that about China?” Buscemi reasonably asked. “Something that big should have been in the news.” He was much braver now that Mackay was talking and it seemed he wouldn’t be shot out of hand.

“I believe the Chinese found it embarrassing,” Mackay explained. “If they publicly acknowledged it they lose face and all the more so if they are impotent to respond to it. Yet even those crazies are not stupid enough to find out how many quarter-billion megaton warheads they could absorb. I don’t imagine the USNA wants that story on the news. It could make their people realize their leaders retain power only because the same teenage boy hasn’t decided to give them the same treatment as China.”

“Yeah, yeah I can understand that. You look like you can’t hold your territory, you’re done.”

“Go back to your territory,” Mackay advised him. “You know how things work there and fit in. You don’t understand things up here.”

“You got the families here too,” Buscemi objected.

“Yeah and if I have to do business with them I’ll ask Eddie The Lip Persico how to deal with them. They may be in the same line of business you are, but they are spacers too.”

“Persico! Why didn’t you say you were connected to them?”

“Because I’m not. But I’m Home, that’s enough he would speak respectfully with me.”

Buscemi nodded, still uncertain of the full social dynamic. “OK, you and I, we’re square, OK? We’re quit of each other after today, capiche?”

“Agreed. We’re done here guys,” he told his crew. The last through the door was Holt. He turned his back on them, but the black muzzles at his shoulders turned to the rear and tracked on the them until the last sliver of doorway was closed.

Chapter 23

“Mom, we need to show you how to use the patch kit,” Eric insisted. “It’s here in the com console and we had a really good demonstration on it in school today.”

“I’m glad for you, but I want to go to supper now. You can show me tomorrow when you’re not in school.”

“Promise mom?” Lindsy asked. “Eric is right about this. It’s really important. We’ll be home with you tonight and tomorrow, but we really need to show you before we go back to school.”

Lindsy and Eric agreeing about something? Had cats and dogs formed a union? It was so strange she felt faintly threatened by it, like they might gang up on her.

“Yes, I promise, we’ll come back home after breakfast and you can have as much of the morning as you need to show me. Satisfied?”

“Yes, thank you. We had the Head of Security in and he didn’t just lecture. He had panels with leaky spots on them and we used real patches and tested them after we patched them.”

“Oh my. That that sounds intense. Was it intimidating having the top cop at school?”

“Nah, he’s really neat,” Eric informed her. “He didn’t act all stern with anybody. He’s a whole lot less stuck up on his authority than my principal back home.”

“Did he wear a uniform and a badge and gun?”

“He was just dressed in regular slacks and a dress shirt,” Lindsy remembered. “No badge, I’d have remembered that.” She scrunched her eyebrows up and thought on it. “He had one of those Tasers, not a regular pistol, but I’m so used to seeing them on everybody now, I didn’t think anything about it at the time. He laughs a lot and real easily.”

“He went over to the cafeteria with all of us and had lunch,” Eric piped up.

“Did he have a lot of questions?” Linda asked warily.

“No, he had a lot of answers,” Lindsy laughed. “He left the chair across from him open so if you had any questions you could go ask him.”

“And I couldn’t believe you had the nerve to ask that!” Eric said. For a miracle Lindsy didn’t take offense at him, she just grinned devilishly.

“What, pray tell, did you ask?” their mom worried.

“She asked if he was really bald, or if he shaved his head every morning,” Eric supplied.

“That’s a really personal thing to ask,” her mom said, horrified.

“I know. I wish I’d thought of it first,” Eric admitted.

*

“I don’t want the job,” Everett Jones snarled at Hartug. “I do something actually useful. I keep these piece o’ crap beer can rovers working. What of them we have left. If I try hard enough they get my friends back home alive. The administrators don’t do anything satisfying and mostly sit around thinking too much and creating ways to interfere with the folks who are running things just fine.”

“But you have supervised before. It says in your folder you ran the whole maintenance system for the Baltimore bus system, with eighty-some mechanics and parts people.”

“Yes I did and it was a union shop and I couldn’t fire a single worthless one of them.”

“You’d have that ability here. Granted it is an expensive decision to fire someone in Armstrong and pay the transport back, plus expenses to bring a new person in out of your budget, but are there really that many people here you need to get rid of? I can squeeze in two passengers when we lift, if you really have to send someone back. and as for your job, I know you have been training the kid working with you for over a year. Surely he has gained some proficiency, unless he is an incompetent you want to send back?”

“No, he isn’t half bad. Better than me at that age truth be known. Thing is, I expect the next ship back here will have a trained administrator to bump me anyway. I’ll screw up my department that’s running just fine right now and for what? I can’t see you guys letting a guy keep running it that isn’t a politician.” The way he said that word was not complimentary.

“The President told me to fix it. I have to leave somebody in charge. The professional politicians have given us nothing but grief. I don’t even have a professional administrator left to choose. I will report back and be done with this matter, but I doubt anyone will be in a hurry to undo what I leave behind. There has been far too much career-ending drama attached to Armstrong, for administrative folks to want their names associated with it for awhile.”

“When would we get a replacement for me?”

“I have a guy my staff recommends from Earth. By his file he was a gearhead as a kid, went in the Marines and worked on heavy equipment. Big Diesel mechanic, turbines, cranes, pumps, navigation, certified on twenty-seven vehicles. He’d love to be on the next ship up.”

“OK, you take Brad Berry back with you, replace him too and you have a deal.”

“The IT guy? What did he do to incur your wrath?”

“Over a year back, we had a power glitch, there was smoke in the cable run. The electrician cut power, vented the cable run, suited up and crawled in to see what shorted. Brad comes in and is totally flipped out, screaming he has to have power. Wouldn’t listen. He sees the lock out on the switching box, grabs a fire extinguisher and is trying to knock it off so he can restore power to his gods, the computers. I had to thump him against the wall pretty hard before he stopped trying. Hard enough he spent a couple days in the infirmary.”

“Didn’t he know what that lock was? That there was an electrician in there working?”

“He didn’t care. He’s in his own little world in there and as far as he is concerned Armstrong exists to let him run his computers, not the other way around. Turn his power off and he isn’t rational. Next time I might not be there to stop him.”

“He goes,” Hartug agreed, “that one goes back if he has to lay on the deck.”

“I’m going to shove all the repetitious stuff, that can be rubber stamped, off on my secretary. That will free up enough time I can help, if we have some maintenance that is seriously beyond the kid’s skill level. I’m going to write up a rover repair and procedures manual, that I was never allowed time to write and I’m going to speak with every department head and ask them what they are required to do that’s stupid make-work,” he warned Hartug right up front.

“We were required to fill out a daily job sheet, so the executive felt like he had control. But it was so detailed it took near an hour to write out. But you were not allowed to add – one hour filling out daily report – at the end of your shift report. All those hundreds of wasted man hours would have made the boss look bad. So it was inaccurate and stupid from day one. That ends.”

“So at least a full eighth of all man hours was wasted and then falsified to hide it?”

“That’s just the tip of the iceberg,” Jones assured him. “We couldn’t take a lunch break in work spaces – environmental rules you know? We idiots might spread tranny lube on our tuna fish or something. But we weren’t allowed to show travel time to go to lunch, so add maybe a second hour travel time, shot for no real reason most days.”

“How did this place function?”

“Poorly,” Jones assured him. “Give me a year and I may whip it into shape.”

*

“You’re back early,” April noted. Gunny said he’d be gone four days. She hadn’t expected him back in two. “I kept a low profile just like you asked, but Eric Brockman seemed to be in the cafeteria every time I went. The one time he wasn’t, Freidman was there. Did you sic him on to me?”

“Why would I do that? and how would he know when you were headed to the cafeteria?” Gunny asked her. “He couldn’t go do the job, he just had to be here, not to watch you.”

“I don’t know,” she said suspiciously, “I was starting to think you might have chipped me somehow, or put a spy cam in the corridor. How did your little gig with the security guys go? Were they OK to work with?”

“The customer decided his security guys could handle it after all and terminated us early. We basically walked them to the hotel, slept over and were dismissed the next morning.” He had no idea how Brockman had tracked her. He wasn’t any slouch though.

“You get shorted on pay then?” April immediately cut to the heart of the matter.

“Oh no, Mackay wrote the contract for full pay on early termination. He insisted on it.”

April looked at him sharply. Something about the way he had said that…

*

“We have to go a little slower towing the road fusing rig, but it will cool and when we come back we’ll fuse a parallel lane,” Jeff explained. “When you drove out here last week and did seismic tests on the mountains, it bugged me to send a rover out so far for so little. I’ll follow the survey flags just like you did, so this is the first lane of our west road. You see how easy the paver is to run. Got any questions on it?”

“No, not until it messes up. If it fails, what is the likely mode?”

“I have no idea. It hasn’t malfunctioned yet. Likely if it does, it will just stop working at all. That should be kind of obvious. There won’t be any new road in your mirror.”

“Why the herringbone pattern?”

“Well the temperature swings will crack a huge monolithic sheet. Likely more toward the edges than the center. A laser melts some spikes in a grid that will stick down from the bottom of each block to locate it in the regolith, then it switches to microwaves and backs off the edge as it melts so there is a greater gap a couple inches down. If a section does fuse to the next, it will crack in the night along the weak line. But you want as small a gap on top as possible.”

“I figured that out, but why herringbone? Why not squares or rectangles or hexagons?”

“You ever ride on a brick road down on Earth?”

“No, I thought that was something out of “The Wizard of Oz”.”

“Not at all. Brick roads are real and very durable. Some of them are in fine condition after a couple hundred years. But when you drive on them and they are laid out perpendicular to your line of travel they hum, loudly. We are using tracked vehicles right now, but we plan to transition to wheels as soon as possible. With the herringbone pattern the tire crosses the crack on a diagonal. It is quieter and noise is lost energy so it is more efficient for the vehicle too.”

He stopped talking and watched the screen intently, he told the paver to stop with the rover and brought them to a stop. “Also there will be homes or businesses to each side of the road and the constant hum of vehicles passing could add up to be very annoying.”

“Why did you stop?”

“Even with our front bumper, is directly over where you will be tunneling out the outer boundary ring,” Jeff informed him. “I am putting a marker out with the distance from the center. It’s like a Leaving Central sign or a City Limits sign.”

“I wouldn’t do that,” Mo urged him frowning. “It’s giving away too much information. Your enemies could use it for targeting data.”

“You’re too paranoid. The tunnel will be several kilometers down. The idea was to be so deep it doesn’t matter if they know it’s down there. But thanks for your concern.”

Jeff went out the lock with the sign and a hammer. When he got to the front of the rover he stopped. There were already footprints off the edge of the rover tracks. Six pairs of them out and back and a perfectly dark round hole in the regolith at the end about twenty centimeters in diameter, about four meters from the edge of their rover tracks. For one absurd instant, it made him think of a cup on a golf course green.

The footprints were in a shallow chevron pattern. He walked out, adding his lugged sole prints to the tracks, leaned over and looked down the hole. There was the gold reflection of a coated optical surface a hand’s breadth down the tube. He used the sign post to jam under it and lever it from the surface. It was a tube, light so it must be aluminum or titanium. Pointed at one end to push into the surface easily. The other end reflected back at him but it had too much mass, to be a thin glass and a band pass filter on the front face. Not a mirror then, a reflective prism. It hung suspended in the tube, to be exactly vertical.

He turned to go back to the rover, but Mo had already came out. “Yes, I put that there.”

“But why?”

“Just what I said. It’s a target marker. Five years from now, ten years, whatever, the USNA wants to be able to target your tunnels. They don’t have anything that can go that deep now, but they will be spending a great deal of money to develop something.”

Jeff did something he’d never done before. He reached down and folded up the flap on his holster and locked it in the up position with the snap. Mo was four meters away and had nothing in his hands, but he scared Jeff.

“I understand if you shoot me, but let me tell you just a couple things first.”

“Go ahead and tell me. From over there,” Jeff added.

Mo nodded. “There are seven of those positioned. The locations are in my pad and my password is, “Lo tis a gala night just ain’t it?”, one apostrophe only in ain’t, not lo, question mark.

“Also, I’m given to understand the direction of research is to have missiles that can go that deep, fused to detonate by detecting a region of lower density ahead by fast neutron backscatter. If you bore a horizontal spread of three or four small tunnels well above your main tunnel, it will likely cause a premature detonation and reduce or eliminate damage.”

“Go on,” Jeff urged him when he stopped talking.

“That’s all. Tell my family I’m sorry and I love them. You can shoot me now.”

“I can shoot you now? Well thank you,” Jeff said, infuriated. “What if I bloody don’t care to blow your stupid head off?” he yelled.

Mo considered it carefully. “You can drive away. You can send somebody back for the suit.”

“What are you? CIA? Didn’t they issue you the standard cyanide pill? Don’t you have a hollow tooth with poison, or a bomb between your shoulderblades?”

“I don’t even know who hired me for sure. Two men in suits visited me when Linda was out with the kids. They told me I had to answer your ad in my job search. They made sure I saw they had guns, when they sat down and stood up, but they offered no ID. They explained that if I got offered your position and didn’t take it, they’d see to it I’d never get hired by anyone else. If I did get your job and worked my contract out, then they’d make sure I got another decent position after I returned to Earth. I did ask who they were. They said what I didn’t know I couldn’t blab and not to start thinking above my station. One joked to the other that I must read spy novels. After I got hired they came back to give me the reflectors and told me what I had to do.”

“Could you help an artist do their faces?”

“I could, but neither of them were striking. I was scared to death and it has been long enough now, I doubt if it would be very useful.”

“Could you look at photos and pick them?”

“That’s more likely. You have a database of USNA agents?” he asked skeptically.

“Not now. But if I want one I’ll damn well get it,” Jeff vowed grimly.

“They are going to know I failed. I don’t see any way out of this for me,” Mo said. He seemed near tears.

“So, I drive off, then what are you going to do?”

“I’ll open my faceplate,” he vowed. “It shouldn’t be too bad,” he hoped. “Quick.”

“Do it,” Jeff invited him.

“You don’t think I have the nerve?”

“No idea,” Jeff admitted. “One way to find out.”

“You are cruel. I didn’t think that of you,” Mo said, disappointed. He stood a little straighter, closed his eyes, grabbed the chin bar under his faceplate and yanked. It made a loose >clack<. The inside interlock was disconnected in vacuum.

“You didn’t pay attention,” Jeff accused him. “I told you when we were training, the gloves and the faceplate auto-lock in vacuum.”

Mo stood crying. Jeff couldn’t hear him, but he could see the tears running down his face.

“I think you might be more successful at living than dying,” Jeff suggested.

“How?” Mo asked bitterly. “I can’t work for you now. I doubt anyone else on Home needs a mining engineer. I can’t go back to Earth and my wife detests Home. It’s horribly expensive and my daughter will probably set the cafeteria on fire for fun and get us all expelled.”

“There is a labor shortage on Home. I think you overestimate how much Home employers value specialization. When you are done working for me, I predict many of the land holders here would hire you to dig them in safe and deep. Your family I can’t help. If they don’t come around and acclimate, well, divorced and alive still beats dead.”

“With a reputation for sabotage who would hire me?”

“Why do they need to know? I have no need to announce it. I’ll tell Heather and April, maybe a couple others. They are all keeping far bigger secrets than this. I’ve just ruined your relationship with this shadowy agency. You will round up those seven reflectors you planted,” Jeff ordered. “I’ll give you priority use of a rover to do it and you deliver them all to me. If anybody questions it I have the authority to say you are doing a secret defense project for me. If they run a veracity analysis on me it is true.”

“I have another thirteen back in my luggage,” Mo volunteered.

“What were you going to do with them gone? Call and have them FedEx you more?”

“I don’t even have a way to contact them,” Mo admitted, “I’m not trusted, not important enough and deniable.”

“My guess is you’d have had a convenient accident after you returned to Earth,” Jeff speculated. “That way you couldn’t have any sudden attack of remorse, or tell a grand story after a couple too many beers.” The look on Mo’s face said he’d never considered that.

“No, the only solution I see here is to turn you. Not only turn you but to double you. No need to threaten you with anything either. All the threats are from the other side and the fact, as you recounted, that you need us to survive and prosper on Home or Central is sufficient.”

“I accept.”

“I thought you might.”

“I’ll work with you to ID them. They shouldn’t even suspect anything, until it is time for me to come home and I don’t.”

“Deal then,” Jeff said with a nod, like he was buying a pair of footies instead of a man’s life, snapped his holster shut and walked back toward the rover lock. “I’m going to take your advice.”

“What?” Mo asked, confused what he was talking about.

“We don’t need a sign here.”

Chapter 24

“Thank you,” Linda told her children. “It’s good to know how to patch a leak, no matter how unlikely it is I’ll ever need to do it. But what makes me feel good, is how concerned both of you were for my safety.”

“It felt really weird to actually be shown something useful in school and not presented all dramatic and threatening to try to scare us that terrorists are lurking everywhere. I’m not fully convinced I won’t find any downside at all, but Ms. Lewis’ school just beats the snot out of school back home so far,” Lindsy admitted.

“I’m going to have to give you some lessons at home,” Linda felt she should warn them, before they grew too fond of Faye’s school. “We just can’t afford to send both of you a full week. It’s three hundred dollars a day.”

“Each or both?” Lindsy asked big eyed. Her parents never discussed money with her. Didn’t even talk about it where she could hear. That seemed really expensive.

“Each, but everything is more expensive up here.”

“But people make more too,” Eric said. “The employment company in the corridor near the cafeteria sometimes posts salaries offered with some of the jobs, on their window screen. The pay looks real big compared to back home, if you had no idea what stuff costs. I mean for stuff like a janitor or home health aide. Not executives or engineers. They offered two-hundred-thirty-five dollars an hour for an experienced cook for a social club. What’s a social club anyway?”

“We had them back home,” his mom explained. “We just never belonged to one. There was an Italian social club down Brighten Street we passed. They usually have a bar and a restaurant and that one had bocce ball courts. They are kind of like the fraternal orders, or country clubs. Where is this employment place?” she asked, trying not to be too interested.

“Spinward from the cafeteria,” he had to stop and think. “To the right when you come out of the cafeteria doors.” Eric was oblivious, but Lindsy picked up on how interested her mom was.

*

“I’m looking at the lifting shape,” Dave explained, “and it has a slight cup to the bottom and ridges that run down the outside edge. The shockwave from each meets in the middle and helps to cut down what reaches the ground. It looks an awfully lot like a boat my dad used to have when I was a kid. I need to talk to a boat builder, but I think with a couple flats that swing down like an air brake, to make it lift up on a plane, you could land and take off on water. You can have the computer sense the angle and adjust them to suit for whatever load you have. It would need some distance to land with the boards deployed just enough to keep the nose from digging in, but shouldn’t need a long run to take off. It would pitch the nose up within a few body lengths and it would do a very high G takeoff, almost vertical.”

“Tell me why it’s worth doing,” Jeff encouraged him. There was a slight LEO to moon lag in the transmission. The audio lag was not as distracting somehow, as the delay in a person’s facial responses to what you’d said.

“There’s more water than land down there. If you land with the throat plugged ready for instant take off you need to use aerobraking and land on a runway. A fairly long runway, not just any hick field. If you do a powered vertical landing you will need some flush and pump down time. I’m looking at ten minutes, six minutes if I install dual vacuum pumps, which adds another sixty kilograms. It makes loading harder too. We can optimize for horizontal loading or vertical loading, but not both.”

“I thought you worried about back pressure and reflected pressure pulses?” Jeff reminded him. “Wouldn’t blowing out an exhaust throat full of water be much harder than just air?”

“The odd thing is it’s easier. You have to time it right. You blow the water out with a blast of compressed air or other gas. The column of water rushes down the throat. It is heavier,” Dave agreed, “but that means at a certain point it has enough momentum that instead of being pushed by the compressed air it is a liquid piston pulling a vacuum behind it. If you fire up the engine when the throat is clear almost to the end and at well below atmospheric pressure, it’s easier on it.”

“Wow, I can picture it, but I never would have anticipated it.”

“There are lots of lakes big enough to land with such a set-up on all the continents and in fairly tame sea-states you could land on the ocean. You could pick up or drop cargo to a ship.”

“Hold doors on top like the old space shuttle, so you can lift cargo in and out with a crane?”

“That would work.”

“This will delay it though, right?”

“If the software exists to do the fluid modeling, then call it an extra two weeks, maybe three. If it doesn’t we’ll forget it for now and put it off for a few years.”

“It sounds worthwhile then,” Jeff agreed, “See if you can do it.” He stood there staring off in the distance, Dave knew something was coming.

“If you hire somebody who does boat design, would you ask them if there are any designs out there already worked up for small underwater drones? Something that could surface and launch two or three Frisbee drones and sink back to the bottom and wait to collect them. Electric drive and very stealthy so I can run it off an accumulator.”

“I already know there are such drones,” Dave assured him. “I’ll get plans. They use them for resource prospecting and hull inspections, besides military. What sort of environment though? Arctic? Tropical? Does it need to dive deep?”

“I want it to get dumped out in the Atlantic, either off a reentry bus or dropped by our new shuttle, and make its way up the Potomac to the heart of DC. The drones will sit and spy on such targets as the CIA or FBI headquarters. I will modify the Frisbees and file off the serial numbers so they can’t be traced to us. Also I’ll put a self destruct mechanism in them in case somebody captures one. Will a weapons bus work to drop a mini-sub like that?”

“I’m sure I can make it do so. You might be able to drop a drone carrier on dry land and get away with it too. It can be camouflaged and end up in very difficult to find places. I can see dropping one in a junkyard or in badlands. Very difficult places to search. I can make one look like a fireplug and park it beside a road, or an air conditioning unit on a roof.”

“You are devious, I like that,” Jeff said, smiling.

*

Linda stood in the corridor and read all the jobs scrolling on the screen until they started to repeat. Most seemed technical. Only a few of the high end jobs named an annual salary. What was a senior DBM merge coordinator anyway? She had no idea. There were jobs off Home and jobs that required working seven days a week. Some said no continuing USNA citizenship. One said no stinks, no Timmys and no Zorks. She suspected she knew what a Timmy was from listening to her kids, but didn’t have any idea what a Zork was, it sounded pretty bad.

The lady inside was looking at her when she finished reading. She waved Linda in, but didn’t get up and come out into the corridor to try to sell her. She considered whether she wanted to go in and talk to her. She wasn’t dressed in an interview outfit. After reading all the high powered jobs she felt unqualified to apply for anything. The woman didn’t look aggressive though. If she didn’t like how the woman talked to her she could just leave. She took a deep breath and went in.

“I’m Susan Holder,” the young woman told her. She had on the spex like everyone here seemed to wear. She didn’t get up, but waved at the chair for Linda to sit. It was a remarkably comfortable chair even in a full gravity. “Would you like coffee?” she offered and then looked closer at Linda like she was sizing her up better, “or a cup of tea?” she amended.

“I’d love a cup of tea,” Linda suddenly realized.

“Black, green, spiced Chai or herbal?”

“Chai, without milk, please.”

“It’s coming,” the lady assured her, although she hadn’t made a call. Those spex again…

“Very few people read our job postings board through a full cycle. I have to think your interest isn’t casual.”

“I’m just at the point I started thinking about seeking a job again for the first time yesterday. I have two children in school. My husband is working on the moon and will be back and forth for at least several months. I haven’t worked outside the home for some time and it may be hard to find something to fit my schedule. Also, I’m a USNA citizen.”

“That is not usually a concern except in defense work. Are you by any chance an aerospace mechanic or an armorer?” Susan asked, dead pan.

Linda actually laughed out loud. “Hardly, I’m a housewife who had two years of college and never got a degree. I’m really good at hunting down bargains and running a household budget. I have advanced skills in toilet scrubbing and laundry,” she quipped.

“Can you use a word-processing program and do spreadsheets?”

“Well sure. If you can’t use a computer you might as well live in a cave. I worked for awhile after we married for an online shoppers guide. We went out and checked out stores without telling them they were being evaluated and then wrote up articles on them and fitted any pix we could sneak into the piece. Then I got pregnant with my girl and it never seemed like a good time to go back to work.”

“What sort of courses did you take in college?” Susan seemed genuinely interested.

“A lot of prerequisites for other courses I never took. Introduction to Creative Writing, College English I, Style and Design Fundamentals, Psych, Algebra because I didn’t get it in High School, All the required health and civics propaganda of course, such as how not to become an alcoholic. The required Physical Ed, which meant learning to swim and learning some team sports like volleyball. History of World Art, which was very, very general. Stuff I already knew, because it was an interest of mine already. Chemistry I, because they stopped having actual lab in high school as too dangerous, so I didn’t get it there. Did you do your schooling on Earth?”

“Yes, but about ten years after you and in Sweden. It was more of a , “Stay out of the work force a couple years and become more cultured and less of a trouble maker.” sort of a free education, different than the, “You pay for it, but then you may go forth and make money.” American model.”

Linda nodded. “You understand. I’m just glad I didn’t go all in and amass a huge debt since I didn’t stay to get the degree. My parents covered some of my expenses and I worked different jobs. I worked for a relative’s company answering phones and then I did pickup and delivery in a little truck, I even waited tables a few months.”

“But it sounds like you didn’t take fluff courses. You studied writing and composition and have practical experience as a journalist and photographer. A fairly decent general education and the practical real world skills of working general labor and running a household. I’m sure I can find something for you. Are you willing to do the sort of manual work that you’ve had to do keeping house, or do you insist on a clean sit down job?”

“Well, I’d rather not do any seriously grubby jobs like crawling around in duct work or cleaning out sewer pipes, but you mean wiping something down with a rag or running a vacuum over the floor that’s fine. I wouldn’t mind something like packaging, or light assembly, but I wouldn’t want to move heavy stuff around like warehouse work and I’m not ready to do full time work yet.” A minion appeared and silently sat a mug in front of her, a cup of something for Susan too and disappeared.

“We have a group of folks willing to take on temporary positions to cover for people on vacation or off sick. You could tell us when you’d be available and we’d give you a com call and offer you the assignment. The pay rate varies quite a bit, but you would have a variety so you don’t get bored doing the same thing and sometimes people find work they really like that way, they’d never try otherwise.”

“I’d like to try that,” Linda decided easily. “I send the kids to school Tuesdays and Thursdays, but show me any morning jobs you have. The kids can fend for themselves for a few hours. They have cafeteria cards and my girl likes to sleep until about ten if nobody rouses her anyway.”

Susan scrolled through some things on her screen and tapped few keys. She turned the screen so they both could view it.

“These three may be of interest to you. There is a job packaging pharmaceuticals. It’s a full shift, but usually only one day a week. You work with a supervisor who will train you. It’s in zero G. The pay is in Yen,” she added.

“Then there is a job open in the worker’s cafeteria. They need somebody to clean tables and wheel the carts with dirty dishes into the kitchen and make coffee and such during the peak lunch hour, 1100 to 1330. The cook can handle that stuff OK off peak.”

“Also, I have a job seven mornings a week, but they will take people who can work any one day or several. It’s cleaning a private social club. Like a night club. You can go in anytime from 0400 to 1000. That’s when they start prepping for lunch and want you to be done. Tuesday through Friday is light, usually less than two hours. Saturday, Sunday, Monday they do a bigger business the night before and it takes a good three hours. You wipe down all the tables and surfaces, strip the fabric off the frame for any chairs that look dirty, to be laundered and refill the salt and pepper grinders and condiment trays. You fill and stock some things like napkins and clean up the restrooms. Do any of these sound interesting?”

“I don’t think I’m ready to deal with doing anything in zero G and I want to be back with my kids at lunch time,” she paused, reluctant to speak.

“Do you have reservations about working in a club?” Susan guessed. “I assure you it isn’t a front for a house of prostitution. They serve alcohol and they do have a gambling room, but that is perfectly legal here.”

“Oh no,” Linda said, flustered. “I didn’t know if I could deal with the rest rooms. Down home we’ll do just about anything to avoid going in a public restroom. Like at the mall,” she actually shuddered. “People are just awful,” she asserted firmly.

“I’m going to tell you something that may offend you. If I lose your business so be it, but you need to know. That is exactly the sort of thing that makes people on Home not want to visit Earth. They call it nasty names like the slum ball. In fact, I have heard people discuss this very thing and conclude you can judge a culture or civilization better by their public rest rooms, than high minded speeches or laws. If you find the restrooms disgusting at the club, I’d have no complaint if you quit after a day, but I’d be very surprised.”

“It sounded really good, otherwise. How much does it pay?” Linda wondered. “How does it work? Do you get a cut of my wages or do I pay a placement fee?”

“One-hundred-seventy dollars an hour, plus you are granted a membership in the club and they pay us a onetime fee to find you, if you are satisfactory and stay at least a month. “

“I realize that isn’t a living wage on Home,” Susan said quickly, misinterpreting Linda’s shocked look completely. “They know somebody will be doing it for extra money, not a primary wage. You log your hours by sending a text message when you start and stop. You might want to consider getting some spex. It makes things like that a lot easier.”

“My last job I worked, well it was some years ago, but it paid twenty-two dollars an hour and tips. Not long after the switch to new dollars. This seems like a lot of money to me. I can get some spex, my son has quite a few pairs of them. I’ll try the job, if they will take me doing the four light days, Tuesday through Friday and find somebody else for the heavy days. I’ll try it on faith that you are right about people here not being pigs in the restrooms. I can’t take offense at the truth that they are down below.”

“It won’t seem like a lot of money, once you do some shopping on Home. They’ll be delighted with whatever days you take, because the management and servers are staying over extra hours and doing it all themselves right now. Would next Tuesday be fine to start?”

“Sure,” Linda agreed. “No reason to delay.”

“Then stop by the club any day after 10:00 and they’ll show you around and give you the address for logging your hours. I’ll print out a map and contact information.”

“Do you know how they will pay me?” Linda wondered.

“It says weekly. They do a lot of business in cash, so I imagine they’d pay you from the till at the end of the week. The owners include locals who use the Trade Bank so you could probably get paid in Solars if you want them for savings, but it would be a long wait to get paid.”

“Why’s that?” Linda asked.

“A Solar is running about seventeen-thousand USNA dollars so you’d be waiting about three months for a pay day, working part time. They haven’t issued any fractional Solar coins. I wish they would really,” Susan complained.

“Can you tell me what a Solar looks like?” Linda asked, remembering a silvery coin flipped through the air to her son, Eric.

“I can show you,” Susan reached up, pulling the chain around her neck over her head and extended it for Linda to examine. The coin hanging on it as a pendant was gold and set in an ornate gold bezel.

“Do they make these in silver?”

“No, but they make them in platinum,” Susan explained. “The gold ones are recent. All the early ones are platinum. They’re about the same exchange value.”

“Thank you. I didn’t realize how valuable one small coin could be,” she admitted.

“Most Earth coins are steel or plastic now. Even nickel is too valuable for coins,” Susan said with a shrug. “An old USA copper penny is worth almost a new dollar USNA, just for the metal.”

“Thank you,” Linda said, standing and taking the printout. “I’ll let you know how it works out with the job.”

“If you get tired of it, or want to upgrade and they can’t promote you in-house, come back to see me and I’ll find something for you,” Susan promised.

Chapter 25

“Give me your phone and pad,” Everett Jones said. He pointed at his desk, leaving no doubt he meant here and now. Berry looked over his shoulder and the two beefy security men with Tasers left no doubt it was not a request. One had his hand on his weapon, which discouraged him from trying to activate either. He reluctantly put both on the desk.

“Search him,” Everett instructed.

The fellow was thorough and laid another small phone on the desk and a thumb drive.

“I need those to do my job.”

“You are finished with running IT on this base, Everett informed him, bluntly. “You are going to be on the departing shuttle in fifteen minutes. You are the sort of a warped son-of-a-bitch who would sabotage us if we told you that ahead of time and allowed you access to the computers. I’m going to make something clear to you. You remember what happened when you went off your nut back a year and a half ago?”

“The memory isn’t very clear,” he tried to say, but there was fear on his face. “I was told I had a concussion,” he reminded Everett.

“Yes, because you were yelling and screaming and trying to kill the electrician and you didn’t notice anything I was saying, until I banged your head on the wall and knocked you senseless. If I had known the stupid administrator would make excuses and retain you after that, I’d have killed you, he said bluntly. “Every day you have been here since has been a day we were all at risk you’d break again.”

“I can’t even pack my things in fifteen minutes.”

“We have a crew packing your personal items in your room right now. There is no way I’d let you back in your room with a comconsole or any electronics you’ve hidden there. If you have contraband don’t worry. I’ll gladly ignore it to be rid of you.”

“My door won’t open to the master code,” Berry assured him smugly.

“I told them to cut it open if it didn’t. and anything they even suspect might be electronics is not going to be packed in your things. Just in case you have any nasty surprises for us on a timer, you should know the President’s representative and I have an agreement. If I have an ‘accident’ here with the computers or com going down, he is going to have an ‘accident’ on the shuttle and shove your worthless butt out the airlock without benefit of a pressure suit.”

“You’ll never keep the systems up and running without me,” Berry sneered. “They don’t need to be booby trapped. There isn’t anyone else here competent to run them.”

“I’m going to nominate Chad and Paul for sainthood. It must have been impossible working with you. Yet I’ve heard neither complain.”

“Chad has kept himself busy with com,” he said, voice dripping disdain at that menial task. “Paul hasn’t had anything to do with either of us in ages. He made sort of an unofficial lateral move to planning and scheduling.”

“To get away from you,” Everett understood, nodding. “But you see, you abrogated your responsibilities as department head. One of the things you were responsible to do was assure continuity. Saying nobody can handle it but me, is something that should have had you standing in front of the administrator’s desk. You should have been telling him it was something that needed corrected. Not glorying in it as a boost to your grand ego. You should have been training people to do everything you can do, so if you drop dead it’s covered.”

“You assume I had somebody trainable,” Berry sniffed, still in full snit.

“I hope somebody forces you to get some psychological counseling back on Earth,” Everett told him. “Although the case could be made you’ll just fit right in,” he growled. “Put him on the shuttle. Remind them at the lock to deny him access to com and check his suit like a newbie when you take him out. I want him to safely be somebody else’s responsibility.”

*

“I’ve got a job,” Linda informed her children at supper. “I’m going to go to an orientation tomorrow morning and then the next day I’ll go out early and work before you get up. I’ll be back and have breakfast with you before you go to school. and Eric, I need a pair of spex and for you to show me how to send messages, so I can clock in and out of work.”

“OK, I’ll get you a system ID and show you how at home,” Eric agreed.

“What are you doing?” Lindsey asked.

“I’ll clean up a private club to get ready for the next day’s business,” her Mom said.

“You’re a cleaning lady?” Lindsy asked. Her face and voice said it horrified her.

“I picked that, over several other jobs,” her Mom informed her. “At least partially for your benefit, so I could have more time at home with you two. I could have had a job in pharmaceuticals that was clean and easier. I’m a hundred-seventy dollar an hour cleaning lady.”

“Wow, that’s good money,” Eric said. Lindsy said nothing, but still had a pouty look.

“It was never beneath my station to clean up after you, Your Highness. Perhaps it’s time and past, for you to see what you’ll have to do when you are on your own. It’s your job now to clean the bathroom. Working outside the home I deserve a little support. You tidy it up every day and do a thorough scrub of every surface, once a week. Eric can wipe the surfaces in the big room as needed and clean the floor once a week too.”

“OK,” Eric agreed, unconcerned. That left Lindsy in an untenable position to complain. She elected not to say anything. That was still an improvement over past behavior.

*

“April? I think you should look at this Earth news item,” Gunny said in a funny voice.

“What craziness are they up to now?”

“It’s about the Spanish couple you showed around Home and then took to the club with your grandpa and me that evening. It’s really worth reading.”

“Oh, the Alphonses, sure send it to my screen.”

“Madrid – (EFE, translated) James and Helena Alphonse, distant members of the extended Royal Family, are wanted for questioning in connection with terrorism, by propagation of infectious biological agents. They are missing from their customary city home as well as their country cottage. Ms. Alphonse was last seen at her position with the Antiquities Authority four days ago. Her husband James was reported to have arrived at his office with the Royal Charities Commission the next morning, but when agents of the CNP arrived he was not to be found in the building.”

“There is much speculation that they were involved in the reported illness of the King and Queen, that has kept the Royal Couple out of the public eye the past month. This affair may also be related to the reported infection of Cardinal Gasco, which resulted in expulsion from his office. Despite it being involuntary, he is charged by Church authorities with unnatural impurity, due to abominable genetic alterations. Discussions of going further to excommunicate Gasco are apparently on hold as the whole College of Cardinals is reported to be in an uproar in seclusion and even the Holy Father has not been seen now for the last three weeks. Questions from the press are refused.”

“The Alphonses are reported to drive a white Mercedes sedan license ECS9173AJT. Reports of their whereabouts are solicited by the authorities.”

*

“Oh my God. They came up here to get some gene therapy from Jelly. It sounds like they did a viral transmission and somehow broke isolation,” April speculated.

“That’s how it sounds to me. Helena seemed pretty sharp to me. I can’t believe she’d be careless about transmitting it.”

“Yes, she seemed like the brighter one of the two. He wasn’t stupid, he just didn’t have that little something extra she did. But obviously she sees a great deal in him. They seemed very devoted to each other”

“They seem to have been on top of things enough to disappear before the police arrived. I wouldn’t be surprised to see them turn up here again,” Gunny predicted.

“I’ve got to tell Jelly. He’ll want to be very careful about any liability and he may want to change his protocols. It’s crazy to complain about something that makes you healthier and lets you live longer. People pay big bucks for this and they’re mad they got it free.”

“I almost said they are Earthies,” Gunny said, dismayed at himself. “I’m so new I still have Earth dirt on my shoes and already feel they are Earthies, so of course they are nuts. Doesn’t take long up here to get that attitude does it?”

“No, you have to stay immersed in Earth Think every day, or you lose the conditioning and notice it is all crazy pretty quickly. That’s the real horror for the authorities down there, the possibility that the population might see things from a detached enough viewpoint and realize how absurd it all is. That could get ugly for them quickly.”

*

“Ms. Paddington, I’m Phillip Detweiler. I’m the maitre d’ and schedule all the personnel. I’m responsible for the immediate smooth flow of operations on the floor during serving hours. I also have a small ownership interest in the business, which is good, it keeps my interest keen and personal. The serving staff are charged with keeping the serving area presentable during operations, but necessarily there will be some deterioration that can’t be dealt with while our guests are here and it becomes more evident when the facility is empty and the lights turned up. I saw on your application you have not worked in a fixed service location before. What do you anticipate will be most difficult?”

“It’s distasteful, but I’m concerned the restrooms may be very difficult to clean. The lady at the employment agency assured me that the public on Home is much less inclined to vandalize the facilities than I am conditioned to expect on Earth. If that is the case I can only welcome it, because our family would go to great lengths to avoid using a public restroom on Earth.”

“Perhaps we should start with the restrooms then,” he said making a come-along gesture and heading for them. “We have a large enough combined staff and customer occupancy, to have two restrooms. Rather than designate them men and women we kept both unisex. That is because we find women use the facilities at a higher rate than the men. We also instruct all staff to use the restroom nearest the kitchen first and they are responsible for leaving it in a condition it is ready for use by a customer next if that is necessary. They are however identical. Tell me what you think,” he said opening the door.

The room was small, but not claustrophobic in its compactness. “Ladies often go to the restroom in twos,” he informed her. “Otherwise they might be just slightly smaller.” There was a commode cantilevered from the wall behind a screen, with no visible pipes or sensors. The seat was lightly spring loaded to rise unless you pulled it down to sit.

The basin was ample and had a single spout supplying water but no valves. It had a visible slant to drain from the edge all around to the basin. The flat was slightly pebbled and the basin shiny. There was both a hot air dryer and a paper towel dispenser and by the toilet a paper dispenser and sani-wipe dispenser too. The floor was a confetti dot pattern of different bright colors lightly textured for traction. Everything but the floor was various tones of white.

“There is no baby changing station,” Linda noticed right away. “You have to have them by law down below. But there is a handicap handrail. I’m still getting used to the differences. How do you get water?”

“Warm water, please,” Phillip enunciated rather distinctly. The spout immediately gave forth a light flow. “Go ahead and feel it.” He urged. Linda stuck a cupped hand under it. “Warmer please,” he commanded. It got hotter very quickly. “More flow, please,” he requested and the volume increased. “Thank you, done,” he said and it ceased. “It understands most languages,” he added. “You can also do things like summon help, since it is tied into the house computer. I have to say also, if someone wanted to bring an infant in the club, I’d advise them that it wasn’t an appropriate venue for a young child. Perhaps a exceptionally mature ten-year-old and by twelve I’d hope a child could behave in public, certainly, but not an infant.”

“The colors make it feel clean and it smells clean. It looks like it has never been used. Is it always this spotless?” she asked, surprised.

“When a customer uses either room it posts a notice in all the worker’s spex. Whoever is free to do so checks the room as quickly as possible, then clears the notice from everyone’s spex. If anything needs cleaned, the supplies to do so are in this cabinet,” he opened a door by pressing on it and when he let up it sprang open. “It won’t open to a customer of course. It will read our spex address. You should always run a wet flat wiper on the walls first and then the floor. There should never be any accumulation of grime and nothing really visible, unless somebody used the room right at closing and it was never attended.”

“I was worried for nothing,” Linda concluded. “This is easy. My daughter leaves a bigger mess for me than this, except I just assigned that duty off to her as her chore,” she added.

“Ah, it’s good for children to learn responsibility. I commend you.”

“Thank you. What do I have to do in the main dining room?”

“The floor must be vacuumed,” he said leading her back in there and to the cleaning supply closet. “If there is a food spill you may need to use the steamer on a spot. It has instruction on the machine,” he pointed out. “It doesn’t happen every day, but it does happen now and then. The pull down seats have to be wiped, as do the tabletops and the salt and pepper. You need to examine the folding chairs,” he said taking one off the wall hook and opening it.

“All of them need to be opened. If there are any food stains, or if there is a visible soil along the edge where people grab them to open them, then the cloth needs stripped off the tube frame. There are two snaps at each corner locking the pocket on the frame. You just need to toss them in the laundry hamper with the napkins and things,” he said, pointing it out.

“Behind the bar here are some trays that are taken to the table as appropriate with condiments. Mustard, catsup, steak sauce, malt vinegar, hot sauce. The kitchen is responsible for keeping them full. The kitchen also adds onion or mayonnaise and such if needed for the order. You are asked to wipe down the bottles and the tray itself and the salt and pepper grinders.”

“The most difficult thing to get across to the crew I’ve found, is to be thorough. We don’t want a customer to find a sticky spot on the table, not even if they put a hand around the edge to brace themselves getting up. So we need the table scrubbed well, even on the edges and for a hands breadth or so in on the bottom even. We’re fussy,” he admitted. “That’s also why we don’t ask for a set price bid for cleaning. If it’s a little dirtier for some reason, we’d rather you take the time to get it right and we’ll pay for that. We expect you won’t abuse that by running up the time. We’ll try to treat you fairly and expect it to be reciprocated. This is your address to log on the clock,” he said, offering his business card with it handwritten on the back.

“If you feel anything the evening crew has left you to do is unreasonable, call me on com or come talk to me and I’ll listen to the problem,” he promised. “If we have any complaints about you, expect to hear them too,” he said, but smiled to soften it. “Do you still want the job?”

“Yes, I’d like to do it,” Linda agreed.

“Let’s introduce you to the house then, it will know your hand and voice. The Home Social Club is usually a four-thousand dollars USNA annual fee to join. While you are employed here you are welcome to come any time you are off duty and bring up to three guests. If you should decide to terminate your employment with us on good terms, you will be offered a one time opportunity to buy a membership at half price. Any questions?”

“Do you withhold anything? Any fees or taxes?”

“Taxes on Home are voluntary. You can find out all about that on com. You need supply nothing and we don’t have any dress requirements since you are not dealing with customers. Any tax due to your being a USNA citizen is entirely your concern.”

“We’re set then,” Linda concluded.

*

“Thank you,” Jeff looked at the bag of laser reflectors Mo gave him. It was like the Chinese used up all his anger with the ship theft and he just couldn’t rouse himself to get angry with the Americans. Not that he planned on just letting it go. Oh no.

For starters he planned on sending one reflector to each of the other lunar outposts, with an explanation, just as soon as Mo didn’t return on schedule. They should be aware they might have similar little gifts planted on their bases. and he set two aside just in case he was ever able to identify the two agents who had intimidated Mo into placing them. That might take awhile, but it was worth trying.

“Am I still clear to go back next week and have some time with my family?”

“Of course.”

“You’re not worried I’ll go all wobbly and switch sides again?”

“Nobody will watch you. Nobody will stop you if you get on a shuttle and leave,” Jeff assured him. “I’ll even send flowers to the funeral,” he promised. “I’m absolutely sure that’s how forgiving they’d be.” He wondered if Mo recorded that and would run it through some verification software? It would be good if he did. Jeff believed every word.

*

“What interests you?” Faye asked Lindsy. “Is there anything you miss about Earth you’d like to see here? Your brother mentioned he likes to be outside. That’s pretty hard to arrange here. We have a gym with a running program that simulates outside, but he didn’t run, he just liked to walk in the park and sit on a bench reading sometimes. We haven’t been able to afford a park yet. I may be able to get some folks to take him out in a suit, but even that will be a onetime experience, not something you can go do casually, because you are in the mood.”

“I miss being with kids my age every day,” Lindsy admitted. “There are only two near my age in your school and I haven’t met any others. Back home I called my friends every day and talked about what was happening in the evening. Stuff that you had to be there to see. Who wore new stuff to school that was interesting, crazy shoes, or new music and who was going with who. We had some shows everybody watched and talked about.” She was obviously still not reconciled to the loss.

“I have com again now at home and can call, but it’s amazing, the few days I was gone I got disconnected and it seems impossible to link back up again. I called a couple old friends and it was awkward. They had to keep telling me people weren’t together now, who I didn’t know had broken up. It was all about what’s happening down there and I had nothing that would be interesting to them to add from this end. They got tired of telling me stuff a week old and getting nothing back.”

She looked at Faye funny and hesitated. “It all seems kind of stupid now. What do I care if Jackie broke up with Steve and is flirting with Ed? She’ll be batting her eyes at somebody else in another week anyway. It seems unreal that I ever cared”

“I had much the same happen when I was on Earth,” Faye reminisced. “I graduated high school and couldn’t imagine I wouldn’t stay close to all my pals from school, but they scattered to different universities, or got jobs, or got married. A couple of them did all three pretty quickly. I had their numbers on my phone, but nothing I was doing really mattered to them anymore. I’d give them a call every week or two and give them the short version of what I’d been up to, but that sort of tapered off to one call around the holidays, to tell them I still thought about them. A few of them I lost their number when they changed it and then when we all graduated university and got jobs and got married, a few more got disconnected. A few even died and I only heard roundabout. But there are a handful who still get a New Years call from me.”

“That’s so sad.”

“Not really,” Faye insisted. “I just couldn’t imagine how much would change. I hadn’t experienced anything else like graduation, to anticipate how different my life would be. I couldn’t stay frozen in time. Although there were a few people who did. They had a brief moment of glory in high school, because they were athletes or very popular. But not good enough to become professional athletes, or with that power of personality to go into show business beyond high school. They just sort of plugged along diminished as adults and lived for the next class reunion. Now that’s sad. “

Lindsy looked surprised, but then thoughtful. “I can think of a couple in my class, or the seniors ahead of us, who might end up that way.”

“You’re interested in clothes?” Faye plucked from the conversation. “Might you like to study fashion and clothing?”

“I think my mom would wonder why you are wasting her money, teaching me about something as frivolous as clothing.”

“And yet she doesn’t send you forth into the corridors naked,” Faye marveled.

Lindsy looked at her astonished and then burst into laughter. “On Earth it is very bad form to use that word. If your students told their parents the school would probably warn you sternly not to be vulgar. But I see your point. If it isn’t that important, why do we all wear them so faithfully?”

“Yes and why do they throw you in jail if you skip them? These things come and go in cycles. That’s part of the history of clothing and fashion, which is well worth knowing. In the Victorian era it was so shameful to acknowledge one had legs, that you couldn’t say the word in polite company. Not even to refer to table legs. You had to substitute the general term of ‘limbs’. It was daring to even allow a glimpse of one’s ankle beneath your skirts. North America is headed back that way now, with bare arms being grounds to bar you from a business or other public place.”

“You can’t go to a public pool now if your trunks don’t come down over the knee,” Lindsy said.

“Yes, I know. I could show you pictures of high school students from eighty years ago, who are wearing low slung pants that show the navel and tops that expose the arms and shoulders.”

“Where? At a beach?”

“At school,” Faye assured her. “When things move away from that, then such pictures disappear from public media and may even be reserved for ‘serious’ researchers and scholars, in the supposedly public archives.”

“I never thought about clothing having a history. I wonder if we’ll have a history the way they sell stuff now. It seems like they change things for no reason. It’s frustrating because they think it has to be all new, all the time, to sell. If I buy something I really like, I can’t find another one a month later,” Lindsy complained. “I have a few favorite pieces I hardly ever wear, because I don’t want to wear them out.”

“That’s true of consumer goods,” Faye agreed. “But most of them are simplified copies of designer clothing. The really high end stuff is custom cut to fit your measurements, bespoke they say and then the design copied in standard sizes for retail and done in cheaper fabrics most of the time. But even the better made cut-to-size sellers will alter a piece to fit you better.”

“The girls at school would make fun of you, if you sewed a button back on something instead of throwing it away. They took that as a sure sign you were poor,” Lindsy remembered.

“That’s amusing. That tells me they’ve never known anyone with really expensive clothing, because it is well worth repairing or altering. Shoes too. Good ones can be resoled several times and new heels put on.”

“Did you know you can take a garment carefully apart along the seams and use it as a pattern to copy it? Of course you can use a different fabric or color.”

“But I’d hate to lose the original.”

“Ah, but you can sew it back together, if it’s not worn to the point of having holes in it.”

“Oh really? I guess there are some things about clothing worth knowing.”

“And you may like to understand some of the elements of design. If you have favorite pieces of clothing, you already have formed tastes and opinions about fashion.”

“OK, I’ll study fashion and clothes,” Lindsy agreed. “But we have to do something that sounds much more serious, so when my Mom asks I can tell her about that first.”

“Very well, I’m sure we can find something scholarly, she’ll regard well.” She had to fight looking too happy at Lindsy demanding some serious instruction.

Chapter 26

“One day, about four months ago, you took the kids shopping with you and I was alone at home.” Mo related the whole story of intimidating visitors, the threats, the job offer and his failure when Jeff discovered the device he’d placed, as soon as he arrived back at Home. It wasn’t a story to relate on com, but he unburdened himself as soon as he came in the door. Wondering if it was the end of his marriage on top of his life in the USNA.

“So what do we do now?” Linda wondered, dismayed.

“Is it still we?” Mo asked, plainly. “I can’t go back, but I can’t see why they would harm you or the kids. You don’t have to stay here. You made pretty clear you don’t care for Home or the people here.”

“That was my first impression and possibly,” she floundered for words, “it was an ill informed opinion.” She didn’t have it in her to say ‘wrong’. “There have been some people treat me very well. I got a part time job and I had a choice of several. Lindsy and Eric are in school two days a week and doing nicely by all indications. Lindsy actually volunteers things they discussed in school. Eric, I think Eric could do just fine anywhere, but the truth is I think there is more opportunity here. I am not opposed to trying to make a go of things here,” she concluded.

If it wasn’t a ringing endorsement, it was more than he expected and closer to ‘I was wrong’ than he’d heard in years. “Jeff seems to feel I can find employment after his project is finished. If it is too expensive here I’ll have property at Central, you know.”

“And I have work and can ask for more, or find better,” she offered.

“Why don’t we go get some dinner and you can tell me all about this job and the kids’ new school?” he proposed.

“The kids are still at school,”

“Good. Leave them a note and let them see to their own dinner,” he suggested. “Unless your habit is to go there and walk them home. Are you afraid for them to be in the corridors?”

“Oh no, not at all. It’s easy to forget you were only here a couple days and spent those getting trained. We are much more settled in now and know how things work. I have to admit, they are probably safer here than back in Canada. They both wear spex now,” she said touching hers. “I’ll just drop them a low priority text, so they don’t interrupt their lessons. Let’s go,” she agreed, standing. “I’ll keep mine on, in case they respond. Eric gave me a set and showed me how to use them. I needed them to clock on and off my job.”

“Did he want to sell them to you?” he asked, voice pitched lower in the corridor.

“No, he never hinted at such a thing, but he wouldn’t give his sister a free pair, when she asked and I wouldn’t make him. In fact, she didn’t have any money up front, so he made her sign a note. She was rather indignant he called her a ‘poor risk’. Then she tried to get me to pay her for doing her chores, to get the money, but I suggested she could get a cash allowance after her chores covered her cafeteria subscription. I’m pretty sure she looked up the fee online, so I haven’t heard any more about that from her. If Eric can make his own money, then being two years older than he is, she can too!”

“Lindsy has chores?”

“She cleans the bathroom and Eric cleans the common room. If I go out to work before breakfast, why should I come home and have to clean up after kids too?”

“No reason at all,” Mo agreed. “She’s really done this already?

“Twice. The second time I didn’t need to make her re-do anything.”

“Would you like to go to the other cafeteria so we can talk and the kids won’t come find us and interrupt us after school?” he suggested, offering his arm.

“That sounds nice,” Linda agreed. “How long are you staying this time?”

“A week minimum and then however many days until the next ship.”

“That’s good. The kids will get a chance to tell you what they are doing themselves and me too,” she hastened to add, squeezing his arm.

*

“It needs a weapons bay,” Jeff said of the 3D wire frame model turning on the screen. “It should be able to carry both interceptor missiles and stand-off ground attack weapons. I didn’t see anything like that when you went through the subsystems by color coding. Did I miss it?”

“You have the two pylons just like orbit to orbit shuttles,” Dave pointed out, bringing that back up in a brilliant green. “Those are only for space use though. At hypersonic velocity in atmosphere, I have no design for a hatch or weapons door that can open without severely disrupting the stability and handling. The pylons would shear right off if you extended them.”

“Perhaps we could eliminate those and combine orbital and atmospheric weapons in a common magazine.”

“I could certainly use the recovered volume for several things, but how do we get them out safely? I can have a section of hull pivot out, hinged at the front to stay flush, but it will act like a speed brake and heat up quickly. The entire vehicle will either turn to or away from it also.”

“You don’t know which?”

“Not until I model it and it depends on how far forward or aft it is positioned and how the shock wave it generates interacts with the others.”

“Drop them out the back,” Jeff decided. “Next to the drive and inside the shock cone trailing off the rear edge of the vehicle.

“There was a bomber that did that, about a century back. It was nuclear capable, so it never got used the few years it was in service. But in theory it ejected the weapon right between the engine exhausts at supersonic speeds, but your exhausts would damage it,” Dave insisted.

“Remember when airplanes had propellers? They would time it and shoot between the blades. Put an interrupter circuit in the drive, to throttle it way back for a half second or so, when the missile is ejected.”

“That just might work. It’s going to add a day to the design time and it won’t be able to fire sitting grounded.”

Jeff shrugged. “We don’t even have a specific mission for this beast yet.”

“We also don’t have any ground attack missiles. That’s another design assignment and the guidance and electronics are very different to interceptors.”

“Buy them from somebody,” Jeff insisted. “A few to shoot and one to take apart and copy, or better yet, improve on the design.”

“The French have an air to ground design that’s older, but pretty versatile. It works in both ground attack and ship mode. “I’ll see if I can buy a few from one of their allies on the cheap, or direct if I must.”

“I want you to look at this too,” Jeff said, revealing one of the optics Mo had given him. “This is supposedly a targeting marker. It’s to locate where a bunker buster will strike. Does that sound reasonable to you?”

“Yes,” Dave agreed after inspecting it, “but you’d locate these ahead of time, not wait until you were dropping a weapon to use it for guidance. It’s more for advance data collection, not real time.”

“How would you counter it?” Jeff asked.

“You could move them to areas you don’t care if they bombard,” Dave said, wrinkling his brow. “These have to be illuminated to locate them. They have to illuminate them from a fairly small angle off the vertical. Ten degrees or less. You could destroy the ship doing that as a hostile act. It’s just like illuminating you with targeting radar. Is it North America or China placing these?” he asked.

“North America, to three nines certainty.”

“You could send samples to the intelligence agencies of other countries. It’s hugely embarrassing they got caught. Or you can reposition a few of them where they will send a message. I don’t imagine they could fail to take the correct meaning if one of them turned up stuck in the President’s lawn, for example.”

“I may use a combination of those, thank you for your advice,” Jeff said smiling.

*

“Is this the favorite jacket you told me about?” Faye asked Lindsy.

“I like this one a lot, but it isn’t my favorite piece. I’m still a little scared I’ll never get it back together,” she admitted.

“You won’t be after you see how it works,” Faye assured her. “This little tool is a seam ripper. Let me show you how to use it.” She started at a corner of the front bottom and opened the seam for about an inch. “Do that until it’s all apart. It will take some patience, but you’ll get faster as you go along.”

At first Lindsy worked with her head bent over the work, concentrating so much the tip of her tongue showed through her frown. But after awhile Faye looked and she was sitting back, much more relaxed and apparently listening to the history lesson with the others while she worked the seam open.

Later Faye showed her how to turn the jacket inside-out to get at some hidden construction to remove the lining. Near the end of the day the garment was completely disassembled and Faye gave her a small bag to hold the pieces.

“Next week, don’t bother coming to class on Tuesday,” Faye instructed Lindsy. “Go straight to the shops by the cafeteria and tell the lady at Cindy and Frank’s Tailoring and Design that you are the student I said I’d send around. I think you’ll have an interesting day.”

*

“Mr. Detweiler, do you have a moment to answer a couple questions?”

“Certainly Ms. Paddington, how may I help you?” he asked. He closed the screen over the keyboard on his computer to give her his full attention.

“First of all I’d like to know if you are satisfied with my work? If you have any minor things you have been saving up to tell me, I’d like to know about them sooner rather than later.”

“I am entirely satisfied with your work,” he assured her. “I couldn’t be happier with the thoroughness of it, if I were doing it myself. The entire staff is happy not to have it taking an extra fifteen or twenty minutes added on the end of our work days”

Linda nodded, pleased to hear his acknowledgement of it. “Also, I wonder if you have found anyone to do the remaining three days on which I passed? Now that I have some experience at it and because the extra income would be welcome in our household due to changing circumstances, I’d welcome doing the entire week if it is available.”

“We had another person try out for the other days, but they just did not have the patience to be as detailed as we require. We’d be delighted to have you assume the entire task. If your circumstances are changed, are the same hours still manageable for you?”

“Oh yes, nothing has changed short term, but we’re in agreement now that we’d rather not go back to Earth when my husband’s current contract runs out. He has the possibility of other employment, but as you are aware Home is so expensive, I’d like to help out.”

“Excellent, I’m glad you find it so agreeable here. If you find that even the expanded hours are not enough, speak to me again and we’ll try to find something additional for you, or even have you train someone and assume other duties.”

“Thank you. I’m satisfied with just the other days right now. If I need to I’ll bring it up again though. It’s good to know there’s something available.”

“You’re welcome Ms. Paddington,” he said in his usual formal manner and opened his computer back up. It wasn’t a rude dismissal at all, he’d judged the moment exactly.

*

“They think they got us all,” Col. Allister told The General with a sneer.

“They damn well got enough of us,” the man acknowledged. He felt no sense of elation over dropping off their radar. It had cost about a third of his effective fighters to do so. Allister would be shaken instead of gloating if he knew that and this was not a good time to tell him.

“What is your direction now, sir?”

“We wanted to do this with some delicacy,” The General explained. “The idea being not to alarm the public with images of tanks in the street or flames shooting out of the White House windows. Words have very little power to rouse people today, but they respond to images. Well, time is past to be subtle. We are well past when we anticipated firmly holding power. Some of our assets are perishable and some of our sponsors are impatient. Here’s what we’ll do…”

*

Lindsy looked over the tailor shop when they went to supper. From outside it looked very conservative to her eye. Almost like the bank with dark wood, brass fixtures and a green carpet. In contrast, most of the stores that catered to girls her age on Earth had glowing colors, brilliant lighting and loud music playing. Also conspicuously missing was security at the front door.

When they got home she looked at her clothing and picked out the least flashy items she had. She suspected it would be better to error on the drab side than trashy. She laid out black slacks a white blouse with fancy stitching on the collar and a sweater.

After she went to bed she lay awake a bit, nervous and she couldn’t have said why if she’d been asked directly. It wasn’t what she was going to wear, or that they might not get her jacket back together, it was really the way Faye sent her off on her own, to walk in cold and introduce herself to a stranger. Her mother never sent her off to an appointment with an adult, unescorted. In all honesty Lindsy had protested that to her mom a number of times recently. It spoke well of Faye’s confidence in Lindsy, but strangely, it was terrifying, suddenly getting what she wanted.

*

“Jeff, can you put a hold on it and not load these bricks coming out now to the catapult?” Mo asked on com. They weren’t really bricks, but they were similar in size to a big paving brick, though square, The name had taken hold and nobody was sure who coined it.

“Why? I don’t really want to pile them up here and have to load them twice.”

“They changed color the last load that came out. I want to know why.”

“How about if I move the aim point of the catapult a little east and start a new pile?”

“That sounds good,” Mo agreed. “Do I need to shut down for that?

“No, five minutes will do it,” Jeff assured him. “Have you pulled some samples to test?”

“Yes, I have six of them set aside. Do you have any assay equipment?”

“No, we’ll have to send them back to Home to have lab work done.”

“When do we get the Happy back?”

“Not for another ten days. I don’t think it’s worth a special trip, do you?”

“No, it’s not like we’re going to lose them. The pile will be sitting there. I just have to watch so if it goes back to the old color rock I can get you to switch the catapult back. If there’s anything valuable in it I still doubt it would be worth hand sorting. We might tunnel through it if it’s limited. The geology is such it’s unlikely to be a vein, it is more likely a layer. If it’s thin we might break through fairly fast on a seven degree incline.”

“How deep is it?”

“About six hundred meters. I wish we had some data from the other bases. I can’t believe nobody has even done any deep cores. Armstrong claims they did a core two hundred meters deep and found nothing remarkable. They have to be lying.”

“If anybody found anything worth exploiting, it would be pretty hard to hide the scale of operations you’d need to recover anything,” Jeff asserted.

“Likely yeah. Don’t plan on finding anything that would be considered ore on Earth. You know some of the regolith in polar craters can run a couple hundred parts per million of copper and gold and uranium don’t you?” Mo asked.

“Yes and we’d need machinery to scoop it that works reliably in double digits – Kelvin.”

“I didn’t say it was easy, or somebody would already be trying it.”

“If we get my beanstalk up it would be worth trying to solve the problems. You could vacuum distill the stuff in zero G a lot easier than processing it down here. It would just be automatic to top off the up-bound loads with it as standby freight. You’d do some basic processing to make concentrates. Take the majority of iron, oxygen and titanium out on site. Ship it as dust.”

“Who knows what we’ll find at five or six kilometers? Nobody has been that deep I’m sure. It’ll be sort of exciting when we get down there. Even if it’s pretty much the same, then we’ll know, when we didn’t,” Mo said with enthusiasm.

That was interesting. Jeff couldn’t remember the last time he’d heard someone get excited about scientific discovery, not for the money, but just for the knowledge. He hadn’t expected that from Mo for some reason.

Chapter 27

“Do you drink coffee dear?” Cindy asked. Lindsy already felt funny that Cindy didn’t want to be addressed by her last name. and on Earth you just didn’t offer coffee to children. and what was considered to be children, socially speaking, kept creeping up all the time. They invited her to sit in the office, which was as comfortable and near as big, as the apartment the Paddingtons were sharing. A big screen showed the store entry and sales floor to them. They sat at a table with four real chairs, not folding or sling type seats and Lindsy was perched on the edge of her’s, tense.

“The few times I’ve tried it I didn’t care for it,” Lindsy admitted. “I’ve heard some say it is an acquired taste, but I’m not sure how you can acquire it, if you just don’t like it.”

“I can tell you exactly how I came to like it. My family brewed it strong, Louisiana style with chicory. Awful stuff. Then I went away to college in Boston. I went ice skating, which was not a thing we did in Louisiana and I didn’t dress warm enough. Well, I didn’t own much that was warm, or have any idea what I should be buying. My idea of warm was to put a sweater on when it got under sixty degrees. That’s Fahrenheit, dear,” she said to Lindsy’s scrunched eyebrows.

“Anyway… I was cold, actually shivering and someone had a Thermos bottle of hot coffee. We went in the shelter and I had a cup. It had real cream and just a little sugar. It might as well have been the nectar of the gods. After that it seemed a natural choice in cold weather.”

“I thought it was my arm around you that warmed you up,” her husband Frank objected.

“That was welcome, but the coffee was a god-send, scalding hot and I chugged it down so fast. I remember I stopped and bought coffee on the way to class the very next morning. It took awhile before I branched out and tried it without sweeteners and cream. Would you perhaps care for some sort of tea instead, my dear?”

“I’d like that, but am I taking too much of your time? If you need to be running your business I can show you my project and get out of your hair.”

“See all the customers bothering us?” Cindy asked, waving at the screen. “We rarely have much business Monday through Thursday. You are likely to be our only diversion today.”

“Why do you open then?” Lindsy wondered. “Why not just open three days?”

“I suppose it’s old fashioned, but we feel like having regular business hours separates us from the hobbyists. If we weren’t here we’d be back in our apartment and we’re nearly as comfortable here anyway. I keep my knitting things here and Frank has been trying his hand at writing, which he can do anywhere, so we might as well be here if we should get the occasional rare weekday customer. Just starting out here, we need all the clientele we can attract.”

“It gets a lot busier on the weekend?”

“Oh my, yes,” Cindy said, putting the suggested tea in front of Lindsy. More a mug than a dainty cup. A squeeze bottle of honey, a tiny pitcher of cream and lemon wedges accompanied it. “Fridays and Sundays are steady and Saturday is sometimes busy enough we have people sitting waiting their turn to discuss what they’d like made and get measured up for it.”

“There are also the occasional customer who doesn’t agree with our fitting and wants things altered to be tighter or looser. Sometimes they wish a hem up or down and I had a fellow just recently who wanted two extra belt loops close on either side of the fly to control his belt running up or down better. People get strange ideas, but we are here to accommodate them. If they wanted mass produced they’d buy ready-made,” Frank allowed.

“Wouldn’t you like a little honey in that?” Cindy asked, pushing the bottle forward when Lindsy removed her teabag.

“I had honey so long ago, I’m not sure I remember anything but that it’s sweet. Honey is really expensive now. My mom just buys sugar. She won’t buy the cheap artificial stuff.”

“It’ll be a treat then,” Cindy encouraged her.

“Mmm, that’s good. Is the lemon compatible with the honey?”

“I think so, try it, if you like.”

Lindsy was unfamiliar and awkward squeezing it, but eventually got most of the juice out, if not in the mug and wiped her hands on the napkin. “Yes, they’re quite good together.” She was finally relaxed, not poised on the edge of her seat ready to jump up.

“May I look at your pieces?” Cindy finally asked, gesturing at the bag.

“Oh sure, I got this jacket on sale, it’s better than I can usually afford. I like it so much I ration wearing it so I don’t wear it out.” She pushed the bag across.

Cindy stacked the pieces of cloth in a pile, inspecting each, then sorted them into four stacks before she went back to her coffee. “We sell to an older clientele than you, you understand,” Cindy explained. “Professional people who are fussy about their appearance on the job and can afford to have things custom made for them. It used to be when people rotated in and out they waited and had things made on Earth where it is cheaper, but we have folks now who live on Home permanently and have no desire to visit Earth for business or pleasure. People your age I find are not even aware you can have clothing made to your measurements, without being rich and famous. They think it is something musicians and royalty do.”

“Did you see the pictures of April Lewis that were on the net a few days ago?” Lindsy asked. “I wonder if her dress was made just for her?”

“No, I know of Miss Lewis and I’ve seen her several times. But we have never had occasion to speak or do business together.”

“Let me find it for you on com,” Lindsy offered and looked around for the console.

“Use my pad dear,” Cindy said sliding it across the table, “and I’ll freshen up your tea.”

“Here it is. She seems to be in some sort of club.”

“Very nice I have to say,” Cindy admitted. “The way it fits, yes, likely it is bespoke. and that needle work is most uncommon, fine handwork. They call it Boutis Provencal. It’s like quilting, but instead of covering a solid mat you stuff defined areas after they are sewn up. It produces well defined loft against dead flat areas right next to it. and the pearl work is nice too.”

“I’ve seen embroidery, but this is new to me.”

“Ah, well there are all sorts of ways to decorate a finished garment. Let’s lay your jacket on the scanning board.” She led the way into the shop and spread the pieces symmetrically on a table with a grid of centimeter squares. The screen on the wall showed the pieces and defined each by size. Several had highlighted edges or corners. Cindy smoothed a couple places and nudged two pieces on the grid until most of the highlights cleared.

She took a mouse and clicked on points and corners of the pieces showing the machine what point on one panel attached to another.

“Why does it have arrows and yellow highlighting a couple places?”

“This was sewn on machines, but still by hand. One person did not sit and finish it. They would instead assemble pieces and pass it on the someone doing the next operation. The computer looks at it and sees where it would cut the pattern differently for its assembly methods.”

“So it can’t put it back together the way it was?” She’d been afraid of that.

“Oh, it can, but for example at the end of the seam that runs down the top of your shoulder. Where it meets the sleeve it has a little square stitched, where all the seams meet. It would cut and sew in such a way the fabric lays flat there, instead of the layers overlapping and being thicker. It’s really no problem with this style, because it wants to emphasize the seams. It’s part of the look. But if we wanted a sleeker look in a softer fabric it would look funny.”

She typed in a few commands and the assembled jacket appeared on the screen.

“Oh, neat,” Lindsy breathed, very impressed.

“Now if you wanted the same thing in black velvet with a butter yellow satin lining, which would flatter your coloring,” she tapped a few keys and it transformed on the screen. “You get rid of the lapped seam and top stitching and in the soft fabric you need more length and a little flare.” She dragged the hem down with the mouse and considered it. “And the front needs to open up just a hair so the softer collar lays further out,” it changed, “and the button moves down a hair for the new length, becomes gold metal colored and we add buttons to the cuff. There,” she said, satisfied and smiling.

“Oh my God, it’s beautiful. You do that like painting a picture.”

“Thank you. It comes easier after you do a few hundred. Why don’t we measure you up and see what it says about the fit for you?”

“I’m really happy with how it fits. You really think it will suggest otherwise?”

“It can’t change a great deal because there is no seam allowance to do it. But I’d like to see how close to ideal it is, since your feelings about it are so strong. Besides, we can make similar jackets now easily, so we should have your true measurements to work with and I want to show you how it’s done.”

“OK, what do I do?”

“Stand on the red oval in the carpet. Just stand relaxed. Good. Now raise your arms straight out to your sides. Then straight up. I like to do one more thing. Get one of the chairs from the office and I’d like to scan you sitting in it too.”

When Lindsy carried the chair out and sat in it, Cindy considered the readings. “Do you commonly cross your legs when you are sitting?”

“No, I sit on one leg or cross them at the ankles.”

“Do that then. Please.”

“Well that’s a different profile,” Cindy laughed. “If I sat like that, after a bit you’d have to help pry me out of the chair,” she joked.

“Mom and I intend to do something about that though,” Frank interjected. Lindsy gave him a quizzical look. He didn’t say much and then, when he did, he was mysterious.

“Oh, he means we’re going to get Life Extension Therapy,” Cindy explained. “It should limber us up a bit. I’ve been dragging my feet, but the idea is starting to look pretty attractive.”

“Am I done then?” Lindsy asked.

“Oh, sure. Put the chair back and how do you feel about going over to the cafeteria and getting some lunch with us?” Cindy asked.

“I’m ready for that.”

*

“Eddie, I want to give you a job,” Jeff said.

Eddie didn’t know what to say. He looked startled at first, then unbelieving, finally he flashed briefly through irritated and finished on amused. “Oh, thank you Mr. Singh,” he said in an awful put-on Southern drawl. “You don’t know what this means to me. The Mrs. and little Eddie had given up all hope. We’uns was gonna to be thrown out of the shack in a few days and didn’t know where we’d go. Every since they shut down the garlic mines, folks here-‘bouts has been doing poorly, so you’re a God-send.”

“Sarcasm ill becomes you Eddie. It isn’t that kind of a job.”

“Oh no! It’s one of those jobs that doesn’t pay anything isn’t it?” he said in horror.

“Worse, it’s one of those - “Somebody needs to do it.” – jobs.”

“Dear God, what did I ever do to you?’ Eddie asked.

“Now really, if I’d offered you a million dollars a month, would it have impressed you?”

“It would have gotten my attention. I’m doing pretty well, but a million is not yet a nice evening’s dinner and entertainment with my friends.”

“This is the sort of job that the pay day comes unexpectedly, five or ten years from now, when you call up and cash in your favors. When you remind me I owe you a big one.”

“I’d rather you owe me five or six,” Eddie quipped.

“I just might before we get through. I already owe you a big one for whatever you did with China. Jon was very plain in admitting that he handed it all off to you. I have no idea how you pulled that off. I realize I’m not as socially sophisticated as you are. I’m not even as slick with people as Heather. She has to be my minder at times and nudge me with her toe, or lift an eyebrow to tell me I’m going off in the wrong direction. People who are openly hostile, like the Chinese, I get and can deal with myself. But I’m in way over my head dealing with merely devious people. I’m trying to understand how they think, but it’s hard. I need your help.”

“You’re not being sufficiently clear. What do you want me to do?”

“I want you to be my spy-master. I want you to create an intelligence agency. I can do the tech. I can get sensors in place and collect data, but I don’t know how to interpret it, or what else to do with it. I need you because you understand people.”

“In my spare time.” Eddie said softly.

“Yes, in your spare time. If you spend ten minutes here and there on it, you’ll accomplish more than me, beating my head against a wall all day long. I didn’t say you couldn’t delegate,” he added. “I certainly am learning to do that myself. I’d love to be designing this lander Dave is going to make for us, but all I can do is review the design and try to direct the general form it takes. I can’t sit and place every bracket and calculate every moment arm, like I did with the Happy,” he said in frustration. “It would be a treat if I could.”

“I already have a sort of network of ship owners and shuttle pilots, reporting scuttlebutt and dock rumors back to me,” Eddie revealed. “I give out a few favors and contracts in payment. I’ve never really hired someone directly as an agent, or even given explicit bribes for information. You’re talking about taking it to a higher level.”

“Can you do it? Or am I asking more than you can handle?”

“How far does this reach?” Eddie asked, instead of answering. “Am I working for just you? Or am I working for her Royal Highness, Heather, too? Does April have a finger in this?” he asked suspiciously, “or do you intend to feed this intelligence even as far as Jon and the Home militia?”

“It goes to me, Heather and if you haven’t figured it out by now, we won’t hold anything like this back from April. They don’t know I’m talking to you yet, but they will soon. But Jon? No. At least no, unless we need to tell him something to keep Home from being shot out from underneath us. Does Jon have assets you want to use that are worth trading information with him? We’ve worked with Jon but never fully, never with all our cards on the table. We have always kept a slightly arm’s-length relationship with Jon, especially Jon as Spox for Home, or Jon with his militia hat on.”

“I’ll do it,” Eddie decided, with shocking abruptness. “It’s really just an extension of what I was already doing, but the next rational level. I need more information for business purposes anyway. There’s a Chinese fellow who came up recently. I’m going to feel him out to do some of the footwork for us. What you are asking is going to require sending people to Earth and recruiting Earth citizens. It’ll be hard to find people to do that. We probably will have to offer asylum to people, if they should become suspected by Earth authorities. There will be bribes and trades to be made.”

“Let me know, if it’s within my capacity, I’ll fund it.”

“Don’t worry too much,” Eddie waved that aspect away. “I’ll help prime the pump too, but intelligence operations historically have been self funding, if not actual profit centers. Just don’t get all righteous and huffy with me, if I trade equities and commodities based on the data we gather, or actions we take. When you start moving people and surveillance devices about secretly, it’s quite easy to do a little smuggling at the same time too,” he gave Jeff a smile that disquieted him. But Jeff still nodded his assent to those terms.

“I do have a first tasking for you.”

*

Lindsy walked back to the shop with Cindy and Frank. They never seemed to hurry. She remembered a book she’d read. They seemed very much like a character in it who liked to mosey. She wasn’t sure she had that style of locomotion straight until now. Maybe when they got those treatments they’d pick the pace back up again. Maybe not…

The machine said her jacket was optimized within four millimeters everywhere but in the upper sleeve, which Cindy assured her was an amazing fit. When she gave the OK to sew it back up it took the robot only three minutes. The robotic hands and sewing head were a blur. She took the jacket from Cindy and, shrugged it on delighted.

“They would have been happy to have robotic hands this sensitive ten years ago for surgery,” Cindy assured her. “Besides which these are customized for handling fabrics. They are hard to see working, they are like your hand with a second thumb, but then there are two rows of smaller fingers behind the front ones. It can hold tension on the cloth with one row while another set of fingers takes a new grip and it never has a chance to bunch up, or feed too fast.”

“Would you like it to sew up that other design for you? I’m going to give you the design files for the original and the variation, but if you’d like the velvet jacket we’ll make it free, if you just pay for the cloth,” she offered.

Lindsy felt her face flush deep red and she looked down ashamed. “I’d love to, but I have no money of my own at all,” she admitted. “My brother started a little business already, since we moved up here, but I just haven’t figured out anything to do yet. Could we hold off on that and when I get something going I’ll be back and have you run it?”

“Of course dear, you just got here,” she said to soften it. She didn’t ask why she was broke when she arrived. Didn’t the girl get any allowance? That was the Earth custom when they’d lived down below. At least in North America.

Frank cleared his throat. “Seems to me this is the perfect opportunity to do what you mentioned last Saturday, when we were swamped and you couldn’t clean up or offer refreshments between customers and get some help.”

Cindy looked at him like he was daft, she remembered no such thing, but recovered nicely and smiled. “Now that’s an idea, if you have no job yet. Do you go to school Saturday, Lindsy?”

“No, just Tuesday and Thursday so far.”

“Well then how would you like to come in Saturdays and give us a hand, until something better presents itself?” she offered. “You can clean up the floor when trimmings and thread start to make a mess and we like to offer our customers coffee or tea, but when we have others waiting, we can hardly stop and take time to do that. There might be the occasional errand or even taking a seam apart like you did with your jacket. For all its speed the robot does that very poorly. Would you like that dear?”

“I’d like that just fine,” Lindsy said and didn’t even ask what it paid. “I’ll have to go ask my mom and dad though.”

“Her parents are going to ask her how much she will be earning,” Frank predicted.

“You’ll have to show me everything,” Lindsy admitted. “I don’t expect a lot.”

“Let’s say forty dollars an hour at first,” Cindy suggested. Frank silently nodded agreement.

“That’s fine. I should be paying you. Ms. Lewis sent me here to learn, not work. I’ll explain that to my mom. I learned a lot just today.”

“Of course dear, if she has any other questions just have her give us a call. I predict she’ll be happy for you,” she said, with all the confidence she could muster.

Chapter 28

“Mr. Chen?” The young man stood close enough he could speak softly and not broadcast to the entire cafeteria, but far enough away he didn’t feel threatening. Chen didn’t acknowledge that it was his name yet, but looked up at being addressed and gave him his attention.

“I’d like to speak privately with you about a business proposal. I have my vessel, Eddie’s Rascal, delivering some rush freight to Mitsubishi 2 tomorrow. If you’d like to ride along we’d have privacy to talk and I’ll provide lunch. We are leaving at 0700 from dock four on the north end. Figure it will be about six hours total, including an hour layover for delivery. Are you interested?”

“I’m free tomorrow, yes, I’d be interested.”

“If you come, I suggest you stop by Dave’s Advanced Spacecraft Services an hour or so early and tell him I said to loan you a light flight suit. The Rascal is a very low volume ship. If you lose pressure it tends to drop very fast. Most of us will only fly in a pressure suit.”

“And your name is?”

Eddie blinked hard, then grinned. “Eddie, Eddie Persico. Dave will know me.”

Oh, Eddie and Eddie’s Rascal, he meant his ship literally and the man expects people to know who he is, Chen realized with a jolt. He’d initially thought the man rude not to introduce himself, but instead found he was remiss in not knowing a major player in his new home. This is Eddie the Lip, who Mackay was talking about on their recent job.

“I’d be happy to take a few hours and discuss whatever you want Mr. Persico.”

“Mr. Persico is my dad. Just call me Eddie, my family name invokes too many complicated connections. See you tomorrow then,” and he ambled off, unhurried.

Complicated connections? Chen thought. Is that what you call being from a crime family? He had to call, no, go talk to Santos, face to face and see what else he knew about this Eddie. He absolutely didn’t want to go into this interview tomorrow dead cold.

*

“Why are you frowning, you almost never frown, is it something that should worry me?” It didn’t worry Mo enough to slow his assault on his roast beef and gravy.

“I don’t think so, Mo. It’s just that something doesn’t make sense. I don’t know if I should be worried about it. Once we got a grid laid out and a perimeter road, Heather decided we have enough infrastructure in place to look serious, so she upped the price of lots. She also made clear in the sales material on our site, that she intends to raise them again soon, once we have our command center buried deeply and make some significant progress on the tunneling projects.”

“Oh, did raising the prices kill sales?”

“No! We’re getting a lot more sales and even more inquiries. She’d only sold about six percent of the planed site, so this is going to mean a great deal of difference in the total projected take for the project. I just can’t figure out why.”

“Maybe it’s just the sudden realization that they won’t always be cheap, so people decided to stop thinking about it and buy, before the prices go up again.”

“That could be a factor. The buyers are a bit different though. They are trending to have a lot more money. We’ve sold a few to people from other moon colonies again, two to the French and one to a Japanese fellow. But the rest are Earthies and we have two Swiss and an Australian who really got my attention. These three are the sort of people, who if you do a Earth-Web search, it turn up pages of cites for their business activities. and they paid cash without blinking.”

“I’d call that desirable,” Mo said. But then after thinking a bit he wondered. “Those sort of rich people are used to having their own way. Do you think they might start challenging Heather’s authority?”

“They seem to like the idea we have a strong central authority. The one Swiss guy even inquired what the form was to swear fealty. In fact things are going so well, Heather is planning on putting survey markers out, to claim two other areas about the same size as this one.”

“The sooner you do that, the less chance somebody will get in ahead of you.” Mo advised.

“True, but I don’t think any of the other moon bases are in a position to come do it, yet.”

“But you have the settlers from Armstrong here, with their own rovers. Sooner or later they are going to get their housekeeping problems all squared away and they will get the idea to take a couple days to drive out and stake out some territory, once they have some spare time. The sooner you have the close stuff claimed, the less chance they will drive really far and claim beyond those too.”

“OK, point taken, we can’t fool around and take forever.”

“You don’t run the rovers all three shifts, not most of the time. May I make a proposal?”

“Ah, please do,” Jeff said, surprised and very much amused. This wasn’t Mo’s usual mode.

“Next time I have leave, let me call my wife and inform her I need to stay over an extra cycle this one time. I will take a rover and lay out a circle road with markers, delineating the new areas and a connecting road to Central from each. I don’t need any extra cash, but for doing that I’d like another standard lot in one of the new areas. I’ll plow that one boundary for my lot and put a moon hut on it. I get a good investment and you safely secure a huge asset.”

“I have to talk to Heather, but I think she’ll go for it. We need your written agreement that you aren’t claiming the whole area, by the act of using our rover to mark it out. and your choice of lot in payment ahead of time.”

“That’s agreeable. I’ll probably take the first lot next to the connecting road. If you can site these two areas so they can be connected independently of Central, it will pay off in the future.”

“Worried about traffic already?”

“It’s never too early to alleviate problems; that’s the engineer side of me speaking.”

They ate a bit in silence, until Mo asked, “Are you going to waste those carrots?”

“I’ve never cared for them much. Finish them off.”

“You know, another angle on it, is these are rich guys. They are probably pretty well connected and they might know if there is a possibility of trouble on Earth fairly soon,” Mo suggested. “At least within their lifetime, even if they plan long term. The moon might look like a fine place to sit it out, if things get rough on Earth. You might factor that in your planning, considering what you need from Earth. Supplies might get disrupted, because they are too busy with other things to send you carrots,” he said, holding the last orange disk up on his fork to drive the thought home.

“There are things they need from us too,” Jeff pointed out. “A lot of vital parts and pieces of all sorts of systems are things made in zero G now.”

“That’s good. It gives us some leverage.”

Oh, it’s us now. Jeff noticed.

*

“I want to establish an intelligence gathering network,” Eddie explained to Chen in the back of Eddie’s Rascal. They were at dock and the crew was off loading. The lunch turned out to be a deli-pack from Home cafeteria, instead of going on station. But it was very private.

“It has to have human intelligence assets worldwide and it is not going to be top heavy with desk pilots and analysts. I’m thinking four layers from the street to me, maximum. The lower level agents will not be tasked with any active acts of violence or sabotage, they will be eyes and ears only. There will be a separate team for active measures. The entire organization will be a few dozen, to start and never more than a couple hundred people, so that it is possible for one person to be aware of every individual working under them, not all of who have to know for whom they are working. The tasks are both for awareness of military hazards and for the purpose of maintaining economic advantage and assuring a continued supply of Earth materials and business for Home and the Central lunar colony. You would be in the second executive layer, mostly concerned with Earth. We don’t anticipate a presence in other orbital habitats or the moon, at this time.”

“Will there be a signals and data gathering agency also?”

“Yes and it will be even smaller. Their product will be fully available to the human intel side, but the human side will only get fed to surveillance anonymously, to tell them where to direct their attention.”

“Who knows everything?”

“Only the top two layers.”

“What are your arrangements for internal security?”

“Anyone in the top three layers can call for the interrogation of anyone up to their layer, or the one above, under brain scan. Several peers will sit in on such an interview to moderate, if there are any conflicts about a question being necessary. You may ask my peers to make me take a scan, if you think I have turned, or errored and won’t own up to it.”

“Well…” That obviously surprised him.

“It requires a genuine commitment and no way to weasel out.”

“Shall this agency be interested in, or inquire into, one’s activities outside the job?”

“Only in a limited sense. I expect people to protect themselves and their family, including making provisions for the destruction of Home as a political body, or the physical destruction of M3. As head I intend to make few moral judgments. If you have personal vices I really don’t care, unless they make you a security risk. If you cheat your partners in business dealings, or cheat on your wife, I’d quietly let you go. It shows you have a base character, that is not to be trusted and you might damage us before a scanning interrogation could uncover how.”

“You don’t mind if one involves himself in other gainful activities?”

“You’ll have to. I’m not offering you full time employment yet. You will need other employment to survive and to provide a cover for your activities. I can offer to steer some work your way, but the more you acquire yourself in legitimate ways the better your cover will be. At this time I’m offering you a Solar a quarter to start, for what will be basically keeping your ears and eyes open, while you go about your daily business. I’m aware of the security operatives you are associating with and that you already have done a small job with them. That’s good. It should take you where you can collect information for me.”

“Would I be authorized to recruit?”

“Yes, but as a rule you don’t need to explain for whom the person is really working, other than you. Better to pay for specific information, than put someone on retainer. Too many will milk a regular income, by making up something if they don’t have legitimate data. Actually bringing someone inside our organization should only be done on the basis of necessity. We need to do it on the cheap so to speak. We are not a huge government agency, drawing on a bloated national budget. So we can’t be extravagant with bribes.”

“Last question, who else is in the top executive layer with you?”

“I will run it. Jeff Singh, Heather anderson and April Lewis and myself will all consume our product. But they are not inside, actively functioning, members of the organization. If they contribute it will be by coincidence.”

“Not Home, or the Home militia, or Mitsubishi?” Chen asked skeptically.

“The Assembly will not be asked to provide a plastic deciyuan and they will get exactly that for which they’ve paid. I imagine Mitsubishi has their own organization, as does their nation. The only way we will feed information to some third party, is if it is essential to serve our own interests.”

“I am disposed to accept your offer. The immediate benefit is not that great, but the long term prospects are quite good, I think. The fact I will be in the information stream is very, very enticing. Do you wish to conduct an initial brain scan interrogation, before finalizing my acceptance?”

“No, I’ll hire you right now. You know you are subject to it any time. That’s enough at the moment.”

“And if you find out in a month I still work for Chinese intelligence?”

“I don’t remember asking for an exclusive,” Eddie said surprised. “If you can work for three or four other agencies and get paid by all of them, that should keep my costs down,” he said, reasonably. “However if you betrayed us, I’d have to kill you,” he said, like it was obvious.

“Yes, I believe I can work for you,” Chen agreed, with an amused smile.

“First quarter in advance,” Eddie said and handed him a platinum Solar.

“Do you have anything with which you wish to task me, or just keep my ears open for now? I actually have some classified information about North America in my possession. I happen to have hard data on their last corn crop and projections for next year,” Chen offered up.

“You should sell that while it’s fresh, if you have a market for it. You might try asking Jan over on ISSII. What we’d really like right now is a complete list of all the USNA intelligence operatives starting with the CIA and concentrating upon those in the Seattle – Vancouver area. As soon as possible, I will have photos of everyone frequently accessing their offices there and some other locations. That may help.”

Well, this is going to be fun, Chen decided. He never did work up the nerve to ask straight out, if Eddie was really Mafia.

*

“Do you think she is going to show up?” Frank wondered.

“Oh sure. I don’t think she’d ever consider needing to confirm she’s coming. She’s never had a job and likely has no idea how to relate to us. Certainly she never got taught anything useful like that in Earth schools. I do think she would let us know, or come by and tell us, if she wasn’t going to be able to work.”

“I shouldn’t expect too much,” Frank decided. “Or get upset if she does something outrageous, like get herself a cup of tea and take a break with the customers waiting.”

“I can see her doing that easily, dear. It actually doesn’t conflict all that much with the way we have run the shop ourselves. I’ve seen you get a coffee and kibitz with the customers when you don’t have a task. Is she a high end employee, who would do something like that, or a cog who should make a show of being busy with make work, so we think we’re getting something for our money?”

“Well, no. You know I’ve always hated that kind of class foolishness.”

“Ah, then she is a high end employee. I’m glad we established that before she arrives.”

Lindsy showed up at the door just then. Dressed a little casually, but acceptable for her age, Cindy decided. It was even a few minutes before 1000, which was remarkable. It was obvious from her face she wasn’t there to tell them she couldn’t work. Cindy was relieved.

“Good morning dear. I’m glad to see it went well with your parents. We thought it must have, when they didn’t call and ask us any questions about the job, but we weren’t really sure until you showed up.”

“Oh, I’d have stopped in to tell you if they wouldn’t let me,” Lindsy said surprised. “Mom had a fit that I was going to work on Saturday for some reason, but when my dad called he asked her exactly what she had planned, that I needed to be home, she couldn’t come up with anything. I still don’t know why she was upset.”

“Sometimes people are upset and even they don’t know why,” Frank advised. “Best to not argue most of the time, because they are just upset twice. I’m glad your dad helped you.”

“Do you have anything you want me to do yet?”

Frank looked surprised, but Cindy jumped in ahead of him. “Not yet dear. Why don’t you get a cup of tea and talk with us a bit? We’ll tell you things to do as the day progresses and most of them you’ll be able to see, like if the cloth trimmings pile up in the bin and need emptied. There are always little scraps and threads that get on the floor, so when you start to see them looking messy you can grab them or use the vacuum and tidy up. You can use your own judgment and do those sort of things without waiting for us to tell you, after you are aware of them.”

“OK. Thank you for the tea. Do your customers like to chat while they are waiting, or is it better to offer them some coffee and leave them alone?”

“Now that is a very perceptive and difficult question,” Cindy allowed. “Some of the older folks grew up on Earth back when chatty store clerks were viewed as irritating and as rising above their station. Others live alone and look forward to going out to shop, because they are lonely. Those welcome a chance to talk to anybody. You just need to learn to read people. That’s a big part of retail. If you say a few words and get a irritated look and a one word reply, you know they want to be left alone. If they smile and start telling you stories, you know you have a talker.”

“And if you really need to go do something, you can always politely tell them you need to work,” Frank pointed out. “They can get a cup of coffee and a kind word from us and are welcome to it, but they are principally here to have some clothing made,” he pointed out.

“I know just what you are talking about. We’d go visit my grandma when she was alive and my mom hardly had to say anything. Grandma had a week’s worth of talking all stored up and it all just popped out as soon as we sat down. It’s funny, if I called her on com it wasn’t the same.”

“Yes, talking face to face has a different quality,” Cindy agreed. “Ah, we got a live one.” A customer wondered in, looking at the displays. Cindy went to greet her.

*

“I keep seeing that Oriental fellow, the one who is in line,” April told Gunny. “He doesn’t look Korean to me. I can’t tell a lot of them apart. I worry about Chinese now, since the last assassination attempt, at least new Chinese I don’t know. Could you find out who he is?”

“I already know,” Gunny told her from just a glance. “He is Chinese and he came up on the same shuttle as your buddy Papa-san. He’s ex-Chinese intelligence and he is no longer in their good graces and can’t go back. He’s got a wife and kids here too, something I doubt a fellow here to assassinate you would bring along.”

“How do you know all that already?”

“He meets with the security guys and I’ve worked with him already. He’s OK. He’s been augmented for speed and he’s got good moves.”

“If he knows you, could you ask him to join us? I’d like to run some stuff by him and see what he says.”

“Sure.” When Chen turned away from the line all it took was a tilt of the head by Gunny to make him change direction and come to their table. Interestingly though, he stopped and nodded hello, but waited for an invitation to actually set his tray down and join them.

Gunny did formal introductions and Chen acknowledged he’d seen April, but was pleased to be made known to her.

“I understand you have been a Chinese intelligence officer.”

“Indeed, that is true. I was plucked out of my mundane military service after my second year and recruited to do intelligence work.”

“Did you stay in military intelligence, or did you go over to the civilian arm?”

“That’s not an easy question,” Chen said frowning. “The best way I can explain it is that there are tiers. Some of the higher tiers deal with more, political matters, yet they are still under military authority, even without a uniform. But when I instructed my wife to bring our children and meet me in Vietnam, it was the uniformed military police who tried to stop her and the children. Most internal security retains the uniform and a stricter military protocol and function.”

“Were they arrested?” April asked alarmed.

“Not for long,” Chen said smiling. The sort of feral smile that made April skip asking for any more details.

“I’ve been the subject of a couple assassination attempts by the Chinese,” April revealed, if he didn’t know it. “One in Hawaii and one here.” She filled in some details. “If you have any contacts left in your organization, or familiarity with how they plan and function, I’d like to buy your expertise. Either on a one time basis, or a retainer if you feel you can pursue a continuing watch to see if there is another attempt directed at me.”

“It would be my pleasure to do so. No payment is needed.”

“Home is an expensive place to live. I’m used to paying for value received,” April insisted.

“That would be a conflict on my part. I’m sure he has not had opportunity to inform you, but Mr. Persico has already paid for my services, with you named as one of the principals I serve. Although he encouraged me to seek other sources of income, I suspect he would be peeved with me if I took payment in the same service twice. I will add it to my task list and inform Mr. Persico. I’m sure he would have passed it on to me, if he was aware you required it.”

“You’re right I haven’t spoken with Eddie for a few days. Thank you for informing me. and glad to have you onboard. On board what she had no idea, but it sounded gracious.

Later, when they were alone, April quizzed Gunny. “Were you aware Chen was hired out to Eddie?”

“Not me,” Gunny denied. “Not something I’m going to talk around either, now that I do know.”

Chapter 29

“Mrs. Paddington? Your husband asked me to come by and tell you personally he is going to skip this leave period, to do some extra work for me and he will be along home the next time he has leave coming. He was going to tell you on com, but then he decided it was bad security to have him seen doing anything out of the ordinary and sent me. He said you would understand why.”

“There aren’t any other difficulties with him you aren’t telling me?” Linda asked, automatically afraid.

“Not at all. In fact Mo is the one who suggested he do some survey work for me, since we don’t really have the extra man-hours available to do this right now. He will be getting a substantial pay in kind for his lost leave. You will own an extra lot, in a newly partitioned development. He is available on com if you want the reassurance of calling him, but chances are he will be out in a rover with his transmission subject to interception. We don’t have unbreakable encryption on common com, so I’d limit myself to casual news and expressions of affection if you do that. Not anything that suggests his being there is a break in routine.”

“Thank you. If he feels it is worth doing that’s fine. I appreciate you telling me. We spoke just recently about mundane things. My daughter got a part time job, I changed my working hours. I think I’ll skip calling right away, because I might not sound at all normal.”

“Is there anything I can help you with here on Home, that you were hoping your husband would take care of for you?”

“No, but I have a question for you. My daughter is working Saturdays at a tailor shop. The couple are paying her forty dollars an hour for six hours a day. Are they treating her fairly by local standards? I don’t want someone to take advantage of her.”

“Does she have any previous experience at tailoring or retail?”

“No, she’s a student. She was sent there as part of her schooling because she expressed an interest in clothing and fashion. After she’d spent a day being shown some of their procedures and equipment as a lesson, they offered her the part time employment.”

“Did they charge a tutoring fee for her day with them?”

“No, it never occurred to me they would do that.”

“It sounds rather fair to me,” Jeff said. “We don’t have North American laws about minimum wage and children not being allowed to work until eighteen. Well, twenty-four for some things,” he amended. “I’d be happy they offered her any cash payment for teaching her skills when she has none. There are folks who have taken apprentices on station and they ask an upfront fee to make sure their apprentices are serious and will stick with it, or demand a length of service into the time that they will have some useful journeyman skills, to reimburse the master for the time and effort expended and the fact he is creating someone who might compete with him.”

“That makes sense. It’s just so different from down below.”

“So much is,” Jeff agreed. “I hope not all of it is repugnant,” he added genuinely. He remembered Mo said his wife was not entirely happy here. “We are so early in forming a society here. I think you can be part of directing it and adding your voice if you like.” There, that was about as much graciousness and nice-nice as he had in him. He hoped it helped.

“Thank you, Mr. Singh. I hadn’t considered I might have that much influence. I have to admit, I’m not as put off by things as I was at first. The children… well it’s in the nature of children to be more adaptable than adults. Thanks again for coming by,” which was as clear a good-bye as you could want.

*

The only assay chemist on Home was employed by the company mining the Rock. Jeff arranged to hire his services from them for time and materials and a fixed margin. It was three days before he got a report however.

“It’s an odd composition,” the assay chemist told Jeff. “Obviously lunar, but atypical for regolith. You are interested in element abundance, not details of the mineral forms, right?”

To Jeff’s nod he continued, “It has lithophile elements in abundance, lots of rubidium, magnesium, barium and so forth that would be typical of certain types of meteorites, but it also has relatively high amounts of sulfur, selenium and of all things, lead. It’s atypical to what we know, but you said it was from tunneling operations? How far down?”

Jeff thought about it a moment before he decided he wanted to trust the fellow with the information. “Somewhere between five and six hundred meters down.”

“That’s deeper than any published data of which I’m aware. You’re pretty much in virgin territory there. Most of the moon’s surface is expected to be homogenous. It has had so many big impacts after there were any geological processes to differentiate minerals, that anything near the surface is expected to be mixed. This is still pretty mixed. Now the theory also is, that anything impacting the moon would hit so hard that it would vaporize. That then condenses and rains back down, or some of it might retain escape velocity and be lost to the Earth or off in solar orbit,” he said dramatically waving it on its way.

“Of course in millions of events you have to assume there is going to be a grazing impact that leaves unvaporized material under escape velocity, or a small concentration of something that gets pushed back and forth but never fully mixed. It’s just not likely to be common.”

“Do you have any advice about it?”

“It doesn’t approach any concentration you’d call ore on Earth. You’d have to survey and find out how wide an area has this deposit before you’d know if it was worth setting up a process to recover anything from it. It would have to be a high volume operation, that would need a lot of feed stock to make it worthwhile. But it does make me think you need to keep watching for any other anomalous deposits as you go deeper. We’ve never been down there, so who knows what you’ll find?”

After he thought a moment he added, “If you were composting to make soil for food production I’d avoid this material as a filler. One of the three samples had almost a part per million of lead. Since some plants selectively take up heavy metals it would be a health issue. In fact, I wouldn’t want to breathe the dust from this long term either. I imagine that’s not a problem for you though. Would you mind if I keep a small piece of the material and the slides I worked up? It is an interesting and right now, unique specimen.”

“I don’t need any of it back. I have thousands of tons of it and probably lots more where that came from. I don’t see any commercial advantage in keeping it proprietary information either. If you want to write a paper or on it or talk to other scientists feel free.”

“Thanks, it’s been a while since I did that. It might be nice to get my hand back in. If you find something else out of the ordinary again I’d love to see it.”

“Like you said, who knows? You’re the only guy I have to bring it to this side of Earth.”

“If you just need a rough estimate of element abundance there is a spectrographic program that will read the emissions from vaporizing the surface with a laser. Would you like some references where to find the equipment?”

“Very much so, because we are tunneling with lasers. We can set up to do a monitoring function real time on the boring machine.”

*

“I’m an old fool,” Frank concluded.

“Yes dear, but you’re trainable and I love you,” Cindy said, patting his arm.

“Don’t try to sweet talk me.”

“No dear.”

“I’d forgotten why businesses hire pretty young girls as sales clerks. Did you see Mr. Falk? He’s as tight with a buck as anyone I’ve known. When I finished up his order he was chatting Lindsy up over coffee and rather than wrap it up and go home, he contrived to buy a half dozen shirts he doesn’t need and wanted them sewn up to take home today, so he could sit and talk to her longer.”

“Yes and I noticed that several of our men who would have come in mid-week and picked up their orders, decided to wait until next Saturday.”

“We certainly got our money’s worth out of her today. What do you think?”

“I thought since it was your idea to hire her, perhaps you found her decorative yourself. She’s as cute as a puppy. If that never occurred to you, then it really is time for us to go start some life extension treatments. Don’t you think?”

“Yeah, you might have something there, Sweetie.”

*

“It’s big.”

“You laid out the basic design,” Dave reminded Jeff. “It isn’t near as big as a current generation American or Chinese landing shuttles.”

“Yeah and there is no way around it, to hold enough reactive mass to drop to sea level and back. Planets can be a pain in the butt.”

“With a water landing we could pump water aboard and use it to lift. It would be a good technology to perfect. There is lots of water to be had in the outer system too.”

“Definitely a maybe for later. But I want better numbers before we build it. Some way to cut the oxy out and make it basically a hydrogen plasma engine. Oxygen and superheated steam are rough on equipment. There’s lots of hydrogen in other forms, like methane and ammonia, in the outer system too.”

Dave inclined his head to acknowledge that was so.

“You’re right too, it really looks like a brick. I hope it flies better than it looks.”

“Nothing is going to turn nimbly at Mach 10,” Dave pointed out. “At least nothing we can build now, probably not for a long time. I do however have the drone carrier you wanted almost done. Come look, I think you’ll be pleased with it.”

“It looks like a jumbo fire hydrant.”

“Internally it can hold five Frisbee drones, or an underwater drone that itself carries three aerial drones. I’ll have it ready to drop in another day.”

“It hurts to expend that much money on something unrecoverable. Much as I hate to, I need you to start another as soon as this is done,” Jeff instructed him.

“This should help a little,” Dave opened his hand and there was a metal lozenge about a centimeter long. It appeared to be wire folded back and forth and compressed. “Watch it,” Dave instructed and took a small light out of his pocket and shone on it. There was no quick reaction, then it started unfolding. When it was done it looked like a fragile insect perched on his hand.

“Each Frisbee drone can drop six of these and act as a local net to collect the very low power burst transmissions from them and send the data back. They are powered by ambient light, direct strong sunlight is not needed. They can intercept local wireless, sound and send video.”

“My goodness, these must cost a fortune.”

“Twenty dollars each, for a hundred,” Dave said, shocking him. “I got a deal. It’s a new Japanese item. You can program them to hide. They will find an overhang, or seek the bottom of a table or chair. They have a little routine that lets them latch onto a pants cuff or edge of a jacket and ride along on a person entering a building and then detach inside. They have a limited chameleon ability. A plain beige or green surface they will blend in, but something like marble or herringbone fabric is beyond them.”

“How fast can they walk?”

“They fly,” Dave said, grinning. “As far as you want, but they are slow. About three meters a second, not even as fast as a stiff breeze if they are bucking it, unfortunately.”

“How fast is the little mini-sub?”

“Now that moves along pretty well. It will do about ten meters per second.”

“OK, I have a mission ready for this when it can drop. I’d like to put it near the Pacific coast of North America, on a trajectory that mimics a meteor and a couple hundred kilometers up the coast, so it isn’t obviously pointed right at the Seattle and Vancouver area. There’s a CIA office listed in the public directory and I want to put it under surveillance. Can one of these little flyers grab onto a ground car and ride home with someone? Stay attached and silent, but come back the next day to report its moves and move over to a different vehicle?”

“I’ll make sure it has a program written to do just that.”

*

“I most strongly approve,” Papa-san agreed, when Chen approached to recruit him. “An alliance with this group is essential to your long term safety and to thrive on Home.”

“But I have not named the principals.”

“Bah, am I blind? If Ed Persico recruited you, then you are most certainly are working for Jeff Singh. Jon will tap Eddie as a former employee, but would never recruit through him. If Jeff Singh is involved then Heather anderson and April Lewis are too. The three are thick as thieves, though Miss anderson seemed the quieter one for a long time.”

“Miss Lewis was not even aware I’d been recruited.”

“They have little formal command structure. I’ve seen her dealing with her peers on com. They don’t order each other in any discernible rank structure. They chat as friends, or maybe lovers and form a consensus or trade favors. It frightening to see the power they wield so casually. But it works. April calls up her friends on com and says, “I have this irritating, stupid, multi-billion Yuan nuclear submarine trying to kill me, would you please drop a few rods from God on them?” like another teenager would ask to borrow her girlfriend’s boots.”

“I am informed Heather conferred titles of nobility on April and neglected to inform her for some days. She was put out that she was Dame Lewis, talked it out with Heather and begrudgedly accepted it later. So it wouldn’t surprise me at all if Eddie or Jeff hired you and didn’t get around to telling her for some days.”

“You have the right of it. Once she understood I now worked for her, it didn’t seem to be any big shock. She actually welcomed me aboard and accepted the relationship that casually. She didn’t even ask any proof that Eddie had hired me.”

“Chen, they look like children to you. But if you falsified your relationship with Eddie she would find out in a few days. To her mind you wouldn’t dare. In fact, you had better not dare such a thing. If you did, you’d get to see what the stars look like with no faceplate separating you from their beauty, for as long as you could hold your breath. If this is to be your home, never cross them,” Papa-san counseled the man in a soft voice.

“I’m tutored,” Chen acknowledged.

“As it happens, I have a few sources you may find useful in North America and other areas you did not normally work when employed by the Chinese. I’ll make a list, for what they are useful and how they must be approached. Perhaps if you have Asian contacts we can trade and I can pass them on as items of barter or reward to some of my old associates.”

“That’s good,” Chen agreed, but he had this disquieting feeling that he wasn’t sure who recruited who here. “How is it that Miss Lewis has not recruited you directly, knowing you have a background in intelligence?”

“April is of the firm opinion that I am fully retired and would rather not be bothered by my former associates. If only it were so easy. I’ve presented myself the same way to that hulking bodyguard she keeps, although I am not so sure he believes it as firmly as she does. He did get to read my full North American file, which has far more than I’d like in it.”

Chapter 30

“Mom, I stopped in the shop this morning to bum a cup of tea. They aren’t usually busy and can talk. Cindy said they are very happy with how I go do things, like pick up the trimmings and wash the coffee mugs and stuff, without somebody having to ask, so they are bumping me up to fifty dollars an hour. Isn’t that nice?”

“Anytime you get a raise without asking for it is very nice.” The fact she was doing the same thing at home, cleaning the bath without being nagged, was a miracle.

*

“Let’s talk in my offices,” Jeff suggested. “I have things to discuss that are too sensitive for the cafeteria. We can get a pack to go and I have my own coffee there.”

“I’m going to give Gunny the day off early then,” April decided. “Nobody is going to bother me in your offices. Besides, it’s claustrophobic already, Gunny fills it half up himself.”

“Can you swing by and get a deli-pack for us? I’ll meet you at 1300. Does that work for you, or is that rushing it too much?”

“Works. What do you want to eat?” April asked.

“Food. Just double up whatever sounds good to you. I’m not picky.”

April got sandwiches, a variety because whatever they didn’t eat she knew from experience she could put in the refrigerator at home and Gunny would have them gone in a day. She made sure to get some pickles, the sweet-hot ones and a container of coleslaw.

Jeff’s door was set to her hand so she walked right in. Jeff was sitting at his work station, elbows on the counter, face in his hands, deep quiet sobs shaking his shoulders.

April put the carrier down quietly and walked up behind him.

“Hey, hey, what’s the matter?” She put a hand on his shoulder, the thumb kneading the back of his neck. He just shook his head no and kept on crying. She put both arms around his neck and waited. It took quite awhile before he ran down.

When he finally was breathing normal and straightened up, she let loose of him. He pivoted the chair around and she leaned over and hugged him again. It tilted him back in the chair and he held her back, keeping her from sliding down, the chair jammed back against the desk.

“I’m so sorry. I’ve been doing that. I can’t hold it back. It just comes.”

“You don’t need to apologize,” she said in his ear. “You don’t have to explain.”

“I do! I don’t want you to think I’m unstable. I care a great deal what you think of me. I’d hate for you to ask me to log off our weapons net, or stand down from piloting, because you think I’m not fit.”

“Then explain if you must, because I hadn’t thought to do either of those things.”

“It’s the Chinese. Having to destroy Eddie’s Rascal was necessary, absolutely necessary to our survival, but all those people hurt, it just tears me up,” he admitted. “The idea I might have to do it again, or worse, it’s horrifying to me. But I will not trade Home for them. I wouldn’t even trade you, one single person, against the whole Chinese nation if they push me into a corner. But that doesn’t mean it’s easy. It hurts.”

April backed off from holding him around the neck and took his face in her hands. She locked him in place with her hands, looking eyeball to eyeball with her, so he couldn’t turn away.

“When you steal and murder and try to enslave people, you can have no complaint if it comes back on you. They stole your ship. They murdered your crew. They want to lock your mother up and break her with their ‘re-education’. Yes, there were people hurt, but the nasty fact is they are responsible for their actions. Both if you are a government representing people, or if you allow such men to keep power over you, your actions, or lack of action, has consequences.”

“I hear you and it sounds reasonable, but I don’t feel it.”

“You have a responsibility to us too. To Home and your mom and to me. What they want to do to us is wrong. Just because there are more Chinese than us doesn’t make it right.”

“That I feel.”

“I’d say from what we saw in Beijing, all the fighting, the fires, their armor movements and the announcement of the change in their chairman, there was somebody who thought the old officials were wrong. If they didn’t agree you were right in principle, then at least they are scared enough of you, to concede you have the power to tell them how you will be treated. I don’t expect them to snatch one of your ships again,” April assured him. “Not while the memory of what it cost is fresh.”

“You’re making me feel better.”

“You make me feel special. You’d go to war for me, like I was Helen of Troy.”

“Helen had nothing on you. I love you.” April keep his face trapped and kissed him thoroughly, rubbing her face in his intoxicating smell.

“This is wonderful and complicated,” Jeff complained.

“Why? Are you intimate with Heather?” April, as usual, cut to the heart of the matter.

Jeff laughed a little crazily. “No, when I found myself in much the same situation with her, on the moon, she said, “Is this going to hurt April?” You both declare your love, but neither want to hurt the other. Perhaps you both love each other more than me?” he asked, confused and frustrated. “I didn’t mean that like it sounded,” he protested right away.

“I don’t take offense automatically. You know Heather and I aren’t like that. I don’t think it serves any of us to try to quantify love. I certainly love you differently than Heather, or my grandpa. Can we really define love units and assign them? Is it a zero sum game and if I give you seven love units I have to take some away from my grandpa or Heather or Barak? Do you love Heather?” April asked directly.

“Oh absolutely. You are both wonderful and both care about me past anything I deserve and have so many good qualities I can’t start to list them. You each and both, deserve everything I can give you and more.”

“Well I love her too. I think we better get together and talk this out, before any of us stakes out any sort of ownership, that makes the other feel excluded. If you had to chose one of us and forsake the other, how could you chose?” The panic in his eyes was answer enough.

“Let’s eat and talk business and when you go back to the moon I’ll go with you. You do have a shower there by now, don’t you?”

“Oh, yeah. Heather loves that thing. We actually have several now. One for Heather off her quarters. The Sovereign has privileges after all. One in the back of the armed rover and one for anybody to use in what we call the bunkhouse.” It doesn’t really have bunks,” he hastened to add. “More like suites. Thanks for pushing me to design it.”

“That was my one condition to come rough it. Anything else I can endure.”

*

“Patience,” The General counseled Col. Allister. “I’m shifting personnel, concentrating our people in physical proximity to the target. Putting trustworthy men in the same groups and finding reason to shift those who have never been recruited or seem of an oppositional mind, to other duty groups in the same units. I know you are chomping at the bit to go. When we do so it is going to be at full, overwhelming strength. You know it doesn’t work to keep men in an elevated state of readiness for weeks. They wear down and lose their edge. Don’t do the same to yourself. I’ll inform you a couple days before we move, so you can whip them into the right psychological state.”

*

“I hired Eddie and charged him with establishing an intelligence network for us,” Jeff explained, brushing crumbs off his shirt, absentmindedly. “He was reluctant at first, but eventually came around and admitted he needs better intelligence himself anyway, for his business dealings.”

“How can we possibly offer enough to hire Eddie? He’s got more money than all the rest of us put together.”

“Well, it was my idea,” Jeff said. “It’s true he didn’t seem to care all that much about the financial side of it. He sort of blew me off when I offered to chip in. He seemed to think it could be self supporting anyway.”

“How? Will we sell the information we’ve gathered?”

“No, he pointed out you have the mechanisms in place to move things secretly, so you have the assets you need for smuggling. and knowing of events you can anticipate market moves and trade on it.”

“I can direct you to some folks in Hawaii that are in that line.”

“I’m sure he’d welcome that.”

“When I was on Earth we cruised around the South Pacific, in Papa-san’s boat, trying to avoid the Chinese and the fallout of the coup in North America. It was a very impressive boat. I’d bet Papa-san, uh, Mr. Santos, still has some way to contact that boat. He might be willing to direct them to move some things for you too.”

“That’s good, it brings up something else. A long time ago you said we really shouldn’t depend on the Earthies to shuttle up and down. We talked about doing it one way, with an old fashion reentry vehicle with just a heat shield and maybe a steerable chute. Well, I’ve commissioned Dave to make a real planetary shuttle. You mentioned this ship you traveled on. Dave pushed pretty hard to make the shuttle capable of water landings and takeoffs. So if you had fairly calm seas you could meet that ship somewhere and transfer freight or passengers.”

“That would have been very nice back then, instead of needing to get to Tonga and worrying if the political situation was stable, or if we’d all be arrested. When will it be operational?”

“I’m guessing flyable, if not detailed out, in a month, maybe five weeks. Dave had it framed out when I went by a couple days ago. The plasma drive chamber is massive though, special steel that takes almost twenty kilobar to deform. If they have trouble lifting the round stock for that, it could be a hold-up. I promised we’d do a remote control landing and takeoff with it, before operating it manned. He isn’t convinced we can model the startup of the engine sufficiently for manned safety.”

“Does Eddie know you’re going to have this asset?”

“I haven’t told him. If he’s much of a spy-master he probably knows,” Jeff joked.

“I’d tell him. Soon. He may be irritated you didn’t tell him, even if he finds out himself. I tried to try to hire one of his guys and found out he worked for me already. I felt sort of silly not knowing. He’s that fellow Chen, who hangs out with the security guys.”

“I didn’t know Eddie had recruited him yet either,” Jeff admitted. “We haven’t talked since the initial proposal. I’d hate to demand a constant flow of reports. It eats up time for him to stop and tell me nothing important is happening. It’s after all a part time thing for Eddie to supervise. I’m going to leave it the way it is. If he has something important I know he’ll tell me and the mundane he can accumulate until he has enough to bother.”

“That’s smart I think. What you are refusing to do, is to create a bureaucracy that feeds on itself to make work. Pretty soon you’d need another guy, to produce summaries of all the reports you demanded, but don’t have time to read.”

“I never really thought about how these huge expensive agencies get so bloated, but I think you have it figured out, right there. I need to spy on the CIA and the very size of it is daunting. I spent money for a reentry sled to drop some drones near their Seattle offices, but I can’t afford to keep spending that sort of money to cover them. They’re everywhere. But I think the agents I’m looking for will be in that office. The drone carrier drops tomorrow and then it will take a day to get in position.”

“If you succeed in having agents on Earth, drones are not forbidden technology. A lot of places, you could just FedEx drones to them. Loading the really sensitive stuff, the software, down there of course.”

“I’d have never thought of that.”

“And if you can get Papa-san to have his ship do work for you, they can release a drone for you off a target’s coast. From out past the legal limit if need be.”

“I’ll discuss all this with Eddie,” Jeff promised.

“When are you going back to Central?”

“Two, maybe three days.”

“I’ll be ready to go with you.”

*

“Mr. Singh, I’m Rupert Molson. I’m one of the directors and an owner of the SIH partnership. We intend to send a mission to the Jupiter region and return with an object of ice and other volatiles.”

“I’m quite aware of your venture. We’d have bought in, but we just had far too many other projects going to afford a share.”

“We?” asked Molson raising an eyebrow.

“I am equal partners with Heather anderson and April Lewis, just as your operation is a partnership. We each have a few ventures of our own we have not merged. Heather is developing real estate on the Moon and April has a whole portfolio of little companies, but Singh Industries is jointly held, not to be confused with Singh Technologies, that is my step mum and my dad.”

“We are looking at a very long voyage. Certainly the longest space voyage to date. It will likely be a year or more outbound and two to five years back to the Earth-Moon system, depending on what they capture. This is assuming you will sell us Singh power systems,” he added. “With conventional engines we wouldn’t attempt it at this time. We could do it with polywell reactors, but power density is not there and there are licensing issues.”

“That’s not a problem. I wish you every success and feel your project is a plus, necessary even, for Home.”

“That’s good to hear, because I’d like to speak of using some of your other technology. We are aware you have some sort of gravitational control. The ships Eddie Persico owns have been seen accelerating for prolonged periods, at levels that imply such systems. What we would like to know is if you can provide not just nullification of perceived acceleration, but the reverse, an artificial gravitational gradient, in a vehicle not accelerating? We were looking at spinning two ships on a cable, to avoid the long term health problems of weightlessness. If we could avoid that it would make the mission significantly easier and more efficient.”

“First, this would involve my step mother,” Jeff said thoughtfully. “She is the only source of the proprietary material used in our ship systems. This would take a lot of it, although she is trying to ramp up production. The thing is, I don’t really know if it would work the same way in the outer system as it does locally.”

“Why wouldn’t it?”

“We don’t have a decent model of what makes it work. No real theory. So we have no idea how it will function away from the thick gravitational gradient near a planet. We’ve never tested it in outside that environment. I’d be happy to, but we’ve never had time and funds for a deep space prone to go actually measure it.”

“This is critical enough to our effort we might be willing to cooperate with you in such a probe. Especially if it could radio back the test results in a timely manner, so we could apply them to our building program.”

“That’s a welcome offer. We could send it to Jupiter and have it slingshot around the planet to come home. You should be aware though, that our device is not going to allow you to have anything approaching a one G deck, where people walk around with a one G pull on them from head to foot. Right now, you are looking at a state of the art, which will allow you to form a one G pull, with perhaps a plus or minus tenth-G difference from one side of your body to the other laying down. Think of it as a tidal gradient. Would you like to sit in a one of our pilot seats and experience the system?”

“That would probably tell me more about applying it to our problems, than all the graphs and technical data in the world.”

“We have a ship at dock. Let’s go over and let you experience it. Perhaps we can work a trade of equipment for an interest in your venture.”

*

“We are being probed,” the head of station, Seattle, complained angrily.

“We’re always being probed one way or another,” his security head shrugged.

“Not physically. Electronically, distant optical surveillance, yes, but not invaded.” He tossed a tiny wad of fine wires and foil on the desk.

“What, uh, was that?”

“Some sort of robotic drone. I’m almost certain it flew.”

“It isn’t like you to qualify statements.”

“There was a crow thrashing about in distress on the lawn. It was unusual enough I wanted to know why. This was in its gullet. I theorize it thought it a moth or junebug and swallowed it in midair. It is of course indigestible. Whoever designed these obviously didn’t test them in real world conditions sufficiently. They need some way to repel birds.”

“These? You’ve found more than one of them?”

“No, but it’s like turning a light on and finding a roach. You know there is never just one.”

*

Molson strapped in the number two seat, as Jeff instructed. “You need to hook the helmet link on the back that limits helmet motion too,” Jeff instructed. “Here, on the couch edge, behind the belt lock,” He guided the man’s hand until he found the lever inside a guard. “Pull until you feel a snap and then try to lean forward and lift your head.”

He tried to lift his head but it only went about a centimeter before it hit a cushioned stop. “It’s set to allow you to turn your head a good thirty degrees each way,” Jeff explained. “You need that to see out the back edge of the view ports, piloting, but I’d set it to about ten degrees if you were a passenger.” Jeff moved over to the command couch and flipped some switches, bring up power on the systems he needed. Some of the lights went from red to green. “The seat is going to reconfigure and lift your legs,” Jeff warned him.

“You don’t have to undock to show me?”

“Nah, it’s still pretty much an inverse square field, unless you are down in the guts of the thing, where it gets a little more complicated. All that’s inside the housing and you won’t have to deal with it,” Jeff assured him. “It would be hard to detect outside our hull. I’m going to run it up about a quarter of the range now,” he alerted him again.

There was a barely-felt vibration and a faint whine near the limits of audibility.

“Oh my goodness, I’m hanging, uh, down, or is it up, on my straps? It feels weird,” he said, amazed. His arms had floated up at first, but then he pulled them back across his chest. “My legs seemed like they are pulled up more than my torso.”

“Yep, you can take more acceleration that way. Your heart doesn’t have to work as hard to pump blood to the legs. So to use it the way you guys are thinking, the units would be behind you, pulling you down, into the couch, or bunk, or whatever.”

“We need this. What will it take to get it for a crew of six?”

“Let’s go talk to my mum,” Jeff offered. “A lot of it is up to her.”

*

Heather greeted April with a hug, prolonged when April wouldn’t let go of her and spoke softly in her ear and then she was allowed to greet Jeff.

“Johnson, we are in conference,” Heather called on com. “Don’t call me on com unless you have an invasion you can’t repel yourself. – No, not Wiggen either,” she said emphatically, to his unheard question, tension crackling in her voice. She took her spex off and left them on the console.

“Come on, let’s go to my quarters,” she invited. “I’ll make some tea and we can talk.”

In the administrative dome Dakota lifted an eyebrow to Johnson. “Big boss talk-talk,” he said, with a smirk. Dakota feigned to not hear.

When they didn’t come out in a couple hours, Dakota started to worry a little. Then they missed lunch. When they finally did came out before supper, there was no explanation or new orders. Heather checked the com board and called for a rover to go somewhere. They suited up and seemed as happy as could be, but left in the rover, still without going to supper. There were always rations in a rover of course, but not a nice sit-down meal.

“Well, apparently nothing happened that is going to upset our world,” Dakota said, with a sigh of relief. Johnson squinted, visibly holding laughter in.

“What?” Dakota asked, unhappy with him. She didn’t communicate this way, with smiles and frowns and eye rolling and what she felt bordered on insubordinate innuendo. Couldn’t he just spit it out what he had to say, honestly?

“They all had wet hair, fresh from the shower,” was all he’d say.

Chapter 31

“What the hell is this?” the custodian asked his supervisor. He was holding a shiny silver bug trapped in a water glass, with a paperback book sealing off its quest for freedom. When he sat it on the table it made a circuit of its prison checking for openings and then sat in the bottom of the glass waiting. After a few seconds it slowly became the same color as the table.

“Where did you find that? It creeps me out.”

“I was dusting the overhead lights in the lunch room and disturbed it.”

It wasn’t until the next morning that it worked its way up the table of organization to the head of station. By then it was in a cherry jelly jar, with a few completely unnecessary air holes punched in the lid.

“I want this building searched, top to bottom, like you are looking for a lost gold mine,” he ordered. “every light fixture, anything that has a bottom surface, starting with my desk here. and send this RUSH to our national labs and get a complete analysis what it senses and how it communicates.” The jelly jar got a private jet ride across the country.

Two days later they knew what frequency it used to send a very low power pulse, when it had archived sufficient data. It wasn’t until late that day they detected such a transmission, but with no directional fix. Getting everything set up to locate it took another day and two more burst transmissions, to localize it to the head of station’s office.

Finally they tore the office apart. They disassembled the desk and other furniture, tore the couch to pieces, pulled up the carpeting and set up temporary lighting so they could rip the lighting fixtures out. Bare wires dangled from the ceiling.

Finally they pried the chair rail off the wainscoting and found it flattened and wedged up the crack from the bottom.

“Oh crap, it did a burst transmission when we uncovered it,” a techie said.

“Why would it do that?”

“It probably had audio archived and transmitted video of the last few seconds. With my face up nice and close. I don’t like that at all.”

With it removed they set detectors in every room and waited. When a full day passed with no transmissions, they declared themselves clean. The order went out to check every agency building worldwide. Their detectors were not however, sensitive enough to discover any emissions from the parking lot.

Attempts to trace the origins of the bugs ran up against the problem that there were already over fifty-thousand sold, with a dozen Japanese shops along the main drag in Akihabara selling them from eighteen dollars each in lots of a thousand, to two hundred and fifty dollars a single copy. One shop in Vancouver was already selling them grey market to early adapters, for five hundred dollars apiece. They carried no serial number.

*

Heather parked the rover looking out at April’s lot. Jeff left the command chairs for the women and put a folding chair from the back between them. The sun was out of direct view behind the mountains to their right, so that side was in deep shadow. Ahead of them and to the left it was still brilliant with sunlight and the boundary was not a simple line, but a hash of long shadows, growing longer as they watched.

Jeff got in the supplies and opened three cans of self-heating stew, pulling the tabs and letting then sit to warm up. He opened a tin of brown bread, as well as small jars of strawberry jam and peanut butter. He set the plug in skillet to a hundred eighty degrees and cut slices of the dark brown bread to grill for dessert. By then it was time to stir each can of stew, the heat was generated in the container wall, but it would burn before the center got hot if not stirred. He could smell Heather was taking care of the coffee, the rich odors all filled the rover.

They sat in companionable silence, watching the shadows chase the light away, until Jeff had to tell the interior lights to come up 5 percent. That gave him enough light to flip the bread and bring the stew up front without burning himself. A full mug of coffee was waiting for him.

“I need to go right back with you, to work on the shuttle finish.”

“I can stay a few days if you need to wrap anything up here,” April offered.

“You did say you could handle roughing it, if you had a shower.”

“The stew is really pretty good,” she argued. “It’s got plenty of chunks of identifiable vegetables and a decent amount of beef. This isn’t roughing it.”

“We buy the stuff rich people take backpacking. It costs about three times what the supermarket stuff does and it heats up hotter too.”

“Our bread is going to burn if you don’t catch it,” Heather warned.

Jeff hurried to the back and returned with everything on a tray. “The tray’s clean. We don’t seem to have any plates, but you can work on a napkin if you want.”

April loaded a slice up with peanut butter and jam, thoroughly content.

“I wonder if anyone makes tinned cream cheese?” Heather thought out loud.

“I shall make diligent inquiry,” Jeff promised. “Your wish is my command.”

“I thought my wish was your command,” April teased.

“That too.”

“Such confidence,” Heather marveled. “I’m worried he may be getting a little full of himself. Don’t you think?”

“It’s a definite danger,” April agreed. She leaned over and kissed him with strawberry lips. Heather nibbled on his ear waiting a turn. When April withdrew Jeff started to protest and had it smothered by Heather’s kiss before he could get a whole word out.

“We can take turns eating his dessert, while the other keeps him occupied,” April suggested.

Jeff sort of whimpered.

“Oh my, his little heart is going pitty patter,” Heather told April.

“It certainly is,” she agreed laying a hand flat on his chest to feel.

“Males are the weaker sex,” Heather reminded April. “They die young.”

“They die stupid!” Jeff insisted, indignant. “I’m not going to do that lethal heroic stuff.”

“Are you not the Jefferson Moses Singh who flew a spaceship and had never bothered to read the first page of the manual, or take a lesson and came home with a hole blown through it big enough to jump through?” Heather inquired.

“Well yeah, but Happy made me to do it!”

“You’re right, he’ll jump in with both feet and die spectacularly. We can only hope somebody captures it on video and enjoy the brief time we have him,” April agreed.

“Are you not the girl I remember in that news video, with laser beams and bullets holes laced all around you, calmly blasting away at men in space armor?” Jeff protested “Or do you have an evil twin?”

“No, twin. Heather will have to do. I have minions now, to deal with that rough stuff.”

“Please ladies, might I finish my dessert?” he asked, piteously.

“We are rejected for mere food,” Heather groused.

“Weakling,” April complained, leaning back.

“I am wronged from both sides.”

“Get used to it,” Heather suggested, then looked thoughtful. “Are people going to give us a hard time, seeing us together?”

“I have news for you. We are already a public threesome so often, people have been making little remarks to me for some time.”

“Remarks?” Heather asked.

“Just, uh, the guys. There seems to be an element of, well, jealousy, that you two get along. The women don’t say much, but I get some venomous looks, from the older ladies at least.”

“I must admit, Adzusa asked some very pointed questions, clear back when I went down to Earth and she accompanied me. “I simply told her it wasn’t anybody’s business and certainly not a matter of public interest. I didn’t deny either of you. I’d never do that.”

“I think that’s exactly the tack to take,” Heather agreed. “We’ve had a public business relationship for a long time. Nothing beyond that is anyone’s concern.”

“Whatever you two say,” Jeff agreed, wisely.

*

“Eddie has asked me, upon the advice of Miss Lewis, to inquire if your sailing ship, in which you and she spent time together, would be available to transport aquatic or aerial drones to release points, outside the maritime boundaries of various nations, or meet a water landing shuttle in international waters.”

“Oh my, an ocean landing shuttle? That just opens up all sorts of possibilities, doesn’t it? You may inform her I gave the Tobiuo as a severance payment to Lin, who she knows very well. I can of course lay her offer before him, but he is her master now and will decide what jobs he wishes to accept. She was operating under the name The Sly Spy when we transferred her and he may have reverted or picked a new name for her.”

“I would like to present it to Mr. Persico as if I have recruited you,” Chen suggested.

“Well you have!” Papa-san insisted. “In every way that pertains to their organization. I’m entirely happy with working up-line through you. Would you also remind Miss Lewis that she offered a power source for the Tobiuo, to greatly increase its cruise capabilities and to give them extravagant auxiliary power? If they are to work for her she should make good on that deal. It also wouldn’t hurt to remind her that it affords spacers an opportunity for vacations, away from the political and social problems they might otherwise suffer on an Earth visit. Perhaps some arrangement might be made to trade services, to everyone’s benefit.”

*

“Good morning, Cindy, Frank. May I have tea with you and show you some things?” Frank had just made coffee and was putting the beans back in the store safe.

“Of course my dear, you know where everything is, help yourself, please.” Lindsy left an actual paper notebook on the table, but Cindy resisted the urge to peek, although that must be what Lindsy was going to show her.

“I’ve been doing some sketches of ideas I have for clothing,” Lindsy revealed when she had her tea. “I’m just no good drawing on a computer, so I use paper and pencil.” She opened to the middle and slid it to Cindy. “This is an outfit with high boots and jeans. The pockets are horizontal and zippered, just below the belt and no rear pockets so it’s sleek. The belt is extra wide and special just for it. The loops have to be big to hold it.”

What surprised Cindy was not the design of the clothing, but the drawing. The figure was not drawn floating on the page, it was in a detailed setting, an old fashioned hotel lobby with an elevator on the far wall, leather furniture, carpets and ferns in planters, There were other figures, simplified, but not that much, inhabiting the setting. The model was leaning on the registration desk , impatient, pouting, one leg extended lithe as a leopard.

“This is a beautiful drawing and the pants are, indeed, very sleek. I’ve not seen that pocket treatment in a very long time and it does avoid gapping when you bend or sit.”

“So it is possible to really sew it up that way?”

“Certainly. It is harder to reach in such a pocket, but you usually make them shallow to avoid needing to stick your whole hand inside them. They are easier to make really than a conventional pocket. This is remarkable, the extra detail, the way you set a total scene instead of just the figure.”

“It looks stupid all alone. I saw this scene in an old movie and used it, but moved things around a little bit to make it work.”

“Where did you learn to draw like this?” Cindy wondered.

“I doodle all the time. I had an art class a couple years ago, but if you don’t get good marks in it they won’t let you sign up for the advanced classes. My teacher hated the way I draw, like the ferns there, I draw the part hanging toward the middle of the drawing in detail, but as I get out toward the edge I just do the outline with less and less detail until near the edge of the paper it’s just a few swoopy lines to suggest where the ferns extend and you have to kind of fill in the details in your head.”

“And your teacher hated this?”

“Yeah, he’d ask me why I didn’t finish it. He wanted the whole thing to look like a photograph edge to edge. Life is too short, I’m not going to sit and do all that. That’s not the important part anyway, I want you looking here,” she said, tapping the figure with a finger.

“Lindsy dear, I’m going to cut straight to the point. Your teacher was a fool. This is lovely work. Your clothing design is fine and you certainly should pursue that too, but your drawing is wonderful and you should never have been discouraged from it.”

“You’re sweet,” Lindsy said patting Cindy’s hand. “I wish I had some more to show you. I have a couple boxes of loose drawings down on Earth, in storage, but this notebook is all I brought up.”

“Have you ever worked with color?”

“No, my mom always made us put all our allowance in savings. If I wanted anything I had to beg for it, but paper and pencil was pretty easy to get her to buy. We didn’t go anywhere they have that sort of fancy stuff anyway. I wouldn’t even know what to ask for.”

“Do you have some more ideas in there? I’d love to see,” Cindy asked.

“Oh sure. Now these are some other ideas for clothes I had, but I drew them on some of my friends. This is my friend Kathy, I thought she’d be darling in button up navy jeans and a sweater. This is sitting on her couch at her place, looking at her by the window. But I drew a nice scene out the window behind her. In their apartment it really just looked out on another building with other windows and balconies, so I drew this instead.” It was a New England village.

Cindy just shook her head in amazement at the drawings. Even in a grey-tone pencil drawing she was certain Kathy was a redhead, with amazing freckles. She wondered if Faye knew her student ‘doodled’?

*

“We have home addresses and quite a lot of data about where all the agents with agency cars shop, what gym they go to, a few of their favorite restaurants,” Jeff’s man Louis said, “but we only have three faces matched to the addresses and two more by public records. I’m trying to reprogram them to expose themselves more, to attempt to get images, but it’s complicated. Try for example getting one to crawl behind the front grill of a car and peek out. It’s hard. Dave ran me through the beginners guide when he handed them over, but I don’t think he was into them deep enough to do this. The stupid things only have two Terabyte of memory.”

“I think you are doing marvelously for learning as you go. The bird was just a bit of bad luck. When I told the manufacturer rep about it he was surprised. He was even honest enough to say he doesn’t know what he’s going to do about that.”

“I could run the Frisbee in closer - try to get it within telephoto range. There is just no decent cover between the cars and the entry. I have it under dense cover right now and it seems pretty safe,” Louis offered, conflicted about what to do.

“Park one of the bugs ones where it will see the faces going in the door in the morning. Put another on a tree or something not too close, but where it can see which cars park in the morning. You can match the time of cars arriving to faces. Have them fly back to the Frisbee in the night instead of transmit. Just park the third and hold it in reserve,” Jeff ordered.

“OK, that will take me until they deploy tonight to write. If we get two or three cars arrive close to each other, the drivers may not come to the door in the order they parked.”

“If you do it for three or four days it will sort out.”

“I’m sorry they found that bug in the light, but I have to say, it was entertaining hearing them go nuts when they found it.”

“Expensive entertainment, but I admit I archived a copy of that,” Jeff said, smiling. “I need a copy of the faces you have. I may be able narrow the search, as I’m looking for a pair working as partners. Hard wire transfer only on all this, Louis. That’s why I’m running it from a dedicated machine with no net access, no wireless and a shielded guarded cable straight to the antenna dish. Put it on a drive for me.”

“You think somebody will crack us?”

“Not if we do it my way. They would have to capture a Frisbee and break its encryption. I have some pretty good precautions against that.”

*

“Good morning. We have quite a few fittings today, don’t we?” Lindsy remembered. She got her mug and started making a cup of tea. “Do I have enough money now to pay for the material and have my jacket made?” she asked.

“Did you save both your pays?” Frank asked her.

“No, I bought a pair of spex from my brother for eighty dollars.”

“Well that certainly seems like a bargain.”

“He buys and sells old spex and hand comps for a little business,” Lindsy revealed.

“The material will run about three-eighty, so you’ve got it easily,” Frank confirmed.

“Can I come in mid-week and have you run it?” Lindsy, asked excited.

“We don’t have a roll of that fabric. It will probably be Wednesday at least before we can get it up from Earth, so yes, Thursday maybe.”

“Thank you, I’ve never bought anything to wear that my mom wasn’t with me and had veto power over what I picked. This will be fun.”

“Are you sure you don’t want to do one of your own designs, dear?” Cindy asked.

“Not yet. I enjoyed watching you design. I want to be able to do that.”

“It’s not quite as easy as she makes it look,” Frank warned her.

“I sort of figured that out.”

Cindy got a flat package from the shipping desk and slid it in front of Lindsy. “This is a little present from us,” she said simply.

Lindsy looked shocked and then started crying.

“Hey, it’s not that big a deal,” Frank objected, embarrassed.

“It is,” Lindsy insisted, not even knowing what it was yet.

“Why don’t you take a look at it dear?” Cindy suggested.

Lindsy blew her nose first and reached inside the open FedEx pack. There was a wooden case with a hundred-fifty-six colored pencils, a small selection of pastels and a few markers. A notebook of blank pages was a little bigger than the letter size paper Lindsy was used to and there was a large hardbound book on colored pencil technique.

“This is wonderful. Thank you, so much.”

“It’s our pleasure. You do so well with plain pencil, it will be interesting to see how you grow into this.”

“Neither of us draw all that well, but you might ask Faye if she has any artists on call as tutors,” Frank suggested.

“I’ll do that,” Lindsy agreed. She got up and hugged them both.

*

“That’s the one,” Mo said without hesitation when Jeff loaded the pic.

Jeff finished sending the rest of them and waited. The lunar lag didn’t matter for this.

“That’s still him,” Mo insisted, after getting all the pix. “The other guy was the one to speak first, so I think he was higher ranking. They were both light skinned so this guy is out,” he said dragging a picture of a black guy off to the side of the screen.

“The other guy is not that different,” he struggled to remember. “Real close in age, but a coarser face, dark like his beard comes in heavy. His face is wider, beefier. That’s all I got.”

“That helps. We’ll find out who is associated with this one.”

“Oh, there’s one stupid little thing. This one, the underling, leans forward when he sits. The other guy is ramrod upright, like he had a broomstick up his rear. Maybe military is what I thought, but he could have just been raised in a weird social environment too. Don’t know how that can help you, but it was so extreme I did notice it.”

“Every datum helps to build the picture. Thanks, Mo.”

Chapter 31

“Where do you want to set it down?” Dave asked. “We can do a water landing in the open ocean, or we can do a do a aero-brake and start the engine in midair and do a pull-up and set it down on its tail on solid land. Or we could do aerobraking and land on a friendly runway, if you have an ally you trust to let them see the vehicle. If it fails on startup that could be embarrassing. Especially if it blows up.”

“If it blows up on a water take off the parts will sink and somebody could recover them. They can go to the bottom of the deepest trench and recover things.”

“OK, scratch that idea.”

“Is the runway at Tonga long enough for this shuttle?” Jeff asked.

“It is, just barely. But it’s crowded and there is nowhere really safe to do a startup, if it blows up instead of restarting properly. The runway ends are close to hangers and public roads. We’d have to build at least a safety berm around an area for startup. That might not thrill them, to know we don’t trust it.”

“I like the idea of a dirt landing in a remote area. If it’s remote we’d have plenty of time to purge and pump the chamber,” Jeff figured. “I’d rather land on dirt, because if we didn’t model the hydrodynamic model perfectly it may pitch up, or dig nose in and sink like a rock. We’d be trying to test more than one major system at a time.”

“Antarctica would be harder for Earthies to reach than any of the remote Pacific islands. Most of them are pretty small too. In Antarctica there are rocky valleys without boulders safe to land. If it fails and you have to destroy it, there is no fragile lagoon ecology to damage. On the other hand, we can’t watch it from orbit continually there.” Dave countered.

“Let’s do that. I want to watch it real time. We can put a ship in temporary polar orbit and time the takeoff for when they are passing overhead and can observe. Land fairly early in the day,” Jeff suggested.

“It’s all day right now,” Dave reminded him.

“Oh, I forgot about that,” Jeff admitted embarrassed. “Don’t some countries have declared interest zones?”

“Yeah, but the main thing is they agree to not militarize it, or start mining there. We’re not going to land on a penguin colony or anything. Besides, we’re not signatories to the treaty.”

“OK, how long before we can set it down?”

“Third day from now, earlier in the day. It isn’t fitted yet with some things a human pilot would need, but it’s ready for remote control. I’ll have the new shuttle and the observer ship in orbit timed, so we can watch it land and they can relay the telemetry. Then they will do an orbit and watch the take off. So it will sit there about an hour. Do you have a name for it yet?” Dave asked. “I’ll paint it on where it might not burn off, if you want.”

“I’m thinking Dionysus’ Chariot.”

“Mythology?”

“Yeah, He was the god of wine and craziness, but more importantly he descended into Hades to affect a rescue. Bacchus is the Roman version, but he has a really bad reputation.”

“Whatever, we just need some sort of ID to talk to traffic control about her.”

“Do you want to ask permission to land?”

“I’ll advise them of the polar orbit,” Dave said, “but why start bad habits we don’t intend to repeat in the future? We’ll do a short de-orbit over the South Atlantic. I’ll bring it back up like it just skipped an orbit and see if they even notice.”

“Let’s run it from my office,” Jeff suggested. “It has just a little more room.”

“And better coffee,” Dave agreed.

*

“That’s him,” Mo said with no hesitation.

“I need to be very sure,” Jeff told him, but didn’t say why.

“It gave me a chill up the back of my neck to see him. I’m sure.”

“He’s still working with the same partner.”

“You knew then,” Mo accused.

“Things change. People get reassigned. I wouldn’t just assume his partner was the same.”

“You’ve gone to a lot of trouble. What do you intend to do?”

“I’m not going to tell you.” Jeff said, but not with any hostility. “You are free to deal with them any way you feel is necessary,” he pointed out. “So am I.”

Mo thought about that a little while. “Fair enough,” he decided and dropped it.

*

“I need a generator set,” April dropped in a text to Jeff. She wasn’t sure if he’d be sleeping. “Something small with an accumulator. I’m thinking maybe two hundred kilowatts. Enough to propel a fairly big boat with an electric motor and run air conditioning and cooking. The boat sits at dock and moves on wind often enough to build up a backlog in the accumulator. So it can pull double when needed.”

“I have one built, unsold, that’s three hundred-fifty kilowatts,” Jeff said, opening a screen and going to voice. “But if this is for something that’s part of any joint venture, I would build you one at cost.”

“No, this is private, something I promised and I’ll pay for it full retail. Just take it out of my account I opened with you the other day. This is my verbal authorization. Ask Papa-san where to ship it. It’ll be some port in Italy, I think.”

“Ah, his old boat. The pix you had, of staying in that atoll and snorkeling were awesome. Do you think he’d lease it for a week sometime, if we could get away? I’d love to do that.”

“That’s exactly what his man Lin is doing, charters. Papa-san gave him the boat as severance for all his service. I promised Papa-san the power if he wanted it. I feel the promise still holds with Lin as the new owner. I expect to keep a working relationship with Lin and suspect he’ll stay close to the Santos. If we need something they could do for us with a boat, then certainly this gesture would not be forgotten.”

“Indeed, it shouldn’t be. I may also need their services I expect. In fact I’ve asked Chen to feel them out about that already. I tell you what. I won’t charge you at cost, but I’ll discount this heavily. Say a hundred-eighty thousand dollars USNA. That’s about a third off. If you happen to mention I added some support to the deal it wouldn’t hurt. No reason they can’t be pleased with both of us,” he said, with a smile.

“No reason at all,” April agreed. “I don’t mind paying less either, thanks.”

“I’m planning a holiday in my head already,” he said. “Heather, you and me. Is the boat big enough?” he worried.

“Oh, easily,” April assured him. “And room for security and to do business too.”

*

“Cindy, you have those two nice windows on the corridor and you are right by the cafeteria. I like drawing clothes and I bet you have a lot of favorites you’ve made that younger people don’t know to ask you to make. I’d like to do some drawings of people wearing your clothes different places on Home. You show me the machine files and I’ll draw them like they will look in life. You put them in the window and see if it doesn’t make somebody order them.”

“How much would you charge to do that, dear?”

“I thought I’d just do it when I’m here working anyway. I have times I’m not doing anything and not all the customers are chatty. I can talk and sketch at the same time anyway.”

“Have you ever drawn on a larger scale?” Cindy asked. “Like so,” she demonstrated with her hands defining a poster size.

“I’ve never owned a piece of paper that big. I could try, but it might take me awhile to get the hang of it.”

“Perhaps better to do it on the paper we gave you, then I’ll have you run it up to Brown’s Mercantile on the half G deck. She has office supplies and such and she has a large format printer that can make us a bigger copy for the window,” she decided.

“You know what?” Cindy said, after some thought. “You could offer your original drawing at auction beside the window display. People can bid on com and the store site will show the high bid. We’d run the ad in the window for the week and whoever puts the high bid would get to buy your drawing.”

“You really think my stuff is good enough to sell?”

“I do and I’ll put a base bid on it of a hundred dollars to back up that opinion.”

“Oh good. Then I can’t be embarrassed by nobody bidding on it. I’ll do it.”

*

“I need some of your security guys organized into a active force that can do infiltration, hard intelligence gathering, such as entry into industrial areas and computer snatching. High level sabotage and assassination,” Jeff asked Chen. “I figure you know who to ask.”

“Well, you don’t mess around with coy euphemisms, I’ll give you that.”

“We’ve been on the receiving end of it. Has Gunny related how the Chinese tried to assassinate April, right in our cafeteria?”

“He has and both he and Santos detailed how they went after her on Earth.”

“There comes a point you have to make them realize that these acts have consequences.” Jeff asserted. “Now, I don’t personally have the skills to do it subtly. I could go straight to war and drop a two-hundred megaton warhead on Beijing or Washington and clear an impressive list of the rogues who have been troubling us, but I’d much rather go directly to the responsible individuals and send a message that way.”

“I want to hear something directly from you before we work together. Is it true that weapon you dropped on the West Winds facility had more yield than you expected?”

“It had about five times as much yield as I expected,” Jeff admitted.

“Would you have dropped it anyway, knowing that?”

“Yes, if the Chinese had gotten into my ship and reverse engineered the things in it I don’t think Home would survive long. I don’t have any illusions I can be a ‘good’ guy and do what needs done. But I’d rather not be a monster unnecessarily. I simply didn’t have a reliable smaller weapon to use I was confident would obliterate it. I will say this - I wouldn’t ask anyone to do a mission I wouldn’t do and anything I ask you to do will come with an explanation of why the action is being taken. Are you interested in being offered a mission, or pass?”

“What is the pay scale you are offering and if we pass on a job does that cut us off from future offerings?” Chen asked rather than commit yet.

“You tell me. I don’t know the going rate, so bid on the job. If I can’t afford it I’ll tell you. I’ll keep offering, until you have passed on enough of them that I think it is obvious you aren’t going to accept anything.”

“OK them, run a job by me and I’ll see what I can do.”

“This is one example of the devices that my employee was suborned by CIA agents to place on our property on the moon.” Jeff sat one of the laser reflectors on the table between them. “It is designed to push down in the regolith and it sits there until it is illuminated to pin point the location on a map, or it is actively used to guide a weapon to that point. They were being placed above our tunnels to allow bunker busters to destroy our moon colony.”

“Is your colony a military threat?” Chen asked, visibly surprised.

“Heather has an old cannon off a patrol boat she put on a rover. Just about all Home ships carry weapons now, but they have only been used when we were attacked first. We have not approached or threatened anyone else on the moon, unless they came at us. The USNA base Armstrong sent a rover force overland to arrest folks who moved to Central and they sent a ship to cluster-bomb our landing field, with our ship sitting on it. I guess anything they can’t destroy is a threat.”

“Marking civilian targets is ugly,” Chen scowled.

“These are the two agents who blackmailed my hire to plant them.” He laid their pictures on folders in front of Chen. “These are all the other known agents at the same office, important enough to be given government vehicles. This is the chief of their Vancouver shop. The folders detail where the targets and the others live, quite a bit about where they do business, where they eat and shop and go to the gym. What routes and schedules they take. Several are married and there are photos of the family so you can avoid them. One fellow has a regular mistress and she has her own folder. The support staff such as secretaries and cleaning crew are shown in photos, but we did not track them home, as they are not targets. This is an interior layout of the building, but they know they have been physically penetrated and could move assigned offices. We haven’t seen any indication they are physically remodeling. We can get similar information on any CIA office by remote sensing, although their main campus in DC may be a bit tougher to crack, but this is the only one we have targeted like this so far.”

“Wow.” Chen sat, thinking in horror what it would mean, if his own agency offices in Beijing had been penetrated and cataloged to this extent.

“What do you want done to them?” Chen cut to the heart of the matter.

“They tried to arrange our deaths. I want them snatched and disappeared, so that there is no clue how it happened. Not a scratch on the lock, or a heel scuff on the floor, or a report of something odd from a neighbor or passing motorist, unless we want it left as a message. Just poof – gone,” he said, dramatically.

“Now, if they can be stuffed in a brain scanning helmet and questioned who gave them the task of targeting us, that is a bonus, but if it is not possible to work up the chain of command, then I’ll have to be satisfied with these two.”

“Let me work up a proposal. I’ll get back to you.”

*

The young man had a faint smile and wore fine checked brown wool trousers, with double pleats in the front and cuffs. A thin belt held them up. His pocketless dress shirt was French cuffed and had small pearl buttons spaced closely up the front. The collar was short and button down, with the top button designed to be closed. It didn’t look like a clerical collar at all, just very neat. He had a coffee cup from Zack at the Chandlery in his hand to fill and of course spex on his face. He had hair short enough for a space suit, modest hoop earrings and just the hint of a five o’clock shadow, which lent a hint of masculinity to his otherwise young face.

The young woman he was giving his full attention had spex too and was holding her full cup in both hands. She had short hair too and simple pearl earrings. She had on flare legged pants with a wedge of embroidery running up the outside seam to the knee, black on grey and very small pockets toward the front more than the sides. They were beltless with an oval metallic closure. Her blouse was puffy sleeved, with long tight cuffs and the collar laid flat on her shoulders with a hidden closure down the center and pleats laid away from that on each side stitched down. It was a subtle pale yellow.

She was looking down, a little coyly and enjoying the young man’s attention. The finishing detail was Ruby behind the counter, observing the high voltage tension between the couple and lifting one eyebrow slightly with an amused expression.

“My God, you got the mood just perfect. He looks like he is ready to have her for dessert. and the coffee dispenser behind them. I don’t think anybody on Home wouldn’t know where they are standing to the centimeter. But the counter behind him is just a line and some shading, just a suggestion and behind Ruby just a few smears of color and nothing detailed to distract the eye. I love it,” Cindy said without reservation.

“I couldn’t decide which outfit to do so I did both of them.”

“Oh, this is much more effective than either alone,” Cindy assured her. “Run this down to Janet and have her run off a copy a meter high and we’ll put it in the right window.”

*

“Four guys, in two teams, twenty-thousand a day each, on the ground in the USNA. Five thousand a day while in transportation, and expenses. We figure three days on the ground. We have all our own hardware and don’t anticipate much expenditure of perishables. We also need the support of your on site Frisbees and mini-drones. But we’d like to know what kind of orbital support you can offer?”

“That sounds reasonable,” Jeff agreed. Very expensive, but given the risks they were taking, reasonable. “I used up all my rods on China. I only have thirty replenished by the shops so far. I can hit a vehicle or building, but that’s not enough to overwhelm and break a well defended target with major ballistic defenses. On the extreme end, I can drop a few kiloton range weapons, but again not at hard targets and of course, you know I can drop weapons in excess of two-hundred Megaton, but I hope things don’t go that badly.”

“How many of those?” Chen asked boldly.

“More than I intend to disclose to anyone,” Jeff said, not looking happy at the question.

“OK, it doesn’t hurt to ask.”

*

“Mr. Singh I was able to deposit five-hundred dollars to your account at the Private Bank for your loan of the Solar to me. That is interest, not principal. I want to think you again for letting me try this. I’m learning a lot about business and a lot about people in general, from buying and selling spex and com pads. I’m having a lot of fun too.” Sincerely, Eric.

Jeff smiled at the text message. The kid must be doing OK then. Good.

*

“No, I didn’t assign them to anything. They should both be in the office today,” Head of Station Zeff looked at the clock in the corner of his screen. 1100? They waited to tell him until almost lunch?

“I assume you called them?” he inquired, quite irritated at the delay.

“Yes, neither answered and I sent teams to their homes,” Ron, his security head, assured him. “There was a little delay because I had to pull one team off another mission. The first team had not even reported back, but after the second absence I bumped its priority. The first team reported Jim left for work as usual after they contacted his wife. She said that he did drive away for sure. His car was gone when she left. She also claimed the home number we called first, did not forward the call to her phone like it was supposed to, we had to call directly, so we went on to the house. Nothing seems out of sorts, but she arrived after us. The only thing she saw odd was there was some sort of tube with a pointed end and a mirror down inside, laying on the dining room table. She claims she has never seen it before.”

“Does it have a colored anti-reflective coating on the mirror?” Zeff asked, with a sudden sick feeling. “How big?”

“Yeah, it’s gold colored and maybe thirty millimeters in diameter. You know what it is then?” he asked.

“Probably. Treat it like evidence and bag it.”

“I did, but his wife picked it up when she came in, so it will have her prints.”

“That’s OK, we have family prints on record to eliminate them. Call the other team and tell them when they enter Gary’s apartment to treat it as a crime scene from the start. Since he’s single, chances are it’s a cleaner scene too. “

“OK, I’ll call you with more soon.”

Zeff disconnected and sat, mind racing. There were some records and hardware at home that needed to disappear as soon as possible. “I’m going out to Agent Whitworth’s house and will grab some lunch on the way,” he informed his secretary. Lunch would be half a submarine he had left in the refrigerator at home and a trip to a dumpster with some things.

He was upset, which was a bad state in which to drive, so he just set the car on auto for home and sat trying to consider every possibility in his mind. It wasn’t until he was well past the usual turn east, that he noticed the car was not following the proper route home. He looked to the screen immediately, to see if it was a traffic net mandated detour, but the screen was dark. Shit.

He tried to revert to manual, but as he expected it wouldn’t accept the command. A pair of tiny insect like drones had cut the computer cable under his hood and connected a new chip to the end. That also ended the tracking functions on the vehicle. His car was lightly armored, but if he fired his weapon into the dash and engine compartment from inside, perhaps he could disable it. Even if the doors wouldn’t open after disabling it, somebody should see the car sitting dead and call for a rescue.

Weapon in hand, he hesitated, three things holding him back. He would still have incriminating items at home, he might start a fire in the engine compartment and not be able to get out and the neighborhood the car was taking him into was not the sort where a fancy disabled car necessarily resulted in a call to the police. More likely the inhabitants would look at it like a otter looks at a particularly heavy, fresh, clam. To be cracked and the contents enjoyed with relish.

He hesitated too long and an overhead door ahead raised with that steady rate that said it was motorized and his car rolled in. There was plywood and timber bracing tapered in from each side, with only a hand’s breadth clearance. He couldn’t open the doors, or crawl out a window, even if control was restored.

He wondered how they intended to work at opening the car with all that in place. It wouldn’t be an easy car to crack. Now that the door was down he turned on his headlights, surprised they still worked. Just then the engine stumbled and quit. He had no idea why, but then he couldn’t see that the room had been flooded with argon and it died for lack of oxygen. The car was still sucking in air and filtering it on battery power for the passenger compartment however. He had just a few seconds to feel odd, before he lost consciousness.

The bracing was designed to knock down quickly and hydraulic cutters opened the armored door pillar like sniping a rose stem. Zeff had an oxygen mask on and was getting chest compressions in two minutes, even before his heart stopped. He would not wake up immediately though, because of the syringe being emptied into his neck.

The car was eventually going to be found. It broke Jeff’s mandate to leave no trace. Chen estimated it would cost another half million USNA dollars to cut up and disappear the car, so he took it upon himself to leave it. The rent was paid up and it might not be discovered for a year. In this neighborhood it might even get chopped up and disappeared for the parts without him arranging it. He also suspected everyone would have fresh concerns, by a year from now.

The underlings had been snatched on their way to work. One where he stopped every morning for a bagel and coffee and one where he parked and transferred to light rail. Their cars would be found quickly, but not altered like this one.

He did go to the trouble to remove the bugs that cut the control cable and the chip that took over the vehicle. A quarter kilo block of thermite ignited on top of the car’s computer made sure there was no black box record of the movements and timing after the takeover, or physical evidence of how it was hijacked.

Certainly, the wealth of information they extracted from Zeff should make Jeff willing to ignore the matter of the car. They ran almost three thousand word association tests on Zeff with the helmet on, well into the next day. Far more than they had bothered to do with the senior agent Jim, because it was yielding so much. The last couple hundred were particularly fertile as they built on the earlier ones. They only asked a few dozen full sentence questions, but they were damning and Jeff was going to be very upset and very happy to have the information. Some of the information Chen could sell on the side. Jeff had neglected to say he wanted an exclusive. But then if he had, Chen would have needed to charge him a great deal more.

Chapter 32

Lindsy was so stunned she was just sitting, ignoring the mug Cindy sat in front of her. Frank wondered if her mom would be upset if he put a little brandy in her tea. She certainly looked like she could use a drink. It was Friday, when the auction was set to end and her ad for the week come down.

The final bid for her drawing, when they closed the shop for the day, was three thousand six hundred and eighty dollars. He still hoped to have her do a new drawing tomorrow and post it in the window Sunday morning. If she wasn’t too shook up to draw it. The people who stopped and looked at the poster sized ad in their window all week reacted visibly, there was a lot of smiling and discussion if they were with friends.

No few of them pulled out their com and decided right then and there to bid on the pic. Enough came inside to talk or buy, that it was a success for the store too. He just hoped Lindsy didn’t decide to quit and draw full time just yet. Not just for them, but he thought she needed to keep using this venue to establish herself and mature a bit. But it was obvious what her real talent was.

*

“I can’t prove anything, but I have a gut feeling it is the same Home organization that intervened for you in California,” Mel Wainwright told President Wiggen.

“But they seemed so friendly to our party, or at least me and this is so hostile. Why the sudden change? I went to a great deal of trouble to straighten out that lunar mess for them. Where’s the gratitude for that? Why would these two low level agents be targeted?”

Wainwright looked embarrassed. “There’s more. After the two agents went missing, their supervisor, the Head of Station for the region, said he was going out to lunch and then to one of the two investigation sites. He put his car on auto, the traffic computer reported he set it to take him home, not to any restaurant or either investigation site. The car followed the route it normally followed. Traffic was not particularly heavy or anything. His home was very much out of the way as he had a long commute. About half way there it simply stopped reporting to the system, while going sixty kilometers an hour on a main road. It did not ask the system for a lane change and a normal hand-off back to manual control.”

“Wouldn’t it just crash?”

“Not if an outside controller took over and drove it out of the auto lane. However that supposes the vehicle was altered. You’d have to get under the hood and plug your own computer into the wiring harness. That seems a rather audacious thing to do to an agency vehicle. I don’t know of any other way you could do it, without taking over the traffic control system and nothing indicates that was interfered with at all.”

“Are you sure he didn’t just disappear himself? Perhaps he had a bypass put on his own vehicle to drop out of the system and run,” Wiggen theorized.

“No, I thought of that at first too. But he almost certainly did want to go home to recover some incriminating items and dispose of them, but never made it.”

“Ah, you searched his house then. What did you find?”

Mel got in his case and got a plastic evidence bag. Laid on the table between them it had a pointed cylinder with an open end opposite. “There is a special mirror hanging in the tube, so it is free to point exactly straight up. It’s designed to return a laser pulse to allow you to pinpoint its location. They use them for survey to measure glacier movement and ground movement around active volcanoes, so it’s a common technology. The usual way to track them is with a high altitude aerostat or drone checking them every minute or so. It’s accurate to the millimeter. It would also be an effective way to gather targeting data, or if it remained in place, a missile or gravity bomb could home directly on it.”

“That seems an odd thing for him to have.”

“He had thirty of them, new, in factory packaging, sitting in a case that held fifty.”

“And the other twenty?”

“They don’t have serial numbers. But there was one of each left out in plain sight in the two agents homes. With the married fellow it had to be positioned on his dining room table the morning he disappeared, after his wife went to work and before his absence was noted. There were no signs of entry and their alarm system was activated. The critical difference is the two left behind had been used. Both had abrasions to indicate they had been pushed into the ground. Under the microscope there were loose particles attached inside by electrostatic attraction and very minute grains embedded in the outside surface. It was regolith.”

“Moon soil?”

“Yes, very uncommon and distinctive thing to find. We also found a prepaid cell phone and other materials at the supervisor’s home that are a dead end. The numbers on the cell phone log were listed to people killed in the Patriot Party attempt on you.”

“Why would the Patriot Party involve themselves with planting these, uh, reflectors on the moon?” Wiggen asked.

“I’d say they wanted to be able to make good on their promises to act against Home without delay, once they seized power. The Central people with who you have had so much trouble are all Home citizens, are they not?” Mel inquired.

“Yes, yes it makes a sort of sense that way. But does this mean the Home folks think I’m planting targeting devices, might as well call them bulls eyes, on their moon colony?”

“I sincerely doubt that, President Wiggen,” Wainwright said, shaking his head - no. “They went directly for the persons responsible. I’m sure they have interrogated them and by now know it was a Patriot Party connection, just like we do. Our head of the CIA swears he had no idea that station and its head, was Patriot Party infiltrated. Leaving the devices behind was a message. It crossed a big line for them to take direct action. I’m just dismayed again what capable assets they have. If they thought you were responsible for them, I think we’d have found them pushed in the White House lawn – which would have been a very different message.”

*

“That’s it?” Tara asked. “It doesn’t look like much. We can pick it up between us.”

“Look at the size of the output connections. Those are meant to handle some serious current,” Lin told Tara.

“Hmm. Does this mean you are going to scrap out the Diesels and put in electric motors?”

“Not at all. Do we want to come gliding up to a dock, obviously under power and no Diesel thumping away? No, that leads to too many questions. We’ll keep those as an in-harbor and backup system,” Lin assured him. “Nor do I wish to change the balance of the boat that much.”

“What then? Can you pass the screw shaft through the electrics?”

“We could, but I intend to put a couple jet drives at the rear, to the outside corners and a couple smaller maneuvering thrusters at the front, for pushing the nose around.”

“Hmm, I’ll probably forget how to handle her with just sail, if we have such luxury.”

“I’ll make sure everybody has plenty of practice under sail,” Lin promised. “We don’t want to look lazy to our guests. They might get the idea anybody can sail her.”

“It’ll be nice to have some air conditioning.”

“That and heat and a big still for fresh water and no need to skimp for lights and cooking, or high end electronics. The sort of a boat that can entertain some very wealthy guests and charge premium rates,” Lin said, smiling.

*

“We’re going to set the shuttle down after supper. You want to come see if it blows up like a bomb?” Jeff invited. “Heather came back for it and Dave and his foreman will be there.”

“Wouldn’t miss it for anything. Is there room for Gunny?”

“Sure, we may all have to breathe out to get the door closed, but bring him along.”

*

Mr. Gilroy was a retired aerospace engineer who held a number of patents and still owned a respectable interest in a Luxemburg corporation which built aerospace components. He had retired to the French habitat and recently transferred to Home. He occasionally consulted with Dave’s and other ship fabricating shops, but from the stock reports of his company, he very likely didn’t need the income to survive.

He was waiting for Frank to get through fitting his current customer and take his measurements to order some shirts and the sort of loose canvas working man’s pants he’d grown fond of as a young man working in eastern Europe. He had no idea where to buy them now. He couldn’t find an online source that wasn’t a variation on western jeans. His last two pairs were worn well past the point of soft and comfortable and into ragged and ready for the trash. Still, one could serve as a model for the tailor, if he could buy some real canvas.

Lindsy served him tea and sat quietly, because he hadn’t been chatty the last time he came in. She was learning to tell quickly what people wanted. But he was watching her sketch intently.

This week’s drawing included a pleated skirt. Something she had never seen yet on Home, but Cindy wanted it. The male model was wearing an unstructured linen jacket with no pockets and a thin unnotched lapel. They were standing in the corridor looking at one of her drawings in the shop window. They were seen from the shop side of the window, avoiding a succession of smaller versions of the same picture and besides, it showed their fronts this way. The new electronics store across the corridor got a free plug too. Getting just enough reflection to hint that the glass was there was challenging.

“If I were to bring you a photo of a breakwater, running out to a light in a harbor. Could you do a drawing of me standing leaning on the hand rail?”

“Sure, you want me to draw you leaning forward on your elbows, or back to it?”

“Forward and seen from the front quarter, with the breakwater running away to the right, just like it is in the photo.”

“Just you or do you want other people in it?”

“If I gave you another photo of me with a lady, do you suppose you could do us side by side?” his voice caught funny and Lin looked at him surprised.

“This was a special time and I’m afraid we didn’t take many pictures back then. We took a trip there the autumn before she died. I’m fortunate to have the one I’d show you as a model.”

“This is somebody special to you?” Lindsy asked. She wasn’t totally oblivious.

“Very. We were going to get married, but she was taken from me before that happened.”

“I’m sorry to hear that. I’d be happy to do that for you.”

“What is your commission?”

“I’d be happy to do it as a favor and thank you for your trust.” Lindsy said. She could feel herself tearing up at the story. Her brother might mock her, but she couldn’t charge him.

“No, I’m not poor and you deserve to have your skills properly acknowledged. I’d insist on paying you,” he said, but kindly.

“Then look at it when I’m done and gift me whatever you feel compelled to offer.”

“That’s fine,” he agreed. “I keep copies on my pad. I’ll transfer them right now.”

*

Jeff and Heather, April and Gunny Mac, Happy and Jeff’s hired man Louis, Dave and his foreman all crammed into Jeff’s offices. There was tension and excitement and the strong odor of brewing coffee in the air. Everyone was settled in for a long session. The repaired Happy Lewis was in polar orbit as the observation platform and relay, because it still carried high definition cameras and booms to separate them for an artificial aperture. Jed Allison was mission commander, although not piloting.

“We will lose sight of Dionysus’ Chariot briefly during its braking and descent. But the Happy will catch up and come across the horizon before it touches down. Unless there is some problem, we intend to let it land on automatic. It has a simple millimeter radar that can survey the landing area from about a kilometer in altitude and steer away from any large boulders or highly sloped areas,” Dave explained to everybody.

“And if there is a problem, what then?” Gunny asked.

“There could be a couple tenths of a second delay, going through the Happy and relay satellites, so we don’t want to land it by remote manual control. We’d have it abort the landing and lift it back into orbit. We’ll try again, or do it somewhere we can remote control it real time, if it can’t land itself.”

Jeff spoke up. “We don’t have a good enough set of controls for remote handling yet. We’ll make up a set that closely duplicate the actual controls in the shuttle, but for now we’d have to use game controllers. That’s fine for training simulators, but not remote control. The orbit to orbit simulators are too different and I don’t want to risk my shuttle to generic game junk. If it craps out we don’t get a do over. I want that stuff built to serious specs.”

“Who decides on the abort?” Happy wondered.

“The landing software can declare it has no solution and give up, or Jed being closer with less lag can act, or I can decide to abort it from here, as a last resort,” Jeff added. “Grab coffee if you like, there are sandwiches in the refrigerator too if anyone wants. We will be doing an initial burn to polar orbit in about six minutes.”

Everybody was seated and comfortable, there were a couple low conversations that cut off when the speaker came on. “Earth Control, this is the armed merchant Happy Lewis out of Home. We are performing a burn to polar orbit. Transmitting the elements to you now.”

“Happy Lewis, your maneuver does not interfere with any other traffic. We are obligated to advise you that you will be repeatedly entering the Siberian special interest zone. They advise all traffic that using downward looking targeting radar, or separation of any object from your vessel can result in being fired upon with no warning. This is a notice from a sovereign and is only repeated, not issued, by Earth Control.”

“Understood Earth Control, given the ridiculous prices of nuclear missiles, I don’t blame them for failing to provide a warning shot. This will not inconvenience us.”

Earth Control seemed immune to humor and failed to acknowledge that at all. “Happy Lewis, your orbital path approximates the drone freighter Dionysus’ Chariot, running about twenty minutes ahead of you. Are you controlling that vehicle?”

“Negative, Earth Control. We are observing that drone, but it is in testing and running autonomously. We have the ability to command destroy it, if it should become a hazard to navigation.”

“That’s good to know Happy Lewis, it’s very unusual to see a private drone in polar orbit. Usually they are government surveillance platforms and then they are usually lower.”

Earth Control had certainly gone from all business to chatty suddenly. Were they trolling for information? and for whom? “We’re the ones with the cameras,” Jed Allison acknowledged. There were plenty of people they would be overflying who could see they had booms out on each side. Not much else those could be. So it was hardly a secret revealed. “It’s always nice to have pix of where you have been to show the kids back home,” he quipped.

“Indeed, thank you Happy Lewis, Earth Control out.”

The display showed the orbital changes. Nothing would happen for a bit so several people used the restroom and Gunny and April grabbed a sandwich. People were texting their work or checking the news. That all quieted down as the Dionysus’ Chariot came up on its de-orbit burn.

“Thirty seconds,” Jed reminded them from the Happy. Another minute went by silently. “We have a good burn and cut-off. The throat should be sealed with a disk now, the arm remaining until there is air pressure on it. She has flipped and oriented for aerobraking successfully.”

Dionysus’ Chariot was a meteor across the south Atlantic sky. A handful of ships might see her and not know if it was a natural object or manmade.

“Telemetry indicates stable attitude and skin temperatures in hypersonic flight,” Jed noted aloud what they could also see in the data feed.

“Happy Lewis, we lost radar tracking on your drone. Have you lost the vessel?”

“Negative Earth Control, this is an expected maneuver.”

“We need to be aware of traffic descending below sixty thousand meters for interference with civilian air traffic, including high altitude drones and aerostats that can fly higher than manned aircraft.”

“Earth Control, Dionysus’ Chariot will not descend into controlled airspace until it is south of sixty degrees south. We checked to see there are no scheduled supply flights for any of the Antarctic stations for the next three days, she will set down briefly in a remote uninhabited area and lift again as a test of her landing systems.”

“All Antarctic landing have to approved by the ATS under the Antarctic treaty. You can’t just land on the continent without permission.”

“Actually, Home is neither a signatory to the Antarctic Treaty, nor has it acceded to it formally, so we are not bound by its provisions. However just to assure you, we neither intend to discharge any pollutants, nor will we collect any samples. We’re simply going to set down and lift again. We’ll disturb an area no bigger than one of the scientific teams would pitching a tent and for a shorter time.”

“I’m obligated to forward this to the proper authorities,” Earth Control warned him.

“I’m sure you are,” Jed laughed. “It seems you have a hard time understanding, we don’t acknowledge the same authorities. So, ‘I’m going to tell’ doesn’t mean much to us.”

“If everybody just flew wherever they wanted it would be chaos and there would be accidents!”

“We totally agree,” Jed assured him. “That’s why we call and tell you when we shift orbits and move station to station, that’s reasonable, but we’re landing in a remote area of high altitude desert, with no population or ecology to speak of. Nobody owns it. The signatories have all agreed to form a club and respect each other’s pledge not to use the whole continent for any commercial purpose, etc, etc. But I have yet to read that they have agreed to exclude by force anyone not in their treaty. Do you mean to tell me nobody has intruded south of sixty degrees since 1959?”

The Dionysus’ Chariot dipped under the horizon ahead of the Happy. It was crossing the continent now at hypersonic velocity. It would be most of the way across, but still in the air, before the Happy caught up to line of sight again at orbital velocity.

“There are cruise ships and over-flights, very tightly regulated for air pollution and fuel spill hazards and once a fellow flew his own plane in and didn’t have fuel to get home. A crazy person in a single, piston engine plane. They refused to sell him any fuel and made him take the plane back on a supply ship,” Earth Control rambled on, Jed ignoring him.

The Happy came back over the horizon and established a link with Dionysus’ Chariot again. “Everything on schedule, down to Mach 3 now, speed brakes out, tip up and engine start in three minutes.” Jed told the crowd back on Home.

“You have to get permission even to sail through the Southern Sea in a private boat,” the Earth controller asserted, still talking.

April wondered if Papa-san would ask permission to sail through? She doubted it.

The tip up maneuver was critical. The shuttle did not have sufficient control surfaces to pitch up in an abrupt stall. To pull up in a climb would take them far higher than they wished, before it was actually vertical. So the attitude jets on the nose were extra large to help it rotate, in theory. The plasma engine would not start for the tail balancing decent until it was near five degrees from the vertical. Thrust vectoring would let it balance on its tail from there.

“Here comes the rotation,” Jed told them, drowning out something from Earth Control.

“We have ignition,” Jed told them. But they could see the bright spark of it in the video feed.

“I’ll be damned. It didn’t blow up,” Dave marveled from his seat.

“Shuttle indicates it has a target area and everything is working fine. It should be on the ground in less than a minute,” Jed continued his commentary.

Everyone waited in tense, quiet anticipation.

“All three jacks down and locked. Engine easing off thrust. Number two jack extending to level it up and we have shut down,” Jed said, very satisfied.

“That’s the easier half of it,” Jeff said, still tense. “That’s a third of all the cash I had, sitting there. I really, really hope it lifts off OK.”

“If it started in flight, there’s no reason it won’t sitting on its tail,” Dave assured him. “It’s a simple robust mechanism and we tested it lots of cycles.”

“How long before it can take off again?” Gunny asked.

“As soon as the throat temperature drops to two hundred degrees a little robotic arm will slap an aluminum disk over it. Then the drive chamber will be purged with argon and it will start pumping down. We have a vacuum canister that sucks about ninety percent of the argon out, then we have two small commercial vacuum pumps that will take it down to two-tenths torr, not a very good vacuum at all, but plenty low to start the plasma drive. Call it twelve minutes,” Dave said. “We should be able to speed that up in the future.”

“When does the robotic arm withdraw?” April asked.

“After the vacuum canister evacuates most of the drive chamber. Atmospheric pressure will hold the disk on the opening then. Assuming it retracted before the in air engine startup. If it didn’t it was vaporized,” Dave explained cheerfully.

“Thanks, I needed to hear that,” Jeff complained.

“Though I doubt that happened,” Dave added.

“Oh, good image!” April said excited. The cameras on the Happy Lewis showed a tiny dark obelisk poised in a wide stony area. There were shallow rolls in the gravel but no real ravines or boulders, just a few head sized stones widely scattered. You couldn’t see any detail of the shuttle, but it was the only manmade shape on the plain.

“We’ll lose telemetry in another four and a half minutes,” Jed predicted. Earth Control was still babbling about something. “Do you acknowledge Happy Lewis?”

“I’m sorry I was involved with the drone. Acknowledge what, Earth Control?”

“Do you agree not to land on Antarctica again?” the controller repeated.

“Hell no. I might need to sit down there in an emergency. I’m not voluntarily giving up any rights. If you want us to join the Treaty Association make a formal request to the Home Assembly. They will probably tell you to go pound sand too,” Jed predicted.

That seemed to stun Earth Control into silence.

“We’ll be back in contact in about forty minutes,” Jed told Earth Control. “Happy Lewis is ballistic, no maneuvers anticipated, com open on frequency, but no traffic for you, so out for now.”

That might be taken for a hint to shut up, but not quite that rudely.

“I’m going to take a little walk in the corridor, to stretch my legs before we have to sit again,” Gunny informed April.

“Let me join you,” April begged. “The guys in the Happy have more room today.”

“Is the shuttle Jeff’s private vessel, or is it one of the things you three own as partners?” Gunny asked, out in the corridor.

“I’m not sure. I haven’t asked Jeff how it was built. I mean, which company paid for it and holds title. Heather and I never try to rein Jeff in much. He seems to have good instincts. We do more suggesting of new things, than shooting down his ideas, except in the rare case he tries to bite off too much.

Gunny looked like he wanted to say something about that, but swallowed it.

“It must be a joint venture,” April decided after thinking about it. “He said it took a third of all his cash. I don’t think he has that much private money of his own right now. That’s fine with me,” she added quickly. “We’ve needed this for a long time.”

“So you probably own a third of it,” Gunny asked again.

“Yeah, but let me make sure. Why? Do you want to hire it? Even if it was Jeff’s private ride, he’s going to need to put it to work, profitably.”

“Yeah, but I was thinking security work and I’d feel more comfortable talking to you about that sort of business.”

“Time to go back,” April said, stopping in the corridor. She didn’t start back though, just planted herself hands on hips looking up at Gunny, who looked a little uneasy under her gaze, even from below. “Thank you, you big, rough, Shakespeare quoting man.”

“You are, uh, welcome. But for what?”

“Because that told me you respect me,” she said, satisfied and started back.

When they got back, the plot showed less than ten minutes before the Happy came back into line of sight with the Dionysus’ Chariot again. April got a refill on coffee, but Gunny claimed he was jittery enough, holding up a hand with a fake tremor. The shuttle would lift seconds after a new com link was established and rejoin the Happy in orbit. This time they would be much closer though, within sight of each other if all went well. There were no passengers and the drive was more efficient at higher thrust, so it would climb out at twenty Gs.

The camera view was a rush of ocean, with occasional flashes of ice. Then there was land briefly, before it locked on the landing site and started zooming in. The image stabilized on a valley and the board showed a data link established. A bright pinpoint was suddenly visible in the distance, before they got close enough to see the actual black fuselage.

“Earth Control, this is the Happy Lewis again. You should be getting a automated update from our drone relayed through us. It is going to lift back to join us in orbit. Are you receiving the intended orbital elements?”

“Happy Lewis, we reject the requested orbital insertion. It was not approved by the ATS. All landings and takeoffs have to be approved by the ATS. They indicate they wish your vessel to remain on site until they can dispatch a team to inspect for environmental damage and determine if it can be removed by other means.” The shuttle drew a bright line climbing while he was still speaking.

“We refuse, Earth Control. We would alter our course for safety, for flight hazards and potential collision, but not for political stupidity,” Jed explained. “Too late anyway, our vessel is in the air already, climbing out of lower level controlled air space even as we speak.”

Indeed, the bright spark of the shuttle lifting grew brighter and more circular as it tilted away from the camera, climbing to their level as they caught up to it.

“Yesss!” Jeff breathed.

“Didn’t blow up twice,” Dave said, smugly. “I can’t wait to tear that thing down and see the surface wear and what kind of stress we put on the drive housing.”

“Yeah, with a little luck we can reduce some of the weight of that housing. It’s a pig now. But I’m just relieved to get it back.”

“You think the Earthies had a fit about us landing there,” Dave told him. “Imagine the horror if it had blown up like a bomb on lift-off and strewn parts and pieces a kilometer in every direction all over their pristine environment!”

“Good point. Well, we are clean away and they don’t have any cause for complaint now,” Jeff said.

“Dionysus’ Chariot just made a corrective burn,” Jed informed them. “It has sufficient reactive mass to reach Home and everything appears to be operating correctly. I’m going to shut down this com feed if you are satisfied and we will follow her in.”

“That’s fine Jed, thank you. We’re shutting down this party here. Thank your crew too.”

Jeff shut down all but the plot that showed the two dots tight in polar orbit. They wouldn’t change that until they were on the other side of the Earth.

“I’m going to the beam dogs’ place and have a drink and I’m buying if anyone wants to come along,” Jeff invited them.

Chapter 33

“That’s remarkable,” Nolan Gilroy said softly. He studied the drawing intently, but didn’t touch it, as if he was scared he’d mar it. “What made you put a sweater on her?”

“The water is rough like there is a pretty good breeze and you mentioned it was in the fall. If it’s bad I’ll redo it.” Lindsy offered.

“No, it’s actually correct. She did have a sweater, but an Icelandic one, not a button up. I just assumed you’d copy the photo exactly, but you got it closer to reality, all on your own.”

“Did you have a jacket on?” Lindsy asked. She’d put him in a windbreaker.

“No, I froze my butt off and she gave me a hard time over it,” he laughed. “It’s fine just like it is. I’ll recommend you to some friends.”

Lindsy took that to mean he was accepting it as a gift, but when he carefully put it back in the portfolio he took his hand comp out.

“Let me swipe your port,” he demanded.

Lindsy didn’t look until he was gone. He paid her five-thousand EuroMarks. She wasn’t sure how much that was in dollars, but EuroMarks were bigger, if she remembered right.

*

“Will you be able to continue installing the final systems and the acceleration couches, while you tear the drive chamber down?” Jeff asked, over a mug of local brew.

“Yes, but you want me to do a thorough analysis on that drive. Every kilogram I take off of the chamber is a kilogram of lift capacity, or better acceleration,” Dave reminded him.

“If it x-rays clean and the outside passes a dye test, can you cut it down instead of starting from scratch. That was an expensive hunk of steel to lift to orbit.”

“Sure, we’d have to fabricate new mounts, but that’s cheaper than a hunk of die steel the size of a beer keg.”

“Could you leave the mounts the same and just mill pockets on the outside and leave a grid of ridges on it to stiffen it?” Jeff suggested.

“Maybe, I’ll run a simulation, that’s going to be a high end analysis, it may take a couple hours to run. I’m not sure how you optimize the size of the pockets either. Where did that idea come from?” Dave asked, surprised.

“I saw it on some pix of old hot rod cars,” Jeff admitted. “They used it to lighten all sorts of housings.”

“You’ll read just about anything won’t you?”

“I’ve never been able to get into romances.”

*

“Turn on the Earth news,” Jon urged Jeff. “I’ve got CNN and the BBC both running.”

“OK, I was sleeping. It’s going to take me a minute to get up to speed.” Jeff cheated by going in the bathroom first, donning his spex. He’d be out in a minute to see it on the big screen. He wasn’t going to sit out there very long at all with a full bladder.

The scene in both views was of the UN chambers. “Emergency Meeting called by China,” proclaimed one banner. “Invasion of protected territory,” said the other. The Brussels building was vast and dwarfed the old New York headquarters. The seats didn’t appear to be packed for an emergency meeting. Jeff wondered what sort of quorum they needed to resolve anything.

“The robot freighter Dionysus’ Chariot,” the speaker was saying, “owned by a Home company controlled by Jefferson Singh, landed on Earth territory which all the permanent members of the Security Council have agreed to hold in trust and in common, as the heritage of all mankind. We have agreement in principle to this arrangement since 1959, from every legitimate Earth government.”

“Point of Order! The representative from Madagascar shouted angrily, standing up. “There are forty-two members who are active participants in the Antarctic Treaty or have formally acceded to it, but there are between a hundred and ninety or two hundred nations in existence, depending on your prejudices and how you count. We strongly protest our nation and indeed three quarters of the world’s governments being characterized as illegitimate. Carry on,” he invited and sat.

“Point taken. This arrangement has been agreed to by every important Earth government,” he corrected. He was fortunate that looks can’t literally kill. “While there is no previous UN resolution directly dealing with Antarctica, we feel the intent of the permanent members and supporting states, makes our will obvious.”

Jeff kept his spex on and started the coffee maker, before taking to the sofa and activating the main wall screen. The fellow was still talking.

“The People’s Republic feels it is time to add teeth to the treaty, given the defiant attitude of this Home citizen, Singh. I remind you Home has a history of ignoring their citizens’ piracies. They not only refused to acknowledge the need to apply for landing privileges, but ignored a direct order not to take off again. We thus advance the resolution appearing on your screens. It calls for the active members of the Treaty to be obligated to enforce its provisions, by the use of force if necessary.”

“Do you think Wiggen will have their rep veto this?” Jon asked on the still open link.

“I can’t think why,” Jeff decided. “Her political survival is better served by not seeming too favorable to us.”

The debate devolved into all sorts of details that didn’t seem relevant. Jeff needed the coffee and even opened another screen and did some work, while the representative from Brazil rehashed some grievance from twenty years ago.

When it finally came to voting it went quickly, Partially because of how few were there. Jeff and Jon didn’t really care if Iceland or Algeria disapproved of his landing. When it came to North America it was interesting. The United States of North America abstained. The Russian Federation abstained too. China of course voted for their censure. The surprise was when the representative from France stood and invoked their veto privilege. He could have done that and sat down, but he explained why, the translation scrolling on the screen as he spoke.

“The Antarctic treaty has survived for over a century despite being created during a time of great international tension. It wisely ignored the claims of various nations to territory on the continent, some of which were in conflict. Article IV sets aside these claims of sovereignty, yet the actions you request, by their nature, would raise issues of sovereignty again, even if a different, joint sovereignty. We believe it would destroy the Treaty. We are not unaware you have other issues with Mr. Singh, that would leave anyone in a bad humor. However the actions of this robotic space craft, examined alone, do not rise to the level indicated in this document,” he said, waving a hand at his monitor. “The possible damage to a few lichens and moss would be much less than you already accept from authorized exploration. We are not willing to throw away this Great Treaty for a,” – the captioning stopped. The translator made no attempt to caption the last few words and he was done speaking, sitting again.

“I don’t speak French. What was that last they didn’t caption?” Jeff asked, frowning, “A fair casa nervous?” he approximated.

“A colloquialism,” Jon informed him.“A snit fit you’d say, or even cruder taken literally. It wasn’t complimentary to the Chinese. It would indicate a lack of self control they might take as a loss of face.”

“I appreciate the French support, but I’d rather they didn’t provoke the Chinese. I’ve been very happy to avoiding fighting them,” Jeff reminded him. “Let’s hope he didn’t stir them up.”

“Seems to me they have to be awfully low, if not completely out of spaceships to trouble us,” Jon pointed out. “Between what got shot up in orbit over the last year and what you caught on the ground at Jiuquan how much can they have left?”

“I don’t know, but you raise a good point. I really need to task some of my people to get an accurate count.”

“You have - people?” Jon asked with dramatic pause and visible amusement. Let Jeff explain what sort of people he had, who could be given such a project. Jon was pretty sure Jeff was running some sort of intelligence group, but it was bad form to admit it.

It was too late to retract his slip and Jeff just frowned. Anything he said now could only make it worse.

*

“Some of our folks are determined to test Armstrong’s offer of employment,” Dakota revealed to Heather. “I’d do it myself, but not if I have to commute in a rover. It would be expensive, tiring and take way too long to come home for the weekends. Which is the minimum time sharing I’d consider for even a few months. They can’t offer enough to get me to move back full time.”

“What do you want me to do about it?” Heather asked. “I can barely afford transport here from LEO to bring in the things we need to expand. If you want to hire the Happy to fly back and forth nobody is stopping you, but you know it’ll eat up most of your wages to do that. I certainly can’t subsidize transport. If there are several of you, could you ride-share and get the cost down to a reasonable level?”

“We were talking it out. Two ideas seem workable. Would you talk to Dave, who has been doing your ship building and ask him how much a dedicated local shuttle would cost? Not capable of returning to Earth orbit and back, but just point to point on the lunar surface. Enough delta V to make lunar orbit and sit back down, with a little margin of course. Say six or eight seats, one of them being for the pilot. Not even pressurized, we’d ride in suits and just carry a little emergency reserve for the suits. He’d take it more seriously from you than us,” Dakota predicted.

“I’ll ask Jeff to talk to Dave,” Heather promised. “Jeff is the one who has always worked directly with him. But what is the second idea?”

“When you get all the local roads fused, we sort of wondered if you’d make a road from Central to Armstrong? We’d supply free labor to do it and chip in enough to offset the wear and tear on the rover. Central could own it and charge toll. Maybe give the volunteer workers a pass or discount. But we’re going to have wheeled vehicles for local traffic anyway. They’ll be so cheap to operate, they’d let us commute easily.”

“I’m not sure I want to fund a paved invasion route for the North Americans,” Heather explained. “Their last visit wasn’t that pleasant. Are you really that trusting suddenly?”

“Hey, the road goes both ways,” Dakota reminded her. “We are allowed arms and in Armstrong they are restricted to authorized personnel on duty. They can’t even take a Taser home off shift. I predict Central will have a bigger population than Armstrong within two years. Who is going to invade who? Let them sweat a road, not us,” she scoffed.

“Perhaps, but I still like your shuttle idea better, if only because it lets you visit other bases too. I’ll get us an answer about that and give me some time to think about a road, OK?”

“Sure, but consider this too. If you have a road, you might sell more lots to Armstrong people. Folks who would buy a place here for a second home, or a weekend retreat, because we are going to have shops and restaurants and things they have no plans for in Armstrong. They may be freeing things up a little, but they still have one government run cafeteria and a commissary. and we want to produce those wheeled vehicles locally. We have people figuring out how to make them with local materials, so you’d have a head start on sort of an auto industry.”

“That seems ambitious. Local materials?”

“Sintered steel and titanium. We’re thinking in terms of modules, kind of like Lego toys. A drive module and a passenger compartment module. Plug a flat bed on if you need to haul something like a truck, put more wheels under it for bigger loads, add another passenger unit if you need to carry four people. Picture it?”

“Very much so,” Heather agreed, amused. “Will I need an entire department of motor vehicles to make traffic laws and write vehicle standards?”

“Heather! Why mess up what’s working?” Dakota asked. “Consult with the guys designing them and publish a set of standards by Royal Decree. Maximum length, maximum width, minimum speed capability, allowable speed range for manual control vehicles. Maybe a high speed lane with automated control. Maybe a privacy protected log in system, so we know who is responsible for operating it if there is a wreck. You were going to have to do some of that eventually for local traffic anyway. I’m sure you can figure it out.”

“Your confidence is touching.”

*

“You have three days, you act sixty-eight hours from now,” The General told Col. Allister.

*

The >BOOM< jarred her physically, rocking the bed. She woke to complete darkness which was wrong, she always had enough of a light to find her way to the bathroom. Even outside the window was pitch dark, wrong again on so many levels.

>CRACK< >CRACK< >CRACK< disturbed the brief silence, from inside the house.

>BOOM< sounded again, but followed by a long shredding sound and a horrible scream. President Wiggen threw the covers back and went to the closet. She had to get some real clothes on for whatever was happening. She wasn’t about to face it in her flannel nightgown. She was angry at herself for not having a flashlight and knowing where it was. The closet was closer than she gauged and she bumped into the door hard.

Light flared behind her and her empty bed was illuminated. “Oh my God, where are you Wiggen?” her security chief cried. He panned the room and caught her in the beam. “You scared me,” he told her, “I thought they beat me to you.”

“I’ve got to get dressed,” she informed him. “Shine that light in my closet will you?”

“Yes, yes and dress for outdoors, some good shoes, running shoes or cross trainers, not some silly dress shoes!”

“Are we running then?” she asked.

“Unless you want to stay here and die,” Mel Wainwright answered bluntly.

“Not especially,” she agreed, already fastening jeans. She sat and pulled shoes on, sturdy ones he’d approve of, not taking time for socks, but she jammed a pair in her pocket. A pull-over top and a sweater, it was cool out. She reached for a white one and then threw it on the floor, it would just make her a target in the dark. Instead she pulled on a chocolate brown one.

“Gloves if you have them too.”

She pulled a drawer open and grabbed fine leather dress gloves, all she had. “Lead on,” she commanded, as she was pulling them on.

“First you need this,” he stuck a spray injector to her neck and triggered it, before she could object, or fend it off. It burned and felt cold all at the same time.

“You’re knocking me out?” she asked, hand on her neck, angry at being tricked.

“Not at all! That’s a stimulant. It will help you run, not slow you down.” Come on.”

He went not to the door, but the window, pulling a strange weapon. “No visible beam. Polycarbonate target. Sixty percent power.” He wasn’t addressing her, oddly he seemed to be talking to the weapon. He used it to cut away the bottom half of the thick window, tilting it to cut a taper wider on the outside. The smell of burning plastic was choking and the plug melted back together on the bottom. A hefty kick fixed that and sent it tumbling into the dark. The rush of cool clean air cut the chemical smell quickly.

Mel was dragging a case from beneath the bed. One of many equipment boxes tucked here and there, she was encouraged to ignore. When he flipped the lid open it was a stout bar and a rope ladder folded back and forth accordion style. Mel scooped this up in an awkward bundle with both arms barely going around it, the bar against his chest. He waddled to the window and stuffed it in the opening, the bar coming up against the window frame noisily.

“Out you go, I’m right behind,” he assured her, offering her a hand to back out the window.

“Look down, don’t look back up here,” he commanded, as she felt him join her on the ladder. That seemed odd advice, until there was a dull concussion and flaming fragments of something sprayed past them from above.

There was a funny rushing sound in her ears and when she couldn’t find the next rung with her feet, she just lowered herself with hands suddenly stronger than normal. She took a breath that seemed deeper than any she’d ever taken before. When she reached the end of the ladder there was no ground under her feet and she let go without being told. It was only a meter or so to some bushes and they cushioned her fall. If she was scratched by them she never noticed. The drug had her heart pounding and she was insensitive to mere pain.

Mel rolled off the bushes and up against her. “Run with me,” he said, taking her hand and pulling her up. She ran like she never had in her life. There was just enough light from distant lamps and sky glow to see the fence. Mel jumped for the top and swung over with drug induced strength. She was crouching to jump even before he reached the top.

She let out an exultant cry of joy at the sheer physical power the drug gave her. She hooked her foot on the top rail and levered herself up and over the points with a push of her foot and both hands clutched around one of the uprights. Grabbing the bars below the top rail, she slide down, the metal shredding the palms out of her thin dress gloves.

When she looked back at the White House her bedroom window was shooting a flame out like a torch. Mel had made sure nobody would follow them out that way. There was a sudden burble of bullets cutting the air past them from a silenced weapon, clattering on the pavement and Mel urged her, “Come on!” pulling on her hand. He didn’t try to return fire.

Across the street there was a police barricade along the edge of the park. They cleared that with about as much trouble as a frightened deer. “Two more blocks,” Mel told her. To what exactly he didn’t say.

The first block went by and Mel turned right at the corner, cutting across the short side of the block to a new street. They turned left and that quickly they were back in an area that had power and it would have looked better in the dark.

Mel slowed to a walk, although it was hard to do in their drug agitated state and there were a couple large black men, bouncers in satin jackets guarding the roped off entry to a club, music escaping the entry behind them, but nobody waiting to go in at this late hour. The guards looked hard at this odd couple passing, he in a suit and she in casual clothes, as out of place in this neighborhood as a horse in church. She took the tattered gloves off and put them in a rear pocket.

A store down at the next corner showed lights and appeared to be open, its facade a mass of hand written signs, listing its goods and services, sprinkled with logo ads for beer and wine. A framed red on white sign assured everyone they took negative income tax cards. There were three thin, scruffy young men standing close to each other outside the store, their breath frosting the air. One had a paper bag and took a drink from it as they watched.

When they got near the store Mel walked off the curb into the street, telegraphing they wanted nothing to do with them. The trio sauntered, with an exaggerated slowness that fooled no one, into their path. Mel drew a black pistol, unlike the previous strange weapon and held it pointing up by his shoulder, finger along the trigger guard with perfect discipline.

The three men split without needing a consultation, one walking fast around the corner out of their sight, the other two suddenly remembering a purchase they needed to make in the store.

Mel holstered the weapon, but stayed in the street, ignoring a sanitation truck that had to swing wide around them. He cut right, into the side street the one young man had fled to. He was nowhere in sight. Cutting across, he went to an ally that ran up the center of the block between commercial buildings. He pointed a small device down the alley and there was rattle of a steel shuttered door being lifted by a motor, but it was so dark she couldn’t see it and the echoing sound in the dark alley was no help.

Mel took her hand again, confident and guided her. “Easy,” he warned her, slowing. “Feel ahead of you, low.” Her hand came up against something cold and hard. It was grimy too and she wiped her hand on top of her pants leg.

The noisy door came down behind them, making her jump. It was much louder now. Once it was down Mel turned on the same torch he’d used in her room. They were standing in front of a boxy delivery truck. Paul Romano and Sons Produce, it said across the front, in green letters with yellow shadowing. He beckoned and walked her to the passenger door. It unlocked with an old fashioned milled key and he slid it open.

Once Wiggen climbed in, a high step, both in and up, he went around and climbed in the driver’s side. The seats were much nicer than you’d expect in a utilitarian vehicle. He didn’t pause, sliding across the seat and going in the back. There was a rattle of keys again and metallic sounds. He returned and laid a heavy long gun on the floor within reach. A large white box with a red cross he propped against her seat and opened up.

She was surprised again when he stood back up, undoing his trousers, he let them fall in a pile around his ankles. Bright blood streaked his leg down the sides. There was a neat hole, still trickling blood.

“You didn’t say you were hit!”

“And what good would that have done?” he asked. He had a point. He took a little tube with a flange on the end and pressed it to the outside hole and pushed, injecting something in the wound. After a shudder and a pause, he did the same to the inside.

“Surely you need more attention than that. We need to get you to a hospital.”

“With the Patriots watching the hospitals? No thanks. My blood is on the sidewalk and even though I twisted my pants leg tight below the wound, I don’t doubt I left a drop here and there. If they don’t find it tonight they surely will in the morning. This will stop the bleeding, inhibit infection and if I never get further treatment, it will slowly dissolve as it heals.”

“What if there’s damage inside?”

“I can still feel my toes and move them, so no major nerve damage.” He was fitting a flexible cuff on his right hand while he talked. “If it had hit the artery, or bone, I wouldn’t have run here two blocks with you, drugs or no drugs. As soon as this cuff finds a vein in my hand, I’ll put a slow drip on it to replace some of the fluids I’ve lost and we’ll get out of here before they track us down. Ah, good,” he said, when the cuff around his hand showed a green light.

He hung the soft IV bag on a coat hook behind his seat and eased the pants back up past his knees but didn’t fasten them, turning carefully to face forward. “Would you go in the back,” he asked, handing her his flashlight. “There is a bin labeled ‘rations’ and I’d like you to get us several energy bars and bottles of water. Also there as a big plastic bucket. Dump the stuff in it out on the floor and bring it and the rations back up front please.”

She did as he asked, carrying the stuff up front in the bucket. He dumped the food out and left the empty bucket between the seats. “What is the bucket for?”

“It will likely be obvious in a bit,” he said cryptically.

The truck started with a low rumble, which meant it was a Diesel, not an electric or fuel cell drive train. He ran the door up and when it was all the way up turned on his headlights and pulled out. She heard the door start back down behind them as soon as they cleared. They went a few blocks and pulled into an open market, busy with activity, even though there was no sign of the sun yet. Mel parked by some other trucks, plugged his hand comp in the dash and did something.

“We are going to fake making a few deliveries, working our way to the west bit by bit and somewhere out near the edge of the Metro area we’ll stop and when we start again we’ll be a different truck,” he promised.

“I don’t feel so good,” Wiggen complained. “My hands are shaking and, uh…”

Mel handed her the bucket quickly. She shoved her face in it and was horribly sick.

“Unfortunately, that is the price for the boost my spray gave you.”

Wiggen rinsed her mouth out with one of the bottles of water.

“Why aren’t you sick then?”

“I had three of those injectors,” he explained. “They’re calibrated for me and I weigh about ninety-five kilo. I never thought to have one made up for you at a lower dosage.”

“For all you knew it could have killed me!”

“Well staying there was going to kill you for sure,” he said, shrugging.

*

“We were able to secure the White House, the Pentagon is effectively neutralized, but only with extensive damage and the Executive building was seized almost empty and is secure. andrews is contained. Nobody can approach it without being intercepted, but internally we don’t control it completely. Most other posts and facilities in the area are occupied or neutralized.

The CIA building is isolated, but it’s worth your life to move anything within two kilometers of the place. Fortunately they don’t seem to be actively resisting us. They made most of their satellite offices, including overseas just – disappeared - en masse.”

Col. Allister took a deep breath. “The fly in the ointment, is that President Wiggen was spirited away by her Security Chief, Wainwright. He is however wounded. We found his blood outside the perimeter fence.”

“You came that close to stopping them?”

“Actually, he was wounded by friendly fire from the roof. The first team in was advancing on Wiggen’s bedroom door and her security got a bit ahead of them. They were in the hallway when he detonated a Claymore and wiped them out to a man. It was the B team that finished securing the building and by the time they arrived at her room it was completely engulfed in an intense fire.”

“Yes, it’s unfortunate that got to the news services before we could catch it,” The General said, rubbing his face. “By the time they got video of it the neighboring rooms were burning too. The public has a nostalgic fondness for the building. Well, the Canadians did a better job of burning it before and it was rebuilt,” he allowed with a sigh. “Are there records of any systems put in place to use for such an escape?”

“None of the known escape provisions were utilized. It appears her Security Chief improvised and avoided all the known routes and plans, known to anyone we interrogated.”

“I know Mel. This doesn’t surprise me. We are not going to easily consolidate our hold, until we have Wiggen in hand. What are you doing to accomplish that?”

“We have the full cooperation of the FBI, the majority of which came over to us intact. If they touch the public ‘net or financial networks with one fatal datum, we will be on them. Any transaction over a hundred dollars has to be assigned a Federal number, so they can barely buy dinner, much less rent a room for the night, without leaving a trail.”

“Let me know when you have them,” his leader said. Privately he considered the problem. The Colonel assumed Wiggen and Mel were on their own. If they had help they wouldn’t need to buy anything. But did they have anybody they could trust? Mel apparently didn’t trust his own organization completely, or he wouldn’t have made escape provisions outside official channels. Who would he trust to help? Not him obviously, or he’d have gotten a call by now. He’d very carefully never revealed his political leanings to the man. How perceptive of him. The General smiled, he had never tried to recruit Mel either, but seemed they had the measure of each other.

Chapter 34

“Something big is going down in North America,” Louis shouted over com, excited far more than was his usual calm manner. Jeff was still half asleep, his first thought being, So what do I care? This getting roused in the middle of the night was getting to be a bad habit and irritating, but he calmly asked Louis, “Is it something I need to get up to monitor?”

“I would if I were you,” Louis urged him. “I’m working station com and can’t come myself, but I think you should go in and check the news services. There is all sorts heavy traffic and the news has video of the White House on fire and dark all around it, no fire fighters or equipment responding. That has to be some sort of attack. There wasn’t any video, but the same service said there were explosions and fire at the Pentagon too. If Wiggen goes down it’s bad for us isn’t it? So I think it matters a great deal what’s happening down there now.”

“I’m afraid you’re right on that part,” Jeff admitted. “I’ll get up and see if I can make any sense of it.” He was sleeping at his office, which he’d probably neglected to tell Louis, so he wouldn’t need to go in, he was there. He just got up, rolled up the comforter he was sleeping on and reversed the pump on his air mattress to compact it again. A quick shower was in order too. He might be mostly awake by the time he was done. He put on his spex and told the coffee maker to start a pot and stood in the shower set on pulsating, letting it blast him in the face. He was so groggy, it took him a few seconds to realize that wasn’t going to do much good if he didn’t take his spex off.

*

The cloud of pellets approached the Rock from behind. The mechanics of orbits make a retro orbital approach difficult. Pretty much everything is launched the same direction as the earth’s rotation, to not waste that free motion. Even offsetting that orbital motion, to achieve a polar orbit was expensive in propellant and outside the ability of some heavily laden vessels. To actually force a complete reversal of orbital direction would require refueling and then extravagant waste of that fuel. That’s why Home was riding ahead of the rock in orbit, for protection from the only practical approach.

There were eight hundred tungsten pellets, cubes actually, as they needed to pack compactly in the projectile in which they were launched. Six hundred some of them impacted the end of the Rock, each going fast enough to vaporize the individual pellets. The total energy was not enough to change the orbit of the captured asteroid measurably, or a display from afar more exciting than a sudden scintillating flash, but more than sufficient to shred the two men working on the extraction equipment so thoroughly, that they never felt the instant of their death.

The millimeter radar sited near the extraction equipment was damaged enough to put it out of service, but unfortunately for the men who launched this kinetic weapon, it did not do so quickly enough to keep the data from it traveling a fiber to the other end of the Rock and being transmitted to Home. The radar provided a trajectory for enough individual pellets to back track their long range trajectory and spread, to a very specific time and place.

*

“Mel, that’s a Home weapon you used to cut the window open, isn’t it? Have you been an agent of Home all along?”

“As if even I could smuggle an unofficial weapon into the White House! No, the laser is simply the best of its class to be had. We bought three by roundabout methods in Tonga, so they wouldn’t know where they were going. They were checked out very carefully before being allowed near you. Before we even allowed then in DC for that matter.”

“What was that terrible blast I heard before you came in my room? Somebody was screaming at the end.”

“There was a team coming up the hall to seize you, or more likely kill you. I got ahead of them and positioned a Claymore I kept in an attaché case, in the hall. When they were about halfway down the hall from the elevators I detonated it. Four hundred little pyramids of hard steel, at rifle bullet velocities, clears a hallway pretty efficiently. I’m just surprised there was enough of one of them left to scream. He must have been in the ballistic shadow of the others at the rear. A fluke for sure.”

“But they had other forces or they wouldn’t have shot you in the leg as we were running away,” Wiggen suggested, eyebrows scrunched in thought, trying to visualize it all.

“I knew they had other forces, from other gun reports I could hear further away. I’d never have grabbed you and ran, if I thought we could retain control of the White House. But they were not using silenced weapons, likely one of our guys shot me, from our own crew. They had suppressed weapons for close in work. Normally they wouldn’t be expected to engage targets clear out at the perimeter fence. If he’d had a rifle instead of a sub gun we’d be dead. I can’t blame him, no friendly forces were planned to be there.”

Mel pulled in behind a Big Box store and parked away from the docks, but watching them with three other trucks. Nobody would think anything of it if he didn’t run in. If he’d been driving all night it wouldn’t be unusual to take a nap, seeing the docks full and the other truckers wouldn’t bother him.

“Time for an energy bar and some water. The cherry ones are really good.”

*

“It looks like they are shutting down all the commercial air traffic too,” Louis informed him. “As they land they are not allowing new flights to take off. I don’t see them diverting flights to land early though.”

“What would be the point of… >WHAMMM<.

A concussion shook Jeff’s office so hard his coffee jumped off the edge of the desk and splattered across the floor. One of the corners of his wall screen tore loose and it dangled at an angle, still working against all reason. When he looked closer the whole wall was bulged behind it and the attachment anchor uncovered where the screen dropped. The lights switched over to dimmer emergency lamps and then came back on in seconds.

“Did you feel that?”

“Shit, shit, shit. Can’t talk.” Jeff could tell from the stabbing motions Louis was working his board like crazy, trying to find out – something. If he didn’t feel the explosion he certainly had evidence of it on his com board.

“Put your suit on,” Louis told him, scowling and jumped up from the station com board, likely to put his own suit on. That seemed excellent advice, in fact Jeff was embarrassed he had to be told to do it, with his bulkhead all bulged in front of him.

*

Near two-hundred pellets in a ring sped past the Rock. Most of them struck nothing and continued beyond, climbing away from the Earth at a slight angle. They would reach an apogee that did not endanger the geostationary communications satellites, but a perigee that would not result in all of them reentering the Earth’s atmosphere, until several other spacecraft and habitats had been damaged.

The angle was such that a small crescent of Home’s rings were exposed to the cone of hazard and three pellets tore through pressure, destroying an air processing plant, a self-storage facility and the shower room for the beam dogs, with three workers just off their shift using the facility.

One pellet struck the construction radio shack, with two workers and a dispatcher inside. The only survivor was a worker in a hard suit, who still had his helmet closed. Another pellet hit a FedEx robot freighter parked, waiting for dockage and debris from that damaged an orbital shuttle inbound from New Las Vegas, but without casualties.

Seven dead and three with minor injuries was a minor car crash in New Jersey, or an unimportant Drone strike in the Trans-Arabic Protectorate, but it was a national catastrophe for Home.

*

>THUD< woke Eric with a jolt. The lights were out to sleep, but the emergency lights came on for a few seconds before they went back out and returned him to darkness. He called the regular lights back up and was relieved when they came on. He immediately went to the entry cupboard and got an emergency pressure suit. When he went back in the living room, both his mother and sister were peering out of their rooms, looking worried.

“Did somebody tell you to put on your pressure suit?” his mother asked, critically.

“Nobody needs to tell me to put it on. Something is wrong for there to be some kind of an explosion, like that noise just now and I’m not taking any chances.”

“You heard how much it costs to fix one of those suits back up. We can’t afford that, you need to put it back in the closet.”

“No,” Eric said, not arguing, just a flat refusal.

“What did you say young man?”

“I said no and if you try to take it away from me I’ll fight you,” he made clear. His sister was shocked speechless, mouth hanging open.

“If you don’t want to put one on that’s fine. I’ll put on your headstone – ‘She saved eight-hundred dollars.’ See if I won’t, but I won’t die, gasping in vacuum, so you can be cheap. I have eight-hundred of my own money, if it comes to that. You don’t know any better about living up here than Lindsy or I do and I say there’s some kind of danger right now. I’m not going to seal up and start using suit air, but I’m going to have it on and adjusted, just in case,” he told them. In fact it was unrolled and he was slipping his legs into the suit even as he spoke to them.

“You better believe I’m going to have some words with your father when he comes home,” Linda threatened him.

“Go ahead,” Eric said adjusting his sleeves. “I’m not a little kid anymore. I won’t do something I know is stupid, just because you tell me to. I wouldn’t do something stupid because dad tells me either, but I don’t expect him to tell me something this idiotic.”

The com screen lit up without anyone going near it and an unfamiliar face was displayed.

“There is a pressure emergency at several places in the rings. If you find your corridor door sealed be aware there may not be pressure outside your cubic. If you find that is the case please call the com code shown on the screen and inform maintenance. I suggest you keep your emergency pressure suit close to hand and take it with you if you move about Home. It appears from the multiple locations damaged, this was some sort of attack. We have no information yet if it is over, or ongoing. Your pardon for pushing this emergency message past your filters, but it seemed vital. This is M3 com, end message,” he said, awkwardly. It was obviously unscripted. He spoke into the camera and his eyes didn’t track like he was reading.

Eric had everything adjusted and the front seal pulled up all the way just a few centimeters short of closing and activating the air and the helmet faceplate open. That was good you could do that, because the helmet wasn’t easily removable.

“Is our outside door locked?” his mom asked.

“I don’t have any idea,” he replied. “I’ll go back and check it now. If it’s open I’ll check as far as the elevators to make sure we can get to them and be right back.”

Linda visibly forced herself not to say something, probably ordering Eric not to go out in the corridor, but swallowed it, knowing he might refuse again. Lindsy looked scared. They both stood there in their night clothes, not saying anything to each other until he came back.

“There is light and air in the corridor and nothing between here and the elevators, but beyond the elevators there is some kind of a wall sealing off the whole corridor. It has bright yellow stripes on it and no smaller door in it. But there’s a small view port and the corridor beyond the wall looks normal, but nobody walking around. Of course I can’t see if there is air.”

“Maybe we can get some news on the com,” Lindsy suggested.

“Go ahead,” Eric invited her, “it’s the middle of the night. I’m going to sleep some more. You won’t bother me.” They watched unbelieving as he laid back down on the sofa bed, still in the pressure suit and turned his back to the room.

*

“Where are you eventually going to stop?” Wiggen asked. They had gone west on surface streets and country lanes, until late in the day they came to the start of a suburban area. When they came to a fenced in self-storage facility, the office had a sign in the window that it was closed for the day. Mel produced a card and inserted it in the gate reader to gain admittance.

He had to get out to unlock the overhead door on a unit and lift it manually. The produce truck was backed into the unit and parked. His long weapon was broken down and put in a short bag that didn’t betray it’s nature and they locked up and went to the smaller unit next door. The door rose to reveal a plain vanilla sedan. There were cabinets in the back and Mel opened the trunk and tossed various bags and bundles in. He surprised her by leaving the long gun in one of the cabinets. Just when she thought he wasn’t going to answer her question, he did.

“I want to go into West Virginia. I have some com gear stowed in a cache there, with which we can call Home. Before you ask again, I don’t have any connection to Home, but I don’t have any base or facility on the continent I’m sure hasn’t been infiltrated by the Patriot Party. I have no way to remove you to Europe or South America. I didn’t have the means, or foresight, to stash away a boat or aircraft capable of reaching either. If I stole one I’d still need a pilot, because those aren’t among my skills. I didn’t fund these vehicles and equipment out of my own pocket. They were paid for by what little petty cash I was able to divert from your protective detail. It wasn’t that vast a sum.”

“Well, they made a big thing about freedom to travel to Home. We’ll see how committed they are to that,” Wiggen said. “Miss Lewis has asked favors of me. Time to call in a favor of my own and see if she knows how to play that game.”

“If she refuses, I suggest you cut her off from any more favors.” Mel advised, smiling at the irony of it.

“As charitable and forgiving as you know me to be, I just might have to, Mel.”

*

The M3 information site showed two damaged sections, right next to each other. Then a warehouse facility unhit and another damaged section, the one with an air plant. The two clustered together were separated from Jeff’s by one compartment. That meant there were two emergency pressure curtains cutting off adjacent sections of the rings. He was just outside the curtain, since he walked over the black stripe of it circling the corridor, every time he approached his office.

He got the blinking orange light of a high priority message and minimized the M3 map. It was Jon from security and he was in a plain t-shirt. Jeff had never seen him like that.

“Jeff we need you to activate your plan to attach ships to the south dockage and push the hab out of our current orbit. We are slowing the spin back down already to facilitate that.”

“Do you have an OK from Mitsubishi? and where do you want to move it? The plan had three alternatives.”

“Lewis gave me orders to move it, not a request, on his own authority as resident manager. He said it is well within his authority to do anything to safeguard M3’s physical integrity in an emergency. He says it is simply too dangerous to remain here. I didn’t argue with him,” Jon added. “As to where, he says L2.”

“I’ll start making calls right now,” Jeff promised. “I’m calling the construction gang and telling them to secure all their scooters and loose materials as a balanced load, within the hour. The radio shack will be grappled on the north hub and anything left behind will have to be towed or ferried to our new location. We should have two ships attached and start initial thrust between an hour and two hours. We’ll have the other two ships on by three hours.”

“You don’t have to worry about the radio shack. There isn’t enough of it left to be worth attaching, unless you need the scrap metal,” Jon said with a fierce face.

“Anyone hurt?”

“Sally and somebody in a suit we haven’t ID’d, are dead. Graham Norris was sealed up in a hard suit and it knocked him senseless. He’s in the infirmary with a concussion and doesn’t remember it. The Doc is looking him over for other problems.”

“Bring it anyway,” Jeff instructed. “Even if you have to tie it down under a net.”

“Whatever for?”

“It’s a crime scene. We want it for evidence. This was an attack, not a meteor.” Jeff pointed out the obvious.

“You are doing my job for me,” Jon declared distressed. “Be right back, I have to tell rescue and repair that the ring sites are crime scenes too and photograph and take samples accordingly.” His window dropped into a thumbnail in the corner and the audio cut off.

Jeff was getting a stiff neck tilting his head unconsciously to look at the canted screen. He thought about taking it down, but decided best leave it alone if it was working and worked his neck, getting a satisfying crunch.

Jon came back to Jeff frowning, “Thanks, I don’t know why I was treating it like an accident. Just couldn’t get my head wrapped around something so different, I guess.”

“Do you know who did this?” Jeff asked, face a mask.

“I’d be scared to tell you if I knew. When you get that dead poker face and icy voice I knew the question even before you got it all out. I had to clamp down to keep from pissing myself, picturing a couple billion megatons, hammering some country to the world’s biggest parking lot.”

“So you don’t know yet?” Jeff asked again, ignoring all the commentary.

“Targeting radar on the Rock gave us exact trajectories before it was destroyed. We compared that with the traffic catalog of known objects and have a match. The militia has already launched two volunteer ships to intercept. They will arrest anyone aboard if possible, do a search and document the equipment, then destroy the object before they return. They are already under way and no, before you ask, I made sure neither was one of the ships you needed to move us.”

“Thank you.”

“Promise me you’ll talk it over with a few people, before you kill a couple hundred million clueless Earthies and make us an even bigger stink to them,” Jon begged.

“Easily, I am not eager to do so and I will consult you if it comes to that,” Jeff promised.

“Thanks, gotta go and direct things. Call me if you need to,” Jon offered and disconnected.

*

“We have a really irritating problem,” Colonel Allister owned.

“Indeed?” The General said, adding a questioning tone to the single word.

“I told my boys to go ahead and wear their Patriot pins when they asked permission. I figured it would build morale and start the public getting acclimated to the new way of things. But it has spread online and by word of mouth, that if you are with the old regime, to wear a white brassard. Two of our agents with DHS here in the city were killed leaving lunch at a restaurant. They had on pins and no brassard.”

“Did you capture the assassins?”

“No, they were killed about 12:30 and laid on the pavement until a local cop patrol saw them about 1500. Nobody going to their cars, or coming and going from the restaurant called it in.”

“DC is different, The General asserted quickly, “Too many people owe their livelihood to the current administration and fear they will be cast loose, or even punished by the new. I wouldn’t take this for the mood of the nation,” he scoffed. But inside he was chilled. He frowned with thought. “How is it we didn’t get a report and location off the gunshot monitoring system? It’s supposed to locate any discharge within ten meters.”

“We obtained video from a dry cleaner. The agents were about halfway to their car when six men in masks stepped from behind vehicles with compound bows. They shot from ten to eighteen meter range and one agent managed to draw before going down, but didn’t fire. They took their weapons and IDs and disappeared in different directions. Except for a few shafts that went straight through, they were pretty much pin cushions,” Col. Allister said, visibly squeamish. “I had no idea body armor was so ineffective against arrows.”

“Yes, or swords, or blunt trauma from a club,” The General agreed. “I doubt you’ll run into such innovation on a wide scale though.”

“We have had one more incident I’d term ‘innovative. A foursome of Department of Agriculture agents went in a lunch place in Austin, wearing their pins. They made it back to the office before they displayed some respiratory distress. One managed to tell EMS where they had eaten, but the two in that ambulance were dead by the time they reached the hospital, poisoned,” he declared. “The ambulance with the other two never showed up at a hospital. The city fire department said it wasn’t manned by a crew on call and had been stolen. When a team went out to the restaurant it was empty and had been burned out before the crew running it dispersed.”

“Perhaps,” The General said, reluctantly, it would be better to rescind displaying the pins for now.”

“I already did,” Col. Allister admitted. “Sorry if I ran ahead of you. But what do we do about the brassards? If we wear false colors we risk friendly fire.”

The general had no answer to that.

Chapter 35

“It’s warm,” John Love told his Commander, calling from the militia ship Begger’s Ride.

“People or machinery?” Lu Lanakila asked from the command vessel Silly Willy standing off at a safer distance and relaying pix and data to Home.

“Could be either, not too hot for people,” he added. “Look at that snout on the thing,” John said as they glided in from the rear quarter.

“Hail them again,” Lu instructed. “Ship and suit frequencies and a few others just to be sure they know we are talking. They had radar up before, so they know we are here.”

“Nothing - arrogant bastards.”

“That framework is a rail gun,” Lu told him. “That what they look like on a Navy ship, when you strip the weather cover off. But that looks to be about three times as long as a ship’s. Don’t get on the business end of that. In fact, burn it off with laser fire, when you get a view closer to the point it emerges.”

John squeezed the controls gently, killing a little velocity toward the satellite, letting his angle of drift shift more forward. When he could almost see the base of the open lattice work projection from the front of the satellite, he had his gunner severe it. The man had to walk the beam across it three times before it parted. It was sturdier than it looked.

The cylindrical shape rotated slowly and with a steady motion that spoke of gyros rather than jets. There were no visible puffs of thrusters either. When it had rotated perhaps a third of a turn on its long axis it stopped.

“A USNA emblem came into sight from the other side when they rolled,” John sent. They could see it themselves from the feed, but nobody complained about his commentary.

“He’s doing a flip now. It moves slower on the long axis. That will bring the stub of the weapon to bear in maybe two minutes. Is it a danger with the extension cut off?”

“Yeah, it has an injection mechanism that starts the shot before it hits the charged rails. Pour laser fire in the opening and don’t let him line up on you. It can still toss a projectile out at about seven hundred meters a second, if it’s similar to a Naval unit.”

John hit the thrusters for side movement, taking him out of the plane the stub was rotating in. It stopped and rotated briefly on the long axis. It obviously couldn’t do both at once. His fire was melting metal around the weapon base, yellow hot globs floating off various directions. Suddenly there was a eruption of hot gas and debris from within.

“I think you probably heated up his projectile until the charge that opens the canister and spreads the shot ignited,” Lu theorized. The satellite stopped turning, so something significant had happened.

“What do you want us to do?” John asked. “Go over and cut our way in?”

“No, no, no. If they are idiots or fanatics, they may have small arms and resist. See the radiator fins on the back? Just set your laser on a wide beam and pour low power into the cooling system. Not enough to breach it, just to overload the system. When it gets to be a sauna inside, they can come out or cook. Up to them and they have plenty of time to decide. If they come out armed, use the laser on them. We have enough martyrs for my taste. I don’t want to lose anybody else. I read you fifteen hundred meters from them. Ease back a little as you paint them. If they self destruct I don’t want them to take you out too.

“I really, really thought it would be Chinese,” John said. “I guess we can’t blame this one on Singh. How far back do you think is safe for a small nuke?

“Better make it five kilometers. A nuke wouldn’t bust you right now, but why absorb any more radiation than you need to? Something big is happening in North America,” Lu told him. “Didn’t you see the news before we came out here?”

“No, they roused me in the middle of my night and I staggered to the ship without looking at anything I didn’t have to. I let my second have the comm and slept a little more on the way out,” he revealed. “Anybody wakes me up early, like these guys did, I’d just as soon put a missile up their butt and go home, begging your pardon if that doesn’t meet doctrine.”

“Take a look at the news feed. I don’t think anything is going to happen for a few minutes.”

“Oh crap!” John said out loud, when he found the picture of the White House on fire. “That’s going to piss off a lot of the peasants.”

“Really?” Lu asked. “I didn’t think the general population was that fond of the current administration.”

“They’re not, but there’s something about human nature. We pick sides. Even if both sides are great flaming jackasses, people still tend to pick one over the other, like it matters. Wiggen hasn’t made them love her, but she hasn’t desecrated national treasures either. Burning the White House is like dynamiting Mount Rushmore or melting down the Liberty Bell. People don’t like you messing with their childhood symbols.”

“Interesting, You might be right. Can you give me a temperature reading off the hull?”

“Just a hair over thirty-five degrees by the infrared emission,” John told him.

“Excellent,” Lu told them, “that’s past a pleasant day on the beach.”

It was another fifteen minutes before a suited figure came out the lock and held both empty hands up in front of him. The hull read forty-six degrees by then. “I give up,” he said over suit radio.

“Send your best zero G man over and shut off his valves and throw his air bottle back in the airlock. It’s too easy to put a bomb in one. If you want to take a bottle over to him it probably fits. He might feel safer to surrender. I wish we’d thought to make up a couple bottles with a sleepy mix. Make a note of that for next time. Put him in your freight module with the a second man and pressurize. Then peel him out of that suit and inspect it for suicide bombs, before you let him in your flight cabin.”

“We have environmental conditioning in our hold. We have four couches we install for passengers when we need ‘em. Why not just leave them back there?”

“You have the couches installed?”

“No, but I can hold down my acceleration on the way back. We actually have a bunch of small box freight we didn’t have time to offload, but they can lay on top of it in their suits and pull the net over them. It won’t be that uncomfortable.”

“Do it.”

“Turn around, I’m going to switch bottles on you,” they heard their man tell the fellow.

“Anybody else in there?” he asked. “This boy has lieutenant’s bars,” he informed his ship.

“Captain Jacobs, my CO. I shot him in the back of the head when he was at the board,” he said, voice cracking. “He was going to set off the charges to blow the satellite. I didn’t see any point in it.”

“Neither would I,” his captor agreed, searching him carefully. He was a huge man, with a blonde beard and mustache, visible in his big faceplate. Even being in a hard suit didn’t hide how big he was. Just the distance from arm joint to arm joint said how wide his shoulder were. He tossed a few belt tools in the airlock after the air bottle. “Here’s the drill. You have no maneuvering pack. I’m a beam dog, call me Al and used to moving and jumping loose, or with equipment bigger than you. Cross your ankles and fold your arms across your chest and I’ll handle you like a piece of construction material and take you to the freight module. You’ll wait in there with my buddy, while I take pix and grab anything interesting in your sat here. Just so you understand, if it’s booby-trapped inside, my friend will punch a small slit in your sleeve and shove you back out the hatch. You’ll get to see how long you can pinch it off before you can’t stay awake, or cramp up beyond holding it. Understand?”

“No traps,” the man promised. “If I thought like that, I’d have just let him blow it.”

“Makes sense,” the rigger agreed. “But if you could count on people making sense life would be a lot simpler. Get set like I told you.”

The man crossed his ankles and arms, floating free now, but Al grabbed him by the waist at the rear. He used the lock opening to brace and slowly turned him to face their ship which was just a specular glare of sun off the front ports, too far away to see a shape.

“You’re going to jump that far?” the man asked voice unsteady.

“Hey, I do this for a living. I’ve got a butt pack on, but I’d jump unpowered and hit it if I had the time. I’d be embarrassed to need it. We won’t take an hour to ease across today though, I’ll push us a little with the pack. You never do much EV I take it?”

“We rig a line across for transfer. I’ve never been out of contact.”

Al just snorted in disgust at that. He pushed the lieutenant away from him and pulled him back twice. “Seventy-five kilo?”

“Uh, the suit is twenty-two kilo and I was about fifty-six two weeks ago, but I lose weight in zero G, yes that sounds about right. You can really tell that from a shove?”

“After three years of pushing crap around all day? Yeah, I can shake a box of rivets and tell you how many left, within a half dozen. They favor little guys like you?” he asked. “No offense intended, it just surprised me how light you are. They have to build a custom suit for me and it’s a pain in the butt sometimes.”

“Very much so. They pick the smaller guys everything else being equal and even give us different PT requirements so the guys don’t do a lot of lifting and work out so much that they bulk up.”

“Here we go,” Al warned him and pushed off smoothly.

*

“If you will examine your rental agreements, contracts for services and standards for Mitsubishi 3, you will find that nowhere does it define what orbital elements M3 will keep, what attitude it will assume, or what rotational acceleration it will impart at your deck level. It does guarantee air mix and pressure over a fairly broad range and potable water, waste water removal and some sort of food service, though no menu or caloric guarantee. The only really fussy standard for which they assume responsibility, is that they will supply clean, well regulated power, such as is needed by most modern electronic devices, at standard voltage and frequency. and they only guarantee ninety-five percent up time on that.”

The man gaped at him, like a goldfish, suddenly cast out on the floor.

“Do you read your contracts?” Robert Lewis asked the man, disgusted. “Dear Lord, do you even read your credit card contracts, or your employment contracts?” The man’s grim face told him he’d hit right on target with that question.

“What exactly do you do here in LEO, that you can’t do out by L2?”

“My company grows crystals. It’s proprietary. I can’t say any more than that. I just don’t want to live clear the other side of the moon!”

“I can’t imagine why, but all I can suggest is, quit.” The man ignored that.

“How long will it take to go home on leave?” the man asked. “I only get two weeks twice a year. If the travel time eats up all my leave, is it even worth trying to go home for two weeks? and can we even get fresh food and things, clear the far side of the moon?”

“Perhaps you should have asked those things first, instead of a big emotional outburst and threatening me. I know a few men who would stop listening further when threatened and tell you to send a second, to talk to his man, at that point.”

The fellow blanched at that thought.

“But to address your worries, the conventional style shuttles will add about a day of travel to land on Earth. Trouble is there aren’t any really suitable for the trip right now, so somebody is going to have to build or modify a few, really quickly. What will happen, right away, is the few fast couriers in service will transport people to another station or habitat in LEO and you will take one of the regular shuttles down like always. The couriers are fast enough they will only take about six hours to drop you at say, New Las Vegas, or ISSII. It will be an added expense I grant you. Once you have lifted something to LEO that takes care of most of the energy cost to take it anywhere in space, short of Mars. It costs about fifteen percent more to take something to the moon, so taking something to lunar orbit, or one of the Lagrange points takes even less. Perhaps ten percent more. and while it is a dramatically different perspective, you are hardly off where the Sun or the Earth is a distant point of light. We will be making a halo orbit between the L2 point and the moon,” he demonstrated with his hands, “so we will constantly be looking at the rear of the moon from an angle and the marble of the earth will be constantly visible in the distance, past the edge of the moon. Does that help address any of your concerns?”

“A little,” the man admitted, still unhappy. “I’m glad to hear we’ll still be in sight of Earth. I suppose it won’t be too bad, even though it seems it will be a little gloomy, always looking at the dark side of the moon.”

“The back side gets just as much sun as the near side,” Robert assured him. Where do they find these idiots? he thought. “When this side is in shadow do you imagine the other side is not illuminated? Do you think they turn out the light? Where did you ever get the idea the far side was dark?” he asked, honestly baffled.

“I, uh, I’m not sure. I just heard the phrase and it kind of stuck with me. That’s good,” he acknowledged, the look on his face saying he was finally figuring out what an idiot he’d been and was embarrassed. “It’s not near as bad as I figured. Thanks for explaining,” he said and left as quickly as he could find the door.

Robert Lewis leaned back and rubbed his eyes, weary. He wondered how many more of those characters were still working their nerve up to come see him? He’d had one fellow already this morning who wanted to know why Mr. Muños would not call an Assembly and put moving to a vote. It was making for a long hard day, on top of damage assessments and reports to Mitsubishi. They at least, for a miracle, were not riding him or questioning his decision.

*

“I have one messy corpse, bagged up, the weapon,” he’d almost said murder weapon, but hesitated at the last second, unsure. “I cut the station computer out. Didn’t unplug it or even try to unbolt it. It’s still sitting on a chunk of bulkhead. There are a few printed manuals and a bunch of them on disk. I burned the lock off the lieutenant’s locker and stuffed his personal gear in a bag for him. You want one of the projectiles this railgun throws?”

“No, it’s pretty mature tech. Any other weapons, besides the one just used?”

“There’s one strapped to the Captain’s leg. I pulled its teeth and made sure the chamber was empty and left it in his holster. It’s just standard issue. I don’t see an arms locker. May I ask if we have leave to take personal prizes?”

“I don’t see what it would hurt,” Lu allowed. “As long as it isn’t an object of official interest. There is a long history of taking trophies from the battlefield, weapons of course, but coin or jewelry, if they were of high enough station to have them. It’s all going to be vaporized anyway.”

“Thanks, I didn’t think to check this guy for a wallet, but his locker had a full bottle of single malt Scotch, some chocolate bars and a couple kilo of Jamaica estate coffee. I’m going to lift those, since he has no further need of them. Nothing else looked worth taking. The food all looks to have military markings. I don’t think any of us are that desperate.”

“Better keep that stuff in a pressure container,” Lu advised. “Come on back and we’ll put a missile in that puppy and go home.”

“Ah yes, pillage and burn. My Viking ancestors would be proud.”

The flare was tiny but intense from fifty kilometers away. A brief, bright, pearl of plasma expanded above the night filled crescent of the Earth and was gone.

*

“Jeff, President Wiggen called me on a sat phone and asked if we could help her get to Home. Is there any way your new shuttle could pick her up? She has her Head of Security with her too,” April added.

“Do you really owe her a lift to Home?” Jeff asked. “Is it worth risking our shuttle, that is a substantial fraction of our worth and provoking the Patriot Party that seems to be taking over?”

“Is it part mine then?” April wondered. “Gunny asked me, but I never got around to asking.”

“It is, but consider that it affects Heather and I both.”

“I think it’s worth doing,” April said with conviction.“There’s no point in talking about provoking the Patriots, they hate our guts and want to kill us, no matter what we do. Wiggen has been more reasonable to deal with than anybody else was willing to be. Surely that’s worth something. There’s all kinds of chatter to indicate people are not accepting the coup graciously. They’ve had to impose curfews some places and some glory hound tried to push up to the CIA building with a main battle tank. Whatever they did melted it, about fifteen-hundred meters out. Seems like anything we could do to keep resistance going against the Patriot Party is smart,” she insisted.

Jeff sighed. “You have a rescue complex, you know?”

“I can think of a lot worse things you could say about me.”

“When is she supposed to call back?”

“She said about six hours. They need to move to a different place, with hills around them like they just called from and set up pointing at a French satellite that services the Caribbean.”

“Let me call Dave and see how close he is to having the Chariot back together and Jon to see if there is anything the militia can offer to do at all.”

*

“How could you sleep not knowing what might happen?” Lindsy asked. His mother didn’t ask anything, but was distant and cold. He hoped she stayed that way, instead of hot and vocal.

“How does it help to be sleepy if something does happen?” Eric checked the com screen for news and messages. “Wow, we’re going out past the moon. Have you read this? That’s how most space nuts define deep space work, translunar. I guess we’ll be part of a very exclusive club.”

That didn’t seem to impress his sister or his mother and he ignored their silence and got the buckle release tool, to stretch the suit limbs back to full length and roll it up. He laid down and went through the reverse process of donning the suit.

“Doesn’t that have to be recertified, even if you didn’t seal it up?” his sister asked.

“Probably, but I need it. They said to keep it handy and take it with you if you go out. I bet at least half the people on Home rolled theirs out, ready to put on or actually put it on like me. How long do you think it will take them to go through and recertify, a thousand or two thousand suits? They’re going to have to cut some slack on that standard. We did a pretty good job rolling up our sleeping mats when we went camping. I bet I can roll this back tight enough to slip in the carrier bag, so I can take it along to breakfast.”

“Will the cafeteria be open in an emergency?” his mom asked. Apparently she was still freaked out. It was getting tiresome.

“I didn’t see any closing notices on the M3 site, but I bet they have a com code. Why don’t you call and ask?” Eric suggested.

“You still got a smart mouth,” his mom snipped.

“That’s just,” he was at a loss for what to say for a few seconds. “It was a serious suggestion. Could I have said anything, that wouldn’t made you unhappy?” he asked. He left without speaking again. He’d probably just get abuse, if he spoke at all.

*

Jeff was hoping Dave would tell him the shuttle’s guts were spread out on the deck and it couldn’t fly. Instead he assured him it would be closed back up in two hours and given another half hour to fuel and top off other systems, it could fly.

It still didn’t have a coffee maker, the first aid kit and the custom tool kit wasn’t packed and installed. They couldn’t actively fly it remotely yet, but Dave had three pilots rated for ground landings checked out on the simulator, eager to fly paid hours. Four couches were in and as a bonus they all had acceleration compensation, the basic instruments and the navigational radar. It didn’t have a weapons load and the ladder for vertical access was a temporary affair you hung out the outer lock door. But it would land and it would fly.

Dave explained he’d altered the pattern of ribs on the drive housing from a square grid to a honeycomb, also he’d added another two standard airlock size vacuum pumps, for evacuating the drive chamber after it shut down in atmosphere.

“Dave, we want to do a run where we may need to do a really fast turnaround. Do you have any sort of spare pressure vessel there you can strap down in the hold and pipe into the line for the current vacuum tank? Just temporary for this mission.”

“I have a couple eighty liter tanks for another project and I’d be happy to loan you one. But with the new pumps I added it will be ready to lift again in about four minutes. You’d only improve it to maybe three minutes.’

“Do it please. A minute might be the difference between lifting safely, or being a smoking crater in the pavement.”

Chapter 36

“We have a shuttle now that can land anywhere there is a flat spot. A small parking lot by apartments or stores, or even a pasture. It doesn’t need a runway or refueling. Try to pick someplace away from a big city, so there isn’t a big police response and we’ll meet you and pick you up. The militia talked it over and doesn’t want to be identified with you, or any other Earth politician. But they will offer surveillance services. Jeff is going to create a diversion that should help. Is there some place you have in mind we can meet?” April asked. Jeff was leaning in from the side to be on camera.

“Anybody looking for us, is going to be looking for us going away from DC,” Mel theorized. “I will double back into Virginia. There’s a truck stop I know, here are the coordinates,” he said, marked a location on a map and named a time. “Are either of you going to be on the shuttle?”

“No, neither of us are rated for ground landings. Our ship fabricator has several guys qualified. Once you stop there, don’t look in the sky or toward the east, there’s going to be a big flash. Enough to dazzle you.”

“You aren’t going to bombard DC to cover us lifting are you? I wouldn’t want to be responsible for that,” Wiggen said quickly. “I can’t trade myself for all those innocent people.”

“Not at all. I’m going to set one off out over the ocean, really high. They aren’t configured for EMP either, so it should tie the response nets up trying to figure what the heck happened, but it won’t so much as break a window on the ground.”

“Alright, I just remember China,” Wiggen said grimly.

“Which was not anything I did with joy.”

She just gave an acknowledging nod.

“I’ll contact you when we are in place. This seems to be working well. We haven’t seen any activity stirred up by our calls.”

“We’ll be in contact with the shuttle coming in. Until tomorrow then,” April said.

“Tomorrow,” Mel agreed and shut the phone down.

“Let’s move and observe this site,” he said right away. “See if anything responds.”

*

“Mr. Lewis, can you authorize the release of some water from stocks on M3?” Jeff asked. “People are viewing our move and the uncertainty in North America and they are reluctant to sell any volume of water. If they will, they are asking higher prices for it. I hate to throw away money, even if you authorized it. I also think if I refuse those prices and they see I didn’t go elsewhere and pay high, it will encourage prices not to run away in a panic.”

“Sure, but don’t your plasma drives use metal?”

“They do, but you can use water as a thrust booster to stretch it. Fortunately I bought substantially all the calcium coming out of the Rock cheap for, uh, another project.”

“How about two tons, two thousand kilos? Is that enough to be of help?”

Jeff looked at him goggle eyed, like he hadn’t heard right. When he finally got self control he allowed that was indeed, useful. Robert managed to keep a straight face. “They are setting up a drive again on the Rock. They intend to bring it out with us, but they intend to park it at L1 for now. Assuming the Earthies don’t see us leaving as an opportunity to steal it. Of course their experience with stealing your ship may be fresh enough in mind, that we get some benefit from it.”

“I’m glad to hear that. My family has an interest too and there are several things I really need supplied from the Rock. I probably have a notice about the move buried here somewhere, but I’m running behind on reading messages and everything else.”

“Me too, still, call if you need anything else,” Robert offered, before he disconnected.

*

“Aren’t you going to work?” Lindsy asked.

“Who’s going to go to a nightclub in the middle of running for our lives?” her mom asked, like she was crazy.

“Everything was open, people are going around doing everything just like normal. They just have their suits with them. You should at least call them, if you’re not going in. I shouldn’t have brought you breakfast back. It just let you hole up here. There isn’t any reason not to go have breakfast, well lunch pretty soon. But if I hadn’t brought it back, you’d have had to go see yourself. That was really unkind to yell at Eric for not bringing us food back. I have no idea where he went off to. I’m kind of worried about him.”

“Why aren’t you worried about me?” Linda asked.

“I guess you forgot. You’re supposed to be the adult,” Lindsy said, angrily, but it wasn’t the old petty peevishness she draped over everything. She took her bag and went out too and she didn’t say where she was going. That never happened.

*

“This is how you keep prisoners?” Lieutenant Moore asked. Commander Lu was checking him into the Holiday Inn. He set his chop on the guest sheet to guarantee the charges and put his hanko back in a sealed pocket, but he did print on the tab: On behalf of Home Militia.

“Don’t bitch, or I’ll take you to the Radisson,” he threatened. “We don’t have a jail. Hope to God we never do. But they asked me to bring you back. Personally, I’d have just shot you in the head like your buddy, but hey, I knew two of the people your war shot killed.”

The prisoner looked at him sharply. It was obvious he didn’t know whether to believe him.

He stuck the card in a door and let them in, sitting on the bed right away. Moore settled in a chair, apparently relaxed. Lu had filled the other chair with a bag in passing.

“You didn’t know what you were shooting at?” Lu asked, that questioning look in the lobby still eating at him.

“We key the numbers in they give us. Nobody tells us what we’re shooting at.”

“That means you’ve had fire missions before. Interesting. Why isn’t there a crap load of your shot flying around LEO bumping into everything?”

“In training, they said you take your time and set up a shot so it carries the target debris along and dumps in the atmosphere. But I wasn’t very good at that, too slow at the math and got bumped to weapon maintenance. The targeting guys are on Earth and go home every night.”

“What did the Captain do then?”

“He talked to Earth a lot, with his earphones on so I couldn’t hear one side. Sometimes he’d text, if I shouldn’t hear his side. I’d load him up a shot and check the rails for wear after and do all the maintenance and scut work. Change the filters and scrub the head, while he lay in his bunk, listening to music and didn’t share his booze.”

“You didn’t shoot?”

“I’m trained how. I was supposed to be the back-up, if he had a heart attack or something. I’ve done it in sims, but never real life.”

There was a tap at the door, instead of using the intercom. “Open,” Lu instructed.

“Good evening Master Lu,” the slight fellow who entered said, with a dip of the head that was more than a nod and less than a bow.

“Thank you, Chen. I’ll be going. I appreciate you coming on short notice. This is Lieutenant Moore, of the USNA Space Forces. I’m not sure if he is a prisoner of war, a criminal suspect, or a victim of kidnapping. I’m sure he is a damned nuisance. I’ll have some relief for you in twelve hours. We want you to baby-sit him. Keep him from communicating with any official USNA agency. Do not allow him to buy, or otherwise acquire weapons, feed him as needed and take him to the clinic if he has a health complaint, even if it is not a visible problem,” he added. “If you take him in the corridors or cafeteria be alert to protect him. There may be some who would figure out who he is and want to harm him.”

Moore looked startled at that, like it was a new thought he hadn’t expected.

“That’s your stuff in the bag,” Lu told Moore, waving at it. “Al cleaned out your locker and stuffed it in there. I imagine it’s chaos, if you want to repack it. If you want to call family or friends, but not your command, feel free. But I’d suggest you think on it hard. You may be listed as dead and seeing how North America rewards anybody that is an embarrassment, there might be advantages to staying dead. Even a call to family may give you away. If you want to go out to dinner instead of room service, I’d suggest putting on a civilian outfit. I expect sometime in the next day, there will be an Assembly of Home and they will call you to answer questions.

“What is the Assembly?”

“The citizens and voters of Home. We have a democracy of all those who have agreed to fund the government and run it by straight up electronic poll. Depending on the issue and the level of interest, how many log on, it can be anywhere from around eight hundred, to eighteen hundred folks, meeting in the cafeteria and following online. The Assembly formulates law, approves budget items, declares war and hears criminal cases.”

“Will they decide my fate then?”

“They might, if they take an interest in it. We have almost no law and it is a guiding principle that we want to avoid making law as much as possible. As far as I know, there isn’t even a law against murder, just custom. So you may face any censure the Assembly wants to impose, if in their collective wisdom what you did is wrong. On the other hand, kill the right people for a popular reason and they may commend you and give you a commemorative medal. Not really so different from your service for North America, is it?”

Moore thought about that a bit and decided it was better not to answer. Instead he said, “Surely there is some prejudice toward the guilty side, if I am presented under arrest.”

“I was asked by my militia superiors to bring you in. I decided to do so, but we have no established law about the powers of the militia, or any immunity for serving in the militia. I am unaware of any generalized arrest power residing in the militia. It’s established station security has such power. If anyone objects to my confining you, I would never cite following orders as an excuse. That has such a historic taint it would work against me. No, I’d say it seemed to serve necessity. Spacers understand necessity and respect it just fine. If I am found in error for not executing you in the field, it is easily corrected,” he said, without any animus.

“Good day, Chen,” Lu repeated, moving to the door. “Do not assume the prisoner is passive. He has more or less admitted he would fire a weapon on orders, blind to its target. That says to me he has a fundamentally different morality and view of authority than we hold. He may think on all we said and decide we don’t have sufficient authority to detain him.”

“Good advice. I had come to similar conclusions.”

“You are leaving him to guard me and he doesn’t even have a pistol like you?” Moore asked, puzzled.

When they got through laughing and wiped the tears away, Lu left with not a word of explanation.

“The advantage of guarding a prisoner without a weapon, is that he can’t take it away from you,” Chen said, after they had sat silently for some time. He had that formal tone, like one of Moore’s professors lecturing. The more he thought about it the less he liked it. The fellow was no bigger than him and he didn’t look that dangerous, he decided.

“Lu said the shot from my station killed some people. Is that true?”

“The shot from your station? Young man, that is such an ugly attempt to distance yourself from what happened. The station didn’t shoot on its own. It was hardly a teeming habitat, with such a large population we wonder who was involved. Yes, the shot killed seven people, all civilians and injured a number of others. It also did several tens of millions of dollars damage. Mitsubishi has decided to move M3 entirely out of LEO and to a halo orbit between the moon and L2 due to this attack. It’s just too dangerous to stay close to Earth, where there are so many ways to be attacked, with very little warning.”

Moore didn’t have any reply to that.

*

“We will cut our initial burn, adjust our attitude, service the ships pushing Home, adjust for a different reactive mass mix and do a new burn in about thirty hours.” Jeff added to the M3 news site. “We are already in a higher orbit and climbing. If you are waiting for a shuttle ride be aware some carriers are docking at the north end while we are in transit, to avoid maneuvering around the active drives on the south end.”

*

The truck stop wasn’t very busy. The unrest had taken a lot of truckers off the road. Hijackers were using the law enforcement disruptions to snatch even low value freight, so the volume of driverless trucks was way down too. Some were uncertain who had authority. If they voluntarily stopped at a weigh station, with officials wearing either plus pins or brassards, would it taint them at the next stop down the road? Carrying freight destined for Federal agencies seemed just as fraught with hazard. Did the official signing for your freight really have authority to receive it? Even local police were taking sides and pulling over cars with out of state plates or that had that plain agency look, searching for officials of the opposing camp.

Common civilian traffic was down too and some of the traffic on the road looked like it would be worth your life to pull over. A large four wheel drive pickup truck, with four rough looking men, had matched speed briefly with them this morning and looked them over carefully before pulling ahead. Wiggen had turned her face away, aware it was well known. Mel wasn’t so well known by the public, so he’d looked at them brazenly. They were displaying no weapons and he probably outgunned them with the laser, but getting in a firefight would pull down all sorts of fatal attention on them.

It was a warm day for the season and Mel left Wiggen in the outside dining area. There were two other single customers enjoying the break in the weather. Drivers by their clothing. It was still cool enough nobody would think it odd for a woman to have her hood up. He’d altered his appearance against facial recognition, something he knew well from his training and went in and bought them burgers and fries, the first decent fresh food they had enjoyed in days. He set up the satphone, which looked so much like any laptop it wouldn’t attract attention. There were much more compact models, but none that let him pick on which sat he could lock and have complete control of his apparent identity.

He took a bite of burger. It was average, but a treat after a few days of military meals and energy bars. There was a low brick wall and bushes around the patio, not any real barrier, but enough to discourage people from using the tables without coming in through the food court. A short lawn separated the wall from the parking area and to the right a little, was a canopy over the fuel pumps that extended to the doors. The car parking was only at the curb here and behind and beyond the pumps was truck parking, mostly empty now, he was happy to see. There was a huge section of bare lot three or four times as big as they’d indicated the shuttle needed to land.

The rain shelter for the pumps probably wouldn’t shelter them much from the flash they’d been warned about in the east, but they’d been told it would just dazzle them, not injure. If the pilot landed where he anticipated, they had a bit less than a hundred meters to run to the ship.

He connected through the sat, low in the southern sky. If the building stuck out a couple more meters it would have blocked his line of sight to it. “We’re in location and there’s a big area of vacant parking lot to set down.”

“That’s good,” April said, “I’ll send you the feed from the ship. They are mid-continent and dropping. They’d pass south of you, but will make a slow long turn north when they bite a little more air. They dropped pretty late, trying not to look like a Trans-Pacific missile strike, called Earth Control just moments ago and are telling them they will call local control when under sixty thousand meters, for an emergency landing.”

Mel split his screen and put the feed from the Dionysus’ Chariot beside April. “I’m not sure,” the new pilot Todd Ostrovitch, was telling Earth Control, omitting a solid reason for an emergency landing. “I’ve never done an aerobraking maneuver with this puppy. This is in fact, its first manned flight. Yes, I heard in a general way about Antarctica. Landing as a robot I’m sure they gave it a long safe glide path. If I take too long I may dump this brick in the Atlantic, I’d rather Ohio. Would you hand me off to North American Control please?” he inquired politely.

“He’s totally bullshitting them isn’t he?” Mel marveled.

“Yes, that’s why Dave picked him. They had three qualified to fly her, but he was the one who explained why he should fly her, with the densest cloud of confusing, double talking crap, so Dave picked him.”

“Well, since you North Americans signed a treaty swearing you would in no way impede travel to and from Home, I don’t see how you can deny me landing clearance, me bucko. What? I bob up and down, because when the nose gets to twenty-five hundred degrees, I can either pull up a bit or watch the damn nose start to melt just the other side of my view ports. That’s why. If you were here I’d let you take the stick and see if you could do any better you bloody critic.”

“His copilot says he’s twelve to fourteen minutes out. You can hit Alt-D in this window and talk to him direct if you really need to, but there may be some relay lag.”

“Sure I have a computer to fly it,” Todd went on, “but the engineers set it to force a pull up to cool off at twenty-two hundred degrees. Silly over caution, I didn’t get any surface blistering and the nose art didn’t burn off until just past twenty-six hundred. Besides, the copilot has the main screen tied up chatting with his honey in Tonga. She’s a shuttle pilot too… Oops, something fell off. Did you get a radar return, NA Control? No? Well it can’t have been anything important then, she’s still flying. Though she wants to hink a tad left now.”

“This recording is going to be a cult classic,” April marveled. “Right up there with the ground speed check by the SR-71.”

“Yes, he’s insane,” Wiggen acknowledged. “And I’m going to ride behind him.”

*

“We have another voice intercept on Wiggen,” Col. Allister told The General. It was the first time he felt confident of a message’s importance to use his priority code to call him. “It’s an international call again, France. and they seem to be maintaining the connection this time.”

“That will be a relay point.”

“Uh, yeah. That’s coming in now. Looks like a satphone, spoofed nicely, but the voice gave it away. Western Virginia, sir.”

“Well scramble a tactical aircraft assigned to support Homeland Security,” The General instructed. “And call me when you have a positive DNA match off the body,” he said, before disconnecting.

Did he mess up? Allister wasn’t sure. He’d expected The General to stay on com and follow the last minutes of the hunt. Wasn’t it exciting?

*

Home militia was doing an overview on request and broke in: “Home-net warns you have a tactical support aircraft squawking HLS transponder, climbing out hard a hundred-eleven kilometers north east of you. Estimated time to probable gravity bomb release, four plus minutes, he will beat your ride by at least three minutes. No militia intercept possible,” he added, even though that was already what they had agreed upon.

“Should we run?” Mel asked.

“You’d never get off the lot,” the militia guy on circuit answered honestly.

“Wish I was there, I’d laser him,” April said.

“I have a Singh laser,” Mel said, matter-of-fact.

“WHAT?”

“I have a Singh laser pistol.”

“What bearing for the aircraft Home?” April demanded.

“Fifty degrees east of north.”

“Can you see the horizon that direction?” April asked.

“I can. Get behind me,” he told Wiggen, standing back from the table.

“Tell the pistol - Aircraft, pop-up bomber, head on, single shot. Aim just over the horizon and hold it out at arm’s length.”

“I won’t need to pull the trigger?” Mel asked, after repeating that.

“No, better to close your eyes. Your diversion is going off soon too,” April warned.

“Look down!” Mel yelled at Wiggen. When he lifted the pistol to the horizon one diner dove under his table. The other scrambled for the door inside. He had to aim under the close-by fuel island canopy, but the trucks were to one side.

Eight kilometers north the autopilot pulled the nose up sharply, applied airbrakes and opened the internal weapons bay on the semi-stealth aircraft. Of the four small cluster bombs selected, the front two had their clamps spring open. The aircraft actually started to brake from around the bombs to allow them to continue on their way. They separated a few centimeters and the pistol read the profile of the plane off its lidar.

The pistol twisted slightly in his hands, aiming itself. The lidar wasn’t at a visible frequency. The roll around the muzzle blew with a pop, unfurling a sheet of gold-coated Mylar between him and the beam, to protect him from the backscatter.

The laser pistol dropped all the safety limits due to the single shot command. It quickly found a resonant frequency for the aircraft skin and devoted the first few hundred milliseconds to walking a tight grid across the airframe, that left it a loose collection of chunks flying the same direction. When the internal resistance indicated its power buses were starting to melt it throttled back the current rise at a level that would let it run another full second. Optimized to destroying a single aircraft with certainty, it then got to serious work on the fuselage and the beam swept down the belly, bisecting the nose and cockpit and inside the open weapons bay, it found the two bombs. It would have cut the plane in two lengthwise, but after the bombs went off it didn’t matter much.

“Is it going to…>FLASH< …..>FLASH<…..shoot?”

Out over the Atlantic, well over most of the atmosphere, Jeff detonated a two-hundred megaton device, a couple tenths of a second after the laser fired. It really shouldn’t have damaged any modern, reasonably shielded, device. But there are always those who take shortcuts in design and maintenance. So even though it was not optimized for EMP, it damaged several satellites, a few ships who needed rescue and damaged one airliner bad enough it turned back to Miami. It also destroyed a lot of obsolete electronics on the east coast and put North America into an air defense panic.

“Damn,” Mel muttered, looking at the pistol in his hand. It had a few remnants of gold Mylar around the muzzle. The whole end was bent, drooping and it was fuming out the bore. He holstered it automatically, against any rational possibility it would ever work again. The satellite phone he’d shot over was destroyed, the screen shattered by thermal shock, the keyboard melted. The tabletop on which it sat was delaminated and humped in the middle with a blistered finish in a band across the middle. The basket of food on his side of the phone had ignited, the greasy fries and paper liner burning brightly. As bright as it was, the laser beam and fireball of the plane was lost in the greater light that filled the sky behind it, still fading.

Then he noticed his foot hurt and looking down, the end of his shoe was melted. He’d taken a shooting stance, one foot forward, beyond the protection of the reflective screen. He pushed the heel off with the other foot, but the sock stayed inside, welded to the shoe.

Just then, a black spaceship landed on a pillar of white flame, in the parking lot.

“This must be the place,” Todd said cheerily, “Com went down, but I see a small fire by the building and the fuel pumps are on fire. Doing an extra argon flush for cooling, this doesn’t look like a place we want to stay,” he told April. “Oh, sorry, I forgot about you Control. Yes I’m down, no, I didn’t think it was Ohio, there’s not enough corn.”

Mel considered trying to run with one shoe, that seemed dubious, so he took the other off, but left the sock. “Come, Madam President, our ride is here.” The shrubbery on the far side of the landscaping wall was burning, so they detoured to the left. There was a burnt strip across the grass, blackened to bare dirt in the middle. Mel helped Wiggen over the low wall.

“Ah, here they come, terrific. Throat temp is green, I am sealing. My copilot is assisting with the passengers. Flush again and directly to pump down. Starting count to lift at three minutes. I wish I could tell them to move.”

Mel was indeed moving as best he could. He wasn’t a sprinter even with his shoes. He still had to hold back for Wiggen. The last stim injector in his pocket seemed a bad idea. In his head he guessed thirty seconds to the ship. A hatch opened and a pretty decent ladder dropped out with a rattle against the ship. At least it had hard flat steps.

“Dionysus’ Chariot, there is a total shut down of all controlled airspace over North America. Nothing is to lift, everything in the air to land at the closest practical destination.”

“Sorry Control, it doesn’t apply to me,” Todd assured him.

That apparently shocked North American Control speechless.

“Passengers on the ladder,” his number two advised him.

“Lift in two minutes, if you can get them in the couches,” he requested.

The man pulled Wiggen through ahead of him. When Mel cleared the hatch the fellow lifted the cross bar supporting the ladder, twisted it to clear the hatch sides and tossed it outside. “Follow me,” he said, moving quickly to a much better central ladder, that climbed up between two seats. He grabbed a take-hold and swung around above them. “Lady on the right,” he pointed, “man here,” he said, pointing to the opposite.

He reached in, fastened belts over Wiggen, pulled the one across her middle tight and didn’t mess with the others. When he turned, Mel had his own fastened, he gave a thankful nod and climbed above them.

“Copilot in couch!”

“Holding at five seconds. Belts?”

“Belts on now.”

“PULL YOUR ARMS INSIDE THE COUCH!” he bellowed. “Your couches will move. Lift in five seconds.”

The couch did bend, legs lifting and back arching forward. There was a higher-pitched whine scrolling up and invisible forces tugged on them at weird angles and places. An invisible hand seemed to be pulling at their legs. Then they suddenly weighed far too much.

Todd lifted at a moderate seven G, easing it up to ten G as the Singh compensators spun up and removed some of the perceived acceleration.

“Ballistic interceptors!” his copilot called out. He’d seen them at the same time. On both sides ahead and rising faster than him. It appeared on the display he could pull another eight Gs and still not out climb them. They would roll over and dive on him, when he was high enough off the ground for the safety of the cities below. Only one place to go, he pushed the nose over and went back for the deck, still accelerating east.

>>THUD<<

The bump was distinct, sharp. His coffee had a sudden target of concentric waves dance on its surface. Motes of disturbed grit and dust floated down from the ceiling.

“That can’t be good,” The General said aloud. He was three stories under the Pentagon. He was confident it was secured. and it would take one hell of a boom to be felt down here.

Todd crossed DC at eight thousand meters passing up through Mach 7. He pulled up seeing the missiles self destruct above and behind him. They couldn’t come down where their warheads would do as much damage as anything they were trying to intercept. He pulled up sharply enough to spare Maryland a great deal of grief, beyond broken windows. His sonic boom however crushed a corridor across from beltway to beltway in DC.

“Apologies, Earth Control, some idiot shot at us and I had to duck. I’m afraid I painted a pretty hard footprint across the city, in violation of noise abatement. We were climbing through a pretty decent Mach number. I wouldn’t have done that if the silly buggers hadn’t shot at me. I most vehemently protest violation of our free travel, treaty rights.” He was clear of North American Control by then, well over the Atlantic and above controlled airspace.

“You protest? Noise abatement? It’s showing on my emergencies list as an earthquake!”

“Todd, you might be careful what you say,” April spoke up. “My news channel popped up an alert. You knocked down the Capital dome. All sorts of historic buildings are collapsed. They have fires and the water mains are burst. It looks bad.”

“You’re right, I won’t apologize again, somebody might take it as an admission of liability. Was Congress in session?”

“They are in recess and went home mostly, with the emergency.”

“Well, you can’t have everything.”

“Did we get away?” Wiggen finally felt safe to call from the back.

“Of course,” Todd said, sounding insulted. “We’re coming up on crossing Europe. My little girl could have flown that and posted it real time to entertain her friends. My copilot could have flown that without his morning coffee. It was merely interesting, not difficult. We shall be docked at Home within the hour.”

“Is he always so dramatic?” Mel asked.

“Dramatic, was the day a spider walked across the main computer screen,” his copilot told them. “I was afraid he was going out the lock without a suit. He’s scared to death of the stupid things.”

“I thought I was leaving those evil things behind on Earth.”

Chapter 37

“There is going to be an Assembly called midday,” Faye told her students first thing. “I’d like to take you to the cafeteria right now, before people start to fill it up. It’s a chance to see history being made. If you want to bring material to study that’s fine. I’ll feed anybody who doesn’t have food service credits outstanding.”

“Do you want to sit all together?” one girl asked.

“Yes, the usual thing they do, is set up a raised platform on the far wall, away from the serving area, under the big screen. I’d like us to sit at one corner of the dining area, near the counters. We can face the action there and yet see the whole room. It won’t offend anyone, like we would hogging all the best down front seats. If you sit there, you can’t really see very well when somebody stands to speak anyway. Sometimes the action in the crowd and who is putting their heads together in the audience, is more interesting than what happens on the platform. You might save video of it. I’ll point out the official archives have no video of the action in the crowd. There have been people stand and leave in disgust, for example, but they said nothing and there was no comment on it in the official record.”

“But, what would that tell me?” a little fellow asked, scrunching his eyebrows up.

“Well, if the man leaving is angry, you know he doesn’t support the measure being put to a vote. But if he isn’t saying anything, he sees speaking as pointless. He knows it is popular and going to pass. But if that man owns a business, you might expect he isn’t going to be as friendly or helpful to the other business owners voting aye. He may even take his business away to another hab, or go back to Earth. We had a bank manager do that, second Assembly of Home and that bank is closed and gone now. The Assembly refused to say we would only use North American Dollars on Home to pay your debts. That upset him terribly and he withdrew. We can use Dollars or EuroMarks, Tongan money or Solars, anything somebody else will take. If you want to draw up your own pretty money and offer it there is no law against it. You just might have a hard time getting anybody to accept it,” she warned, “but it’s legal.” That got a round of laughter from the older kids.

“Gather up what you need and we’ll go over in ten minutes.”

*

“This is amazing,” April told Jeff. “Look at the news headers I’m getting. People were already upset about the White House getting burned. Now they are blaming the Patriots for bringing down the damage on the Capital. The Patriot Party is trying to shut down the networks. They have gone on camera a few places and arrested the anchors, too stupid to turn off the feed before putting the local news readers in cuffs. They are showing pictures of the Smithsonian and other museums, hammered flat as a pancake with collapsed roofs. Here’s a pix of the Air and Space Museum with the tail of an old plane pushed out between crushed floors.”

The view switched to the Lincoln Memorial, his head gone and shoulders pushing up through the mound of debris from the collapse of the dome. The Washington Monument stood, but about three degrees off vertical and it looked like one good kick would drop it. As they watched police dressed for riot duty arrived and hustled the reporters off under arrest, destroying one team’s camera as another documented it.

“If there is any way you can persuade Wiggen to sit in on the Assembly of Home. I think it would be to our advantage and hers. The mood I see here,” he waved at the news feed, “A sitting president, running for her life, may be as damaging a symbol as all this busted up real estate.”

“I’ll ask her. She’s no dummy, she may find it fits her agenda too.”

*

“We need to strike out at Home. If they are allowed to get away with desecrating our national shrines, we will never be able to hold our heads up again,” Colonel Allister said, with rock solid conviction.

“President Hadley tried to shoot Home out of the sky with nuclear weapons, about two years ago now,” The General revealed. “Do you know what happened?”

“That was true then?” Allister asked shocked.

“It was and both of them were intercepted, not by Home, but by the Japanese. The Space Forces had satellite coverage of the intercept. They have some sort of a beam weapon. Our guys covered it up, because they had no defense against it and they couldn’t admit that to President Hadley. He’d already gone off the deep end and was having general officers dragged outside and shot in the head, over things nobody could predict or control.

“Have they made any headway in countering it?”

“We have no idea what the Japanese weapon is, or how many locations they have it deployed. Neither do we understand the entirely different weapon Home has developed. The Chinese seized one of their ships and would have cracked that secret, but when they returned the ship to Earth the private owner, not Home, not the Home militia, destroyed it on the ground.”

“That’s insane to allow private parties heavy weapons!”

“Crazier than you can imagine. He took out the main Chinese spaceport complex and the nearby civilian city that supported it. The crater is about four kilometers across, but the town was a hundred kilometers away and it was effectively destroyed.”

“With a single weapon?” Allister asked, finally looking concerned instead of angry.

“Yes, something on the plus side of two-hundred megatons. If they dropped one on say, Pennsylvania, about a quarter of the state would be a parking lot. The really bad news I’m leading up to, is that there was a program left in place from before our last attempt, to use our anti-satellite system to hit Home, in conjunction with gaining control of North America. If I had known of that I’d have stopped it, given the changes that have happened since it was planned. But too many critical command links were killed in the previous failed coup, so it went ahead without orders to stop it. It did not entirely succeed. It inflicted damage and casualties, but failed to destroy Home. We are fortunate at present that their response has been to remove themselves from near Earth and set up housekeeping near the moon. We are thus free to consolidate our position in North America, but taking further action against Home would risk everything we have gained. It was a grand cause to pursue when we started, but now attacking them could threaten our very survival.”

“The interceptors that the Home shuttle was evading were much the same,” Allister admitted. “They were tasked to shoot at anything violating that critical airspace and it would have taken somebody ordering them to stand down, to stop them from automatically firing. Modern warfare happens so fast there isn’t time to consult and control. I don’t even know at this point, if it was Wiggen loyalists, or our own, manning the base that shot at him.”

His mind was racing however. If blowing Home out of the sky was just a gesture, they could abandon, what really mattered? Was anything he was still doing a matter of principle if destroying Home could be set aside so easily? Did any of it matter now, or was it all just a grab for power?

“That’s water under the bridge, but we need to move forward with the situation we have now. You are doing well, but you need some subtlety,” The General admonished him mildly, unaware of the conflicts he’d planted in the man’s mind. “Let me explain how to shut down a TV station, without needlessly inflaming the public.”

*

Lindsey drew in quick sure strokes, leaving the details of the seating and improvised stage to be filled in later. She concentrated on the faces, Robert Lewis, Eduardo Muños and Jon Davis to start, all taking seats on the raised platform as their right. The gravity of their expression precluded any humor about the humble setting. Neither did any of them need a suit or necktie to establish their status. They sat their plastic chairs like thrones, with unconscious authority.

To one side Jeff Singh sat, with Heather anderson and April Lewis on either side. They didn’t seek a place on the stage, though there was room, but she noticed they sat back to the wall looking over the crowd rather than part of it. Those who owned ships, especially more than one, sat around them and apart from the crowd.

On the other side of the stage captains of the militia, the medical community and the owners of significant businesses, set themselves apart facing the crowd too. The head of the Private Bank, manufacturers and several shipbuilders clustered around Dave. Nobody assigned seats, they self-sorted into their perceived social order.

Her brother Eric leaned over and spoke softly to her. Everybody was speaking in hushed tones. “There’s a couple empty seats in front of Jeff’s crowd. April laid her hand comp on the one and there’s something else on the other, saving it. When somebody stopped and asked about the seat, April shook her head no and chased them off. Do you have any idea who isn’t here, important enough to have their seats saved?”

“No, I’ll have to draw them in if they show up.”

Mr. Muños started keying the full sized computer he had open in front of him. Every comp and pad in the room gave a tone, or more commonly silent-vibrated. It was eerie, the entire room buzzed with discordant tones until you could feel it in the deck under your feet. Eric looked at his pad and it announced: System Message – The Fourteenth Assembly of Home is being convened in session this ninth day of May, 2086.

When Eric looked up, Mr. Muños was standing up, but a couple were also entering from the corridor at the very last moment. April was standing too, retrieving the items off the seats in front of her and made sure the new arrivals saw where to go, before sitting back down.

If Mr. Muños delayed a few seconds to let them get seated it was impossible to say. He didn’t look their way and he was never one to rush his speech anyway. Sometimes in session he pondered a question at some length, before making a reply. He didn’t seem to have any sense of urgency some might, having a couple thousand people quietly awaiting his reply.

“That’s the President,” Lindley breathed in his ear.

“Home doesn’t have a President,” Eric objected.

“But North America does,” she reminded him, exasperated.

“Oh,” he looked them over again. “She looks older than she does in the videos,” he said. If he meant that as an excuse for not recognizing her, Lindsey couldn’t tell.

“As is our custom, we shall skip any formal reading of the previous Assemblies. Records of them in their entirety, are available on station net. We beg your patience, this session, to hold off on introducing the usual day to day business and consideration of petitions, to examine the attack recently suffered upon Home, with loss of life and much damage. I yield to Jon Davis to relate what has been determined to have happened,” he said, sitting back down.

Jon spoke from his seat, comfortable with that small informality. His deep theatrical voice didn’t need the advantage of his standing to project. “The attack on our habitat was launched from a satellite previously only noted as another item in traffic control’s objects-in-orbit roster. It doesn’t have any shuttle docking and exit notices in the traffic history, but that may be because such notices were actively suppressed, to hide its nature. It’s a very small sat for a manned station and careful examination of radar images shows there are two more, with identical radar cross sections and similar orbital elements. The millimeter targeting radar, which the Rock partnership had deployed on its trailing property as a public service, was designed to warn of the usual large warheads and missiles, employed by most governments. It did not paint a return off the cloud of pellets which damaged Home, until they were literally milliseconds from impact. It did however, read sufficient of their terminal trajectory to pinpoint the satellite mentioned as the source, especially since there was no other nearby object competing with this craft as a source.” He scowled, which was not a pleasant thing to see.

“The militia immediately asked for volunteers to intercept this sat and determine who had fired on us and why. The private vessels Silly Willy and Begger’s Ride, already off Home, responded, Captain Lu of the Silly Willy standing off, commanding the operation and acting as a relay at a distance that should preserve the data stream if the object was booby trapped. Begger’s Ride closely matched orbit, in complete disregard for their own safety, to allow us to know the who and why of this, rather than destroy it from a distance. There should eventually be some recognition made by the Assembly for their valor.”

“The satellite at close range had the open frame of a railgun visible. It tried to bring this to bear on the Begger’s Ride. They used a gyroscopic attitude system, which is very precise for aiming, but does not transverse rapidly, so the militiamen were able to avoid being targeted and poured laser fire into the railgun until even the primary injection system was ruined. Rather than expose their people to a fight to gain entry, they elected to stand off and overload the vessel’s cooling system with laser fire, until they forced a surrender. This worked.”

“After the internal temperature became inhospitable, a suited man came to their airlock and indicated a surrender with open empty hands. Albert Johnson, an experienced rigger, expert in zero G work, volunteered to recover the person surrendering and make an inspection of the craft, to recover whatever information was available. I particularly commend his service,” Jon paused, to make a point of it.

“The Satellite was USNA Space Forces, it carried their insignia and the fellow who surrendered was a USNA lieutenant in uniform. He indicated his superior was getting ready to blow the satellite and suicide, to prevent capture, but he shot him in the back of the head to prevent him carrying out this plan. Mr. Johnson carried the lieutenant to the Begger’s Ride and returned to gather various manuals and disks, he also cut the sat computer out whole and brought it back for analysis.”

“Look at Wiggen,” Lindsey whispered. Her face was a mask of horror.

“The satellite was destroyed by missile fire after they backed off.” Jon stopped and looked uncomfortable. “As head of Security, I need specific arrest powers. I appreciate those were made clear in the fourth Assembly. However, as head of the militia I have no explicit arrest powers. We are not at declared war, to take prisoners of war, neither if we were, are we signatories to the various conventions that define civilized warfare. However, I asked the militia crews to bring back any prisoners they could take. I’ll own to that.”

“The only thing recovered, which I find critical to our understanding of the attack is this.” He reached in his pocket and pulled out a bright bit of jewelry. “I doubt you can see this in the rear. It’s a little silver plus sign pin. The dead Captain in the satellite had it in his pocket rather than on his collar. It was the only item in his personal effects that gave any hint he was associated with the Patriot Party. We have the lieutenant available for interview and perhaps the Assembly would see fit to make a determination what to do with him. Until then, let me suggest you give your attention to Robert Lewis. He can best describe his thinking and his official response to the attack.”

April’s dad did stand up. “As resident manager for Mitsubishi I have a great deal of discretion. If I do not preserve the physical habitat, then all the other picky questions are moot. We have experienced aggression before. President Hadley of the USNA directed two nuclear weapons against us, in the closing days of his administration. The Chinese and Americans both sent warships into orbit near us and it was likely that only because they eliminated each other, we did not suffer another attack from one or both. The Shuttle Cincinnati of course, shortly thereafter landed an invading force.”

“Given this history and that we saw two similar satellites remaining in orbit, I felt it was far too great a risk to stay in LEO. Especially when our shield, the Rock was reduced to passive blocking with the radar wiped out. There was a contingency plan discussed to move M3 to a safer location, so I immediately authorized that as resident manager. I’m happy to say my bosses have been supportive with that decision. The residents not universally so.” That got a round of laughter from those who knew how much flack he’d been catching.

“It will take a month, at considerable expense, to move M3 to a halo orbit circling between L2 and the moon. The owners of the Rock also feel insecure and wish to move, however they favor the Earth side area of stability around L1. If no Earth powers interfere it will be moved there, but it will take them closer to three months to do so. They will draw mass from the Rock itself to move it.” Robert was antsy and got up paced to the corner of the platform, clasping his hands behind him.

“This does mean we will be paying more for Earth goods, because there is about a ten percent energy premium to move things to our new location. On the other hand we will be closer to lunar resources. When in position, the Rock partnership has agreed to mount a relay point for us to communicate with the Earth side of the moon.” He turned and paced back to his seat, standing.

“Since North America seems to be in chaos politically, I’m even more certain this move is the correct thing. You might have noticed President Wiggen of the USNA came in and was seated at the beginning,” he said, waving a hand in her direction.

“The gentleman with her is her Security Chief, Mel Wainwright. She’s not here on a secret vacation,” he said, smiling. “She came here, because it was one of a short list of places to run from the latest and very nearly successful, assassination attempt. I say this not to seek any favor with her, or influence you on her behalf, but as simple fact. She was easier to deal with than any of the other parties seeking to replace her. We have no idea how we shall deal with any of the other factions, the Patriot Party in particular, all of who seek our destruction.” He stood looking at them, like he was reviewing it all mentally, or making sure he’d covered everything.

“These are the facts, as well as we know them and what response we felt necessary. Where that takes us now politically and what changes or responses you collectively wish to make we throw open to the Assembly. We each have some ideas, having dealt with this, but do not wish to voice them ahead of everyone else, as if we were an administration.” He sat down.

“The floor is open to questions and comments,” Mr. Muños invited. “Mr. Coleman,” he recognized a gentleman who stood.

“I’d like to address Ms. Wiggen first, if she has no objection.”

“You may address me. I may or may not answer, if the question is too much to my disadvantage,” she said quite clearly without a mic.

“Fair enough. Does the fact you are here, indicate that you have been unable to retain control of North America? Are you in fact still President or not? I ask to know who we are going to have to deal with.”

“I am not in control of the USNA,” Wiggen admitted. “I’m not even sure the USNA exists at this moment. The Congress has scattered in cowardly fashion. The military is deeply split. The courts seem to be in hiding. We are in a sort of cold civil-war, from what I can see in the news feeds. I have not informed anyone of my location, until I showed myself here. If this Assembly is fed to Earth news agencies.”

“I suffered a long series of attempted assassinations, most unknown to the public, culminating in the burning of the White House you saw reported on the video channels. If I had any hope to avoid another more successful attempt I would have stayed. From a legalistic view, I have not resigned my office. Whatever authority the Patriot Party holds is strictly by force. They have made no move to call elections, or presented a military government, composed of whatever officers are directing them, to lend themselves any legitimacy. Something they will eventually have to do to govern,” she predicted.

“I do not however, wish to hold office like Lincoln, over a country divided and preserve my office at the cost of the death of thousands, or even millions, if it comes to a full bore civil war. If the people reject the Patriot Party, I believe they will do so, with, or without me. I was given the office unelected, out of necessity and have never been a strong symbol of the Union.”

“You notice the public indignation is over the burning of the White House. The House itself is a more powerful emblem than my office. If people wish to oppose the Patriot Party I am ready to let them take up the cause. I will say this about Home. Removing yourselves from their sky, will have a negative effect on the Patriot Party. They need an external enemy to rally the people against. Otherwise they simply look like any other selfish power grubber, if they have no external opponent.”

“I’m curious then, why have you not resigned your office?” Coleman asked. “Is it not likely that shedding the office, will remove the incentive to assassinate you? and if you don’t wish other to die for you, doesn’t retaining the office encourage those who might assume you will regroup and come out of hiding to continue fighting the Patriots?”

“I am considering resigning my office. I am however, selfish enough that I want to know if Home will allow me sanctuary, before I do so. That’s why I’m here and I eventually would have asked that question of the Assembly. If you refuse me, then retaining the title of President may be the only coin I hold, to buy my safety elsewhere. The Vice-President does not appear to be presenting himself, eager to take up the torch. I have no idea if he is alive or free. I also have in mind issuing a number of pardons before I resign. It would surely appear petty and vengeful to contest them, if they are otherwise given my resignation on a platter.”

“Perhaps we should settle that first,” Coleman agreed. “It is the custom we limit ourselves to two questions each session,” he explained to Wiggen. “I will use one of mine to ask the Assembly if we should allow President Wiggen to reside on Home, regardless of her office, or if it is too risky for Home to harbor her?”

“Well, he certainly loaded that question with a bunch of pointed assumptions,” Mel whispered to Wiggen. “All favorable to you, I suspect.”

“How do you people say?” Mr. Muños asked. It was a formalism already, but he still made it sound like he was asking each of them individually. The big screen behind them usually had some environmental scene, but it had been blanked for the Assembly. It now showed a tally of yea and nay. Most of those in the audience bent over to input their vote.

The vote ran to 1437, a surprising number abstaining. 1113 yea, 324 nay, before there was a long enough pause to end the vote.

“Does that satisfy you?” Coleman asked.

“Thank you, it does. I’d also very much like to hear the examination of your prisoner, if you are going to bring him before the Assembly.”

“I don’t wish to use my second question at the moment,” Coleman told her. “Perhaps if someone else wishes,” and he sat down.

“Jon Davis?” Mr. Muños recognized the Security Head.

“I ask the Assembly to question my prisoner and determine what to do with him.”

“How do you people say?” he asked again. It was 1678 yea, to question him. 7 nay. Lieutenant Moore was produced quickly from the corridor and stood before them on the front of the platform in front of the table, unbound and in civilian clothing.

“Will you answer questions, or will you stand silent?” Muños asked.

“I’ve already shot my mouth off enough it would be sort of silly to clam up now,” he said. “Besides you guys could stick a helmet on me and read my responses to a list of questions and know everything I’d tell you anyway. Everybody is going to run veracity software on what I say out loud. There’s no hiding anything now, unless I suicide like my Captain intended. Go ahead. Ask away, whatever you want.”

“Ms. Hu, if you wish to question him, please do so,” Muños invited, picking her for a reason.

“My husband was killed by the fire from your satellite. He was on the Rock and you made him hamburger so fast he never knew he died. I’m left alone with two children. He was working on extracting materials from the Rock, he wasn’t a soldier. Why did he die?”

“I have no idea why,” Lt. Moore, answered. “We got numbers, the Captain put them in the computer and it shot eventually, when everything lined up. I have no idea if he knew what he was shooting at, much less why. As far as the motives of the people way above us - I don’t know them any more than you do. I was listening to the Assembly out in the corridor, on my guard’s hand com. I didn’t even know my Captain was Patriot Party. We weren’t buddies. I know the news channels all make you guys look bad. That’s about all I know, that the Powers-That-Be hate you people. I never shot the gun myself. I maintained it. I was the backup operator, but they never needed me. I never thought of it before now, but if something happened to me, instead of the Captain, I’m not sure he could have kept the gun running. I guess he’d have just used it until it busted beyond working, or they replaced me.”

“But you were willing to shoot blind at anyone they told you to. Do I have that right?”

Moore stood silent for a long time, but it was apparent she was not going to yield or let him off the hook without an answer. “Yes,” he finally admitted in a small voice.

“This man is a war criminal,” Hu said in a firm voice. “He was willing to kill civilians on command. If anything, his not caring who he was shooting at, is worse than doing specific murder. He owes me blood guilt,” she claimed and sat down.

“Mr. Patsitsas,” Muños recognized a middle aged fellow, who stood.

“I’d question the prisoner, but a different point first. These two similar objects in orbit need to be examined. If they visibly mount a railgun like this sat, they need destroyed. They continue to be a hazard to all civilian traffic and the Rock when they try to move it. Even leaving we are at hazard from them for some time. With North America in chaos, we have no idea who commands them, or how they will be used. I’d ask the Assembly to dispatch the militia to remove them at a distance and with as little hazard to themselves as possible. We know enough from the one, that there is no need to risk anyone again for intelligence.” He nodded at Muños.

“Is it the will of the Assembly to remove these railgun platforms, as Mr. Patsitsas proposed? How do you people say?”

The vote was fast and it passed 1683 to 3. There had never been such a small dissenting vote before. “The Assembly has instructed you Commander,” was all Muños said to Jon. “I believe you had a question for the prisoner?” he asked Patsitsas.

Moore had been visibly taken aback by the order to destroy the other satellites, like his. He faced the new questioning deeply rattled. That was four more USNA crew condemned to die.

“Yes, didn’t your Captain ever try to recruit you to the Patriot Party?” Ben asked.

“No, I had no idea he was Patriot,” Moore explained. “He made it very clear we was too far apart socially to even chit-chat. Better just to read in his bunk, than slum with me. He was New England Yankee and educated in a fancy college. His family had some kind of businesses and they did stuff like ride horses and go sailing. Upper-crust stuff. I knew that much just listening to him on calls. I was from a middle class family, dumped down to negative tax when their jobs disappeared. He was always saying God willing and God this and God that. I never figured I had any hot line on what God thought. None of my family were ever all that religious. My aunt Beth always said the church didn’t have any use for them, once uncle Buck didn’t have a decent job any more. Negative tax people don’t drop much on the offering plate. Captain Jacobs would never have recruited me to anything that was high class enough to belong to himself.”

“That’s pretty clear,” Ben Patsitsas said. “No further questions.”

“Heather anderson,” Muños recognized.

“The temptation is to execute this fellow. He attacked us when we are not at war. I agree he is a war criminal. Indeed, they broke their treaty, so all of them are guilty who have touched this. There must be thousands more of them, from what I am hearing is happening in North America, but this one is here for us to deal with. I can’t say we got all that much out of him. He deserves death, but no matter what we do with him, it is going to be twisted and condemned and used against us down below. I’d forego the small satisfaction of squashing this bug and send him off on a shuttle to ISSII or New Las Vegas. Put them in the uncomfortable position of deciding what to do with him. I suspect it will be a case of no good deed goes unpunished. They will find some way to blame him, for doing exactly what they ordered him to do. Not to mention, shooting your commanding officer in the back will not endear him to much of anyone. Just my suggestion, for when we vote on it,” she said and sat again.

“Ms. Helen Bookbinder,” Muños recognized next.

“Agreed, this one is a distraction. Anything we do with him will seem petty. Let us take a vote to either ship him off to his fate, first shuttle down, or execute him forthwith and move on to more important matters.”

Mr. Muños might have called the vote, but Robert Lewis stood back up, unhappy looking and held a forestalling finger in the air.

“You wish to raise some point before a vote?” Muños asked.

“Yes, I’d like to move along and dispose of him too. But I must point out Mrs. Hu said quite clearly, she is owed a debt of blood, because of her husband. I think you have to offer her justice, before you can dispose of him either way. In fact I think you should ask if any of the other seven killed have family who demand personal satisfaction, before the Assembly makes an inferior claim. This is not something to properly vote on. We should not parcel out justice by the whim of public opinion, over those who were directly wronged.”

Mr. Muños inclined his head gravely, acknowledging that. “Is there anyone else, who lost blood relatives to this man’s actions, who make a claim?” he demanded. “Speak up and lay any demands on us now,” he commanded.

The com took Muños attention and he put the call on the screen behind them.

“I am Leif Gustafsson and my brother John died in the rigger’s showers. I am hearing he did not die directly by this one’s hand, but he is an accomplice in murder. But then as Ms. anderson says he is one of thousands, who we do not happen to hold in our hands.” He looked really hard at the monitor, probably looking at Lt. Moore. “I agree, for my part, to ship him off and may he have the joy of his master’s justice. I don’t ask his life. I don’t allow him that much importance,” he snarled and cut the feed.

“There are no other calls, so it seems it is up to you Mrs. Hu,” Muños said.

She walked up to April and pointed at the long wrapped grip her right hand was so casually draped over. “May I borrow that?”

April just lifted her hand clear and nodded. She wanted to warn her how sharp it was, but it seemed like that would sound silly. Of course it was sharp.

The room was suddenly so silent you could hear the long katana ring as she pulled it free.

“Kneel,” she told the lieutenant.

He looked around wild eyed. There wasn’t a friendly face to be found.

Fred Hart, sitting closest up front to the platform, pulled out an old fashioned revolver and holding it pointed at the overhead, rolled the hammer back. Just in case.

Moore looked at him, making solid eye contact, from just two meters, considered it just a heartbeat and knelt, shaking.

“All the way,” Hu instructed. “You don’t want me to botch this do you?”

Moore leaned over, hands between his knees, quivering, exposing his neck. He lost control of his bladder and the dark stain ran down his legs and dripped on the platform.

Hu laid the flat of the cold blade on the back of his neck, held in both hands. “Do you admit you are an accessory to murder?”

“Yes,” he said, just barely audible, sobbing, resigned.

“Then I say ship him off to his fellow criminals,” she said, lifting the blade. She turned her back on him and returned the sword to April.

Behind her Lt. Moore tried to straighten up, but his eyes rolled up in his head and he fainted dead away, flopping on his side on the platform, laying in his own piss.

“If that is your justice, then I dare say we will not vote against it,” Muños said. Somebody had called medical and they rolled the unconscious lieutenant on a gurney and removed him. April was wiping her blade with some sort of cloth and everyone sat silent, until the medics had the man in the corridor.

Muños, still standing, went on like there had been no drama. “What else would the Assembly decide in this matter?”

“Marion Hertz, what would you tell us?”

“I work in traffic control, but I’ve dealt with the Chinese when I worked for Jeff Singh. Moving out by L2 is fine. It gives us enough room that we won’t get caught by surprise again, but if we leave it at that, it just puts the trouble off until enough Earth powers rebuild from the war loses, we have more traffic around moon and the lunar colonies get bigger. They don’t have it in them to leave us alone. The USNA is the only one we told they can’t lift weapons to the moon. We need to draw a clear line in the sand. I propose we declare an interest zone inside the moon’s orbit. Tell them all - no armed Earth ships past L1. If an Earth ship is armed past L1, it will be destroyed without warning.”

“Is there discussion? Elaboration?” Muños invited, instead of an immediate vote.

Dave had his head together with several other shipbuilders. They leaned apart and Dave tapped something in his pad before standing.

“David Michelson, what would you add?”

“The other shipwrights and I have compared notes. It would appear there are only two Home registered ships that don’t carry weapons, although some are subtle about it. Some carry very significant systems. The militia alone, probably has sufficient force pledged to give any single Earth power pause. If you publish such a resolution, it would be sufficient to give it teeth if Eddie Persico and Jeff Singh, pledge their vessels to support the militia in such an embargo. Any of the other singles or couriers or shippers that run more than one ship would really make it look good. The appearance of solidarity is useful. We also think it would be smart to wait to make this a public announcement until we are relocated.”

Jeff looked at Eddie sitting two rows away. Eddie just gave a single solemn nod and the deal was sealed. Then Jeff put his head together with Heather and April briefly.

Jeff made a gesture to Mr. Muños, rather than use the com and Muños recognized him.

“If it is the will of the Assembly, to limit armed Earth ships to inside L1, the complex of companies Eddie and I run will support that. We’ll give our commanders instructions to do so without needing to ask us and to coordinate with the militia. My partners in Singh Industries, Heather anderson, April Lewis and I, also pledge our planetary lander Dionysus’ Chariot to this cause and such future vessels and landers as we may own separately from Eddie Persico. We want it made clear though, that this is not strictly a lunar exclusion zone, it is a solar prohibition and indeed, when it becomes necessary, an interstellar exclusion. We have had enough of Earth wars. They can keep their wars to themselves and leave us alone, or I for one will show them how to make war!” There was shocked silence and then a steady approving applause as he sat.

“Mr. Gibbons?” Muños recognized another man who stood among the ship owners.

“I run three couriers, all armed. I would pledge them to such a resolution too.”

“Mr. Larkin?” Muños invited.

“Larkin Lines runs five orbit to orbit and landers. They are available for such an enterprise.”

“Mr. Morris…” the crowd heard eight more owners pledge at least one vessel to the cause.

“Ms. anderson?” Muños said, obviously surprised she had something to say, since Jeff had pledged her ship shares.

“I have an interest in the moon itself. I speak for my people as a sovereign, not just a citizen of Home. It is in our interest to exclude armed Earth powers past L1, so you may add my voice to this declaration. I have control of the lunar surface, though some of my neighbors may not realize this yet. I can assure you the North Americans know, having found out the hard way. I am prepared to remove any attempt by Earth powers to land armed forces on the moon. So in wording this declaration, I invite you to speak of space and the moon beyond L1. We will support this,” she vowed and sat down.

April leaned past Jeff and whispered in her ear. “Was that a royal we you just snuck in?”

“I think it was,” Heather admitted, embarrassed how easily it came out.

“In the matter of making a resolution, to be released to the Earth governments upon our reaching our halo orbit, declaring an exclusion of Earth armed forces past the Lagrange point, L1, with the support of the enumerated ship owners and the sovereign lunar power, how do you people say?” he inquired.

It took awhile, almost twenty minutes, their longest vote yet. When the last vote stayed on the screen for the required pause, with no new vote, Mr. Muños stood.

“It is the will of the Assembly of Home, 1798 votes yea, to 172 votes nay that we impose such an exclusion zone for Earth arms.”

“If I may make a proposal myself, I would suggest we have Jon Davis compose the communication, as he has served us well as Spox before. How do you people say?”

The people were ready to go home, or go to dinner and when enough voted to see it would pass they left off voting and let the timer run out early at 457 to 17.

Chapter 38

“That’s scary, you got the look on her face down perfect,” Eric admitted. Hu holding the sword on Moore’s neck was a great drawing. The people seated behind were just line caricatures in this view. Lindsey got six full sized drawings out of the Assembly and a couple pages of doodles and thumbnails she might expand on later.

When President Wiggen had asked if anyone there had some actual paper, Lindsey offered her pages from the back of her sketch book and an ink pen. Wiggen proceeded to write a pardon for Lt. Moore and then a blanket pardon for any of the Patriot Party willing to lay down their arms and desist fighting against the government of the United States of North America by midnight of three days forward, hoping it might help quell the fighting.

Then she wrote on a separate page and addressed Congress, informing them she resigned the Presidency, effective immediately. She handed them all off to Jon Davis, with instructions they go back to Earth with Lt. Moore. Lindsey kept the pen and put it in a pocket, figuring it for a keepsake. The last page she rubbed with a pastel, so that Wiggen’s resignation letter showed from the indention of the pen on the backing page.

History was very scary and messy, to watch it being made and tiring. School ran over, but it was worth it and she suspected her drawings would find a market, if she ran them as prints.

She’d been sure Mrs. Hu was going to hack Moore’s head right off and she was glad not to have seen such a thing. He’d been sent off hours later, by special courier, to ISSII and nobody had heard anything about him.

They’d be in halo orbit in another week and she wondered how the Earth governments were going to receive Jon Davis’ letter. She’s do a sketch of him reading it for sure.

Epilogue

The view out the forward viewports of Dionysus’ Chariot was a much better than any from the spinning habitat. M3 hung before them, turning full speed again. The third ring was much further along, fully clad and there was a jumble of material for various projects cluttering the space off the north hub.

The back face of the moon presented a waxing crescent to them and they knew the Rock should be just over the moon’s horizon, to the same side where the marble of the Earth hung, but they couldn’t see the tiny glint of it by eye.

April and Jeff were holding in queue for Local Control, on the way to pick up Heather in lunar orbit, which an open framed lunar jump-bug from Central could just manage to reach. The Chariot would then move on to Earth, to an open ocean landing, pick up freight from the ketch Tobiuo and drop them off for a couple weeks cruising, including a quiet layover on an uninhabited atoll. Gunny was in the back, along for security, happy to do it cheap because he loved being on the boat. They would finish at Tonga and lift by commercial shuttle as she had before. Less some of the drama and uncertainty this time.

“It’s a very different perspective now, with Earth not filling half the sky isn’t it?” Jeff asked.

“It’s a much better perspective,” April insisted. “More in line with how important Earth is to us now.”

“I had a pretty good idea, you have to admit,” Barak reminded them from the couch behind.

“Yes, you did, but don’t get too full of yourself,” April warned. “You had a good idea and it took a lot of work by Jeff and Heather and others to fill in all the details and make it work.”

“Well yeah, I know. I’m happy with everybody getting credit,” Barak allowed easily. “I’m really looking forward to seeing what a planet is like,” he went on. “I mean, I know what it is like in theory, but air around you as far as you can see, no overhead and no place it can leak off to? It sounds very strange.”

“We’ll teach you to fish and you have to learn to swim,” she insisted.

“But there’s killer sharks and stuff,” Barak worried.

“They can just mind their manners if Jeff is using their ocean. It’s a matter of professional courtesy.”

Barak wasn’t sure if they were making fun of him again, like a little. Sometimes it was hard to tell with these two. A glance at Gunny’s poker face gave no clue. He ignored it, which was safer and looked out the viewport again. Sometimes he missed the Earth filling the sky, but he didn’t miss the Earthies. He wondered what Jupiter would look like, just as close, all banded and swirled in all those colors, filling the view. He had to talk to his mom about going out there when they went out for another ice-ball. He’d be fifteen by then, after all, almost as old as April’s present sixteen, he suddenly realized and he hadn’t been anywhere…

- END -

The Last Part : Other Books and Links by Mackey Chandler

April (first in series)

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B0077EOE2C

April is an exceptional young lady and something of a snoop. She finds herself involved with intrigues that stretch her abilities, after a chance run in with a spy. There is a terrible danger she and her friends and family will lose the only home she has ever known in orbit and be forced to live on the slum ball below. It’s more than a teen should have to deal with. Fortunately she has a lot of smart friends and allies, who give them a thin technological edge in rebellion. It’s a good thing, because things get very rough and dicey.

Down to Earth (sequel to April)

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B007RGBIVK

April seems to make a habit of rescues. Now two lieutenants from the recent war appeal to her for help to reach Home. The secret they hold makes their escape doubtful. North America, the United States of North America, has been cheating on their treaty obligations and a public figure like April taking a very visible vacation there would be a good way to remind them of their obligations. Wouldn’t it? Her family and business associates all think it is a great idea. She can serve a public purpose and do her rescue on the sly too. But things get difficult enough just getting back Home alive is going to be a challenge. It’s a good thing she has some help. Why does everything have to be so complicated?

The Middle of Nowhere (third in April series)

http://www.amazon.com/The-Middle-Nowhere-April-ebook/dp/B00B1JJ7RQ

April returns home from her trip down to Earth unhappy with what she accomplished. Papa-san Santos is finishing her rescue of the Lieutenants, Her traitorous brother is dead and so many things are uncertain. The Chinese and North Americans both continue to give her and Home a hard time. But April, Jeff and Heather are gathering allies and power. China, trying to steal Singh technology, gets its hand slapped badly by Jeff and the Patriot Party in America is damaged, but not gone. Their project on the moon is not so easy for North America to shut down, especially with the Russians helping. Heather proves able to defend it forcefully. They really didn’t know she owns a cannon. The three have their own bank now, Home is growing and April is quickly growing up into a formidable young woman, worthy of her partners.

Paper or Plastic?

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B004RCLW68

Roger was medically discharged after his service in the Pan Arabic Protectorate, cutting off his chosen career path early. He is living in rural Sitra Falls, Oregon trying to deal with hyper-vigilance and ease back into civilian life.

When an unusual looking young woman enters his favorite breakfast place he befriends her. Little does he know he’ll kill for her before lunch and start an adventure that will take him around the world and off planet.

When you have every sort of alphabet agency human and alien hunting for you survival is the hard part. But you might as well get rich too.

Family Law

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B006GQSZVS

You know people who love their dogs. They put them in their will. They forgo vacations to stay home and take care of them.

Can a dog love back or is it simple self interest? Affection or love? Unconditional or a meal-ticket? What if you dog could talk back? Would your dog be less lovable if he could tell you what he thinks, like your spouse? If he complained his kibbles were dry and boring, would your affection wear thin? I don’t want to touch on what a cat might tell you…

Is the dog part of your family, or property? Who should decide that for you? How much more complicated will it be, if we meet really intelligent species, not human?

Humans don’t have a very good history of defending the interests of others. Even variations of their own species. How will they treat ‘people’ in feathers or fur? Perhaps a more difficult question is: How will they treat us? Usually the people who answer these sort of questions have no desire to be on the pointy end of things. They are just minding their own business and it is thrust upon them. This story explores those questions

Common Ground and Other Stories

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B0050YYVHY

A book size collection of seven short stories by Mackey Chandler. Ranging from single page to novella. The seven shorts contain an alien with a very human foible, a joker Joyboy banished to selling shoes on the moon, a crotchety old man holding aliens at bay with a leaf blower, the ultimate Windoze -FAIL-, a self made billionaire who never lost his touch, a sword wielding Earth diplomat. who was either very, very good, or incredibly lucky and a future Mama’s boy dealing with family, in an era of extended life times.

Link to full list of current releases on Amazon:

http://www.amazon.com/-/e/B004RZUOS2

Mac’s Writing Blog:

http://www.mackeychandler.com