Date: 2016-08-24T18:00:00+00:00
Description: Home is a nice place to live. If only so many people didn't think so. The influx has driven housing prices past anything reasonable. The Homies and their lunar allies have made sure they won't starve if Earth cuts them off, but they want to do much more than just survive. April and her friends are prospering, and working to make everyone else succeeds too. But Earth is still in turmoil. China and the USNA are holding back a global recovery after The Great Flu, because of their internal power struggles. Our heroes aren't going to wait for them to get their houses in order. There are other Earth
Publisher: UNKNOWN

It's Always Something

Mackey Chandler

8th book in the 'April' series

Contents

- Chapter 1
- Chapter 2
- Chapter 3
- Chapter 4
- Chapter 5
- Chapter 6
- Chapter 7
- Chapter 8
- Chapter 9
- Chapter 10
- Chapter 11
- Chapter 12
- Chapter 13
- Chapter 14
- Chapter 15
- Chapter 16
- Chapter 17
- Chapter 18
- Chapter 19
- Chapter 20
- Chapter 21
- Chapter 22
- Chapter 23
- Chapter 24
- Chapter 25
- Chapter 26
- Chapter 27
- Chapter 28

- The Last Part

Chapter 1

Kurt Bowman was still upset from his job interview yesterday. They claimed to be hiring for a number of government subsidized housing projects, big enough to go to multiple contractors. He'd expected to be hired since they'd called him in for a face to face interview. Instead the man had asked all sorts of strange stupid questions about his personal life, and intimated he was tainted by having worked high iron on Mitsubishi 3. He simply pointed out he had never become a Home citizen, and then made the mistake of saying the process was very easy, if he'd wished to do so. How that was offensive he was at a loss to understand, but the man bristled like an affronted cat.

The fellow persisted in wanting to know why he took a job there. When Karl laughed and told the man that for a little better than a million dollars a year most folks would work for the Devil himself, a mask of disapproval had descended over the man's face, and he knew the interview was over. How was he supposed to guess the man was a religious nutter? He obviously took the expression literally instead of as the hyperbole Kurt intended.

Then on top of it all he'd looked at Kurt's long sleeves and asked if he had any tats. Long sleeves were just expected in North America now. For something like a job interview you might as well come in bare chested as wear a short sleeved shirt. If the fellow had such a bad opinion of iron workers, high or low, he shouldn't have to lower himself to hire any. The question was way out of line.

The man was just looking to find fault by that point. He'd asked the man what that had to do with his ability to do iron work, rather than answer. There was nothing left to recover at that point by trying to answer factually, and he knew it. He finally stood and abruptly terminated the interview himself, rather than take anymore pointless abuse for a job he wasn't going to get. Kurt probably should have tried to end it on a gentler note, but he hadn't. Too late to worry about it now.

Then on the way home he was driving his rental in manual mode, because there was no auto-control way out in the sticks where he'd found a cheaper room. He was upset and not paying attention. The car data link informed him he'd averaged more than ten kilometers an hour over the limit for this country road and an auto-ticket would be mailed to the address he'd given for the rental agreement. They couldn't provide auto-control but they sure found the bandwidth to monitor his speed and issue tickets. That would be another thousand dollars, and if he didn't pay it in thirty days they'd charge it straight to the same account the car was charged to, plus a generous 'service' fee.

Kurt had felt pretty well heeled when he came home. The third ring of Mitsubishi 3 was done then and they were laying construction people off. He had two tours under his belt and had saved well over half his pay even after sending his sister money regularly to help her along. She lived with two other young women in an efficiency apartment, and they were fortunate to have it. That's why he wasn't staying with her. They were already jammed in and didn't need a male roomie. When they talked while he was still on M3, she'd been describing for some months how the influx of people from the north was driving up housing prices.

It had been bad last year, but now in mid-summer 2089 it looked like even more people were deciding that living in the north was too dangerous. You couldn't blame them. The electric utilities hadn't made any visible progress in reducing the outages and brown-outs. Fuel oil was hard to get and expensive in rural areas. Freezing to death was a particularly nasty way to die.

That was part of why Kurt decided to come home. With the migration south, right on the warm gulf coast was about the only place anybody was doing construction. There were quite a few huge condo complexes going up around Mobile, and he figured he could get a job putting the framework up. That might have been a miscalculation.

He wasn't feeling so flush now. The cost of most things was three or four times what he remembered them being when he'd lifted to M3. He hadn't paid a lot of attention to prices before, because he'd done a year of college and then lifted to Home while he was still living with his parents. His folks had died of the flu and left him and his sister very little, mostly keepsakes like photos, not cash. Food was even worse than stuff like clothing, and he'd gotten spoiled eating at the construction workers cafeteria on M3. They hadn't had a lot of things toward the end of his there. No fresh hamburger to make your own, and very seldom whole cuts of anything for supper, but it was still take all you want scrambled eggs from freeze dried, and stuff like pancakes.

The North American news sites argued the cost of living wasn't much higher, because there were other offsetting expenses that were now lower. Yeah, you could get a very reasonable place to sleep in Winnipeg, and farmland in Wisconsin was suddenly affordable. Last year's phone that did things undreamed of ten years ago was dirt cheap, but it made lousy filling for a sandwich.

A couple of the guys laid off from the construction crew stayed on at lower paying jobs, rather than come back to Earth. He could understand the fellow from Estonia staying. Europe was a mess even without the flu, and he had no family. But Kurt didn't feel the same as the guys calling Earth the Slum Ball and making fun of him for returning. Well, he hadn't then; he was wavering now.

He liked Home OK, but it was very limited. There wasn't any serious night life for a young guy. The number of peers with who you could date or party with was really limited. Homies and beam dogs didn't mix much. The only live music was pretty tame stuff. Kurt favored music than would rumble through the deck halfway around a ring. And there hadn't been any beer for months.

Kurt liked Mobile, and had fond memories of going to school here. He felt he could probably help his sister, and he still had Uncle Don alive even if his mom and dad were gone. If there were any other distant Bowmans with which the family had lost contact, his mom and dad had never mentioned them. Uncle Don and his wife hadn't seemed that thrilled to see him however. It was an awkward visit with his uncle scowling at him and making short unfriendly replies. His aunt said almost nothing, looking back and forth between them, distressed. He'd cut his visit with them very short, although he hadn't just stood and walked out with no further formalities, like he had earlier with the job recruiter. Uncle Don hadn't seemed friendly at all until he announced he better be going. Then he seemed visibly relieved that Kurt hadn't asked him for any help or a place to stay. He didn't tell his sister how badly that hurt.

Rather than wait and stew on it Kurt paid the ticket online. It wasn't like he'd save anything for waiting to get the paper copy in the mail. Then, when he called his sister to tell her about the job interview, she told him the county didn't usually mail the notices out until the last day anyhow. They wanted the late fee if you were foolish enough to forget about it or try to ignore it.

He got no more interviews for a week. He wasn't getting any online responses, not even the usual hungry recruiters asking him if he could do something he wasn't even remotely qualified to do, so he decided to actually visit a few of the larger construction companies and ask if they had something for him to do, even if it was a step down from iron work.

The first three places refused to even talk to him. They had to remotely unlock the door to their reception area, and they looked out at him and refused. Then leaving the last place the police had pulled him over with two cruisers. They spread him on the trunk with guns pointed at him, wanded him, and searched the car. When he'd explained why he was visiting the businesses the one cop had cursed angrily at the waste of his time, and told the older cop there was a group of newcomers downtown who'd got past all the checkpoints, and stalked back to his cruiser to go on that call, leaving the older cop behind.

"Newcomers?" Kurt asked, not sure what the man was talking about.

"You know," the cop insisted, even though Kurt plainly didn't. "Migrants. You can't cover every little farm road and side street. Sometimes a bunch of them, usually just a single family, filter through and don't get taken to the camp. They're bad for business and scare folks they look so rough. They're pretty easy to spot since they have been walking for weeks and not exactly staying at the Holiday Inn.

"That's what they are, no matter what you call them," Kurt said, disgusted.

The old cop had the decency to look a little embarrassed. "Some politician decided that sounded nicer, so the chief told us to call them that at the last morning roll call. If it makes them happy I'll call them anything they want. God only knows that's the easiest part of this job."

"Yeah I can see that," Kurt said, with little conviction. Maybe if I got a job I could learn to do that, he realized. "Anyway...as I was saying, that's all I wanted to do this morning. Talk to somebody about getting a job."

"You can't do that now," the old cop told him. "It isn't against the law," he said, as soon as he saw the look that flashed on Kurt's face. "But it's been years since you could go door to door without an appointment and ask after a job or try to sell stuff to a business. Going to residences is even worse. People assume you are either scouting them out to come back and burgle the place or rob them. Or you might be working a con to fall down and claim you are going to sue them to force a small settlement.

"Mr. Bowman, nobody hires off the street. In fact most places only hire through other agencies, because there is less chance of being sued for discrimination. They only hire on the agency's recommendation and never see you or read your full history before, so they can show innocence of any possible bias. Even the county hires our police recruits through a third party."

The cop didn't seem in a big rush to leave. It was a pleasant day and they were pulled well off on a street that wasn't busy with fast traffic. He was standing thumbs hooked in his equipment belt, and actually looked concerned. So Kurt told him the story of how he'd had a face to face interview and how badly it had gone.

The cop sighed. "It's always something. Let me call the fellow who put us on to you and ask a couple questions," the cop offered. He held his phone square to his face like you have to do to make a video call. It was quickly obvious the cop needed to reassure the business man he wasn't suspected of wrong doing, first thing.

"I'm standing outside with a phone, not at a desk as you can see. I've already ran this fellow against criminal records, he's clean. But would you run this guy's name against your available personnel sources for me, and see what sort of return you get? Thank you, I appreciate it."

"OK, OK, why is that significant? No this is just for my information, don't consider it an official inquiry. That's not my area of law enforcement at all...OK. Yeah thanks," and he terminated the call.

"The agency that interviewed you has your file marked as 'turned down'. This guy claims that is a code for unsuitable. If it had said declined or just not hired it would indicate you should be considered again. I'm sorry, don't blame me for bringing bad news, but I wouldn't waste any more time pursuing big companies around Mobile for your usual line of work. And if you get a lawyer and try to sue I'll deny I ever said anything to you. I don't need to sit off duty for days waiting to repeat hearsay for a trial. I'm just doing you a favor to keep you from wasting a lot of time beating your head against a wall you didn't know was there."

"No, I don't intend to make any trouble for you," Kurt promised. "I appreciate the help. So I'm basically blackballed from any iron work?"

"That's kind of old fashioned, people don't use that expression much now, but yeah, that's what I'm hearing," the cop said.

"Thanks," Kurt said, disheartened. "I won't keep pounding on doors, making trouble for you."

"If you run out of money, don't try sleeping out on the street," the cop warned. "We round up anybody that isn't in a shelter and take them to one, if they are locals, or to a migrant camp well outside town. They placed it out too far to be able to walk in and back in a day, so you don't want to get stuck out there."

Kurt was horrified by the suggestion he might sink so low. "I have funds," he assured the cop. "I'm not homeless."

"That's good. Then best of luck to you finding something. I don't expect to run into you again." Whether that was sincere or a veiled warning Kurt wasn't sure, but the cop walked off to his cruiser, and Kurt got back in his car quickly rather than stand there alone on the shoulder like a fool.

* * *

"How can you possibly grow this to have the right texture and flavor?" April asked. She took another generous bite of tenderloin. It was pale pink in the middle and charred on the outside, but hot all the way through. The little cup of steak sauce with it was built on a butter base with mustard, thyme, garlic, salt and a dash of Cajun seasoning, but no tomato. It was an heirloom recipe from Dr. Ames' grandmother. No surprise anyone nicknamed Jelly would come from a family of cooks and appreciative eaters. The fact April was ignoring the sauce didn't bother him at all. He took it as a good sign the beef stood alone just fine with only a little salt and pepper.

"I'll tell you if you'll agree to strict nondisclosure," Ames offered. "I intend to keep the process secret as long as possible. Heather is agreeable to allowing me to keep the production in physical isolation with very few people knowing the entire process. She offered to start issuing patents, but I figure the Earthies wouldn't respect them even if she does. But if you're going to invest in it I understand why you'd need more details."

April chewed and swallowed. She looked at the hunk of meat in wonder, and perhaps resented a little bit needing to stop eating to speak with Jelly.

"Of course," April agreed, readily. "I'd do that much for friendship, not just business. I think you're right, the Chinese especially, would have factories set up cranking this stuff out in a couple months if you let it be public knowledge. And you'd never see so much as a plastic Yuan coin for it. I just don't understand how you can grow this without...the cow."

"Tissue culture is nothing new. Even growing it to a certain shape is not unheard of. We can grow some complex organs easier than bulk muscle tissue. I can grow chicken chunks, nuggets, pretty easily. People will buy those. But with beef it's hard to market it in small pieces. They don't sell very well, even for kabobs. The shape and texture are not what people expect," Ames lamented. April took the opportunity to slice off another bite while he was talking.

"There are difficulties both in getting a large mass without vascularization to oxygenate it and to provide nutrients..."

"Where do you get the nutrients?" April asked around a full mouth.

"The first experiments used bovine blood fractions, the same as a cow. Obviously that's not cost effective," Ames said, "even on Earth. It was just useful to prove the concept in a laboratory setting. But you can create bacteria to produce the proper nutrients by altering them genetically. So far we've been able to get everything we need from combining five separate cultures, blended and filtered.

"You process those cultures, add electrolytes, add a few extracts we obtain from food plants like glucose, and introduce it as a nutrient bath. The culture is started on a platinum plate and grows from it along a grid of very thin tubes with microscopic orifices which release the nutrients. It's also done at higher than normal pressure, and with additives in the mix which have no function but to increase its oxygen carrying capacity."

"But doesn't it have a bunch of holes through it then?" April asked, making a repeated gesture with her straight fingers. "I don't see a grid of holes in my steak."

"The tubes are very thin, Think of an ultrafine hypodermic needle. One of the ways they tenderize natural beef is to stab it repeatedly with fine needles," he said, copying her gesture. "You won't see holes from that process either. But when the culture is mature you slide it off the grid of needles and it appears a solid mass. Electro-stimulation hastens growth and is a factor in giving it the proper grain.

"Then you sterilize the apparatus and start a new one. It takes about two weeks to grow a quarter kilo filet. My next generation tank will grow three hundred sixty at a time.

"Just like Gunny had 'trodes on each one, making his fingers grow faster inside the clamshell when they grew him a new hand?" April guessed.

"Very much so, but I'd avoid bringing that up when marketing the product," Ames suggested.

"I know, people are squeamish. Don't worry. Even if I invest, I know better than to interfere with things for which I have no talent, like selling," April promised.

Ames nodded appreciatively. For all of his professionalism he was squeamish, but he'd rather not admit it to April. Ames let her eat. The steak was selling itself better than anything he could say.

April was chewing, but thoughtfully, looking off in the air trying to visualize something.

"Why do you have to keep starting and stopping?" she finally asked. "A batch process is always less efficient than a continuous production. Just grow the meat and trim it off. As long as you keep monitoring, and your nutrient bath stays clean and doesn't spoil, it could run a long time."

"The tissue will degrade once it grows past the ends of the needles," Ames explained. "It needs the oxygen and nutrients continuously. Just like tissue in a cow needs constant circulation."

"Oh..." April appraised the height of the filet on her plate. "Have the needles six or seven centimeters long. When the steak has grown out near the ends have the needles retract five centimeters and slice it off. Then push them back out to full length."

Ames looked distressed. "You'd have to anchor the remainder of the culture to the base...or hold it in place with a sort of fork temporarily, while the needles come back out. I can think of several ways to do that, actually. What made you think of that?" he asked, a little irritated.

April borrowed a phrase from her good friend Barak. "I'm not sure. It just seemed obvious." The look of consternation on Ames face didn't make her enjoy the steak any less at all.

* * *

After discussing it with his sister, Kurt wasn't at all sure what to do. She had some practical suggestions about stretching his money out, but they all assumed he'd eventually get some sort of job and have income, even if greatly reduced. There were shortages that had no easy to see reason, and one of them right now was work boots. He'd paid almost two thousand bucks for a pair assuming he'd need them. Now it looked like it might have been wasted money, unless he could resell them. It was always something...

He brought up moving to another area with an influx of refugees to his sister, and she had a fit about the word, warning him it was just as bad as his sick joke about working for the Devil. The official word was that all these people were not refugees, even saying migrants was starting to be frowned upon as the cop had clued him in on early. What would they call them next? They sure weren't on vacation.

His sister warned if he said anything about refugees in a new job interview he'd likely end up on another list of disapproved people. Saying refugees, she assured him, labeled you as anti-government. He felt like he couldn't say anything safely. What did they think these people were? Tourists? He might move to say, Atlanta, and get banned there for accidentally speaking some forbidden truth.

Kurt had lost track of what was acceptable to say publicly from being away working on M3. You had to be immersed in Earth culture to keep track. The faster you got with the latest acceptable phrase the better. Nobody on Home had lists of words that made them gasp in horror and shun you if you didn't know the current code. His sister had also confirmed what the cop said, that black-balled was also a long forbidden usage. He'd just rolled his eyes when she informed him it was racist. How did anyone come up with this crap? It was amazing they could sell black paint still, and not have to label it 'darkest grey' or some other euphemism.

All the time he was away working construction on M3 he'd neglected to follow the news from North America or even Mobile. His sister sent him a text almost daily, but she spoke about her roomies and work. Neither of them had ever been interested in politics on any scale. He didn't identify with any party, and suddenly he found people wanting to know if he was a 'Patriot' or a 'Saint' before they'd talk to him about football or share a beer. He found that insane.

He'd always thought of M3 as just that, a Mitsubishi property on which he was working construction. He was a little hazy on the parent company versus a subsidiary corporation. That all seemed as pointlessly complicated as calling refugees newcomers. But that sort of nit picking seemed to be what kept lawyers in big money. Calling it 'Home' also seemed a conceit and a bit silly to him too, like they were trying to be folksy. But suddenly he was feeling so isolated and alienated in his old hometown that Home seemed more like home...so he found himself setting his news reader to find out what was happening back there. It was stupid and irritating to find most search and direct access was blocked to both official sites and services hosted there, such as 'What's Happening'.

It took about two minutes to bypass and see whatever he wanted through foreign proxies. Any grade school kid knew how to do it. He made sure the only identifier would be the coffee shop he was sitting in at the moment. If they wanted to know who was interested in Home badly enough they could pull the security video from the store. It all had to be forwarded to the government now, but there was a limit how much they could actually filter and review.

Some of the ads in What's Happening did have some code words. The rowdier side of society, especially the beam dogs and temporary workers, tried to avoid offending some of the older more conservative people in their ads. That didn't seem as silly a word game to him as the Earth version for some reason. He was removed from that recently enough that he could still read the hidden messages, and smile.

The ad that caught his eye however was in the clear.

- Experienced space workers needed –

A Lunar partnership with both Home and Central backers intends to assemble and position an auxiliary un-spun habitat in proximity to Mitsubishi 3. The primary phase of the project will aim to provide housing for two hundred. The initial phase is expected to last a year and a half, the first six months being entirely at the Central Kingdom on the moon. Expansion past the first phase is dependent on market conditions for housing, materials and other economic factors.

Build standards will be the same as current Mitsubishi requirements or better. Workers need to be adaptable however, because innovative use of lunar materials will be an economic necessity for the successfully completion of the project.

Full literacy in standard English is a must. Ability to use and maintain hard suits or moon suits a must. Ability to vacuum weld, vacuum bond, handle and use explosive fasteners, instant soldering nuts, zero G counter-force tools, and helmet talk are pluses. Programming, use, and design for 3D fabricators desired. Repair of 3D constructs and composites a plus.

Preference to hire and salary are heavily based on verifiable hours of vacuum suit work, specialized training, extra languages, and pilot tickets. Power and data electricians, pipefitters, and airlock mechanics paid a premium.

Paid on job training for vacuum work / zero G procedures are available to certified Emergency Medical Technicians, Nurse Practitioners, computer / controller repair technicians, and electric vehicle repair and maintenance technicians.

Chefs / kitchen bosses, prep cooks, and a pastry maker needed. Ability to manage others, cook multiple cuisines and improvise menus to available supply a must.

A computerized veracity interview and an investigation of previous ability to integrate to the workplace will be conducted.

Contact / resumes : Jeffery Singh, Project Administrator, Home 1467 or Central 0002, Subject JOB.

Details : WW5.HomeWebS.SinghTechnologies/projects/M3

That sounded very interesting to Kurt since things in Mobile weren't working out as he'd planned. Unfortunately, he'd had a guaranteed shuttle voucher to bring him home, but no lift ticket to return since he wasn't employed anymore. From what he'd heard it was pretty tough to get a seat now. Maybe Mr. Singh would have some advice. Kurt still had an active account at the System Trade Bank. That was a Singh business too. It might not be a good idea to draw attention to himself by sending messages in the clear to Home right now, but he could leave a private message through the internal message system at the bank. They did things differently on Home. If he tried to contact an Earth bank executive through the customer message board, he had no doubt they'd just delete it. On Home he had every confidence they wouldn't freak out and slavishly follow the rules.

Kurt logged on and was happy to see he had 6.732 Solars. They'd just posted  0.032 Solars monthly interest. Thank goodness he hadn't changed it all to dollars! His Great Southern Bank account charged him. They couldn't even change Solars for him. It wasn't legal now, and he'd needed to transfer funds through Hong Kong. They'd have exchanged it for him through Germany, but the swap through EuroMarks would have cost a half percent even though he didn't hold them in anything but the fleeting legal sense of the computer transfer.

He thought carefully how to state his question. Better to keep it short for now going through this unorthodox channel. He outlined his dilemma and reasons for keeping a low profile and invited Singh to ask his previous employers about his service. On Home they'd talk to him without being scared they'd be sued if they dare say anything negative about him. He wasn't worried about anything they could say anyway. He'd worked his butt off for them.

* * *

Gunny leaned back in his chair and his eyes did the quick scan thing that April had come to recognize. He always picked the chair against the wall if he could. Nobody had tried to kill her in like...forever. But she was still happy to have Gunny around for when she went to other habs. He was sort of on call now – she still paid him a retainer. He couldn't help being ON if he was with her, even though they were just having supper and he wasn't officially playing body guard.

Home was a lot safer now beyond the moon. Their enemies didn't have the easy access from Earth they had in LEO. Both China and the United States of North America were pretty messed up internally, and had limited lift capacity. Any Norte Americano who came all the way to Home now stood out and was watched carefully. The Europeans still insisted in official propaganda that Home somehow had something to do with the Great Influenza epidemic. However they were never specific in their accusations, just subtle innuendo, and they didn't seem to allow that to keep European companies from doing business with Home. They certainly had no official sanctions in place like North America. In fact, the Europeans and the Australians, as well as the Japanese, all picked up a little coin repackaging or outright smuggling Home products into North America, and most likely China too. Jeff made sure he picked up a little cut of all that action, and that was all paid to the company he shared with April and Heather. So if the Americans wanted to pay through the nose to keep up appearances she'd be happy to take their money.

April provided housing for Gunny. She had a rather large private cubic for Home, and he had his private room and tiny bath set off with temporary partitions. Housing was so expensive now she should probably just provide that for his services, and skip the cash retainer, but April would feel like a cheapskate to reduce his income even though he had other work now. It wasn't that much to carry.

April had steady income from both the businesses she held in common with Jeff and Heather, and a bunch of little businesses her brother willed her. Neither did she have any really expensive vices or hobbies, other than being a coffee snob. Well, she'd spent some money on art by Lindsey, but that had increased in value so much that she'd been offered ten Solar for the big one of a kind drawing in her living room. She still had a chunk of cash Eddie had given her when she'd gone down to Earth. She felt safer to hold that in reserve rather than invest it with what she held in common with Jeff and Heather. That would be complicated. They after all both had other things they held apart and neither of them had increased their common holdings..

Gunny was a real asset to have on site. Passive insurance you might say. A sort of security system. The possibility Gunny might be home reduced the possibility anyone would consider trying to invade their space, either covertly in a black operation, or a full frontal assault.

His worth as a home security system was all the more true since Jan Hagen had leaked the video of Gunny being kidnapped by the North Americans last year. It made the rounds of Home and then inevitably, like anything let loose on the net, found its way to Earth sites. It was rather amusing, at least to her, Gunny found it less so. He found it an affront to his dignity and didn't seem to get that others found it frightening.

The Americans had a corrupt data base, nothing new there, their government and military nets were a rats nest of old mismatched hardware and software, that translated between incompatible systems. Their agencies were too stubborn or broke to abandon and consolidate them. They'd told the American military post on ISSII that Gunny was still a deserter, after he'd been honorably discharged by Presidential decree.

They were a bit over zealous to Taser him from behind in the international zone of ISSII and carry him away to their interest section. That irritated Jan Hagen, Head of Security for ISSII. Jan was on the short list April kept of people who you don't irritate or count favors owed back and forth too closely. Jan Oppositional Disorder was a defect she'd seen too many display that proved fatal. She'd seen Chinese officers take a space walk out the airlock without the encumbrance of a suit for provoking Jan only slightly more than the North Americans had by grabbing Gunny.

The video didn't capture them Tasing Gunny from behind. It started with a security camera view in the officer's cabin, made into an improvised brig, where they'd thrown the unconscious Gunny. He was sprawled limp on the bunk in his shorts, having been stripped and searched before they cuffed him hand and foot and tossed him there. He woke up slowly and rolled over examining his prison and his frown growing slowly worse until he was showing teeth. He sat up and swung his legs off the bunk, set his mouth in a hard line, tucked his arms in front of him and spread them wide suddenly, snapping the cuff chain in a single clean jerk.

The camera caught a full frontal shot of his chest with muscles taut and defined. He looked like the drawings of muscle groups in an anatomy textbook. However, what April always marveled at was his collection of scars. In fact, it fascinated her so, she'd watched it through three times in a row when Jon Davis, Home's head of security, first obtained a copy and shared it with her. April really enjoyed seeing Gunny snap that chain.

The officer assigned to watch Gunny could be heard trying to tell his superior on com that they might have a little problem. He was being too professional and matter-of-fact about it and consequently made no impression on the man how dire the situation was at all. A little terror in the voice might not have been misplaced, under the circumstances. He got blown off, which delayed an effective response.

Gunny shuffled over with ankle cuffs still on and used the toilet in the officer's cabin, back mercifully to the camera. He tested the ankle cuffs, but pulling one up and one down apparently hurt his shins too badly to tolerate. In the end he used his hands to help in breaking the chain across the corner of the desk. He pawed through the desk looking for assets, but they'd thought to clean it out.

The bunk was secured along the bulkhead on the long side but the opposite edge was held up by two short lengths of tubing tacked to the deck at the corners. Gunny grabbed the edge of the bunk in the middle and heaved up on it. It bent and the corner supports leaned in, but it held. Gunny stopped trying, stood back and glowered at it in thought. After a moment he stomped on the peak he'd created and drove it back down and toward the deck a bit, inverted to a Vee now.

Foiled, he changed his tactics, grabbing the corner and wrenching it back and forth. The edge rail and end posts went back and forth between alternate parallelogram shapes until the weld in the deck broke with a crack and the whole framework came loose from the deck and bulkhead.

Gunny ignored the locked hatch to the corridor. He'd never even tried it to see if it was locked. He instead attacked the bare bulkhead into the next cabin with the folded up bunk rails as a battering ram. That was where the fellow monitoring the video camera had been stationed, conveniently close so he could respond and go into Gunny's cell if need arose.

He didn't need to respond. Gunny was coming to him.

The video then switched to the feed from the adjoining room. The watch stander could be heard urgently requesting a security response. The bulkhead bulged with a loud thud and got a crease drawn on it from the other side. There's was inexplicable pause, followed by a flurry of blows that formed an irregular bulge in the bulkhead, which grew with each blow. The metal was surprisingly strong and flexed back and forth a lot before the bunk frame finally tore a rip in the sheet metal. The end of the bunk frame was stuck briefly in the new hole and swung back and forth as Gunny worked it loose and pried the hole wider.

By then two more North Americans had joined the duty guard on the wide angle camera feed. They all three held Tasers held in front of them, but stayed back as far as possible from the widening breech. Gunny's bare foot appeared, kicking the edge of the opening to fold the metal back. The hole was only about a quarter meter across, but the one guard saw a shot and fired through the gap. He connected because the foot retracted and was a moment of silence.

One of the new fellows then ordered the duty guard to go around to the prisoner's room and recuff him. The guard refused the direct order in profane terms and invited the fellow to do it himself. About that time the effect of the Taser wore off and Gunny could be heard through the opening describing in loud detail what he was going to do with the man's Taser when he got through the wall. It was unlikely the weapon would fit, but then none of them would have believed you could rip your way through a bulkhead like this either.

Gunny's hand reappeared holding the leg ripped off the bunk frame and used it as a mallet to widen the hole. None of the men chose to shoot this time at the small target a moving hand presented.

With the opening big enough Gunny did a clean dive through it, only getting a few small cuts since the edges were all peeled away from his side. He threw the piece of pipe at one of them, knocking his aim off. The other two got a clean shot at him and took him down again.

This time they cuffed his hands behind him, managing to get three pairs around his wrists and two around his ankles with another stretched between the sets.

"Get medical down here to sedate this...guy," the one in charge demanded. He still had wires on Gunny and appeared ready to shock him again if he came to.

"Dear God..are all the Homies like this brute?" the other guard asked. It was interesting, because April had never heard anyone call them Homies before. But once the video circulated it was a common expression now, just a few months later.

Gunny tonight was nothing like he was in the video. He was relaxed as he ever got, leaning against the wall, scanning the room occasionally like he was on a timer, and content with his thoughts, not reading or listening to anything. He didn't look like the enraged ogre in the video at all. He was however slowly squeezing and relaxing his grip on an exercise ball. He'd been doing that with his right hand ever since he'd lost it on an Earth mission and been forced to have it re-grown last year. April noticed that he'd switched to working the ball with both hands recently. His skin on the new hand looked just like the other one now, and his nails had grown thick again after looking thin and delicate. In the video you could see his right hand was still pale and hairless, but that hadn't seemed to impair him significantly ripping a hole in the bulkhead.

"I'd think your hand has to be back to full strength by now," April commented.

Gunny brought the blue ball up, like Hamlet examining Yorick's skull. "I want to keep my grip at its best in both hands. It's useful in my line of work. Anyway, it's relaxing."

April frowned..."Wasn't it a red ball recently? Just a few days ago? What did you do, wear the other one out?"

Gunny looked embarrassed for a fleeting moment. A rarity as he had no shame. "The blue is the next grade of resistance. I wasn't paying attention and stuck my thumb through the old red one."

April tried to imagine how much force that took, and decided to drop it. Gunny was already embarrassed so it was only polite to drop it. It was nice that he didn't evade her with a 'little' lie.

"You didn't get dessert," April observed. It wasn't a question, but Gunny knew that was her intent.

"I picked up a few kilos. I know... I needed to," He added, before April could say it. He'd lost weight and stopped working out while they'd been on short rations. That was really bad for a security professional. "But I fear the last couple kilos weren't muscle," Gunny said, laying his hand on a flat stomach that looked hard and fit to April's eye. He also didn't have as many gene mods as April. The faster metabolism being one of them. The ones a security professional needed came first. But that was for him to decide and very personal. They weren't cheap either, and the ones that didn't involve aging...well, you could get them later on easy enough if you could spare the money and time.

"I could stand to work out a little more," April admitted, rather than argue with him.

"Yes, you could," Gunny agreed. "In your spare time," he added to soften it.

They laughed together at that often shared phrase.

Chapter 2

Barak, coming off work from what they called the cabbage mines, regarded the posted work schedule with some annoyance. They had him set for twelve off and then a twelve hour shift to the rover garage. Alice was set for an eight hour shift to Central environmental, starting two hours after his start time, and Deloris started a lift to Home when Barak was getting off. That was all switched around from before, and they hadn't gotten a full off day together since they'd started. And there was no telling what things would be like in a week. Everything could easily be changed tomorrow. Every time they tried to create a reasonable schedule either something broke, or there was a delay getting supplies, or someone got sick. They ended up waving at each other in passing or needing to be carefully quiet in the apartment when one of them needed to sleep. There wasn't much of anywhere to go to if they left their apartment to avoid making noise. On the other hand, a couple times Barak had been there all alone and gone to the cafeteria just to be around some people and noise. He didn't care to be isolated for long at all.

Neither his foreman Geraldo nor his boss Mo were being jerks about it, they went from crisis to crisis and if anything worked crazier hours than Barak or his roomies. He had to admit neither he nor the girls had been asked to report for work unsafe from lack of sleep.

When the three of them returned from the second ice ball mission to Jupiter last year they'd expected to have a nice payout waiting for them. The plan had been for them to take a vacation all together before worrying about finding further employment. Their pay contract however, was in USNA dollars. When they'd left in 2087 that had been fine. But on their return there was all sorts of chaos in the banking systems. Several countries had gone to depreciating currencies, even the European group, and USNA dollars had been devalued. They found themselves near broke instead of flush.

It wasn't the orderly devaluation like Gunny had described to them about going through when he was Barak's age. That had been ten to one and everything had been adjusted all at the same time. The numbers in your accounts had dropped 90% and there was a thirty day window to trade old currency for new. But almost all debt got devalued by the same amount.

Just a few folks got caught in legal exclusions that left them holding full debts with no relief. Of course those few people were ruined. Most of them were people who were so wealthy there wasn't much public sympathy for them. By some coincidence they tended to be political enemies of the people in power. Gunny, back then, had been a lower rank sailor, who rarely had much money left by the next payday anyway. That made it a lot easier.

Other people had found themselves with way too much cash to explain. There was a sudden but short term opportunity for a lot of poor people to launder money for cash holding friends. A lot of money in foreign countries never got converted, which quite a few people said was intended all along.

The current devaluation was less orderly. The official rate dropped daily, sometimes by the hour at the end. The official exchange rates were defended, but when the black market rate and the central bank rate got too far apart, money just stopped flowing. Other countries had fought and lost this sort of a contest many times over the years, but to the United States of North America it was not just damaging, it was embarrassing. They'd thought themselves beyond such market forces.

All three of them could have gotten other jobs. Alice as an environmental tech for Mitsubishi itself, a very desirable employer, but even though they offered a generous cash housing allowance there was simply no housing to be had on Home. That's probably why the position was still open. Alice was less than thrilled at the idea of sleeping on the deck in some stranger's living room every evening.

Delores could have had an orbit to orbit pilot's position for FedEx. She'd have had to take a room on New Las Vegas when she docked there, or a hot slot on ISSII or The Turnip – the French hab. If she got stuck at Home with a layover the FedEx crews were reportedly sleeping on their shuttles for now. They got the per diem for a hot slot paid still, but there was rarely one open. They simply strung a tube hammock in the shuttle, and made use of one of the few public restrooms or a friend's shower to clean up.

Jeff Singh offered Barak employment, but not on Home. Jeff already had a family in his apartment - in fact the wife and children of Barak's section boss, Mo Pennington. His wife was as resistant to moving to the moon as she had been to coming up from Earth. Barak wasn't holding his breath waiting to see her here so Jeff would regain his apartment. Jeff was living in his business office with another employee, and no room there for Barak either. The attraction of the moon job was not only that they had generous living cubic to offer at low cost, but that they also had a labor shortage and Deloris and Alice could easily find employment at decent pay too. Right now being broke together sounded better than scattering to the winds with no funds and no friends at hand they could count on. Being effectively broke, living pay to pay alone, invited disaster from the slightest mishap until they had funds built up again. Best to be safe.

Barak likely could have found work on Home from someone besides Jeff. His mother had kept his room unchanged so he had a place to stay. Indeed when he got back his mother had been off to a lunar colony doing some commissioned art work, and the door had still been set to open to his palm. Even his personal items he'd left behind were still in the drawers and storage bins. His mother had a generous apartment, but enough income she had no desire to ruin her privacy by taking in roomers or subdividing the cubic like so many others were doing.

Barak stayed at his old home ten days, and had his shipmates off the Yuki-onna with him as his guests. Finding his mom off on a commission, he hadn't asked her for permission to have house guests. When she announced her work on the moon was wrapping up and she'd be home in a few days he had to do something. There was no way he wanted to ask her to allow his friends to stay. Even one would have been presumptuous, two were impossible.

He hadn't wanted to return to his mother's home and his old room in any case. He didn't really want to be the stereotypical young man still living at home. He got along fine with his mom, but he was enjoying his new independence. If he stayed he was pretty sure his mom would try to treat him more like an adult, she was pleased with his willingness to assert adult status, but it was her cubic and her rules. He would feel stifled, and he really doubted she would've been indifferent to his having two young ladies as roommates. The fact they were both slightly older than him just aggravated it. She might assume they were taking advantage of his youth although neither were that much older.

When he broke the news to them that his mom was returning Barak was relieved to find they both immediately understood the problem without a painfully detailed explanation. Neither asked why they couldn't stay or why that created a problem. It was one of the things he liked about them, that they were more experienced than him, and maybe a little smarter.

Delores demonstrated that perceptiveness by cutting right to the heart of the matter.

"OK, we're agreed it's much smarter and safer to stay together for support. If one of us gets sick or our new job doesn't work out, two can carry one for a few weeks on our immediate income until they recover. It looks like the moon is the only choice that lets us do that right now. I'm willing to go there if that's where we can stay together. I have no desire to travel as a permanent thing with no home base. Maybe later when we have a bankroll and the economy is a little better we can all find better opportunities. Are you in, Alice?"

"I'm in," Alice agreed, and so they'd come to Central.

Jeff wanted him to continue formulating hiring guides and crew structures for very long voyages. He was enthused at Barak's idea of researching the pertinent history of sailing crews in that age of exploration. Barak wasn't a quiet studious sort by nature, for research to occupy his full time. Jeff also wanted him to share his time helping other people for vacuum suit work and construction in tunnels and cubic. It would be a shame to waste his expertise and he'd get enough hours to keep his suit ratings current.

But Barak's experience so far was that there was no trouble getting enough hours to stay certified. Rather, they seemed to need him to help out on pretty much a full time basis. To the point he wasn't making any progress on Jeff's project. It wasn't a problem yet, because Jeff didn't have a starship sitting waiting on a crew. He was candid that he didn't even have a workable drive or theory to make one yet, though it was a goal. If Jeff got unhappy about the lack of progress Barak had his time sheets archived. One look at them would explain what he'd been doing with all his hours.

The truth was Barak was enjoying trying a variety of new things. He'd filled in with rover drivers as their backup driver until they reported him qualified as a primary driver. He'd been a helper to the boring machine mechanics, and helped service an airlock when that specialist needed a second set of hands. He'd aided in planting trays of onions, radishes and cabbages in clean room conditions, when he'd never before had any idea how one started crops. He'd even drawn a liter of aging whiskey one day to forward to Home for testing, and tasted it himself out of curiosity. It was awful.

Barak's shipmates were experiencing less diversion from their primary jobs, but they still occasionally found themselves assigned to other duties. Alice worked on environmental systems, but also got called to work on the sealed systems for agriculture, which maintained very different conditions than inhabited cubic. Indeed, some of the growing tunnels had to be entered in suits or at least with a breathing mask. She even had occasion to service a shuttle that had a catastrophic environmental failure while sitting on their field loading freight.

Deloris too had been diverted to fly other routes than the lunar shuttle runs she expected. On several occasions she had been loaned out to other carriers, and on one occasion she'd diverted the landing shuttle from a Home delivery to an orbit to orbit job. The cargo had been hot enough not to worry about  the extra expense of using a landing shuttle in a different configuration.

They all had to be flexible, but discussing it after every major disruption and crisis, they all concluded it was still a better decision than splitting up and going their own ways. They were being paid in Solars and most of their living expenses were covered or cheap. If they'd stayed on Home the majority of their income would have gone to rent. None of them even thought of owning their own housing instead of shared. That was an impossible dream for the indefinite future.

* * *

"Stuffed grape leaves, and Syrian rice?" April exclaimed. "I know you've gotten back to lifting a lot of common goods, but I'm surprised to see these even though they aren't very bulky. I'm still waiting for Ruby to get some big bell peppers to stuff. She does those so well I really miss them."

"Good guess," Jeff allowed, "but those are zucchini leaves from the moon. You have to catch them early before they get tough, but they work just fine. The chopped stalks bulk out soups and I understand they even sneak a little bit of them in lasagna."

"I didn't know anything but the squash was edible," April said. It didn't seem to put her off them.

"We're finding out all sorts of edible plants, or parts of them, are wasted on Earth. But if you search for ethnic food recipes and really old cook books you find out the whole plant was often used before food was mass produced and centrally processed. We're not going back to wasting so much," Jeff promised. "If anything we will develop varieties that have better leaves and stalks as well as the fruit. The same with a lot of other things besides zukes. Seeing all the secondary products, I don't think it is going to be as many years as I previously thought, until we have rabbits and chickens, maybe even pigs."

"Pigs stink," April said, wrinkling her nose up.

"So do people," Jeff sort of agreed, "but we manage."

For some reason April found that hilarious.

* * *

Dear Mr. Bowman,

I'm replying to your expression of interest to me about job opportunities in your bank account message form. I've read your brief resume and checked with your references. Pending a face to face and a medical, you are exactly the sort of hire we'd like. As you mentioned, the problem is getting a lift to orbit. We are not providing transportation from our very limited lift capacity. We have one small Earth landing shuttle in operation and it is badly backlogged.

I am aware some people have had success lifting from the Canary Islands. This would require traveling to Spain and securing a ticket there or on the islands themselves. There's an informal bidding process and it isn't assured of success or a set price. Europe is still in some disarray from the flu, but the Canaries have avoided the worst of it due to deliberate isolation.

The other possibility is to contact your previous workmates and see if anyone  will confide in you a plan to cease employment. If they quit without announcing their intent before departing for an Earth side visit or vacation they will be issued a return voucher. The travel vouchers are a bearer license and always have been, mostly because they are not redeemable for cash from Mitsubishi. There is however an informal market in them. You might be able to arrange to purchase one from the retiree. That imposes a small burden on Mitsubishi, but they are aware of this custom, and choose to allow this to continue as a perk. They have first call for seats on their own shuttles and trades seats with other lifting agencies on Earth. It will not leave them short needed personnel.

If you can arrange a return I will offer you an interview and cover your medical exam. The clinic on Home will be told to take you as a walk in at my expense any time you are passing through to the moon. If I am not on Home at that time or on the moon when you arrive, a video interview is entirely acceptable once it can be conducted through our own net without any Earth relay.

Be prepared to purchase transportation to Central quickly upon arriving at Home as accommodations are very difficult to obtain irrespective of price.

If for any reason we can't come to an agreement I can steer you to other employment on the moon, however I can't guarantee anything for Home. Even my own project will involve extensive preparation on the moon before we create our own habitation near Home.

Thank you for your interest. I await hearing from you.

Sincerely, Jeffery Singh

So...no guarantee of a job. Come take a medical and interview, and we'll see. That was less than he'd hoped for but a whole lot more than he had before. But there were a couple other ways to get a lift voucher, of which Singh might not be aware. Some fellows took their leave and voucher but never boarded their last transfer to return to Earth. The down leg was cheaper than a lift, but just relatively.

Most beam dogs wanting to do that arranged to transfer through New Las Vegas and cut their journey short there. Enough did it that standby passengers hoping for a discounted seat at final boarding were a common sight dockside. There were pleasures to be had on other habs, but NLV had the gambling and rowdy night life most sought. They also gained a couple days for fun and relaxation instead of spending it in transit. For most, doing the same things they'd have been doing on Earth, albeit for a much higher cost. But they got paid well and most of them were young risk takers. They'd blow their money in a glorious week and worry about making more on their next tour.

Some sold their voucher on NLV before returning to Home. Especially if they lost badly in the casinos and didn't want to go home dead broke. Some hung on to it as a form of savings that they couldn't cash out too easily on a whim. They appreciated in value as lift costs rose. It never occurred to most that they might eventually decline in value. A few even sent the voucher to Earth for a loved one to come visit them, and then bought a cash return ticket. They never used it for the cheaper down leg even though you could. Or at least they never had before. Kurt suspected there was still a surplus of descending seats.

Kurt would have to communicate with the beam dogs he knew. He couldn't do that as circumspectly as with Singh, but at least they were just working people and not as politically sensitive as Singh. The guys harassed him pretty hard when he said he was going home to Alabama, and he'd served it right back to them the way beam dogs all talk trash to each other. Kurt suspected he might not get any bargain on a voucher out of sympathy now.

* * *

April finished her advanced Japanese class, shut down the com console, and relaxed on the couch feet up and leaning back. She was nodding and listening to a new band she'd found. They were from Belgium and she didn't understand the Dutch vocals, except every once in awhile a word sounded like English, but she wasn't sure if the meaning was the same just because they sounded similar.

Sitting sideways, the end of the com console faced April, and her Tongan mat decorated the wall behind it. Her coffee cup was still on the corner and she almost got up to rinse it and put it in the machine, but the music was really good and she closed her eyes and let it finish. When it paused she looked again. The cup fairies hadn't cleaned up for her, so she put her feet down and got ready to clean up after herself. She had this sense of dislocation...Something wasn't right. She looked at this end of the room every day and the pattern was etched in her brain, but something was out of whack and she couldn't put her finger on what.

If Jeff was here I'd ask him, crossed her mind. He wasn't, and she didn't want to call him for just a feeling without something concrete. If she mentioned it later she knew what he'd ask, because they'd had that conversation a number of times. He'd ask if she documented what seemed wrong to her. This time she intended to be able to say yes, so she carefully held her head still and took a video with sound of the scene, with the highest definition her spex could use. Since photography wasn't a special hobby of hers, she didn't keep professional level equipment, and her spex were about two generations behind the cutting edge. So the image was only about twenty four megapixels.

When April saw Jeff again she'd see if he could figure it out. He was smarter than her in a lot of ways, and she wasn't afraid to put a problem to him because he didn't make fun of her. Really, he tried to make her feel better most of the time by telling her he valued her ideas. She didn't argue, but suspected he was just being kind. She sort of threw all sorts of ideas out there. So one was bound to stick now and then.

Chapter 3

"Yeah, I'm holding two vouchers. I'll sell them both for four Solars each," Tony offered. "If you pay me right now I can FedEx them after my next shift and you should have them three days from now. They aren't priority lift tickets, but you should get a seat within a week of asking for a reservation."

"Four Solar would ruin me," Kurt complained. "You wouldn't get that much selling to a broker on New Las Vegas."

"Of course not!" Tony said. "The brokers expect to make something on the deal. But if you call a regular broker you'll pay more than four Solar. They buy from idiots who blew their whole bankroll to the last centum playing and cutting up and can't even buy breakfast waiting for the shuttle back to Home. I like to take a break too, but I'm not an idiot. I always quit with a little walking around money in my pocket."

Kurt couldn't argue. He'd called three brokers. Two who gave him business cards at different times passing through NLV and ISSII, and one who a friend without any vouchers to trade had suggested a few hours ago. The cheapest a broker had offered to sell a seat to him was six and a half Solars.

"Look, I need to get to Home but then I need to pay for a shuttle transfer to Central, and yeah, maybe a couple meals along the way. Four Solars will leave me mighty tight. How about three Solars now for a voucher, and my contract to pay you another Solar no later than a year?" Kurt offered.

"One voucher? The price was two for eight Solars, because I have a ten Solar investment I want to buy into now, and that will put me over my numbers into it. If you just want one the price goes up to five Solars. If you buy both you can hold one and make a profit on it. Especially if you can wait a bit. You know they are trending up steadily. I'm not hearing you say you don't have it, just you don't want to pay the going rate. Well suck it up sweetheart, they're in short supply and nobody made you drop back to the Slum Ball."

Kurt stifled a sharp reply. Every time he blurted out what he thought things just got worse. Tony might be his last chance to get back to Home before he ran his funds down below ever recovering. Right now he could picture himself in the refugee, oops...migrant camp outside town. He felt like a refugee, and if he waited a couple months he might not find a seller for five Solars. At least he was pretty sure Tony would actually send the ticket. If one of the brokers took his transfer and didn't send the voucher, what exactly could he do about it?

"You still there?" Tony asked into the silence. They weren't running video.

"Yeah. I'll transfer the five Solars right now." Kurt got the account information and gave his address, emphasizing Tony needed to require a signature. He could just see the envelope thrown on the front step and stolen by some idiot child who wouldn't even know what he had. He wasn't going to take any chances – he would stay home after tomorrow and watch for the FedEx guy to deliver it.

"OK," Tony said. "I show the transfer as good." He repeated Kurt's address back to him, which hopefully indicated he really did intend to send it. Kurt was torn between relief he was going back and despair he was starting over with so little money. It wasn't like he could walk where he wanted to go like these Earth people fleeing their homes. He didn't take it at all as a friendly goodbye when Tony said: "So long Kurt, a pleasure doing business with you."

* * *

"Huhhh..." Hussein made a face to match the rough exclamation, and held the glass back up to the light. It wasn't quite the obscene yellow it had been some months ago. It was trending more to a buttery hue than the Slivovitz color it had in the first sample he'd tried.

"How old is it again?" he inquired of Detweiler.

"Almost a year now. I didn't mean to suggest it is mature," he was quick to say. "Singh just gave me three hundred milliliters this time, and said he had some friends who wanted to try it. Consider it more of a progress report. I personally am curious how far it will progress, and how fast of course."

"One hopes they remain his friends," Hussein said, "and didn't have any unrealistic expectations."

"It's far from anything either of us would serve, even as cheap mix," Detweiler admitted.

His club, The Fox and Hare, had been serving vodka based drinks from the same lunar source. They'd had a couple month advantage because their owners had a business relationship with the sovereign of central. Hussein was selling the same product from the Quiet Retreat now as production increased.

"I'm thinking...just totally guessing, that it may be drinkable as mix at four years," Hussein said.

"That sounds reasonable," Detweiler agreed. "Though the carryout trade will probably use it as a straight drink by then." They were both already selling bottles of vodka at nearly by the glass prices for take away, but to dinner guests only, not walk-ins.

"Out somewhere from eight to twelve years it may be a decent whiskey," Hussein decided, "It's just too early to tell. It's remarkably...woody. Like a cheap Chardonnay."

"One good thing is, if it does develop well, young Singh has started another batch," Detweiler revealed. "He will keep doing that as the storage space is much cheaper on the moon, and the volume of agricultural feed stock is increasing steadily. So if it works out, we do have a decent volume of supply in process. He split this last batch in two however. Half is aging on the same schedule as this first lot, and the other half he's keeping at seventy degrees to see if it ages more quickly."

"Now that's an interesting idea," Hussein admitted. "If he were doing it in the traditional wooden barrels instead of a sealed system, the evaporative losses would just kill him."

"Undoubtedly, many traditionalists will decry the perversion of a perfected system." Detweiler protested. "But we'll have to do some blind taste tests and see how it stacks up to Earth whiskey. I believe Singh already has some volunteers, but he's aware we'll give him a professional report. The amateurs are unlikely to say much negative since they don't seem to be paying customers."

"Oh they'll pay," Hussein said laughing. "Singh will extract all sorts of business deals and alliances over their thirst. I don't believe he's anywhere near the callow youth he projects when he stands up to give idealistic speeches in the Assembly."

"The odd thing is, I think he was rather disconnected, like some brilliant people seem prone to be," Detweiler revealed, "but the Lewis girl is huge influence. She's an owner in our club you know, and I see them come in together. She has moderated that side of him quite a bit."

"I notice you didn't say a bad influence. She isn't just enchanted with all his money?"

"Oh no, no. He needed a good grounding in social things, and he treats her as a real full partner. I don't think she's a plaything anymore than the other one, the queen." Detweiler said.

"Oh, the Sovereign of Central," Hussein said. "Don't call her Queen of the Moon to one of her subjects or you'll get a big lecture on how she isn't."

"I'll call her anything she wants as long as she sells me good vodka," Detweiler told him.

* * *

"Things seem to be coming together," Jeff said, carefully. April caught his tone and lifted a skeptical eyebrow. He didn't seem fully convinced.

"But you're deeply suspicious of how they seem?" She inquired when he didn't elaborate.

"Always. It never goes smoothly for very long before there's some complication. It's always something. I'm not sure what I'm missing, but I get this nagging feeling I haven't thought of everything, or I'm missing something "obvious" and somebody like you or Barak will point it out to me soon."

"I know what you mean," April agreed. "A couple days ago I was sitting where you are and I couldn't shake the feeling something was wrong. I even took a video of this end of the room and looked at it again yesterday. I still couldn't see anything odd, so I finally just wrote it off to unreasoning apprehension. I even switched and viewed in infrared to see if something showed. Nanimo, zip, nada..."

"You've been paying attention to me, to record things, I'm happy to see that. Do you still have the recording?" Jeff asked.

"Sure. You think you'll see something I wouldn't? It's my own living room," April protested.

"I won't see anything, but load that video to your com there, and I'll get a program from my man Chen that I've seen him use for comparing satellite images. Then while I'm doing that I want you to sit here and take another video at the same settings. Try to sit and get the same angle as before. Then we'll compare them to see if anything has changed."

"The change would have been before I had the eerie feeling," April protested.

"Maybe, but you grow accustomed to changes. Humor me," Jeff requested.

April took the shot Jeff wanted and joined him at the com console. He already had the software downloaded and the first image up on half the bigger screen. April added her fresh pic to the screen. Once he had both side by side Jeff told the computer slowly and carefully, like it was a stupid child, exactly how to compare and mark any differences. It processed for just a heartbeat, eliminating the small differences in angle between the two shots. It drew a highlighted circle around only one small location. On the corner of the con console there was a small dot. The corner had a stainless trim covering it to hide the sharp edges and prevent visible wear.

"Oh great. I found a spider over by the view port. If I have another bug I'm going to freak out."

"Spiders don't live on air. If you removed a spider it would increase the chances of finding a bug in the future. But look how this dot is exactly centered on the corner strip and the same distance from the end. It appears to be a fastener." Jeff then leaned over and looked at the end of the console. There was no fastener.

"If it was a fastener there would be one at the other end of the strip," April pointed out, and frowned. "And on the other corner too. All the interior stuff here is glued or welded."

"Let's zoom in and enhance it," Jeff suggested. He triggered the computer's attention with the key word 'com', and enunciated carefully what he wanted. The view zoomed until the dark dot was a fuzzy image a hand's breadth across on the screen. It sharpened after about twenty seconds, but it was still pixilated. "It's still working," Jeff said, pointing to the turning swirl in the corner.

When it cleared it was disappointing. It appeared to be a standard button head hex screw. April said as much, then added: "But it isn't."

Jeff wordlessly got out of the seat, making April back up, and went around the com console slowly inspecting it, with his left hand on top bracing him as he leaned over. He stopped on the other side and stood back straight with the strangest look on his face. He made a little come her gesture for April to join him, and then pointed.

The little black bump had assumed a similar position on the stainless trim on that corner, where the com console approached the wall. It had a clear hex depression that was very convincing. Jeff suspected there would be a tiny camera lens hidden in the shadows at the bottom of the hex.

April offered her knife that was her constant companion, and Jeff used helmet talk to silently communicate: "Something to contain it."

April searched the kitchen quickly. Plastic seemed like a bad idea. Spacers kept hardly anything in glass by long custom. She retrieved a self heating metal can from the trash that had held chicken stew. It was already rinsed out and pretty dry even. Best of all it had a fit lid instead of a peel open foil to hold leftovers without transferring them.

Jeff kept an eye on the dot until she returned. He positioned the can below it and flicked the dot off aggressively with the sharp edge of the knife. The dot landed in the bottom of the can but immediately flashed red hot and started smoking. Jeff jammed the lid on and immediately moved away.

"Outside, right now! House, shut off all ventilation. Come on April, we're going to the infirmary."

April grabbed her com pad off the console in passing, but followed Jeff quickly. It felt strange. She hadn't been out in public without her pistol for months. But she trusted Jeff when he got that urgency.

"Tell me if you start feeling ill," Jeff demanded as he walked fast. "Strike that, tell me if you start feeling anything at all unusual."

"It was just a little smoke and you sealed it in pretty fast," April objected. "I didn't even smell anything, so how much harm could it do?"

"You might not. Neurotoxins can be odorless and delayed in action. I'm calling ahead with my spex and I want Dr. Lee to watch us and test what's in the can," Jeff insisted.

It was three hours before they got an all clear. Nothing showed for active biological agents. Finally the report showed the fumes were from a tiny battery shorting out. That was apparently its failure mode to protect itself from being reverse engineered. Like the traces of battery chemicals most of what they could infer from the fused contents were that it contained a camera sensor and a single dedicated chip. They could have figured that much out with no chemical analysis.

Jeff requested what was left to sent to the YYR corporation they partnered with for spy bots. Perhaps they could find out something more from the remains. It was upsetting that the bot was more advanced than anything their rep, Natsume, was sharing with them.

Back at April's cubic they were both subdued. April made coffee and brought out brandy she hardly ever indulged in. She owned the bottle from before the move past the moon and it was still half full. It went directly in the coffee and Jeff didn't make a move or gesture to refuse it.

"It makes sense now it wasn't toxic," April decided, "But it was a good call to worry it might be," she allowed. "Conservative," she appended emphatically to show her approval.

"Tell me why," Jeff requested.

"Think on using such a snoop robot. It's one thing to plan its destruction if it is revealed, but it takes your planning to an entire different level of hostility and risk to just kill whoever finds it. It didn't come here straight from the airlock. That would be like shooting a shot blindly into the whole of Home and accepting the political consequences of hitting just anybody."

They sat and drank the coffee for a bit and she asked: "Don't you agree?"

"I'm not sure I do. Isn't that exactly what they did when we were in Low Earth Orbit and they fired a rail gun with a load of shot at us? They knew it was like firing a load of buckshot into a crowd, and they didn't really care who they hit. It feels like the same thing to me," Jeff said. "I just can't believe that they could build a bug so small. We haven't found a snooping mechanism for so long and all of a sudden – wow. If they get much smaller we won't be able to see them."

"Well, you showed how to find them," April pointed out. "We just need to automate it. Build a little roving army of...spider bots. I want one to move around my apartment and do what you just did. Compare the scenes of its previous rounds to what is here now and capture or destroy any infiltrators. You need to talk to Jon about allowing some into the wild to keep the whole habitat safe."

"Every time you set your pad down or throw your spex on your bed it will change the scene and confuse it," Jeff protested.

"Then make it smart. Make it to learn how common objects look from any angle. Or if there isn't enough room for that much processing internally let it have a link to an artificial stupid big enough to handle the questions for it," April insisted.

"It doesn't have to be as small as this one," Jeff said, pondering the problem. "Neither do I think I can make it fly and do everything else it needs to do too."

"No, of course not. Do you remember the little crabs we saw on vacation at the atoll? I don't care if they're this big," April said, holding her finger and thumb open, making an oval that might hold a chicken egg the long way.

"I can do that," Jeff decided. "With chameleon feet. I'll prototype a short run and then see what kind of bulk price YYR can give us. They might have some suggestions too."

"Good, because I may not be jumping up and down yelling, but I'm pissed off. I have no idea how long that creepy thing has been taking pix of my apartment. When Gunny isn't home I get out of the shower and come out naked sometimes to start coffee before going to get dressed. I can think of mornings I sat at the com console that way, because I saw a message notice flashing. I hate to think of some Earth perv seeing me like that in close-up. It makes me want to dress in the dark under my sheets," April said.

Jeff sighed. "Even that might not be safe with these and infrared..."

"Oh, great!" April said.

"But obscenity is in the eye of the beholder," Jeff pointed out.

"That was exactly my point," April said, finding no comfort there at all.

"Uh, yeah. I need one pretty badly for my office too," Jeff decided. "When I think of all the stuff I put up on our screens, and some little spy like that might be recording it all..."

"Good. It'll make you hurry," April said.

* * *

"You're an orbital construction worker?" the tall blond lady asked, distrustfully. It sounded so odd not to be called a beam dog or even less polite usage. She was holding his voucher between finger tips like it was unclean. It wouldn't surprise Kurt if she went back to the command deck and used a sani-wipe after boarding him. Nobody else had found him unlikely to be a beam dog. Kurt wasn't sure if she was the pilot or the number two from her uniform, but he was playing it straight and respectful. The fact she had six or seven centimeters on him and looked like she worked out with free weights when she wasn't flying spaceships helped keep him respectful too.

"Yes ma'am. I worked two tours pushing high iron. I thought I'd go home to Mobile Alabama where I have family, but the employment situation was impossible. I needed to go back to space badly enough I bought my own lift ticket," He said, nodding at the voucher in her hand. Maybe that would get him a little sympathy.

That got a reaction, but one of surprise. "This was expensive then," she said, waving it.

"Yes ma'am, it cost me five Solars. Damn near cleaned me out," he added, because suddenly he realized she might think he was good for a bribe.

"Five ounces of gold?" she asked, impressed.

"No ma'am. A Solar is just twenty five grams, not a Troy ounce. But it was a chunk of what I made on a full tour. I should have never come back down to Earth, and I won't make that mistake again."

She nodded, some of the hard edge gone now.

"Very well, we don't get many Mitsubishi workers lifting from Oslo. Mostly it is people going to the French hab or the European section of ISSII. Of course finding a ride in North America is even harder than Europe. We weren't bombarded, and we have far fewer people after the sickness."

"The airfare to Norway wasn't bad," Kurt admitted. "I'm just glad I didn't have to go to Japan or Australia. I'm sorry if somebody gave you a bad impression of beam dogs. They can be a rough bunch. They don't always treat each other very well either."

"The last one we had, the only one I've had, was wearing a t-shirt that would get him imprisoned in North America. I won't even repeat what it said about Earth. He also refused his anti-nausea pills and brought a pizza to eat on the way for lunch. I suspect he was still feeling the effects of too much alcohol, and he made unwelcome remarks on my pulchritude."

"I'm sorry," Kurt said again, "there's a time to comment on a lady's beauty and a time to remain silent." There, he very politely implied she was beautiful but also quite correct.

"Beam dogs work with death centimeters away all day long. It takes a little craziness, but they aren't always a joy to interact with socially," he admitted.

"Oh, he was closer to death than ever he knew, if he had any wit. I don't mind being told I'm lovely or asked out," she admitted, "but my copilot that day was my husband."

She smiled at her little joke and handed his lift ticket back to him. He forced a grin too.

Chapter 4

"It works...sort of," April decided.

"The one solid indication it works would be finding another bug," Jeff insisted.

"Yes, but it found a raisin, or at least a grape that's been in the wild a long time, one of those tiny little buttons like Earth guys use to hold their shirt collars down, a nut, a couple things I think are pumpkin seeds, a single link from some kind of chain, and two page corners stapled together. That was just from sending it down the corridor last night and then again this morning."

Jeff cut into the seeds to make sure they were what they seemed, and looked at the little metallic ring. "I think that's what they call a jump ring, for jewelry making. It's probably gold."

"Keep it then," April offered. "I'd never throw gold away if it's big enough to see."

"Somebody probably broke a necklace and never found this piece, or even knew it was missing," Jeff decided. "I read they get more gold mining landfills in North America than some ore."

"Is Jon going to let you turn some bug hunters loose?" April asked.

"I've got him to agree to let us put two in the corridors outside your home and my office, after we have units inside. We're still talking. He wants them to stop at the pressure curtains at each end, and not enter any elevators, for now. I'm programming them to tuck their legs under themselves when they aren't moving so they don't look like so much like vermin themselves. He's afraid people really won't like them. I'm more scared people will actually smash them."

"People never value free stuff," April reminded him. "If you want them accepted put them up for public sale, and make them expensive."

"Of course," Jeff agreed. "We can always use the income."

* * *

Kurt hadn't been to ISSII before with any time to look around. He'd done a transfer through the station once before, but with only fifteen minutes between flights. He'd simply gone down the docking boom a couple ports and been able to do an early boarding to the other shuttle on count to leave.

This time through he had six hours to kill, not long enough to take a bunk even if he'd had the money to spare. He had a new found appreciation for keeping a low profile and controlling his mouth. He wanted to get back to Home and on to the moon without any further trouble or expense.

The docking boom had nowhere to wait. Kurt suspected just clipping on a take hold and trying to float there waiting for the other shuttle wouldn't work. Security types sat and fretted if someone loitered on their camera view without purposeful action. They tended to suspect a person must be up to no good. Besides, he'd need to use the toilet before the other shuttle was docked and accessible. He had little choice with six hours to kill but to go down to the spun sections.

The elevator had a guide showing the high gravity section as having businesses and administrative offices. If he could find a restaurant, he still had a few thousand North American dollars he could spend. People left you alone best when you were spending money. There hadn't been any point in trying to convert them back to Solars, unless he wanted to make some stranger laugh.

The business section was laid out to look much more like an Earth street, or at least a European one, than the narrower main corridor on Home. They had more fake architectural details hiding the structure and more plants and benches. There was even a cafe with tables outside under a totally unneeded canvas canopy. Unless they tried so hard for authenticity that they had sprinklers to simulate rainfall. The tables were behind a rail so he had to enter the cafe and ask to be seated outside. The street hadn't been that busy and there were only two other people at the tables. Kurt wondered why it was so dead.

His impression from the street was that it was a European cafe of some sort. The waiter, wrapped in a tight apron from the waist down, and long sleeved white shirt greeted him in some language he didn't know, but it wasn't French or German. It was much more flowing.

"Do you speak English?" Got an immediate switch to his language, without the resentment he'd encountered on occasion. The waiter had what he was pretty sure was a British accent to his English, but didn't make any cracks about Kurt's soft Southern drawl. The walk through the nearly empty restaurant left him sure the place was middle eastern if not exactly what sub-variety. There were a couple men at a table, but they were in the same white long sleeves and Kurt suspected they were other employees. There were brass work pieces, and some screens with city scenes, set up like windows that had minarets visible, but Kurt didn't know the region to recognize them.

"Would you care for some dinner?" the waiter asked. He seemed a little eager to Kurt. Maybe things were as slow as the lack of traffic in the street indicated.

"I have a few hours to kill until I catch the next shuttle for Home. I'd just like to have some coffee now while I check my messages and look at the news. I'll wait another hour or two to have dinner. I may be off your local clock, is it back shift right now?" Kurt inquired. "Should I order breakfast instead?" It certainly looked like the middle of the night by the lack of pedestrian traffic.

"Not at all, it's past prime lunch time, main shift local," the fellow informed him. "But we can accommodate whatever meal fits your time zone. If you've been here before, the lack of the usual...bustle, is due to most of the different national interest sections reducing personnel. With reduced supply and increased cost most of them have cut way back."

"Ah, thank you. It has been a good year since I've been through," Kurt admitted. He didn't volunteer how briefly he'd been aboard.

"Would you like your coffee as American brew or the middle eastern style?"

"The very thick coffee with Cardamom?" Kurt asked.

The waiter nodded and directed Kurt's view with eyes and a tilt of his head to another gentleman's table with a chased silver dallah and handled demitasse cup.

That was good, he could nurse that along for a lot longer than a regular cup.

"Please, I'd like that very much. Unsweetened, and if you put in other spices that's fine too."

The waiter gave him a smile that indicated he approved of that, and withdrew.

That killed another twenty minutes or a half hour just preparing it, which was to the good. Kurt laid his pad on the table and found zero messages waiting for him. That was a little disappointment. He'd told his sister he got away safely and thought she would at least acknowledge it. She hadn't seemed that torn up at his sudden departure. They were having some sort of drama fest she wouldn't detail between her room mates and herself that was distracting her.

The news programs were less depressing because they didn't apply to him so directly and personally as they did a week ago. He could tell the news feed on ISSII was not anywhere near as filtered as he'd gotten used to in Alabama. He'd been shocked at how different it was from Home, but he'd seen enough now to know how to read between the lines even in Alabama.

Kurt read what his search returned, and sat digesting it all, staring across the empty corridor at the opposite facade. The news put a deep frown on his face. He was out of that mess, but he still had his sister there. She seemed foolishly oblivious to how bad things could get to his mind. But she had zero interest in coming to Home even if he sent her a lift voucher in a year. He was trying to convince himself that he owed his uncle nothing after the cool reception he'd received, but he still cared.

Engrossed in his thoughts Kurt was staring unseeing, but suddenly was aware of a man was staring back. A slim blond fellow was exiting the offices right across from him. He had on an Earth style suit, a very nice one, which was unusual on a hab. He paused and scanned his surroundings. The fellow had a sleepy droopy eyed look, but when he found Kurt glaring at him he perked up.

Kurt was embarrassed to alarm the fellow. He looked down and tried to smooth his face a little. When he glanced up again the man was walking away toward the elevators, so no harm done, he dismissed him from mind.

The waiter brought his coffee, and poured a tiny splash in the bottom of the cup before going to attend another customer. It was boiling hot but such a short splash cooled quickly and it was delicious. He'd as much news as he could stomach and looked to see what was happening in sports. A lot of his Home workmates followed real football as they put it – soccer, so he tried to keep aware of what the important teams did. He still liked basketball, though he was far too compact to play it well himself.

"Mr. Bowman?" A carefully modulated voice called for his attention.

Kurt started a bit, and looked up. The blond fellow was leaning on the terrace railing, looking unnaturally relaxed.

"My apologies if I was rude," Kurt said. "I wasn't staring at you, my thoughts were far away, and I was more staring through you." About then his brain caught up with what he'd said, and he realized the man shouldn't know his name.

"That's the conclusion I quickly reached," the fellow said. "I checked the incoming passengers off the last shuttle to match your face and discover who you are. You're headed out on the next shuttle to Home and all your particulars match, so I realized you weren't here to cause me any harm."

"Yes sir. I'm just passing through and don't want to cause you any trouble," Kurt assured him.

"You aren't, but you are fresh from North America, aren't you? You might do me a service if you are inclined to do so. I was coming across to lunch when your gaze deterred me. May I buy you lunch and allow me to ask how you found things in North America?"

Free lunch? The man had no idea what a gift that was to him. "Sure, I'm happy to have some company. The news is too depressing to read more, and I have hours to fill before I can leave."

The fellow vaulted the rail, pivoting on one straight arm, with an ease that Kurt immediately noticed. He worked in zero G constantly with what amounted to a group of young athletes in prime condition. They moved with delicacy learned where a thoughtless movement could leave you with a crushed hand or a trapped finger. One didn't move like this man, without making a noise or having to readjust his expensive suit, unless you were extraordinarily strong and coordinated. He even sat opposite Kurt like...like a woman, Kurt realized with surprise. But there was nothing feminine about it. He'd just never thought before about how most men collapse gracelessly in their seat like a sack of potatoes.

His waiter almost beat the new fellow to the table with a cup and napkin. Kurt found out having him as a guest immediately upgraded them to a little silver platter with a few dates and little cookies on a paper doily. The waiter gave them both a splash of coffee and left.

"Why would you think me a danger?" Kurt asked.

"Oh, that's more about who I am than you. I'm Jan Hagen and I'm the security chief for this God forsaken pile of orbital junk. I could see you were North American, or trying to appear North American, and my relationship with the Norte Americanos has been tense of late." When Kurt just raised his eyebrows Jan elaborated. "Last year they had the temerity to snatch one of your countrymen off the very public corridor before us," he said, waving a hand to the way. "When they refused to hand him over we had to take him back from them. It was a huge bother let me tell you."

"And they are still sulking about it a year later? That seems childish," Kurt said.

"Well not here. They are petulant from afar since we put all of that former crew on a shuttle to dirt. They are sending note after diplomatic note demanding repairs and reparations. We did the basics to restore pressure to their section, because we wanted to be able to go in those spaces ourselves. Some of the damage was from the fellow they snatched, and it's hardly reasonable to expect he'd not object. If they want to make everything pretty again, and restore the few things that vacuum destroyed they can cover the expense. They brought the trouble entirely on themselves after all. They should be grateful we were so careful nobody died."

"Wow, I think that must have been right after I went back to Mobile. I can get around some of the blocking, but I never saw anything about that in the news feeds, not even what I could get repeated from European sources. There's something else...you should know I'm not a citizen of Home, so that guy wasn't my countryman strictly speaking. But I intend to fix that the next time I'm resident on Home."

"You see? That's the sort of thing I was hoping to hear first hand, how tight the censorship is working there. I have some sources I can ask, but it's always better to hear it yourself and have multiple sources. Would you mind if we order so it can be on the way while we talk?" Jan asked.

"No, please do. I'm not a picky eater, you can just order for me," Kurt volunteered.

"I always get whatever the special is," Jan said. "It has never disappointed and they don't repeat too often." Jan lifted a finger briefly and their waiter materialized at his elbow. Kurt was impressed. He usually had to crane his neck and wave to get a waiter to acknowledge his existence.

"Arash, my associate and I would like the special, and some extra of the garlic spread."

"It is kibbeh labanieh today, Mr. Hagen. I had it myself just a bit ago. Very good!" he promised.

Jan called a few words to his back before he'd gone far in that other language Arash had used at the door. Arash just waved an acknowledgement over his shoulder.

"What is that? Arabic?" Kurt asked.

"Farsi. Arash is Persian," Jan informed him.

"Does that mean Iranian?"

"That most specifically means not Iranian, as far as Arash is concerned. Best to humor him on that," Jan suggested. "He'll be polite to customers, but he may tell you in some detail why he isn't Iranian. Of course you wouldn't understand most of the curses, so it would be far less dramatic."

"Got you. I won't go there," Kurt agreed.

"So tell me," Jan asked. "How is it you decided to return to Earth, and then made what I have to assume was a very large effort to return?"

Kurt poured out his tale, starting with his sister, and how bored he'd gotten with the lack of fun things to do on Home. How he missed the open sky and fresh seafood, the Southern Steak House on George Street and the ma and pa hamburger place in his old neighborhood that then disappointed him by being closed. The clubs where you could waste a night wonderfully with friends listening to live music.

Jan nodded thoughtfully, raised an occasional eyebrow, looked skeptical on occasion and hardly said a word himself until Kurt was recounting his job search and the benevolent old cop who had been exceedingly honest with him. He had no idea he was in the hands of a master interrogator. By the time the entree came he'd told Jan things he wasn't even aware he'd known.

They had been served a tiny tabbouleh salad, which Arash informed them was all lunar sourced. It seemed normal, except instead of seeded and diced tomatoes it was tiny grape tomatoes each cut in eight pieces. There were fresh puffed loaves of pita bread so hot and full of steam they couldn't handle them at first. They were served a crushed lentil soup that was so good Kurt had to talk less and savor it. It was obviously made with stock not water, thick and full of cumin and pepper and something else Kurt couldn't identify. Arash apologized that they had no fresh lemons, but offered a bottle of lemon juice concentrate in a vinegar bottle. Kurt noticed Jan only got a cup and he was served a bigger bowl.

The main dish was a hot thick yogurt sauce with generous footballs of kibbeh half submerged in it, served in a large shallow soup plate. They shared a dish of Syrian rice with almond slivers and a few small bites of vegetables and pickled turnip for garnish. Arash brought more bread and more of the garlic spread he noticed Jan hit heavily.

"But this isn't right," Kurt protested. "They brought me a much bigger soup and now I have a double portion of meat to yours."

Jan waved it away with a dismissive gesture. "That's what I told him to do when he was walking away earlier," He'd also told him to serve them slowly, so he had more time to question Kurt. "I sit at a desk most of the day and you are a young man who does physical labor. If I ate what satisfies you I'd be seeing the doctor to lose some weight in a month. It's easier just not to shove it in my face in the first place. I enjoy it well enough. They do a fine job with limited supply, don't they?"

"Thank you. I haven't been eating this well back in Mobile," Kurt admitted. He couldn't imagine how better supply could improve it. He wasn't a gourmand to get all prickly over the lack of a real lemon. They just squirted everywhere but where he wanted them to go anyway.

"You returned when supply was just about as bad as it got. They've made great progress with salad things and vegetables. They even produce limited beef now. Not bone beef," Jan added at Kurt's surprised expression, "but I've had a filet mignon from their early production that had excellent taste and texture. The fellow directing most of this, a young fellow by the name of Singh, assures me we'll have vat grown chicken and lamb and pork over the next couple years. They even plan to raise shrimp in some of their water storage tanks."

"Mr. Singh is the fellow I hope to work for on the moon, and Home later on," Kurt said. "I'm promised an interview and a medical. It isn't a totally done deal yet."

Jan didn't say anything for a moment, looking up from his meal faintly surprised.

"I think you would be doing very well to gain an association with Jeff Singh. He's well regarded at Home and on the moon. He has two partners, Heather and April, who aren't as well known to the public for their business dealing as they are for their political activities. However I'll advise you they are both quite capable and not to be underestimated." Jan added an emphatic little nod to that statement, so Kurt took it to heart. The man was very low key, and not given to extravagant gestures. He could see already that a nod from Jan was the same as some others raising their voice and flailing their arms about.

"Thank you, that's good to know. A useful little bit of insider stuff. I'll try not to say anything stupid if I meet either of them while dealing with Mr. Singh."

That was good. He got the point entirely. Arash came up and laid his hand hesitantly on the bread basket. Jan made an almost unperceivable no motion with his head, and Arash took it. Kurt had cleaned his plate so thoroughly there wasn't much he could have sopped up anyway. There was one piece of pita left Kurt had ignored awhile, so Jan judged that his guest was done.

Arash returned with a fresh pot of coffee. An extravagance that astonished Kurt. He hoped they wouldn't just discard the half pot that had cooled. This time there was a more elaborate plate of sweets. Jan was pleased, as he hadn't asked for it, but Arash took it on his initiative to extend the luncheon so he could pump a little more out of the fellow, but Kurt took it another direction, and he didn't fight it.

"I'm curious. You obviously aren't a North American since you were so...firm with them. You look European and the name is German isn't it?"

Jan gave a nod and a tilt that said: Yeah, close enough.

"Whom do you represent?" Kurt asked.

"Why, all twenty seven sovereign nations that have a charter interest in the station! No, really," he insisted to Kurt's skeptical expression. "If I've stifled some of them trying to take advantage, to dominate use of the station and curtail other member's privileges, I'm simply doing my job and what's right. It's no surprise that the big contributors, the Americans and the Chinese who put the most money into its construction, might think they have greater rights. That seems to be human nature, but I've consistently disabused them of any such silly idea. The charter is clear that they all have equal access and opportunity to use it according to their ability."

Kurt caught that..."You've pissed off the Chinese too?"

Jan spread his hands and pantomimed an unconvincing innocence. "It isn't like it's terribly difficult. They not only wanted to snatch a lady out of the common area, just like the North Americans did the Home fellow. They intended to do it while the party in question was under my personal escort and protection, as well as armed folks involved in the rebellion of Home that was just then starting, and a major Chicago Mafia family. They hit the trifecta of stupidity that day!"

"So, I'm assuming then that it turned out badly for them?" Kurt probed.

"Well we managed to get the Home people safely away without loss, but they wouldn't leave well enough alone once that was accomplished, and tried to hold their vessel at dock and impose their own controls on navigation from Earth orders. I eventually ejected them from the station when no other course seemed to sway them."

"You sent them back to Earth?" Karl asked.

"Not exactly. They had an excursion out the airlock, without benefit of pressure suit. One fellow in his skivvies actually," Jan said. "The little fellows are still peeved about that. I suppose one of the reasons nobody wants to relieve me at this post is the flood of protests and charges that haven't abated since. Who wants to face that moving into a new position? I just ignore them and move on with my business. The other thing is, I figure the fact that I'm still here, no matter how polite my people are about all the objections to my continuing, is a message to them from my governments that they're just as pleased as can be with what I did. Otherwise the first thing they would do is fire me to appease the protesting North Americans and Chinese."

Being a vacuum worker that scene in his mind horrified Kurt. He could practically feel his ears pop.

"Why do you say my governments if you rep them all?" Kurt asked, still skeptical.

"Oh I represent them all, but I was appointed by the Swiss for a term, then the Germans, and then the Swiss again. I can probably get the Austrians to accept me for their own from family and cultural ties if the others get tired of taking turns."

"You're Swiss right now?" Kurt asked, unbelieving.

"It's Tuesday, right? Swiss. Definitely Swiss today," Jan joked.

"Thank you for lunch," Kurt said. He was going into information overload, and Jan could see that. So he just assured Kurt he was welcome and to call on him any time he had questions or interesting information to share. He went straight back to his office across the railing like a hurdler, smooth as could be. Arash came and cleared Jan's place and poured fresh coffee for Kurt. He acted differently with Kurt now that he associated him with Jan.

"Oh! I didn't see Jan take care of the check," Kurt suddenly realized. "What do we owe you?" He was a little panicked because it was going to be a lot in North American dollars.

"Mr. Hagen runs an account with the house and we settle periodically," Arash said, amused. "Don't concern yourself with it."

Chapter 5

"Overall, the young fellow is sincere and still charmingly naive," Jan wrapped up his report to Jeff. It was unusual for Jan to call Jeff directly and not go through Jeff's man Chen or Home's counterpoint to him, Jon Davis, but he seemed to have a special interest. "He is observant enough to be useful as a source of information. I could tell however that he didn't connect all the dots on what he knew just by the rambling order in which he related them. He needs some maturity, but I'd groom him for senior management eventually."

Jeff squinted at that and pursed his lips. That much of a display to Jan was equal to an hour of interrogation with high quality veracity software to some lesser talents. "Other than the fact you have recruited him to your own net, and would like to keep him positioned usefully, and he's capable for his age, I don't see sufficient reason to view him as anything but a temporary worker for this one project. Did I miss some point about why he'd be so valuable to slot for management?"

"Yes, I believe you did miss a critical point," Jan said bluntly. "I mentioned that he screwed up big time by going back to Earth. It was a bad choice for bad reasons. Again, reasons of youth. But the point was he admitted he screwed up without trying to make a list of excuses. Don't you realize how rare that is in people? That he could admit to himself he made an error first. Many can't do that. But to admit it to others is a huge step beyond. This is the sort of fellow you want working for you in twenty years, when you have a complex project that can't help but have problems and setbacks. The difference between success and failure can often be a manager who either comes to you with a problem to fix it, or tries to cover it up for fear some blame may attach to him. You do see what a disaster that can be?"

"Ah...As a friend of mine has said a few times, I'm instructed. Perhaps this is a reflection of my own lack of social skills," Jeff admitted, "but I just expect that of my employees. I'll have to discuss it further with April. She has brought me a long way toward understanding social and...emotional issues."

"Well you can expect it all you want, but if it hasn't bitten you on the butt yet it's a miracle. If you weren't aware people do that, then I'm glad I could enlighten you," Jan said.

"I believe I'd have classed that as Earth Think. But I will keep it in mind," Jeff promised.

"And you should know...Yes I did a soft recruit, and invited him to feel free to talk to me, but he isn't in my pay," Jan said.

Jeff weighed everything in his mind, staring into the screen, projecting all sorts of information to Jan who watched this very brief but intense process play out on his face without a word.

"He wouldn't have taken the pay, or the implied conditions that went with it," Jeff decided.

"You are an absolutely infuriating person," Jan said. "You miss the obvious and then clearly see the much more complex with ease."

Jeff did an elaborate shrug. "Then only put the complicated questions to me," he invited. "It will be more efficient and less frustrating for everyone involved."

He wasn't sure why Jan was laughing so hard when he disconnected.

* * *

"Colonel Allister, I've had no success at all negotiating privately with Colonel Bilkie of the God's Warriors. I wish you'd reconsider softening our ideology on rank. The fact I'm bringing a request to them from a Colonel instead of a General seems to make a real difference in how they view it. I get the constant feeling they consider us a lesser organization because we are headed by a committee of equals rather than a head. I know it's an empty title, but you are acting as head, even if temporarily. Why not let whichever Colonel is acting head assume the temporary rank of General? Not personally, but rotating. It will present a face to these others they can understand."

"We had a General. It's too much power for one man and pretty soon he believes his own lies." The memory of how deeply he'd trusted that General and how deeply disappointed he'd been in his purity of purpose still haunted Allister. "Softening our ideology is why he was removed," he reminded Sass. "If you are uncomfortable with our structure, Lieutenant, you are welcome to resign your commission and return to being a simple soldier who doesn't have to ponder these things, just follow orders."

"No sir. I believe I have something to contribute." Lieutenant Sass replied. He'd seen what happened to those reduced in rank. They were assigned things like door kicking that afforded them opportunity to demonstrate their ultimate loyalty on an accelerated basis.

"We shall proceed with our own resources," Allister decided. "There are still facilities and units that haven't been integrated. It would have been easier with their cooperation. Not so much with space resources, because we hold most of those, but on this end with ground resources like transport and supply."

"Things have gone much smoother in that regard since they tried stopping our convoy trying to pass through Phoenix last month," Sass pointed out.

"Well yes. It's one thing to set up a roadblock for migrants, but the lead vehicle had our flag on the fenders. Besides, it takes a special kind of stupid to stand in the middle of the road and scream abuse at a fellow standing up behind a 40mm grenade repeater. Anyway..." Allister said, setting the folder in front of him aside to show he was done with this matter. "Set this operation in motion, and report to me if there are any problems implementing it, or in the timing. The Holies don't seem to have any heart to challenge the spacers. If they don't feel the urgency they'd make poor allies anyway. The first time there was any real difficulties they'd be looking for an excuse to back off."

"Yes sir." Sass was already standing to leave as soon as he saw his folder being put aside, and he saluted sharply. He knew from experience it didn't do to wait for a more explicit dismissal.

Back in his own office Sass called the group leader who would actually implement the operation. Group Leader John Hearne didn't wear rank tabs. His USNA uniform was unadorned except for the three slanted silver bars on the collar points. It was in a midnight blue that no other service shared. It marked him as a direct voice of the party and the new equivalent of a political officer. There were a handful of operatives like him and they'd been created about six months ago. He didn't salute any USNA rank, and he didn't take conflicting orders from any rank but the party leaders. Even the Holies knew to regard him as the voice of the Colonels in the field. He looked very happy to be ordered into Sass' office, because chances were they were finally going to do something instead of talk it to death.

Sass reached up, left handed, and lifted his own collar point to display the Patriot Party cross pinned under it out of sight. That's all he would do to affirm this was an inside circle party directive rather than a USNA operation. Nothing was said aloud, no orders would be set in any media. Hearne's group got sent on regular USNA actions, but supporting those was regarded as training to keep his group's skills sharp.

"We have a stealthed reentry vehicle identified that we believe is a Home weapons bus, and have been optically tracking it," Sass told him. "Are you certain you have a team that can crack and disassemble it without detonating it?"

"Absolutely. I know you lost a ship and personnel before, trying to access one of these Home devices. Two ships actually, our own and the one the Lewis boy was forced to let us board. But the specialist tasked with examining their tech was horribly under qualified. It was foolishness to task him with it. I wouldn't have trusted him to neutralize a roadside IED, and it was undoubtedly at not much more than that level of sophistication.

"In contrast, beside the best North American bomb expert, we have one trained with the Israelis working with him as a team. Nothing cobbled together by some Indian teenager is going to stump those guys," Hearne promised. "I'd expect my teenage boy to have as much success trying to lock me out of something for a science fair project."

"And you still feel it shouldn't be attempted in place?" Sass asked.

"No, there is no way we can lift the equipment we need. A lot of it is massive and there's no other way to do an internal scan with sufficient detail. We need to return it to Earth, and before you ask, we can't fit the stuff on a ship without a major refit that would take it out of service."

"Where do you intend to work on it?" Sass asked.

"The best facility we have is in San Diego. It's fully under Sons of Liberty control, and any elements on base with a majority of Holies have been segregated and are outside our command structure."

Sass pictured what would happen if a device the size of the one the Homies used to obliterate Jiuquan went off in San Diego. That just wasn't an acceptable risk.

"No," Sass said firmly, leaving no room for discussion. "Pick somewhere else secure. It can be a military base but not with the industrial or population density or fleet assets we have around San Diego. If you need to move equipment your transport will be given priority."

Hearne looked irked, but controlled his temper. "Pensacola then. It has most of the equipment and the response group is actually sited there. We'll be moving at least one large sonic scanner the navy uses to them. They've been complaining they need their own for some time anyway. We'll start fabricating another one, to replace the one we move. It's air transportable if disassembled. I can have it in Pensacola in three days."

"That's good," Sass agreed. "If you lose it in Pensacola it's bad, but it isn't a huge metropolitan complex with millions of people and a primary fleet port at risk. Half the zone of destruction would be in the gulf even."

"If you have the mentality you aren't going to succeed, you have no business touching a device like this," Hearne said with a bit of a sneer. "I'll be right there within a few meters of the thing directing the operation. I'm also making plans for some well deserved leave and recreation after we're done."

Sass just nodded an acknowledgement. There was no advantage in trying to curb this fellow's arrogance, it seemed necessary even, to his sort of work. He was after all using it himself, wasn't he?  So how could he complain about it? The man could feel contempt for him all he wanted, but Sass wouldn't be anywhere within a hundred kilometers of the Spacer Devil device.

* * *

April, Jeff and Heather were in conference on com. They'd have rather been all snuggled together and without pressing business except each other, but that was increasingly difficult to arrange.

"Jan has mentioned that the North Americans have continued to pay their fees to occupy their portion of the ISSII, but made no effort to send a new crew up to occupy it," Jeff said.

"He sees that as sinister?" April asked.

"Maybe not directly malevolent," Jeff said, "but inexplicable."

"For what are they using the resources instead?" April asked.

"That seems to be more the focus of Jan's concern," Jeff agreed.

"They have been acting strangely in Armstrong too," Heather revealed. "I've had a half dozen people seek residence here rather than accept being transferred back to Earth. The number of landings have increased too. But whatever they are bringing in it isn't people, rather they are taking people back to Earth before their full contract period is finished. They're taking anything they can grasp at, as an excuse to purge people from residence."

"I'm deeply suspicious any time they change habits," Jeff said.

"Of course," April agreed, "and so is Jan or he wouldn't have mentioned it. He may not have acted excited or upset, that's not Jan. The man doesn't engage in idle chit-chat."

"Four of our new arrivals have been scientists, which reduces the number of actual researchers at Armstrong to only two, of which these guys are aware. They seemed to assume they would be gone or seeking asylum soon too," Heather said.

"That's how they characterized themselves?" April asked. "Not just seeking to emigrate but asking asylum? On what basis?"

"Two of them said they can't contact their families back home in North America, and fear the worst, that they have been purged." Heather said. "One said his scholastic mentor who sat for his doctoral thesis was arrested and anyone connected with him is suspect. They all said they were interrogated about their politics, and not having any politics was regarded as just as bad as having the wrong politics. The one fellow was informed his father attended a church where the pastor is a prominent God's Warriors supporter and was asked to denounce him in order to retain his position.

"I'm letting them in, but it's going to be challenging integrating them into the community. I suspect I'm going to be founding a university much earlier than we'd planned. Not only is the one lunar geologist pretty useless for anything else but cafeteria work, but he really was doing good work we need and can use in his proper specialty. He can be turned loose with a rover and a minder to make sure he doesn't forget to put his suit helmet on, and be happy as can be doing the same research for us. Several have said they'd have rather gone to Home and worked with Jeff or his mom, but there simply isn't anywhere to live or sleep there, and no research university or company with facilities that would allow them to work at their specialties."

"Yes, I had the fellow who developed our energy storage device ask me for a job," Jeff revealed. "I don't have the room or the funds to support what he's doing now. My mom had no place for him either, but I promised to work with him if he didn't go back to Earth. You currently have him doing survey work under Mo, if you didn't know who I meant."

"Yes, I know...Dr. Holbrook. Neither do we have the resources to support more than a handful of researchers yet," Heather said. "I'd hate to see them go back to Earth where they'd have no choice but to use their knowledge to survive. Nothing good for us can come from them working for Earth. Obviously that wasn't their first choice either."

"You don't have much else to offer them, but at least you could offer them a lunar property for sticking it out with you," April suggested. "It's not like you have a shortage yet, and you wouldn't be displacing cash paying customers. Owning land has a lot of emotional appeal to keep someone attached to a country. I don't think many of these sort are very political in the first place, to care if they live in a republic or a monarchy. They can see a land grant will eventually have cash value like a retirement account. It may make them feel more secure. But who are they bringing into Armstrong displacing these people?" April asked.

"I don't know," Heather admitted. "However I've sent a half dozen bugs into their pressurized areas hidden in supplies they bought from us, and none of them have survived to return any data. The new people we are getting are, by their nature, not administrative insiders who might know something useful. The academics were no help in describing why they were having their contracts cut short. They were wrapped up in their work and it seems to have caught them by surprise to be pink-slipped."

"They've gotten better at detecting the bugs then," Jeff said, unhappy.

"And maybe better at making their own, if that was one of theirs in my place," April said.

"Mmmm...Heather needs some of our little hunters," Jeff decided.

"Oh please yes," Heather agreed. "The thought I might get any of those tiny screw head 'bots...creeps me out. You won't have any trouble deploying your hunters here. I will just decree it."

"I'll have the first half dozen on the next supply shuttle," Jeff promised.

"I suggest you ask the new people who they imagine, from among their friends and workmates, will be joining them seeking asylum. You should make every effort to recruit them to spy for you. Promise them entry and even a cash payment to get them started in their new life," April suggested.

"We have com to Armstrong," Heather said, "but I have no doubt it's monitored closely. I could create trouble for the last couple researchers, without even meaning to."

"Not those two necessarily. Recruit off the field workers and shipping and receiving people," April said. "You'd be amazed how much that level of worker knows about what's happening. Time a shipment for just before lunch, and have your driver ask where to eat and invite the Armstrong worker to a meal. Or have them show a romantic interest."

"I'd have a hard time...No, I just couldn't ask any of my people to do that," Heather objected.

"Provide the opportunity and you won't have to ask," April assured her. "People form attachments all on their own. Let it be known what sort of information you want and leave the how to them."

"I'll do the same in Camelot," Jeff decided. "They do some trade direct with Armstrong. I don't think they see them as the threat Central poses for some reason. They're still Chinese in their minds. It's hard for people to drop long held stereotypes."

"Annette hasn't said anything about getting any refugees from Armstrong?" April asked Jeff.

"No, but the stereotype works there too. They see Camelot as having a much different culture than Central. Most probably think they'd have to learn Chinese and take up their dress and diet to live there. In reality I'm not sure if there's anybody at Camelot that doesn't speak English. China is so big they have a dozen regional languages or dialects represented. But everybody had English in school."

* * *

The object was very difficult to see. It absorbed radar and there were concerns painting it with too strong a radar pulse might provoke it to self-detonate. Lidar wasn't much better. It had a fuzzy coating of carbon fibers that reflected very few frequencies a laser could generate. The best way to locate it was to track it optically against the bright background of the Earth in full sunlight.

It was hardly unique at the altitude and inclination of its orbit. Several countries had stealthy objects similarly positioned. They had already captured two, and found one was an abandoned Chinese satellite that was not a weapon, and one was an object owned by another agency of their own government. That was embarrassing. The tip off this was what they were looking for was that it was too stealthy. The Spacers had an edge on them in that tech they had observed on Home ships. They wouldn't try cracking this one open in orbit. They were confident now that it was what they wanted.

They slowed down and approached carefully until a pair of stereo cameras could establish an accurate distance. The reentry sled was only about the size of a beer keg. On one side a darker opening tapered into the interior. At the bottom of the black funnel was the glint of a tiny lens. Obscuring the lens view hadn't provoked an explosion, which was encouraging. There were no visible antennas. Hard to believe there could be so much potential destruction in such a compact package. It fit easily in the open hold and was cushioned in a bed of aerogel. The greatest danger would be if it self-destructed when undergoing the deceleration from orbit.

When the acceleration pressing their backs into the shuttle couches peaked at a little over 3G. The best they could do braking back into the atmosphere as gently as possible. The two crew breathed a sigh of released anxiety. If they had triggered anything they didn't expect they would ever know, but they were still here. Their load would be somebody else's problem soon.

Chapter 6

"Hello Diana," April was happy at the unexpected call. She liked Di. "I haven't talked to you in a long time. How are things in paradise?"

"Expensive," Di said, in her usual blunt fashion. Not hostile, but preliminary chit chat just wasn't her style. "The population has bled off a bit. Mainly people who felt trapped on an island or lost their jobs and could still afford to leave. The ones who had anywhere to go have returned to the mainland and other countries, but the price of food has gotten crazy. Just about everybody who can has a garden, and vegetable poaching is a hot topic on the news. They are concerned with over fishing too, and trying to control it."

"I'd have thought you would be safe from any poachers way out on a dead end road on a ridge," April said.

"We are, from that direction. Fuel is scarce and outrageous too, so we have no vehicles scouting up this far looking to steal anything. And nobody wants to climb a long winding dirt road on foot to cause trouble. But we've had way too much activity downhill on the other side, in the nature preserve. People collecting plants and I suspect hunting, you know? I've been able to curtail some of it just by flying a drone over them. I think they assume it's the rangers if they see a drone and avoid the area."

"So you have a garden too?" April asked.

"Even you have a garden, neighbor. And your caretaker comes over and helps with mine, for shares of course, since I have more open area. We also put some things over the property line in the preserve that won't go wild and become invasive exotics. Guerrilla gardening, Nick calls it. For example I have a ton of garlic thriving just on other side of my stone wall. Enough that Nick even takes some to town and sells it for me. Even Adzusa plays at tending the garden when she's in residence, but she's mostly off working," Di said. "I don't see her for a month at a time."

"I know, I hear from her, but even less than you. She will drop me a text now and then, but seldom a live call. She visits some real nasty places I'd never want to go. Low bandwidth is the least of your problems those sort of places," April said, and made a face.

"Yep, she's entertained me with a few stories," Diana admitted. "And I've taught her a few tricks from my experience visiting third world holes, like brushing your teeth with beer. Nick likes it when she's home because he feels freer to go into town. Even if he carries his phone to monitor the alarms it takes him a long time to get back up the hill, and you better not count on the Sheriffs at all, this far out, now."

"I'm probably not paying Nick enough now," April worried. "I have him go to the neighbor on the other side, the old Japanese couple, the Gotos, and he does yard work and stuff for them too.

"Not so much anymore. They informed us about six months back that they had some relative die back home in Japan and they would be gone for some time to attend to family obligations and settle legal matters. They hired a live in caretaker of their own. He seems like a nice young man and he has a big garden on their property too. We trade things a little. I never could get ginger to grow for me like he can. The damn stuff is delicate. You just look at it cross-eyed and it gets some exotic mold and dies."

"I'm surprised they had money to hire help. I had Nick taking them food now and then because they wouldn't take a gift chit for the store after the first time."

"April, you can get people to take care of a house for free now, just to have a place to stay, even in the city. Some who went back to the mainland have done that so their place doesn't sit empty, or worse, get squatters. Your man Nick is out of school now and doesn't seem to be in any hurry to find a different full time job. He's happy to have time to write. If he found something in town he'd probably be apartment sharing with five or six other young people, and in a nasty neighborhood. He's better off where he is, and it's safer out here. Crime has gone up with bad economic times."

"Are you doing OK?" April finally thought to ask.

"Oh Honey, I saw this coming a long time ago. I've been ready for it since about the time you were born. I'd rather not be too specific on open com, but I'm set pretty well. It's hard to time these things, but it's like watching a dead tree across the fence in the preserve. You can't predict which day it's going to fall over, but it's dead certain that's what is going to happen eventually."

"OK, but if you need help don't be afraid to tell me," April offered.

"There's one small thing," Diana admitted. "I might be gone for a few weeks. I'd like to be...more like you. You know? Can't do that in the islands here. So I'd like to shut things down and lock the storm shutters closed. I'd link my security system to yours and have Nick monitor it, do a walk through twice a day and feed Ele-'ele. Is that OK?"

"That's fine, but if I get the drift, is it safe to be more like me? Not just the legal problem but the...illness side of it?" April asked.

"I have friends who assure me they are almost certain it doesn't pose a future hazard, and it isn't going to be a legal problem much longer. At least not in the islands," Di said mysteriously. "The only other thing is...if Nick does have some problem he can't handle I have a security company on contract to respond. They can have four armed operatives here in five minutes, but I'd like Nick to be able to tell them to land on the aircar pad on your roof if it isn't smart to land in my yard. That would involve you with something that might otherwise be just my problem."

"I trust your judgment. I'm already involved with you. Do what you need to do, and I'll share expenses if they do have to respond. I figure any threat to your house is a threat to mine too. Aircars burn a lot of fuel. That has to be an expensive service."

"Yeah, I can't get groceries delivered anymore because of the fuel cost," Di said. "We're too far out. I have a little electric runabout besides the Jeep. I go to the bottom of the hill and meet the guy making city deliveries now. We transfer it and I bring it back up the mountain. If the power goes down I have enough panels to recharge it too. Of course it doesn't take any charge to get to the bottom of the hill, it actually self charges a bit on the way down, so it still has a full charge to climb back up. I bring Nick back up if he can time it right too. He goes into town a couple times a week and tries to time it to let me bring him back up. He puts his bicycle on the roof rack and it can lift both of us and my grocery boxes, but not super fast. It's a heck of a climb for him to do on a pedal bike."

"Is it hard to feed Ele-'ele?" April worried. He was Diana's Newfoundland, and huge. It must take a lot to feed him, April guessed.

"As I said, I saw this coming. I've got a three car garage with one and a half cars," Di joked. "Starting a couple years ago I filled the other space with a couple pallets of rice and stuff, and damn near a ton of kibble. I'm a real islander, so I like Spam and can make a can, or other supplies, last a long time bulking it out from the garden. Out past five years I might have problems, but I think things will have changed a lot in five years." Di added a delayed wink to that supposition. April really wanted to talk to her face to face with some privacy.

"What does Nick do if he's not in school now?" April asked. "I don't pay him that much cash money, and he seemed the ambitious sort to me when I met him. Does he have part time work too?"

Di raised an alarmed eyebrow and pursed her lips. Apparently that wasn't an easy thing to answer. "What you pay him is hard currency. It goes further. He meets people, friends, at a couple coffee houses," Diana said carefully. "He's active, and they talk a lot. Besides that he's writing an epic Hawaiian novel. He read Michener's "Hawaii" in school and it left him unsatisfied. He's determined to do it with better historical accuracy, and then take up where Michener left off mid-century, including what's happening right now. In fact he figures it will be maybe five volumes and the last one will be things that happened during his life, though he claims it won't be a dry history book. So he doesn't see finishing it until he's much older. He says the history part is already set, and he just has to be honest about it. The rest that is happening now, he vows he'll have the depth to write about when the time comes. It's a remarkably honest self appraisal for a young person."

"Is it bad for him to be associated with me?" April worried, a new thought to her.

That visibly amused Di. "I'm not sure which of you is the worse influence. You two are a lot alike despite the obvious differences."

"OK. It sounds like things are stable enough for you right now. When things are going good I've learned not to mess with them. I have no idea when I'll get to come enjoy my home again, but things change. I'll just be patient and we'll have a good visit when I can," April promised.

"That or I may visit you if you wait too long," Di warned. "I've had a hankering to see what things are like up there for a long time. Things will settle out and I'll get a chance eventually."

"You're welcome to be my guest if the lift capacity ever catches up," April offered.

"Thanks," Di said, reaching for her disconnect key. "You're a good kid."

Coming from Diana April didn't take offense at that.

* * *

"The French bought a tunnel boring machine from us," Heather informed Mo.

"We have two under construction," Mo reminded her. "A two meter and a three meter chassis. Do you know which they want and do we have some kind of a delivery date targeted?"

"We compared notes and they've been sinking an elevator shaft for almost the last year. It's past three kilometers deep and has stub tunnels started on several levels. It has the lift capacity and volume to take either size machine down. I want you to start tearing the existing two meter machine down to ship to them via their shuttle tomorrow. We know they can lift a pair of Russian rovers on their shuttle, so it's going to be more a matter of reducing length than mass. You can check with them for the dimensions."

Mo looked shocked, then alarmed. But Heather had to hand it to him, he visibly calmed himself and got his face back under control without blurting out something stupid.

"You have to be aware, that tosses our own schedule straight out the window," Mo said. "I assume there is some urgency or a compensating advantage to make this worth doing?"

"We don't have windows," Heather pointed out reasonably. "You really have to drop these Earth expressions or the kids will snicker behind your back."

"They are welcome to snicker," Mo said. "But that isn't an answer."

"They made me an offer I couldn't refuse," Heather admitted.

"I hope that also isn't the Earth expression I'm used to," Mo said. At Heather's bewildered look he explained – "On Earth it means the offer is backed by deadly threats. You can accept it or die. There's even a famous scene in an old 2D movie that immortalized the expression."

"Oh, no," Heather said. "It's far too good to pass up. No sinister hidden meaning."

Mo looked relieved. "May a lowly mining engineer ask what you got for it? Magic beans?"

"Now that story I recognize," Heather said, but she was smiling. "Indeed I'd take beans if they had the right kind of magic. You remember in that fairy tale they did end up having some special qualities?"

"Yes, although they were troublesome," Mo agreed.

"Well remind me later to tell you about hyacinth beans, they look like they will displace a lot of our soy production, but that's way off topic. The French are giving us two interesting new technologies in exchange for the boring machine. They are behind us in sintering large structures like the boring machine uses, and feel extremely pressed to become food independent. They need a lot more tunnel cubic quickly."

Mo lifted an eyebrow, which was enough to make Heather hesitate if he wanted to ask a question.

"Why pressed? Do they see a sudden increase in demand? Or another cut off of supply from Earth? That sort of a statement alarms me. It has to have some basis."

"I will get to that soon," Heather promised. "I might not be telling this in the optimum order. But you can see how it all fits together once you have heard it all. The things they had to tell me to explain their necessity and why the deal was being offered were as valuable as the tech. They are ahead of us in human intel. Indeed they chided me a bit for not knowing what is going on in Armstrong. The fellow I spoke with said that's his full time job, and a basic part of governance. I'm afraid he characterized neglecting it as running a 'hobby' government. He said us being oblivious to what was happening was destabilizing, and he shouldn't have to be supplying our intel. It wasn't easy to hear it put so rudely, but he's right, we need an actual intelligence department, even if it's just one person at this point. I know I don't have the proper mentality for the job, and I need to delegate a lot of things anyway, but we just don't have enough people to do everything," she sighed.

"If I may make an observation," Mo said, gently. "Burdening your subjects with two or even three jobs, is still likely to get better performance than you can do trying to carry a dozen all by yourself."

Heather looked stricken. "That's terribly reasonable."

Mo just nodded rather than beat the idea to death until she hated it.

"The French revealed the USNA has been bringing in replacement people marginally qualified to maintain systems. They may know IT or environmental, but they are all of a military background and age," Heather said, her face saying this was significant. "They have different enough skills that they don't just plug into the equivalent civilian job. They aren't used to the same way of reporting and getting orders or requesting supply. Things haven't gone smoothly, and where there was friction the old management structure was retired and sent home without any negotiation or effort to blend cultures. This sort of thing is easy to pick up with human intel, because people complain about it."

"Oh crap...they are militarizing Armstrong," Mo said.

"Indeed, and if they have little use for civilian managers who don't adapt to military practices, they have zero need for the research and scientific workers who even the civilians find scattered and difficult to work with. They see them as a drag on resources and a luxury they can't afford right now. They seem to have no idea that some of the tech Home used to force independence and keep it originated on the moon. Which is all to the good. We are getting Armstrong people who developed energy storage systems Earth still doesn't have, and who worked with Jeff Singh's mother before she fled.

"The inventors of that tech are exactly the people who came over here rather than go back to Earth. Some of them might have gone to Home, but it is our good fortune it was too difficult to go to Home or to the French base, a fact of which he was aware and very bitterly lamented. We have an actual road to Armstrong and an English speaking culture. There is so little Armstrong commerce with New Marseille and these people had no idea how readily they would be granted entry or asylum. They may have imagined a language barrier."

"They have a long tradition of generous asylum, but I doubt most of these academics are aware of the political history," Mo said. "They may also believe North American propaganda."

"I had one person suggest we would be better off imprisoning some of these people before allowing them to return to Earth. Especially to North America," Heather revealed.

"I'd be very careful of that person in the future," Mo said, not even bothering to ask who it was, to gauge how safe it was to contradict them. He held up a finger and tilted it sharply. "I think their moral compass is more than a few degrees off true north." Using an Earthism again.

Heather nodded agreement. That he had the strength of his convictions wasn't lost on her. "The French were the source of several other pieces of tech Jeff and I traded for some time ago. They supplied armor we used when April went to Earth and electronic systems we used for signal interception and processing. Both hardware and the software to run it. Until now they didn't offer the tech to fabricate the chipsets, but the tunnel machine buys that for us. They still haven't offered up the tech to fabricate the armor, but I intend to weasel that out of them.

"They want to buy a new three meter machine in the near future, after the one we're building for ourselves. So I have some leverage to get the armor process from them when they come back for that. I'm also trying to broker a deal for Dr. Holbrook to work with the fellow who was the primary source of the chipsets. We're getting tech from that source for extracting trace elements from regolith or milled rock that aren't feasible to separate any other way. I expect we'll do other, more mundane trade too."

"That certainly sounds like a good trade," Mo allowed. "I have some regolith from shadowed sites I'd like to try processing through such a machine. It's not like we will run up against critical lack of cubic for several weeks without the tunnel borer. We can switch all our resources to finishing the new two meter machine, and have it in service a little earlier. Are you talking about actually sending Dr. Holbrook to New Marseille, or having him work by com?"

"Physically sending him. I'm going to gift him with land as April suggested to me. If it doesn't anchor him here at least it should leave him kindly disposed towards us. I know you are using him for survey work, but he's really too valuable to waste on that if we can get him back in a lab where he has at least some equipment and his full time spent on research. I'm asking Jeff to work with them, which will be by com, and require a terrific high bandwidth to be encrypted to the level we desire. I'm urging him to get his mom involved too, but she is very independent, if not downright paranoid. Not without cause," Heather added.

Mo was nodding, looking thoughtful.

"OK, I know that abstracted staring off into space look," Heather said after a long silent pause. "What are you thinking? You look nearly as off in another universe as Jeff gets."

"Just looking ahead a little. We're going to end up fighting Armstrong again aren't we?" Mo asked.

Heather smiled, but didn't tell Mo how happy that easy we made her.

"Yes, I doubt there is any way to avoid it. Not all of Armstrong, most of them there have no interest in damaging us. But this faction being assembled, whose only purpose I can see is to attack us, yeah."

"You figure they are bringing weapons in again?" Mo asked.

"Do dogs have fleas?" Heather asked. "I've already taken...measures. I'm working on strategies to ambush any force that tries to project along the road, without destroying it. I'm very concerned with providing emergency shelter for the few people we have in surface facilities. It's a rather classic opening to bombard an enemy to soften them up before an attack. Is that what you are thinking?"

"Oh no, no. That's all fine and good. I expected all that. But what about after?" Mo asked.

"What about after?" Heather echoed.

"Well, say you have thwarted this invasion, and destroyed their forces not just effectively, but in detail I should hope. That's the only way to definitely end it. The road lays open the other way..."

"Invade them?" Heather asked, surprised he'd consider it.

"Perhaps not in the same way they intended, but Dr. Holbrook and some of the others who've come to you are lacking their customary equipment. It seems like you should discuss with them exactly where it is, and what it looks like, and what sort of transport is needed to move it safely. Then send a raid in to grab it all. Well, as much as can be practically taken, and restore it to them. Not a general invasion."

"I like it," Heather agreed. "Actually I had in mind doing a sweep for heavy weapons if we gained control all the way back down the road to Armstrong. Trying to be as gentle with the civilian population as possible. But I doubt we'd be well received demanding access and doing inspections by force. I'd rather not turn the rest of them against us if possible. But it's the only way we'd know they don't have the means to try it again soon," Heather reasoned. "We might as well take what we need and they aren't using. It's not like we're stealing their air plant or something."

"The spoils of war," Mo said with a shrug. "That's how it works. Make a note. Sometime when you can, look up 'Operation Paper Clip'. That's the name for the action in which the Americans, the old USA, grabbed all the German tech they could at the end of the First Atomic War. They got jet engines and rockets for satellites and all sorts of things. Anything they could grab before the competing Russians snatched it first."

"You'll need to be very careful to maintain operational security about this," Heather reminded him. For the first time she really regretted he wasn't her sworn man."I'm impressed how practical you are for a technically oriented person."

Mo's eyebrows shot up in surprise. "Hey, I'm not one of these scientists! I'm an engineer."

Chapter 7

Jeff's phone gave a priority chirp and he checked it without pausing the movie he and April were watching. It wasn't really holding his interest. It was made in the 2050s. Some of the assumptions and tech were so dated as to be silly, but mostly it was so different culturally it might as well have been an alien planet they were viewing. If he missed something by answering his phone no great loss. The family around which the story revolved were at a vacation home on Puget Sound. There were long stretches of shore and the hills behind covered with trees and no homes or big buildings. The chalet style cabin was ridiculous, hard to maintain and insecure. It looked nothing like the area did now. You'd think from the camera work that there was still hardly anybody living there but the Indians. The young boys ran around the beach in swimming suits with no top that would get them arrested now. In fact the movie download was restricted in North America to academic use now, because it would be regarded as soft porn and anti-social. The social issues the three generations were trying to resolve in the story were as antiquated as the cabin. Jeff didn't mind the interruption. He was about ready to give up on the movie anyway, but April hadn't said anything that way yet.

"It's always something," Jeff complained, frowning at his phone. "One of our primary weapons failed to respond to an inquiry. Its anticipated position was hit with a laser when there was a safe area of Indian Ocean behind it and it should have made a status report on its internal diagnostics. Chen says an optical double check shows no object the right size anywhere near where it should be."

"Backtracking traffic scans is there any indication somebody matched orbit with it? April asked.

"That's what Chen's guys are checking now. We'll have a company in Pakistan who'll run the numbers for us. They have a lot of data to process to see who was looking at it in the last ten days and buy the best coverage to check. We never have a hundred percent coverage, so there's no guarantee we'll see a rendezvous, or the flash of a meteor strike for that matter, though one big enough to knock it out of orbit without a flash and debris would be unlikely."

"If it got impacted by a natural object would it make it fail-safe and self destruct?" April asked.

"It might," Jeff decided. "It would be more likely to destruct from a small strike than a big one. Because the acceleration profile would match a rail gun projectile more than a massive object. If it fail-safed we'd have heard about it. The self destruct mode isn't as powerful as the weapon setting. But still enough that everybody with satellite sensors would freak out at the detonation."

"Oh, I just assumed it would go to the full yield automatically," April said.

"No, first of all, no need. The purpose is to keep it from being captured and reverse engineered. You don't need a couple hundred megatons to do that. Secondly you can initiate a smaller burn in the device faster than a full one. Which means you stand to accomplish the destruct before an impact can disassemble the device and scatter components from which people could get clues."

"So how big a boom?" April asked.

"I'm not sure," Jeff admitted. "I've never had opportunity to test one in that mode, obviously. I'm pretty sure it will yield at least a megaton. I wouldn't want to try to model it way off near the end of the graph line, down to a few kilotons and have it totally fail on me. On the other hand I have no idea if it will still get some secondary fusion reactions like surprised us with the first one. If it goes past the primary reactions into secondary or even a few ternary reactions it could get as much as twenty megatons."

"That's a pretty wide range," April said.

"Not really," Jeff said. "The destructive power only goes up as the cube of the yield. So most of it, once you get past the first couple megatons, is all flash and boom but the area it actually damages isn't proportionally that much bigger."

"Why bother to make it so big then?" April asked.

"Because a lot of people, well, the sort of non-technical people that still are a lot of Earth's population, can't visualize the result of exponential functions. Hearing huge numbers scares the snot out of them. Even administrative people. That's the primary purpose, to make sure they are seriously worried you might use one. It doesn't cost hardly anything to make them seem scarier."

"What are you going to do?" April asked. "What if somebody took it?"

"Stole it you mean. Well, Chen should tell me if they can pinpoint an intercept within the hour. If we know who stole it I'll have a word privately with them. If we can't find evidence it was removed by human agency I'll still assume that's what happened, and make a public announcement. I have a very high confidence nobody is going to crack it open and study it without killing themselves. I shouldn't have to, but I'll warn them."

"It may kill a few innocent people too," April worried.

"That's not my choice or problem," Jeff said. "Should we not have a bank because somebody might rob it? Criminals are responsible for the casualties from their crimes. It's Earth Think to blame the victims. I won't go there."

April smiled. "Pretty hard to rob it when we don't have a lobby to walk into."

"Well yeah, great safety feature," Jeff agreed.

"They will blame you if somebody cracks it open," April warned him. "I know it's crazy, but living down a gravity well seems to rob people of all moral sense."

"I'm kind of getting used to it," Jeff said with a shrug.

* * *

Kurt eased off the shuttle onto the Home dock and heaved a sigh of relief. It was so unexpected he embarrassed himself, but none of the other passenger queuing up to enter seemed to notice. He enjoyed just touching the check-in pad and giving his name. In North America it was a lot more trouble to go from Mobile to New Orleans for a weekend trip. Here, nobody asked for papers or his purpose in entering.

He handled his heavy bag with the care of long experience in zero G. Three quarters of his mass allowance was taken up with high end bourbon. It was in square plastic bottles, not glass, but a beam dog never yanked anything around unthinking in zero G. He enjoyed a drink now and then himself, and it had been unattainable at any price the last few months he'd worked on Home. He could sell it for a princely sum if he needed to. The rest was taken up by six sets of long sleeved t-shirts and casual pants. He had two one liter squeeze bottles of body wash and a couple tooth brushes and reusable floss. He wasn't sure what would be provided on the moon, and hadn't wanted to sound like a difficult person by asking too many details. Anything he brought along now would be cheaper than buying it later.

Once he was through the bearing, he tried his phone, and was delighted they hadn't cancelled his com code yet. He'd called Jeff Singh from near ISSII as soon as they undocked and he was certain he'd be on Home soon, but that was still through his Earth phone company's service. He just didn't care if anybody tracked it now that he was beyond their reach. The man hadn't really said if he was on Home or the moon. He just told Kurt to call him for the interview after his medical. It assured him that Singh didn't condition it on him passing and being certified for suit work. Apparently he meant his offer to help Kurt find other work if he couldn't use him himself.

The first thing he did after exiting the docking area was to buy a ticket for the next shuttle to Central. It was six hours until it would board, but it should be an easier wait than on ISSII. He'd gotten a good nap on the shuttle, it being a longer trip, translunar, than the lift from Earth. Until he had his ticket paid for he had an almost irrational dread of spending anything, lest by some miscalculation he'd end up a few cents short of having the price of his ticket to report to Central. With that safely in hand he felt free to go have a decent meal and not skimp. That would leave plenty of time to go by the clinic.

The shuttle docked on the south end of M3. He didn't have any desire to go clear to the north end to go to the usual cafeteria the beam dogs used. Also he wasn't ready to face the rough humor he expected them to hit him with for coming back. The cafeteria on the business corridor was closer, and he didn't have any need of alcohol. In fact breakfast sounded good.

* * *

Ruby was out at the serving counter. She usually took a turn at it after the morning rush. It allowed the two prep cooks to get lunch under control without being interrupted by breakfast stragglers. Besides, she needed a break too, away from the small windowless office and staring at a screen. If you holed up there and just dealt with the operation by numbers you missed a lot of the clues about the operation you got looking over the counter. Numbers didn't tell you what kind of people were ordering different things, and if they looked happy or were frowning. It wasn't hard to tell from a distance if they were frowning over some personal issue or their food. Especially if you saw they took a good deal of it to the waste bin when they finished, you knew there was a problem.

The fellow who came in alone didn't hesitate at the entry and look around like somebody who'd never been in before, but he looked subtly wrong. Ruby had to look at him closely and think to figure it out. She was sure she'd seen the face before, not often and not recently, but he wasn't new unless he had a twin. Then it clicked what was different, his hair was too long.

"Haven't seen you in awhile," the cafeteria lady said, but she was clearly friendly. Her name tag said Ruby and she had a smaller line below saying 'food service manager'. "You must have a new job."

"Yeah, I do," Kurt said, embarrassed she knew him and he didn't remember her. She was striking, chocolate brown and thin, with long delicate features he automatically saw as aristocratic. Looking at her his brain flashed on a bust of Nefertiti that had been in a comparative culture course. But the work badge said manager, so maybe she wasn't out here with the public that often, he grasped at that to excuse himself for not remembering her.

"Do you have beam dog friends to know their inside gossip, or am I bigger news than I imagined?" Kurt joked.

"Your hair," Ruby explained. "You had it buzzed off short for the helmet work when you were in here before. They're not going to let you out the lock with what you're wearing now."

"Oh, yeah." Kurt reached up and ran his hand across his head. "I guess I better have it cut before I catch a shuttle later. I'm headed for the moon, but they aren't going to want it this long for suit work there either. I'm just passing through, after I've been back on Earth a few months."

"Got laid off after the ring was finished?" Ruby asked.

"Yeah, and I had some foolish idea I'd go back and help my sister and do Earth iron for awhile."

"My husband is a scooter jockey," Ruby said. "He'd have been laid off but he's got seniority out the wazoo. He teaches material handling so he isn't likely to be cut."

"What's his name?" Kurt asked. There weren't a lot of married beam dogs, nor older ones.

"You'd know him as Easy," Ruby said.

"Oh man, yeah. I know his voice. They joke he was floating there, waiting impatiently, when the first Mitsubishi shuttle arrived with a beam folding machine to start making the construction shack."

"Just about," Ruby agreed. "He was here before the central hub was formed. You walked right past the hot bar. Can I get you something special?"

Kurt looked back over his shoulder. The small buffet was somewhat depleted but only had one tray actually empty. There was still plenty. "How much is just the hot bar?" Kurt asked. No sense splurging if he could keep a little in his pocket. "And coffee," he added because he wasn't sure that was included.

"You don't have a subscription anymore do you?" Ruby asked.

"No, I'm not officially employed by anybody. I'm headed to the moon and hope to be hired by Jeff Singh. I quit and had to pay my own lift ticket back up," Kurt said. The slight grimace he added wasn't theatrics. He genuinely regretted being a dumb ass and almost stranding himself on Earth.

"Take your fill off the bar," Ruby said, with a wave of her long fingered hand. "Anything on it this late has to be recycled to crumbs or filler or dumped to carbon recycling. I should make it policy to offer it free after 1030, I just never thought of it before. There's always a few folks who can't afford a cafeteria card, and it's better than wasting it. It all gets recycled in the end anyhow. I will quietly have the right folks who help others told that's the new policy. Putting a sign out would keep some from using it from pride. Folks that need it...they'll either be back on their feet or on the dirt ball soon enough anyway."

"Home actually has poor people?" Kurt asked in surprise. He was sincerely interested, seeing how close he'd come to being broke.

"Not for long," Ruby said. "But there are always a few who lost their job or have a medical problem. There are always some who haven't got the sense to save or have insurance. They may get by for awhile working a service job and sleeping in a hot slot or private bunk room. If you don't have any savings or good insurance it's terrifically expensive to live until you can retrain or get well. We have a couple people who do charity work for those or the few who have untreatable mental illness. But it's mostly a stop-gap."

"I heard a lot of private complaining on Earth about the disability laws," Kurt remembered. "If you fit an official protected class a big company can be forced to hire and carry people who simply can't do the job. Janitors in wheel chairs or a blind person doing video editing."

"There's such a labor shortage here you can be hired for something as long as you aren't a stink or violent. I think we probably do better employing the different sorts of folks from necessity instead of charity. I know one guy who has an IT worker who wears a lacy gown and a tiara every day to work. He doesn't even mind calling her Princess Priscilla if that makes her happy, because she's a wiz with computers. She doesn't have to deal with the public so – who cares?" Ruby asked.

"We had a few different personalities in construction. Of course I'm not one of them," he hastened to add. "I'll take that breakfast, and thank you," he decided.

"Now see," Ruby said. "I wouldn't care if you had on a tin foil beanie. You're mannerly enough to say thanks for your breakfast." She turned and got busy with something, finished talking.

There were enough pancakes left to make a big stack and plenty of butter and syrup. The empty tray had enough traces left to see it had been scrambled eggs, but there were still some sausage patties left. Kurt took all five of them. He finished off the fruit salad and considered the hot cereal, but decided that would be gluttony. Nobody had told him to fast for his physical, but it probably wasn't a good idea to waddle in stuffed to the gills.

Ruby had been happy with a 'thank you', but Kurt added her and Easy to his mental list of people who he owed a favor. It was so good to be back. On Earth nobody would have spotted him breakfast. They'd be risking their job with all the rules and regulations Earthies loved. And nobody would give the leftovers to the poor because there were laws against it. Charity was licensed and not allowed to overlap with for profit business. The coffee was concentrate, but was still better than most of the fast food and fueling station coffee he'd been buying on Earth. Maybe he should have brought bean coffee instead of whiskey in his luggage, he thought...but too late now. Maybe investigate it for the future.

* * *

"What the devil is that?" Greg Olson asked the other OED, pointing at a feathery image on the screen. It looked organic, like a droopy antenna or perhaps the frond of a fern. However the low intensity x-ray machine showed it as very dense. To the point it had to be gold or tungsten.

"Damned if I know," his partner Joe Brinks admitted. "You have similar dense structures here, and here," he pointed out on the screen. "Now these might be a sort of accelerometer, since they seem to align on the axis of the reentry sled. But I'm starting to think some of these structures are just inert forms included to make examining it as we are difficult and uncertain. What better way to do that then some random complex shapes? You also have this thing," Brinks said, pointing to a ghostly image with a cupped diaphragm against the inside of the shell. It looks to be a pressure switch, but there is no wire to it. Now if it had anything like a small chip in it I'd believe it was wireless, but I don't see anything dense enough. I think the devious bastard who built this wanted to make us afraid to crack it by adding elements that can't be understood, because they have no real purpose."

"The torus is too big to imagine it's just a decoy," Greg decided.

"You're probably right. But what does it do?" Brinks asked. "If it rotated you'd think it would be on a central shaft, but it's hollow in the middle. It looks layered in shells, but if the inner shell rotates, it must rotate at a ridiculous speed, because the outer layer is definitely thick metal. If it is high grade steel I think we're looking at a couple hundred thousand RPM on a gaseous bearing. It's about the size of an actual donut. It might still be rotating right now, and we'd have no way of sensing it if it is balanced well enough."

"But the inner ring, the torus, isn't hollow," Greg Olson objected. "It should be quite strong on its own. If it was some kind of fusion device it should be hollow. In fact it should be a vacuum vessel."

"Maybe, but look carefully at the edge. It seems to have a little shading there. I think it may be a tube filled with something. Either a liquid metal or a metal poured in liquid and allowed to harden. But why? And the shapes off each end...The density would suggest metallic augmented explosives, but it certainly isn't a classic implosion device. Neither are any of the parts anything like a nuclear kernel. We don't have anything like a reflective shape to compress fusion fuel with radiation either."

The two looked at each other with alarm. There was a faint sound...

Olsen reached up and laid a hand gently against the bomb. It vibrated faintly under his hand. He nodded at Brinks. This wasn't normal. It didn't fit any device either had heard of or could imagine.

"Here," Brinks said and handed him an amplifying stethoscope.

Olsen put the earphones on and touched the microphone gently against the bomb and listened.

"Hello, I am the owner of this device, Jeff Singh. If you are hearing this recording you have activated an artificial intelligence, which has compared a number of sensor readings and decided my device has been not simply been moved or misidentified as a piece of space junk, but is being actively examined with the goal of opening it, and of course ultimately reverse engineering it.

"There were certain stimuli that would have caused it to detonate in orbit, but now that it is being examined by x-ray and ultrasound I must warn you that the normal fail-safe parameters to detonate have been made much more sensitive. Trying to move it will not be as easy as before. Further radiation or mechanical intrusion will certainly detonate it. If you wish to have it removed safely you must call me at com code 1467 at the nation of Home. There will be fees assessed for its removal.

"This message will repeat at five minute intervals for an hour, and then at hourly intervals. At a predetermined time the counter will detonate the device if you ignore it too long. I am of course not going to reveal that exact time limit to aid you. Best not to delay unnecessarily."

Olsen passed the stethoscope to Brinks and let him listen himself.

"No way. We have to crack this baby faster now," Olson insisted.

"I'm going to throw up," Brinks said closing his eyes. He looked like it too, face a ghastly shade.

"Not here," Olsen said, turning him gently by the shoulder and pushing him toward the lavatory.

Brinks walked off stiff legged and chin down. Olsen couldn't say too much. His own gut was twisted in knots. He'd thought he'd experienced just about everything possible, but he'd never had a bomb talk to him.

In the toilet stall Brinks pulled out a small cell phone and turned it on. He was pretty sure there wouldn't be an active service denial device around the bomb. He was also hoping eighty meters was far enough away to keep the phone from activating the device.

The phone showed four bars. Turning it on hadn't killed him so there was hope. They'd probably trace it and come for him, but he really didn't think it would matter. Olsen had rank on him, and the man was going to kill both of them, even if he was in the brig on base instead of helping him. This was out of their depth. He knew it, but Olsen had an ego, and more importantly, nobody above them would back down on this.

"Honey? Listen don't talk. I'm afraid I'm not going to survive this one. I want you to take Susan and head east to Panama City before you go north to your mom's. Don't take time to pack anything. Just take the bag from the top shelf of the safe and go. When you cross the bridge throw your phone out the window off the side and be careful not to get stopped for speeding. I love you and Susan. Will you just do exactly what I'm telling you? It's all I have left to give my life any meaning."

She agreed and wasted seconds telling him she loved him. He just said, "Me too. Thank you. Go." He turned the phone off and wondered how long it would take for them to come for him. He might as well go back and help Olsen until they came to arrest him.

Chapter 8

"There isn't much chance it wasn't a theft," Jeff said. "Chen says it disappeared during the only gap on optical coverage that happened in a month. That is too much of a coincidence to be a natural event, and Dave doesn't build crap, it didn't have an onboard failure that would send it up or down from orbit."

"What are you going to do?" April asked.

"I'm going to publicly announce it is stolen and offer to defuse and reclaim it."

"Do you think anybody would really admit taking it?" April scoffed.

"Not a chance. But I have to offer. If they ignore it then detonating it is on their own heads."

* * *

"Mr. Singh," the newsman from the UK said from the conference screen. "Are you aware that setting a man-trap to deter theft is not accepted under any national code of law?"

"We have no such law. If the Assembly of Home agrees this is morally offensive to them and wishes to censure me I'll accept their punishment. I don't care much for your legal traditions, nor your morals," Jeff added. "Property rights are the basis of all other rights. If you are not secure in what you own, you may be reduced at someone's will to a naked starving animal and die. I do not agree to expose myself to the whim of others as to what I may own and retain...and thus live. You may recall I have...contested with the Chinese over these very matters of ownership, and prevailed."

"Might you not have posted some warning or notice that this device was booby-trapped to deter someone from placing their personnel at risk?" The reporter from Poland asked.

Jeff looked at him amazed. "I have to ask. Do you by any chance own a ground car?"

"Yes, I have a little city run-about I keep for errands. What does that have to do with this?"

"Do you have a sign riveted to the fender telling your countrymen not to steal it?" Jeff asked.

"Of course not. That's absurd. Everybody knows that's a crime, but neither do I have explosive devices installed so that if it is stolen it kills the thief. Property is not worth protecting with lethal force."

"Ah, there we differ," Jeff admitted. "I recall once upon a time your countrymen felt they had to try to use force to stop the Germans from taking their property. Indeed the Germans intended to steal the whole country, and were opposed quite strongly. I suppose you'd just invite them in now. Property not being worth violence and all. Or is there a threshold at which you will protect what is yours?"

"How can you expect people to deal with something booby-trapped?" the Pole demanded, ignoring the previous remark.

"Don't be a booby?" Jeff suggested. "Actually the device is designed to give verbal warning that it has entered a heightened security status when it is disturbed. I imagine it has done so already, but I have no positive way of knowing. It only gave status reports while in orbit. I can't contact it now."

"You made a talking bomb?" the French reporter asked, incredulous.

"Yes. If somebody foolishly disturbs it, then a warning is given that it will eventually detonate if I'm not contacted to defuse it. It doesn't say how long. There's little point in helping the thieves know exactly how long they have to crack it. So you see, nobody is opening this innocently or will be caught by surprise. They didn't find this washed up on a beach somewhere and wonder who owns it. So I see no reason to aid them in their timing, by knowing when to employ more desperate measures."

"So, no final warning? Just...boom?" The Frenchman asked.

"Are you really that cruel?" Jeff asked. "If detonation is imminent would you have it countdown the last seconds like a thriller video?"

"One could then at least run," the reporter said.

"You have no concept what scale of explosion we're talking about, do you?" Jeff asked. "You'd have to run for hours to be clear. I'm through with these kind of pointless questions. The ball is in somebody else's court now." He disconnected.

"How long does it wait to go boom?" April asked.

"It's variable. The more sensors that are tripped from probing it the less time it gives them. If they have an extremely sophisticated suite of scanning devices it may be provoked to detonate in a single day. They will already know far more about it than I like. The one thing I hope is that most of that information is held physically close, on the same base, because of security concerns. When it detonates it should remove that information too if it wasn't transmitted to remote storage."

"If it's North America they might declare war again over this," April worried.

"They already said the war never ended," Jeff reminded her.

"Yeah, if they meant it, if that faction has the authority to say it," April allowed.

"Well if God's Warriors didn't like the Liberty spox repudiating the treaty they should have spoken up. They supposedly rule together. We suspect the mass of the Patriot Party that wasn't destroyed was pretty much absorbed into the Sons of Liberty. Their policies certainly seem similar. God's Warriors has never been as aggressive at denouncing us as their partners. They don't like us either, but are less publically aggressive. And how they treat us is far from their only difference. I'm amazed they can get along as well as they have," Jeff admitted.

"They may not know what the Sons of Liberty have done," April decided.

"Well, now that I've made this announcement I bet they will suspect. There aren't all that many Earth powers capable of snatching it from orbit. It could precipitate a falling out between them," Jeff suggested, hopefully.

"Oh yeah," April agreed. Trying to imagine all the possibilities.

* * *

"Is the Colonel out of his mind?" General Kilpatrick asked. "They hinted at some operation against the Homies, but I thought even infiltrating them or some discreet sabotage too risky at which to play. He's climbed in the tiger cage and kicked the napping beast in the butt. He should have been thanking the Lord they decided to move beyond the moon instead of responding to their sniping with a far more robust response."

"I suspect they'd disavow the attack on Home as the work of the Patriot party," his strategic planner Bellini suggested. "I know, I know. Nobody will admit being Patriots now, except they were forced to join the party or be denounced and discharged. Or quietly removed and buried in the night if they were too adamant in turning the invitation down."

"Yes, outside of DC there must have been no more than ten, or maybe a dozen real Patriots, in the whole country," Kilpatrick sneered sarcastically.

"I'd have loved to hang the lot of them," Bellini averred.

"There isn't enough rope," the General said disgusted.

"You'd be amazed what I can do with an extension cord," Bellini vowed.

"I'd love to find out, but realistically we have to deal with them, rather than satisfy our fantasies," his superior said, sadly. "How are we going to rein in these madmen before they kill us all?"

"If we can't wipe them all out, we can at least cull the herd leaders," Bellini proposed.

"That has dangers too," Kilpatrick warned, but he didn't say no outright.

When Bellini let the silence grow, Kilpatrick said, "Well, at least make it seem an accident, or shift the blame to others if you can. There's no shortage of others who wish them dead, even among their own kind."

"They killed their founder didn't they?" Bellini reminded him.

"Indeed. It was a lesson that didn't pass my attention," the founder of God's Warriors said.

* * *

The back wall of the hanger had a section disassembled and a wall of interlocking blocks such as were used in massive retaining walls hand laid four rows thick near the edge of the foundation before sand bags were laid against it. Then a dump trailer full of scrap metal commandeered from a nearby business had been backed up slowly, and pushed by hand gently against the sandbags. Sand poured over the metal filled the voids. Hoses were wetting the sand to add mass as they spoke. Olsen supervised the careful placement of the mobile rail gun just outside the hanger door on the opposite side. They brought it up dead slow and were afraid to drive the tracked vehicle onto the concrete floor least the vibrations set the sensitized device off.

An X of spray paint marked the exact spot they wished the armor piercing projectile to enter. The gun commander and gunnery officer assured him they would hit the mark within millimeters of dead center from only forty meters away. The penetrator would pass through largely unaltered, nothing in the bomb being anywhere near as massive as the armor it was designed to penetrate. The ghostly rectangle at which they were aiming both he and Brinks agreed had to be the controlling computer. It was about the size of a hand pad, and unfortunately they were aiming at the thin edge of it instead of the flat face. Brinks was sitting in hand cuffs under guard, but Olsen had refused to release him, demanding he retain him to consult. When they expressed fear he could sabotage their effort, Olsen had reasonably pointed out that if he was suicidal he could have simply walked over and kicked the damn thing.

Brinks, for his part was resigned to death, but not eager for it. He was happy for every minute that put his family further away. So far they hadn't seemed bright enough to imagine that's who he'd called, guessing him an agent of other political factions or even Home itself. Workers were already digging up the sewer line outside as they continued, correctly guessing he'd flushed the small phone away when a search failed to find it. They were also constrained to hand digging for fear a backhoe would cause vibrations. He didn't think they would have time to recover it.

At three thousand two hundred meters per second the twelve kilogram core projectile would reach the computer in less than a millisecond from the outer shell. That was probably faster than the shockwave of its impact could be transmitted to the computer, if the real accelerometers were near the core. The discarding rail bus should start to peel off on the outer casing, exposing the nose of the tungsten alloy penetrator.

There were very few wires to be seen in their images. Brinks suspected the few they saw were decoys to encourage entry to neutralize them. Whoever made this device had a terribly devious mind. He'd built in layers and layers of real traps and false hazards. If it had sensors on the periphery with polymer light fibers, and they hit one, they were dead. The projectile could be ten times as fast and still couldn't beat light to the computer. He had no hard numbers, but suspected a device like this might be disarmed one time in a thousand tries. The level of protection made him think the mind that did this would make each one different, so cracking one wouldn't mean the next would open the same.

The hastily built twenty three meter thick backdrop might or might not stop the rail gun projectile entirely even if it broke it up. It might also deflect out the side or up. It was the best they could do on short notice and they were evacuating everything in a wide cone behind it.

Everyone retreated and sheltered behind the armored mobile gun. A few even squatted down behind it, which Brinks found amusing. They had a mobile flash x-ray unit set to take a series of scans once the projectile reached the far side of the computer. The theory being it would help them reconstruct the pieces after they were mechanically scattered. Brinks didn't expect to live long enough to even see the flash. He was right.

* * *

Jeff's phone pinged. "Boom," said Chen when he answered.

"Well crap. I expected that when they didn't reply in an hour," Jeff admitted. "Where?"

"The military installation at Pensacola, Florida," Chen said. "But the yield was, again, more than expected. It was near the upper end of what you expected, a good fifteen megatons. Any ideas why that would happen?" Chen asked.

Among the questions Jeff had asked himself over and over the last few hours was if they might do something to make it produce the full yield. There were a couple possibilities.

"It's conceivable if they destroyed the front computer or the rear computer, but not both at the same time it might make the device revert to a full yield default," Jeff decided. "But doing that might also have damaged some internal structures I'd rather not describe to you, or anybody, which would produce a partial yield. So yeah, it could happen. I'm glad it was at least somewhat moderated. And at least they didn't work on it somewhere with a huge population."

"They're going to have a shallow new western lobe to the Pensacola Bay there, open to the Gulf without any barrier islands, but I suspect in a few years they'll reform," Chen said. "If it had been a full yield device it would have opened a passage up to Pedido Bay, and made a new island. I expect there will be considerable damage on the west end of the city."

"I'm sure they are going to vilify me to no end," Jeff agreed. "I hope you didn't lose any assets?"

"I'm as reluctant to describe my assets as you are bomb parts, but no, I didn't have anyone close enough to do more than see it on the horizon," Chen assured him.

"I'm going to go see what the news service are saying," Jeff said. "Thanks for telling me."

April already had a couple on the split screen, and he was glad she didn't seem to be anguishing over it. If they showed too much ugly local coverage he'd encourage her to shut it off. But the European programs she had running were discussing it with no close video at all.

* * *

Kurt walked to the counter and looked. He could hear somebody talking in the back, but the lady Ruby wasn't in sight or he'd have thanked her again. He dumped his tray and stacked the non-disposables. Best to get to the clinic rather than wait until the last minute. You never knew when there might be a delay. Even if you have an appointment, a doc can be tied up dealing with an emergency at any time.

The Private bank of Home was right there on the corridor, and Kurt stopped to see if he could get some cash with his card from Singh's bank. There wasn't a cash machine like he'd expect on Earth, but the fellow at the first desk was happy to help him and cheerful. It was so un-Earthlike to have friendly service from a bank it jolted him again. He got four of the smallest denomination coins. It felt better to have some real money he knew people would accept.

"Do you want some bits?" Irwin asked, holding up a business card sized fold over.

"I have no idea what you're talking about," Kurt admitted.

"Oh, they don't circulate much off Home yet. Although I've heard the casinos will take them at New Las Vegas. Are you new to Home?" Irwin asked, despite his System Trade Bank card."Some folks have Home accounts who have never stepped foot on Home."

"I've been away for months," Kurt explained. "And I won't be around but a few hours, before I head to the moon."

"Oh, they take them at Central," Irwin assured him. "In fact there's a branch of your bank there now. I'm not sure if they are negotiable at Armstrong, but after all, Central is an easy bus ride away."

Kurt held out his hand and examined the card Irwin gave him.

"Oh, it's to make change," Kurt figured out pretty quickly.

"Indeed. I'd compare it to the idea of coins, but it's really a bank note. There's no embedded value. We've rather reversed the use of coins and notes," Irwin mused.

"I've just come from North America, and my experience with fiat paper left a bad taste in my mouth. I'd rather hold a real coin or take the change in digital credits from somebody I trust."

"Oh no," Irwin said, emphatically. "These are fully redeemable for gold at the bank. When you present a hundred of them you can demand a coin just like the ones you withdrew today."

"Who guarantees them? My System Trade Bank?" He hadn't read all the tiny print on the inside.

"Yes, which means the banks partners," Irwin said. "It isn't a corporation. We don't have public corporations on Home, so the partners in any enterprise are responsible. There's not even the sheltering of limited partner liability, so you have a basis for solid trust."

"Singh is one of the partners then? I wasn't aware it wasn't just his bank. What if he goes broke?" Kurt asked. "That's still possible isn't it?"

"In theory. A currency offered by even a sovereign nation is subject to them going bust too. Miss Lewis and Anderson are also full partners. They share some dealing with Mr. Singh. But both have other holdings in their own names. Heather Anderson is the sovereign of Central on the moon. So her entire domain is technically all hers to draw upon. I assure you Miss Lewis has businesses and other holdings that are significant too, just not as well known to the public. Besides, it's Home. If you feel cheated, and want, you can call on any of them to give you satisfaction or meet you to duel. That's a powerful incentive to upright business dealings," Irwin said. "As you noticed, if North America goes bust lots of luck calling them to account."

"Yeah, I still have one foot on Earth," Kurt admitted. "In Mobile if I felt the bank cheated me they'd just sneer and say, 'Sue us.' Which is the same as telling me to go pound sand."

Irwin nodded. "Welcome back to civilization."

"Give me fifty of these bits," Kurt decided. "I'll try them out."

Kurt had to go past the clinic to a lower rent area to find a salon. Getting his hair buzzed off helmet short took a couple minutes and was cheaper than styling. He used five of the new bits to pay and gave the fellow an extra bit as a tip. He seemed happier now with that tip, than he had after Kurt had firmly turned down a long list of other services.

The clinic wasn't busy at all. The nurse practitioner seemed to be the receptionist too, and said she'd start doing his tests so the doctor could see him when done with his current patient. The tests seemed to be mostly remote scanning with only one finger prick.

Doctor Lee came in after a couple minutes and sat reading the screen from the testing for a good ten minutes before proceeding. He asked Kurt if he'd just had a large meal, and suggested he might have some gene mods if he was going to eat like that as a habit. Otherwise he'd probably be seeing him to restore pancreatic function, stabilize his hormones and lose some weight.

Kurt was young and flexible, but the doc still had him test his grip and strength at extension. He did reflex and hearing tests and a vision test, checking for color perception too. The medical he'd had before when hired for Mitsubishi hadn't been anywhere near as thorough. Kurt said as much to him.

He had Kurt strip and dimmed the lights, examining him with a hand held scanner that illuminated a few square centimeters at a time. He was very thorough, requiring him to lift his arms to scan his arm pits and his private areas, even scanning between his toes.

"Were you looking for skin cancer, doc?" Kurt asked.

"Yes, you've been on Earth and in fairly tropic latitudes. You've had sunlight exposure now and as a child. Some of the air pollution there also accelerates the process to develop skin cancer. I can detect it in scan several years before it may show up to the unaided eye or a blood test. And bluntly, injection sites, because there are designer drugs we don't have tests to reveal, but interfere with your ability to work. The synthesizers are always one step ahead of us.

"Also I'm checking for other common Earth diseases, bites, parasites, fungal infections and unhealed injuries. You have your hair nice and short, but we once did a physical on a fellow three days out from Earth who had a tick hidden in his thick hair. He had no idea, and they are filthy things. Are you aware you had an infection of Charleston fever recently?" Doctor Lee asked.

"I have no idea what that is, Doc," Kurt admitted.

"It's a bacterium, similar to Lyme disease, other Borrelia, Bourbon disease, Colorado fever, Heartland virus, Spotted fever, Malaria, Yellow fever, Zika, Dengue, or West Nile in its mode of transmission. It isn't definitively linked to ticks or mosquitoes, yet. But I personally expect it will be. The filthy things are a huge vector for both viral and bacteriological diseases." Lee frowned. "Or protozoan parasites," he added after thoughtful consideration. "That's what Malaria is. Damned filthy bugs spread everything. Probably stuff we don't suspect yet."

"Charleston is mild or asymptomatic for many healthy people. That's why it took such a long time to be recognized. When people commonly die from a disease it gets our attention faster. You probably thought you had a cold. You have a high level of the antibodies but not an active infection so you'll be fine. You have antibodies for a lot more serious stuff. You've had three kinds of flu, chickenpox, and seven typed rhino viruses," Lee revealed. "I don't see any indications you've ever had Mumps, TB or Diphtheria, and we've seen evidence of just about everything but Smallpox come through here."

"You make me wonder how I ever survived Earth," Kurt said.

"A lot of people don't," Lee agreed. "I may visit again if relations improve in the future, but you can be assured I will be very cautious where I go and what activities I enjoy. In particular, I doubt I will ever be visiting the tropics."

"Why does Mr. Singh pay for such a detailed physical?" Kurt asked.

"You have it backward," Lee informed him. "Mitsubishi detailed exactly what they wanted to pay for in my instructions. Jeff Singh just said use your professional discretion and do whatever you think is best and necessary."

"You know, if he respects a beam dog's experience with their job, like he does doctors, I may like working for the man," Kurt decided.

"Well, I'm done, and you pass. There is no medical reason why you can't work for him," Lee said. "You are typically healthy for an active young man of your age. That isn't to say you wouldn't benefit from a number of small changes in diet and habits. I can see you don't have an unhealthy taste for alcohol, or narcotics. You are also likely shorting yourself an hour or so of sleep a night. If you want a copy of your physical and a risk assessment, ask my assistant and she'll transfer it to your pad, send it to your com account or print it out for a bit. It will have some of those recommendations attached. Of course you would benefit from life extension therapies, but they would preclude you visiting many places on Earth again."

"I'm starting to wonder if I care about that," Kurt admitted, standing to leave. "Thanks Doc."

"You're welcome. Try to keep your helmet on straight," Lee joked. "It makes a hell of a mess for us to fix when you guys try to breath vacuum."

"Yeah, I'll keep that in mind," Kurt promised.

Chapter 9

"You knew they'd be in an uproar," Chen said.

"I'm refusing any interviews," Jeff said. "I'm tired of having to reply to stupidity, or downright lying hostility. We have different standards; we don't think alike. What's to say?"

"On the plus side nobody has called for an Assembly to question you, or try to gain some public controls over private weapons," Chen pointed out.

"Not a Special Assembly, but I wonder if the issue might not come up when the regular one is held?" Jeff worried. "It might be easier to put it to people attached to other issues."

"Then all I can say is, be prepared. Have your answers well made and firmly in mind. Was there anyone you spoke to in the media who seemed reasonable to you?" Chen asked, backtracking a bit. "If you spoke to even one it might calm the others down to have something to report. I know how Earthies think," he warned. "A lot of them see silence as damning, reasonable or not."

"No, nobody had an intelligent question to put forth," Jeff lamented.

Chen thought on that a bit. "You sent notices of a conference call to quite a few news organizations. About thirty," Chen remembered. "You didn't take that many questions. Is there anybody who didn't ask anything you'd want to call up and give it a go again?"

"Do you know? There was a fellow from the Australian Video News Net. He didn't say a blessed thing, but I noticed he was particularly alert. His facial expressions caught my eye when we were listening to the others. I thought maybe I was imagining what I wanted to see, but he seemed as amused at the frivolous question as I was infuriated. But he didn't ask anything himself."

"If you call him up and offer an exclusive interview, what have you got to lose, but your patience?" He can hardly refuse to ask any questions without others to do it for him. You'll either find out you read him wrong, and he's another idiot, or it may be a productive session," Chen suggested.

"I may do that, but can you do some research and see what you can find out about the man in the next few hours?" Jeff asked. "I'd feel better knowing who I'm talking to."

"Sure, I'll look at public sources and see if I have any Australian insiders," Chen promised.

* * *

"I've never seen a fabricator with an articulated arm," Kurt said, surprised. "They always have a cross beam for rigid support, if not two of them, and the print carriage between them."

They were standing in suits outside, the huge 3D printer stage in front of them and the fifth section of a long crane-like arm being attached before the final print head coupling was attached. There was a bare steel rack to the side that would hold specialized print heads to lay various metals, ceramics, foams and glasses. Even heads to vacuum deposit thin films and do secondary heat treating.

"We want to build some vessels twenty meters long," Mo said. "If we built it the conventional way it will be enormous, but more importantly it would take about four times as much material and longer to build. Now, if we had to hold tolerances to a hundredth of a millimeter and produce a good surface finish we'd be building it that way. We'd have no other choice. The pieces we intend to make will be perfectly usable if we hold them to a tenth of a millimeter, and the surface doesn't need to be smooth. We're going to enamel some areas when we sinter them and attach various things with adhesives, so a bit of texture is actually advantageous to get a better grip on both sides."

"Both sides?" Kurt asked, unsure what he meant.

"A lot of this will be laying a hard surface on metal or ceramic foam," Mo explained. "It has good insulating properties and a very high Modulus. It accepts anchors and ribs nicely too. We will be erecting another print arm opposite this one so we can work on both sides of a foam core at the same time."

"How? Don't the inner and outer arms get in each other's way when they cross over? Kurt asked, using his own arms to illustrate the problem.

"Ah, yes they would," Mo agreed, "if they were working on an unmoving object, but the entire fifteen meter diameter stage rotates, and when done the entire rotary table slides off to the side on rails. We'll soon have another blank stage that slides in to allow a new object to be started while the completed object is rigged to be removed, or has secondary operations performed."

"What am I going to be working on first?" Kurt asked.

"You are going to dig a perimeter trench all the way around the machine a hundred meters deep and a meter wide. Then you are going to undercut sections and insert bearings. After the bearings are installed then the remaining sections will be cut out, and those sections will in turn have the second half of the bearings installed. In the end the entire block of stone will be floating, free to move in two dimensions independent of any moonquakes or disturbances from local human activities."

"I'm guessing you are confident the stone doesn't have any big faults running through it?" Kurt said.

"It was examined with ultrasound from four bore holes spaced out at the corners of your future trench. This isn't a natural bowl where we're sited. The regolith was removed and the rock cut flat. It will be domed over also, not for pressure, we need the vacuum, but to keep the direct sun off for thermal expansion. There are already problems we had to overcome with oscillation in such a long articulated mechanism. Fortunately most of those design problems have been overcome in cranes and atomic level manipulators. It's easier to just shade it all than to shield individual components," Mo said.

"How far will the monolith be able to move before it comes up against stops, and is there any way to get it back to the start location if it gets bumped over a few centimeters?" Kurt asked.

"Indeed, it senses the acceleration of a move as well as distance, and the real purpose is more to allow the print head to be withdrawn, and save the build, than to keep working through a disturbance. If it senses there is going to be significant motion it simply buys time to lift the print head away from the work. Your trench will be a minimum meter wide to hold equipment and allow access to service it. We certainly don't ever want to see the monolith move that far. There will also be recesses in the outer surface to facilitate a man in a suit turning around. It only can move about four centimeters before hitting gas shocks that buffer its motion. By the time it hits those, the print head should be safely withdrawn. Then it will have hydraulic rams to push it back on location," Mo said.

"You know, a lot of the people I've worked with would have told me to do my job and not worry about what is the engineer's concern when I ask so many questions," Kurt said.

"Perhaps that would save a few seconds now, and court disaster long term, which is a poor bargain," Mo said. "I'm an engineer, but I've been working way outside my area of training. Just about everybody here does. If you are here, well, Jeff doesn't hire stupid people. You may tell me a hundred things we've planned for and then the hundred and first will leave me saying I didn't think of that. Besides, if I don't let you get them out of your system, a little block of your mind will be pondering them all the while you are working on the trench. Better to address them than spare my feelings. I'm really consciously trying to leave all that Earth Think behind."

Kurt nodded. "I think I'm here for the long haul too. And I agree we need to do things differently. Look at what a mess Earth is now. I think I'll like working with you, Mo."

"Oh, you'll get your share of other bosses," Mo warned him. "We're so short handed we trade workers around all the time. But we can't afford somebody sitting idle for silly work rules or because they are above working in the cabbage mines."

"The cabbage mines?" Kurt asked.

"I don't even know the official name," Mo admitted. "maybe they have a sign in the corridor if you get assigned there. But that's what everybody calls the experimental farms. I might as well tell you...the seismic isolation cut you are going to be working on is already being called the moat. Just as well to inform you before they say it and you stand there looking cluelessly at them. The printer arm is the finger and the dome for which they are sinking footers right now is already the lid. They kept proposing other names for the arm, but I think they were just yanking my chain, teasing the Earthie. Once I took to ignoring it they dropped it."

"What happens when they install the other, uh...finger?" Kurt asked Mo.

"Who knows? They may be the east finger and west finger or the old finger and the new finger, they may name them Al and Fred for all I know. If you can name them first they'll probably accept whatever you coin. I'll just be happy if it's something I can repeat to my wife. You'll see what I mean when you meet the entire crew."

"I worked as a beam dog, remember? I know exactly what you mean."

* * *

Iaan Walsh was an excellent marksman, a seasoned security specialist and a guard to Colonel Allister who was the first among the council of colonels. His other qualification for the mission just handed to him was that he'd been recruited into God's Warriors while embedded in the command of Colonel Allister and remained there while all the chaos of the nation fracturing into factions proceeded.

Neither of the two factions splitting power retained or recruited from the Naval detail that previously guarded the President. There was entirely too much risk some nut case would take their oath to the constitution seriously, and have objections to a military government, no matter how 'temporary'.

He'd had to briefly claim allegiance to the Pennsylvania Patriots before they were absorbed into the Patriot Party and then into the Sons of Liberty. If there was any one skill in which he exceeded it was sincerity. He switched sides as easily and convincingly as his superiors. However Iaan was a deeply religious man, taught early at his mother's knee. He could see the merits of patriotism and admire the Patriot's sincerity, but without godliness it was hollow to him.

He'd seen the callous indifference to life Colonel Allister and his officers displayed without any shame. The only qualm he entertained was the thought that by assassinating the colonel he might be committing suicide. After prayerful and careful consideration he found solace in the examples of Samson and other godly men. If he died at the Patriot's hands that was on them, not him.

Iaan didn't know who his contact was, he'd just been left a note in his coffee mug, with instructions to pause and scratch his nose upon exiting his quarters if he had received the message. They did not say if he accepted the assignment, but he didn't expect that. He was after all a soldier under orders.

When Iaan stepped outside he paused to look around, savoring the day since it would likely be his last, and scratched his nose. He had to wonder from how far away he was being observed and how they could excuse remaining in a set position on base without arousing suspicion. Nevertheless, it was good his people had resources, even here.

It was late in the day before Colonel Allister was alone with a company commander. Lieutenant Sass had stepped out of the room. That was a shame because he detested the little weasel and would have shot him next after Allister, if the other guard gave him time.

Allister walked around the desk and stood directly between him and the other guard. That's what he'd been waiting to happen. He bent over shuffling through some documents. That reduced his profile so Iaan was looking at the top of the man's head and had no clear shot at his chest. He kept his hand still, aware he could easily telegraph his intend to the other guard. He'd wait until the man stood back straight from leaning over, and not only presented a fuller target, but obscured the other guard's view and field of fire to respond to him.

To his astonishment the other guard drew his weapon, seemingly unhurried, and shot Allister in the back of the head. He'd recovered from recoil and Iaan was at his mercy since he was just reaching for his weapon and the other man already had his pointed in his general direction. But the visiting commander was much closer to the shooter, and calling attention to himself by scrambling wildly to get his weapon clear of his holster.

The guard decided to shoot the closer threat first. It was a fatal error. He should have shot Iaan and then worried about the closer, but less competent threat. As slow as the commander was he still might have taken both of them. He did take the company commander down with a round through the chest when he'd barely cleared leather, and before he could start to raise his pistol. But it gave Iaan far too much time to respond. He tried, but failed, to bring his weapon back around to bear on Iaan.

Iaan put two rounds through the man's chest and another through his head as he slid down the wall. When the more heavily armed guards from the corridor burst in Iaan was pointing his weapon at the floor. He still almost got shot. He was cuffed and isolated, then interrogated even though the video from the room backed up his story.

It wasn't until almost three the next morning before Iaan was allowed to return to quarters. He'd finally been told the other guard had a suicide note in his pocket. Which meant most of his repetitious interrogation was senseless paranoia. The dead guard's family lived across the Bayou just north of the Pensacola base. The whole neighborhood had been swept away as badly as any hurricane could do, the foundations barely visible from an aerial survey. The man directly blamed Allister. Well, so did Iaan, though he'd never mention it. The whole bunch of them were insane to goad the Homies.

It was a remarkable gift. His mission was accomplished without his own loss. He was still in a position of trust as far as he could tell. He might even still have access to the SOL leaders and be potentially useful in the future. They certainly wouldn't question his loyalty after today, and he might even have opportunity to remove their next set of leaders if he was so directed. He had to smile. Wouldn't that surprise them?

Before he went to sleep, exhausted, he could hear the rattle of distant gun fire. That didn't surprise him at all. It was going to be bad for awhile. It would even be dangerous to be guarding the Sons leaders if his own people had a chance to take them out from a distance. He had no illusions they'd hold back to spare him. It was simply a risk he had to accept. After all, every day he had after today was an unexpected gift.

* * *

"I found out a little about that newsman, Brett Holland, who caught your eye," Chen reported.

"Good or bad?" Jeff demanded, his brows were furrowed and he looked tired.

"Different," Chen evaded. "You'll have to judge for yourself."

"I want to let him interview me, maybe. Not hire him," Jeff replied gruffly. He seemed to be in a bad mood today and Chen said as much.

"Maybe. I've too much to do and I need a couple clones."

"Well that would creep everybody out," Chen said. "I'm pretty sure from the multiple reports that the Chinese have done that, but there isn't any way to make one with all your memories, so what would be the point of it? You'd be adding raising a couple kids to everything else."

"Yeah, that's the big obstacle. They'd probably just argue with me," Jeff decided. "I read the same news reports. The Chinese supposedly tried to clone people with exceptional talents. It apparently didn't work for crap or they'd have been bragging on it."

"Perhaps you can take a mental health day or a tranquilizer," Chen suggested. "If you talk to the man in this frame of mind I can't see it being productive."

"That bad, huh?"

"Yep. I don't sugar coat stuff for you. You look like you are bordering on burn-out," Chen said.

"How much of it can I dump on you?" Jeff asked. It didn't appear to be a serious question, just a snarky remark.

"As much as you wish, because I can delegate," Chen said, pointedly. "And I would, massively."

Jeff blinked hard, and didn't say anything for a few seconds. "Alright. I will take a day. Maybe two! I'll forward my com to you, since you seem to be volunteering, and I shall relax and see if my lady will allow me to take her to dinner. I haven't been to a club in months."

"Which one of your ladies?" Chen asked, with a droll expression.

"April, because she's on Home. I'd love to see both of them," Jeff said, not evasive with Chen in the least because Chen wasn't critical, just snarky. "Two days isn't time enough for us to go see her, and Heather is impossible to pry away from Central, because..." He stopped and looked stricken. "Because she's just like me," Jeff admitted.

"Ah, glad you know it," Chen said, pleased. "I shall talk to you in a few days and see if you want to contact Mr. Holland. Perhaps I can find out something more."

* * *

Kurt helped survey the moat, and was introduced to the fellows he'd be working with, but there was some sort of holdup on the tunnel boring machine. It was needed to cut a tunnel into all four corners of the moat. The undercut around the base of the monolith would be cut from the tunnels, and the shock absorbers and repositioning machinery, too big to fit down the narrow moat, would go in through the tunnels too.

That was fine, there was more work than there were hands, and he got paid the same no matter to what project he was lent. Kurt got to meet new people and learn more about his new home by being shared around. And he got some hours in out of a suit. Suit work could wear you down. He still wasn't used to lunar gravity. It was in-between all the environments he was used to. Kurt still hadn't got to the point that he felt confident to toss something to a coworker.

Today he'd worked in the cabbage mines, although not any of the active ones with plants. He'd looked through a few ports at those, bright with light of an odd spectrum, optimized for the plants not people, and noted the warning signs that the atmosphere inside was not standard. There were also lots and lots of complicated notices about what measures were necessary to avoid contamination, both entering and exiting. The mushroom tunnels had a full airlock with a wash-down and rinse that included a boot washing station. Others were more concerned with taking contamination in.

The new tunnels were sprayed with a sealant and then insulation. They weren't deep enough into the moon for the walls to be warm yet. You could attach things directly to the foam, but eventually it would be damaged or a fastener could go too deep and nick the sealant. They ran a strip along the top center and all the utility lines were supposed to be neatly color coded, sorted and fastened on the strip when possible. They had water and several gas feeds, three kinds of power and data connections as well as emergency lighting and a wireless hub at each end.

Kurt hadn't had the extra weight and resistance of a suit today, but he was still dead tired. At least he enjoyed being able to scratch his nose when he wanted, and go use a real toilet even if it was a portable set up in the main corridor. He'd spent most of the shift on a ladder, stretching his arms overhead, using muscles that didn't see much duty. Off shift finally, he had some supper now and was eating it, but every once in awhile he turned his head and stretched to the side, trying to loosen the stiffening muscles in his shoulders.

The General Tso's chicken was pretty good. It had a little bite to it, not just sweet, and they let you pick how much rice you wanted. If it was from freeze dried he couldn't tell. They had a stir fry of local vegetables on the side too, which was better than mixing them in to force you to take them. It was good though, still crispy, so he was happy to have some. Trying to force people to eat a certain mix just sent some food to the trash, and they couldn't afford to waste it.

A worker wearing inside coveralls, not a suit liner, sat next to Kurt on his left. It wasn't very busy, so it wasn't a matter of there not being other seats, there were even a couple vacant tables, so he wanted to meet. That was fine, Kurt was still getting to know quite a few new people. There wasn't the same tension he felt dealing with new people back on Earth, if only because he wasn't stressed by dealing with stupid people every day, city people who couldn't drive a car on manual out in the country where he'd been forced to rent, officials who couldn't fill out their own forms, and kitchen help in restaurants who couldn't read three items on the screen correctly after you'd keyed in your own order.

"Mr. Bowman, I've been meaning to introduce myself. I'm Greg King. My Central com code is 0487. You should commit that to memory."

The way he said it made Kurt realize something was off about this fellow. It came out as an order. His voice was wrong and his manner was abrasive in just those few words. Why did he think his number was so important? Kurt resolved to refuse to work with this fellow if he turned out to be his next boss.

Anyone being pleasant might have offered his own com code, or perhaps even his hand, although spacers weren't as big on shaking hands. But not in this hostile manner. Kurt just looked at him. Being dead tired didn't help him understand why the man was being strange. The fellow was looking down at his own dinner, not even looking over at Kurt. That just wasn't normal. There was something definitely wrong about him, so Kurt scooted his chair back to leave. He wasn't in any mood to deal with a weirdo.

"Stay," the fellow ordered.

"I don't know who the hell you think you are. I don't stay, roll over or fetch. If you are any kind of boss I'm going to refuse assignment to you. You're doing a good imitation of a mental case, and I don't want to have anything to do with you. I'm going to take my dinner to another table, one with normal people, and your best bet for a pleasant evening is not to follow me," Kurt told him.

"You have no choice. Your country is making some demands on you, Mr. Bowman. I have an assignment for you to gather information for us," Greg said. "I consider you an unlikely tool, a dull knife as it were, but I have my orders too. I don't expect you'd have the mentality to know what is useful, so I'll outline exactly what information we need gathered, and how to transmit it."

Kurt was amazed. "I don't intend to go back to Earth. I have no interest in Earth politics, no attachment to North America now. No interest in which faction you think represents my country now. I haven't formally renounced my citizenship, but I intend to claim Home citizenship as soon as I have residence. So you can all go to hell as far as I'm concerned. To my mind North America is a failed state. You're still swirling around the toilet bowl, on the way down, but for sure somebody stupid, likely your masters, pulled the lever a few years back, and it's on its way to the sewer. You don't have any handle on me anymore."

"Are you sure?" Greg asked. "Your sister still lives in North America, doesn't she?"

He could have probably gotten away with the implicit threat, but he had to demonstrate he enjoyed making it by turning his face full to Kurt with a smirk painted all over it.

Kurt struck without thinking about it, hand driven by rage that hadn't even reached his face yet to warn Greg. He wasn't even aware what was in his fist. He still had his fork, with a piece of General Tso's chicken on it. It struck Greg beside his Adam's apple and buried itself the length of the tines and a little more, and crunched. Kurt couldn't get it back out, so he wildly yanked the handle around trying to free it. Greg by now had both hands on Kurt's wrist, desperately trying to free himself. The stirring motion didn't make matters any better, and he was mute, because his vocal apparatus was destroyed. His grip on Kurt's wrist might as well have been a child's given Kurt's adrenaline rush and fury.

When he finally yanked the fork loose Greg's hands went to his wound and covered it, so Kurt stabbed again like a wild man, to the side of his neck. Greg tried to push him off, ineffectively. He stabbed three times before Greg made a shield of his crossed arms to ward off the blows. There was a lot more blood.

The attack pushed Greg over, still sitting in his chair, with Kurt following him all the way down in the slow lunar gravity stabbing. He was scrambling, trying to get up. All he managed was to push himself away from the table, back flat on the floor. After ruining his neck Kurt jammed the fork straight in the man's eye socket, the support of the floor beneath the man's head lending the thrust authority. When it wouldn't go further he drove it with the palm of his hand so that it bent and folded over. The last action cut his own hand open and injured it.

The pain from his hand finally cut through the berserker haze a little. He was on his knees over Greg, and fell back to a sitting position, holding his hurt hand against his chest, breathing raggedly and suddenly light headed. He had no idea how he looked, the other man's bloody hand-prints on his chest and blood smeared on his face and his right arm almost to the elbow. Kurt wasn't even aware the cafeteria had cleared out. There were plates with food and mugs sittings where people had abandoned them, except for two old veterans against the far wall who'd seen much worse in their day. They exchanged looks and the one went back to his pancakes.

When security came in they weren't nearly so blasé. Both had Air Tasers out, and the younger man was shaking worse than Kurt.

"You are under arrest sir," the older man said. "If you have any weapons, remove them very carefully without threatening us. Then roll on your belly and put your hands behind your back for my partner to cuff you."

Kurt nodded his agreement and soon felt the cuffs go on.

"He's bleeding pretty freely from his hand," the young cop said. "If we move him he'll dribble all over the place and it will be a huge biohazard cleanup."

"Get a big wad of napkins and shove it in his hand," the older cop ordered.

You – we'll get you to medical, but can you hold the napkins tight to stanch the bleeding?" he asked Kurt.

"Then roll him over and help him sit up," he ordered his partner.

Kurt tested it and found he could grasp the napkins. However, trying to sit made his head swim and he felt sick.

"I don't think I can stand. In fact, I may throw up," Kurt warned them.

The older cop uncapped a small can from his pocket and sprayed a mist on Kurt's face. It was cool, minty and medicinal, not riot spray as Kurt had expected. One deep breath of it went a long way towards settling his stomach.

"You're an outside worker. That's the same crap you can trigger in your suit to keep you from throwing up in your helmet," the old cop said, seeing Kurt's surprise at the spray. "We'll call a cart and we can all ride."

"I've never needed to use that in a suit," Kurt admitted.

"Try not to get blood on you," the older cop advised his partner who'd grabbed more napkins.

"Shouldn't you take him to medical first?" Kurt asked, nodding at Greg. He'd still been displaying some tremors when they first arrived, but he was still now and the pool of dark blood around his neck was much larger.

"You should...uh, confirm," the younger cop advised the older somewhat cryptically, in an odd turnaround of authority.

"Yeah, cover my butt," he agreed, and took his full kit pad from his belt and scanned Greg. "Nope, this gentleman isn't going anywhere but the cooler until somebody decides what to do with him," he assured Kurt. "He's dead and way past where I'd want anybody to try to resuscitate me if I was him. He'd end up a vegetable at best, and have to be turned off again, which is always ugly."

"Oh... I didn't mean to kill him," Kurt said in a small voice.

"Well I would sure as hell hate to see what you would do if you meant to," the elder cop said. "We will have to get our Lady to decide what to do with you. I'm pretty sure she'll take time to hold a special court today, she's done so for much less. I'd give some thought to how you'll answer her questions," he suggested. "She'll use veracity software and know the truth out of you. But the truth can be said a lot of different ways."

"He threatened my family," Kurt volunteered.

"Did he hurt your hand?" the younger cop asked.

"No I was stupid and did that myself," Kurt admitted.

"OK, not any concern of ours," the older cop decided, looking at the stub of fork handle folded over the dead man's cheek bone. "The Sovereign will sort it out." He was happy with that actually.

The clinic apparently had a tech free when they called in, and he was on the cart when it came. A bio-hazard cleanup team wasn't far behind. Kurt was so docile the older cop decided to let his partner take Kurt in alone. It was good to make small gestures like that to show his confidence in him.

Chapter 10

"I'm getting all sorts of crazy reports and contradictory bulletins," Chen said. "Some of the local stations are saying the Sons of Liberty are assuming national power and some are claiming the same for God's Warriors. Some, especially the net systems, are honestly admitting they have no idea what is going on, but advising people to stay off the street because of fighting. A few local broadcast stations are just playing music. I guess they're too scared of getting on the bad side of whoever comes out on top."

"They're so busy fighting and blaming each other nobody is remembering to blame me. The Europeans are actually denouncing me more than the North Americans," Jeff said in wonder. "The Australians surprise me...The consensus there seems to be that anybody who steals a bomb to tinker with in their living room is a bloody fool. Somebody has some sense."

"God's Warriors detest us too," Chen reminded Jeff, "but they are objecting to the Sons provoking us unilaterally. They're supposed to have a joint government. As for Europe, they are tied to North American trade tighter than Australia now," Chen pointed out. "So it's no surprise they are talking their business interests. Oh! That reminds me, Mr. Holland the Australian journalist would be happy to speak with you privately if it still pleases you. I'll drop a sticky text file in your calendar right now with times he can be free to talk."

"They may be talking their own book. The Australians see us tied to Tonga and Japan, in their sphere of interest. And we're doing a big business with all three, not in bulk, but in value. They may see us as a hedge against the Chinese down the road too. They are in chaos now, but when China gets sorted out Australia will be back to being uncomfortable with such a giant neighbor looming over them." When Jeff looked quizzical, Chen explained. "You may not realize the depth of your reputation. It seems almost all the Earthies are afraid of angering two billion Chinese. It didn't go unnoticed you bombed the snot out of them without hesitation. I think the general opinion is you wouldn't hesitate to do it again in a heartbeat."

"Well I should hope so!" Jeff said, surprised. "That's the only way the arrogant creeps have any respect for you, if they are sure you're willing to rain thermonuclear devastation on them. I'd certainly rather invite them to tea and have a civilized discussion, but that doesn't seem to be part of the culture."

"And this is why we have Jon as spox," Chen said. "You don't have a subtle...or diplomatic bone in your body."

"Well, April has been working on that," Jeff admitted. "But the concepts can still seem quite strange to me," he admitted.

* * *

"You have to buy it right now if you want it," Myat told Huian.

"Myat, you have dealt with all sorts of people. Not just your clients, but I assume all sorts of business people. Do you go to market or do your servants all take care of that?" Huian asked.

"No, no, I can remember when I was little going with my mother and a servant to the market. She had the servant to carry our things to the car, but she dealt with the merchants herself. Not out in the zei picking things off of ground cloths like a peasant. The sort of custom she supported received her in a cool private room and the senior merchant offered refreshment and would have his man fetch little samples of what she wanted. Especially spices. She might ask a hundred kilo bag of rice and expect the quality to remain the same as previous purchases, but spices she wanted to see a sample from the lot she was buying. She always dressed to the hilt. One of her best outfits and enough gold to stagger a horse. When she finally took me along, after much begging, she insisted I dress well and borrowed jewelry for me, even if I was only nine years old. She said the merchants treated you better the more money you appeared to have. It’s one of my earliest memories of her trying to teach me something important. I…I’m babbling. What is the point of this?" Myat asked.

"You know how to shop and how to bargain. What do you think when somebody says you have to buy it right now, and puts the hurry-up on you?" Huian asked.

Myat laughed. "My mother would say run! Hold your purse tight and run for your life!"

"Indeed. I’ll forward this information to Jeffrey Singh. I’m sure he will present it to the group he’s organized to buy a ship. But the man is young, not stupid. And most of his partners are older and even more conservative. I can already hear what he’ll say: 'If the market has crashed so bad they have a three year old vessel for sale at near scrap prices, maybe next month they’ll have a one newer and cheaper.' And that might be right," Huian decided. "The drastic price drop makes me concerned I'm missing something here."

"I can see why the urgency is alarming. But my broker friend usually deals in vessels that need to be scrapped as older and obsolete. Yes, there may be some other modern vessels like this come on the market if shipping doesn’t recover soon. Just not necessarily through him. This ship is decent enough that someone else may buy it to reflag and put into service, instead of cut it up for scrap. As always, the official predictions say this is a seasonal lull and the economy is sound. There are always a few who are easy to convince because they believe what they want to happen. Some such optimist may grab it. You can commit as much of the funds I’ve sent you as is needful, if there’s a shortfall," Myat offered.

"You’ve mostly convinced me," Huian said. "But I will present this neutrally. I’m a bit afraid of my own enthusiasm to recommend it. We’ll see what the others without my emotional attachments say."

"That’s fair," Myat decided. "I’m attaching a file with all the ship specs and photos and a history of its very short life. Let me know what sort of feedback you get."

"Of course," Huian agreed. "I have it. Good Bye dear."

* * *

"You may go back to your regular duties...Carl," Heather said, with a little hesitation. It was bad to not be able to call your critical personnel by name, but all of them were critical. There were only about five hundred residents at Central now. Surely that wasn't too big a stretch for her brain.

Carl hesitated. "Would you like him cuffed again?" he offered.

Heather was amused, but he was sincerely concerned, so she didn't reprove him.

"Dakota and I are both armed. He doesn't seem to be offering any resistance," Heather pointed out. Indeed the man was still so unsteady Carl had suggested seating him rather than making him stand before her judgment. "I thank you for your concern, but we're good."

Carl, still looking dubious, gave Kurt a last hard look that seemed to be a veiled warning, and left.

The other woman, Dakota stood and formally announced court was in session this tenth day of August, 2089. Kurt supposed she must be doing it for a recording and public record since it was just the three of them present.

"You are brought before my judgment at the request of Central Security," Heather informed Kurt. She had a sudden thought..."I don't believe we've met. Are you aware I'm the Sovereign of Central?"

"I've seen you on video. I was aware...uh...I'm not sure how to address you," Kurt admitted.

"I'm unimpressed by forced titles. You may just call me Heather," she invited.

"The security guys called you their Lady," Kurt remembered.

"They are both sworn to me," Heather said. "You are not. I'd remember, believe me. Only about a quarter of our residents are personally sworn to me. Foreign residents are welcome. But of course you still live under my justice."

"I sort of figured that," Kurt admitted, "though nobody spelled it out. You're under local law wherever you go. I intend to become a citizen of Home. Well I did..." he corrected, with a sick look on his face. All that seemed in jeopardy now. "So I never asked about becoming a citizen here."

"You may be surprised to know that I too am a citizen of Home. We have no bar to being both. But I don't encourage anyone to swear to me lightly. We take oaths very seriously, and there is little reason for you to become entwined with us if you are just here for a job and will be moving on. Indeed I have no need of citizens in great number scattered to other jurisdictions, because the obligations run both ways. I owe my subjects quite a few things and owing them to a widely scattered population might become difficult."

"Was the fellow I...killed, your subject?" Kurt asked. Would that make things harder for him? It was hard to even make himself say it. It didn't seem quite real.

"No, he was a contractor to a land holder who is a subject. But a homicide in any form is a concern to me. All law regulates killing. Note I wasn't quick to say murder. My man said there were threats. I will give you a chance to explain yourself, and try to assure me most especially that you aren't a continuing threat to anyone. Do you wish to have us call witnesses to observe your trial?" Heather offered.

Dakota came forward and spoke softly to Heather. She seemed very interested.

"A moment, I have video I want to review and an audio recording."

"You record in the cafeteria?" Kurt asked. There was a definite note of disapproval there, though he expected a security camera. Spacers were offended by blanket audio recording.

"We have a couple cameras pointed from different angles, but no, we don't record audio. The man you killed had a pad recording in his pocket and it was still running when they received his body at the clinic," Heather explained.

Kurt looked confused. "I can't imagine why he'd want to do that."

"Perhaps his masters don't trust him and required it," Dakota volunteered.

Kurt shut up because Heather had donned earphones to hear the recording privately. It seemed a very bad idea to interrupt. She was looking at a pad too, so they must have synced it for her already.

When she finished she looked at him again, differently. A mask of neutrality had descended over Heather's face. Dakota however looked frankly distressed.

"I hear him using your sister as a threat," Heather said. "That's clear. But he isn't really explicit what pressure they would bring to bear on her if you fail to work for him. Obviously you felt threatened, but he seems completely unprepared for your reaction. Don't get me wrong, I'm quite glad you didn't agree to spy for him. Although I wish we had him alive to interrogate. I'm trying to determine in my own mind if the threat he presented was credible and if your response was...proportional. Do you want to review the recording yourself?"

"I've barely stopped shaking," Kurt admitted. "It would upset me too much to watch it. Believe me, every word he said is etched in my memory forever."

"Let me back up a moment. Do you want me to call witnesses for this trial?" Heather asked.

"Witnesses? Not jurors?" Kurt asked. "Or do you mean people who saw what happened? I've always heard eye witnesses aren't very reliable. You have full recordings so what could they add?"

"No, I'll make the final decisions," Heather explained. "All my hearings are posted to the local net for public viewing, but that's far too late for most people to have any input. If we have an audience they may advise me on the appropriateness of my justice. Be assured I've had some very strong advice from both subjects and peers on both the effect of crime on their community and whether punishment served any purpose. I may reject it, but I'm willing to hear public opinion."

Kurt sat silent a moment and thought about that. She didn't punish dissenters?

"You seem to doubt the...seriousness of the threat made to me and my sister. You haven't lived in North America, or anywhere on Earth have you?" Kurt asked.

"No, I've visited Earth as a tourist, but in relatively remote areas, and as a guest," Heather admitted.

"Then please, see if you can find somebody to advise you who has lived in North America recently. They will understand everything threatened by what Mr. King said."

Heather consulted with Dakota and both used their pads. The table at which she sat had no built in com gear. It surprised Kurt it was actually wood. He was pretty sure it wasn't fake.

"We have two people who have lived in North America recently, and two who came to us from Armstrong, which is under North American rule," Heather told Kurt. "Another possible witness is in a rover too far out to join us. These four will be with us in no more than fifteen minutes. One of them is your supervisor Mo Pennington. Do you have any objection he might be biased from knowing you too intimately?"

"Not at all. I get along with Mo fine. He seems to have his head screwed on straight," Kurt said.

"I'm sending Dakota to my quarters to bring coffee. Would you like a cup while we wait?"

Not the cafeteria? Kurt noted, surprised, but said nothing. He quickly accepted. It would be interesting to see what the ruler drank. But he kept feeling ripped back and forth between feeling she was ready to convict him of murder or absolve him. Her signals, or lack of them, was confusing.

"What the hell?" Kurt said and tried to jump up, but felt dizzy quickly and sat back down hard.

"What's wrong?" Dakota asked, worried. Her hand went to her gun easily.

"I saw what looked like a tremendous huge spider go behind the other bench there," Kurt said. He was already upset and wondered briefly if he was hallucinating from the stress.

"Sorry," Heather said, embarrassed. "We have a couple small security robots we're testing, that patrol the administrative cubic to keep out other tiny drones and spy bots. They usually avoid being seen. We haven't mentioned them publicly until we see how they work out. If they are released in the full public spaces then of course we'll have to tell everyone."

Kurt just nodded, rattled again all over.

When the coffee arrived he wasn't offered cream or sugar. Apparently they both took it black and didn't keep the condiments on hand. Perhaps didn't even think about needing them. He took a sip and tried not to peer around the room looking for the creepy little bot.

Kurt was halfway through the best American style coffee he'd had in years when the first witness arrived. He didn't recognize the man, and he still had on a paper isolation suit over his clothing. Chances were he was involved in the new enterprise of raising plants. He took a seat at the bench against the wall and didn't have any questions. Kurt noticed he wasn't offered coffee.

Mo, Kurt's section boss, came in and frowned when his eyes fell on the bandages. Kurt hadn't even started to worry about what he was going to do if they didn't put him against a wall and shoot him. It was just a temporary bandage and a blood clotting pad held against it by a sterile ball that looked very much like a tennis ball. The whole thing was covered with a huge pad and about ten times as much tape as he'd have used. It looked bulky and he'd have trouble, dressing and eating even after they reduced the size of the bandage and sealed it up . No way it was going inside a suit glove any time soon. The doc had told him he needed to do some minor surgery before he closed it up permanently. Unless they tossed him out the airlock first.

The next two people to come in were dressed casually. Kurt suspected they were office workers, until Heather introduced them by name and indicated the fellow in the paper suit was a biologist recently from Bangladesh, the two in casual clothes, a man and a woman, were scientists who had defected from Armstrong. The man obviously hadn't had any Life Extension Therapy, a fact Kurt was surprised how easily he recognized now.

Kurt noticed the precise word Heather used about them too...defected. That seemed a plus for his side of things. It struck Kurt that all of them were considerably over his pay grade and probably his social class. As much as spacers seemed to have any social classes. A research scientist certainly made more money than a prep cook. As much as money could ever substitute for class.

Heather showed them all the video with the audio synced to it, explaining the origins, but stopped it after the shot of Greg King's face, frozen on his smug expression as soon as his words about Kurt's sister were out of his mouth. She didn't show them his attack, which was fair, since that wasn't pertinent to evaluating the threat implied.

"Do you have that son of a bitch in custody?" The male scientist asked.

Heather hesitated, and then answered that they did. It was true after a fashion.

"Then I vote you hang him," Mo said with a snarl.

Heather was shocked not only at the suggestion but at the expressions on their faces which ranged from sullen to actively hostile.

"Mo, you're an engineer. You should know hanging at Lunar gravity isn't practical," Heather said.

"So it might take a few days," Mo said. "That's a feature not a bug."

The female scientist was slowly nodding agreement with a smile that wasn't pretty.

"Why?" Heather demanded of them. "Enlighten me on why this upsets you so."

"We've lived it," the woman scientist said. "His sister might just be arrested and never seen again. Her work mates and family would have no idea if she was alive, or tortured and buried. Or they might just inform her bosses she wasn't dependable. Once she was denounced she'd never have a legitimate job again. No agency would ever manage to finish the paper work if she applied for help, being jobless and homeless. She might find something to survive, day work off the books, picking vegetables or prostitution perhaps. She might suicide which still serves as a lesson to others. I still worry what I may have unleashed on my cousins in North America by defecting. If they could even find them."

"Why do you think we came here rather than go back to the Slum Ball?" the male said.

"They tried to blackmail me when I first came up," Mo said. "I thought you knew that story. Unless Jeff didn't want to explain the whole filthy thing to you in detail. Maybe not the same faction of the same government, but they all have a sameness about how they operate. I don't expect it to improve any time soon. I've heard there are still a few places that aren't so bad, Switzerland and a few other small European enclaves. Japan is the same as always if that's your thing, but it's still not welcoming to outsiders. Australia and some of the islands still seem civilized enough, but most of the Slum Ball has gone just as bad as China has been now for years and years." He thought about it, and added: "I don't know if Africa has ever been anything but a mess."

"We have Mr. King's body in custody," Heather finally admitted, feeling she would be deceptive to hide that from them. "Kurt Bowman killed him immediately after he threatened his sister. It's with regard to that killing I'm making a judgment today."

"Give him a medal," Mo said. "I'll design one if you haven't got around to such things yet."

Heather didn't address that suggestion.

"I've heard enough to render a decision," she announced, rattled at their vehemence a little. "Mr. Bowman, you have a choice. You can accept my justice, or if you fear facing it you may refuse it and face expulsion. Anyone who has rejected my justice is unwelcome at Central in the future. You may leave for anywhere you please, but I gather from your situation that North America is not somewhere you'd want to see again. Armstrong is under their law, and frankly there may be other issues with Armstrong in the near future. I'd be remiss if I didn't warn you, it may not be a safe haven even if you had no problems under North American law."

Kurt glanced at the witnesses, and none of them seemed surprised at her warning.

"You may leave if you choose," Heather allowed, "but where is none of my concern, beyond your heading there as quickly as commercial transport makes practical. If you leave for Home my understanding is you are unlikely to find accommodations, even temporary ones such as a hotel room, so you should plan on passing through Home with another habitat or Earth nation as a final destination.

"If you subject yourself to my judgment it will be enforced without delay. I may decide anything from letting you walk out the door without any censure at all, to public execution. I may impose conditions or just make suggestions. This is an issue of my sovereignty, so we shall consider it independently of your status over this homicide. What is your desire in this matter?" she asked sternly.

Kurt really wished Heather was more readable. Her face had been a mask of neutrality since looking at the video. If it was Dakota deciding he'd run, because she was horrified at the video. There was the favorable testimony on the one hand from the witnesses, that there was a credible threat. And he had limited funds and places he could reach. His job prospects anywhere he went were also uncertain, but he was wagering his life. He'd hate to play poker with this young woman, much less a game of bet-your-life.

The pistol laying close to hand on her table suggested she not only meant what she said, but might carry out a capital sentence right where he stood. Should he ask for mercy? Or would that just suggest he'd done something wrong for which he needed forgiveness?

"May I make a short statement before saying yes or no?" Kurt asked.

"Certainly," Heather agreed.

"I regret killing the man, as a practical thing. At the instant I acted I felt threatened. My chest was tight with terror. I'd just gone to a lot of trouble to get away from people like him. And then there he was, right in my face, here, where I felt safe.

"I have one more question. Have you ever been in my position? Have you ever killed someone and had to worry about being punished, or at least how people would regard you over it?" His eyes tellingly went to the pistol on the table.

"I haven't aimed at a man and pulled the trigger," Heather admitted. "But I've directed an artillery strike and told my gunner to fire. I've ordered missiles launched to kill a vessel and conduct bombardments. I take full responsibility for having said fire, the same as if I pressed the button."

That satisfied Kurt. "Then I will subject myself to your justice."

Heather gathered herself, but didn't hold him in suspense too long. "I declare your homicide self defense. One has a right to defend not only yourself, but family and country. It is considered honorable many places to defend a home in which you are shown hospitality. Therefore I thank you for removing an agent, a spy, from our midst."

Kurt let out a sigh he wasn't aware he was holding.

"That said...Your response was excessive, and not well thought out. However, I find its very excess proof of innocence. You did not plan this attack. It was obviously a visceral response. One should not push another into a corner without considering the possibility they have been pushed too far. Have you had any training in fighting or the martial arts?" Heather inquired.

"No Ma'am...uh, Heather. I haven't struck anyone since I bloodied a fellow's nose in elementary school. We both got a month off and assigned to alternate classes for that. I've never owned or fired a weapon either. Not even when I worked on Home. I stuck mostly to the workers cafeteria and recreation area and didn't socialize much with the Homies."

"There is no judgment or fine against you," Heather said. "We do not have any sort of dojo, even an informal one at Central. However you said you intend to go back to Home and I know they do have a group that meets. I strongly suggest you seek to join whatever group exists when you return and seek instruction. Such arts are always centered around self discipline. It may keep you from reacting badly another time, when there is no guarantee you will be found blameless."

"I'm quite willing to do that," Kurt promised.

"Neither can I shield you from all the consequences of your actions," Heather warned. "Some of the people who witnessed your attack are going to be afraid of you. I won't release the video to the public net. It's entirely too brutal for a public document. Some may decide not to socialize with you. They have freedom of association and what they do outside their job duties is their own business. There is even a remote possibility North America may target you if they find out what happened to their agent. Keep all those things in mind."

"What are you going to do with the agent?" Kurt asked. He couldn't bring himself to say body.

"My friends on Home have had a similar situation before, and all they got was abuse for the courtesy of returning the fellow. This one is simply going to disappear. If you don't mention him again, we won't either," Heather promised.

"No Ma'am. That works for me."

"We are concluded then," Heather said, not to them, but to Dakota. She dismissed them.

Chapter 11

"You hurting very badly?" Mo asked.

"More an occasional twinge," Kurt assured him. "They have a nerve stimulator on it that senses when it hurts and injects a message to counter it. Sort of like wearing noise cancelling headphones. I just get a quick pin prick now and then, and it disappears almost as soon as I notice it."

"Can you drive?" Mo asked. "I mean, a manual control vehicle? I have a truck that needs to be driven to Armstrong and there's no reason it can't be done one handed. If you're alert. It runs most of the way on auto but you need to drive it to dock or wait in a queue if they are backed up. You aren't taking any drugs for the pain?"

"No, just some Naproxen. Nothing you wouldn't take on your own for a headache." Kurt was just glad he was all business, and wasn't interrogating him about the killing. Heather hadn't made the video public, but she'd shown Mo the rest of the video she'd started to show at the trial. He was the main supervisor to Kurt, so she figured he deserved a full report. Mo kept that to himself.

"I've never driven a truck though. Not even a pickup truck. I've driven several kinds of cars, if that's sufficient. I've never pulled a trailer behind a car either. I understand it can be hard to back them up."

"No problem," Mo assured him. "This is a straight truck, not articulated. It's a little wider than an Earth car, but you can see the edges and it has a back-up camera. It has a heads up screen to route you, and when you get there it will overlay where to park or wait."

"Do I need to get a license?" Kurt worried.

Mo gave him a remorseful look. "It's pretty simple to drive a vehicle on a road. I suppose if we start having too many accidents they might start a private driver certification process, like getting a pilot's ticket. But that's not a government license."

"Oh, sorry. Earth Think creeping in," Kurt said, and grimaced. "Where do I report?"

"I'll send the routing to your pad. Also, Security requests you run video on your spex the whole trip, door to door," Mo requested. "If you don't want it on your own set they'll give you a pair to wear."

"That's no problem. I have lots of open memory, and can download it to them when I get back. Do you know what they're looking for?" Kurt asked.

"I'm not sure they know what they're looking for," Mo said. "But there are signs they are militarizing Armstrong again. Anybody visiting is being asked to record their visit. Where they're getting enough people to analyze it all is another question I don't know. But it's not my problem as long as they aren't stealing my people to do it."

* * *

"They aren't going to do anything about it," Chen said. "I mean, the two organizations are not going to attack us. That's not to say some zealot might not act on his own. Nobody can predict that."

Jeff perked up and paid attention. It was completely out of character for Chen to speak in short absolute statements. He hedged and considered alternatives for everything. Jeff sometimes wondered how Chen could distrust any constant so thoroughly, and yet seem content and not consumed with anxiety. So he gave his bare statement a very high probability of accuracy. But he was still curious about why he thought that.

"That's good," Jeff said quickly, to show he wasn't doubting the man. "I'm most interested. How did you come to that conclusion?"

"Things are a mess again in North America. One faction has influence in one city, another faction has control in a different city. God's Warriors have much more of a base in the west and rural areas. They even have control of some urban areas in the south. The Sons of Liberty have a hold on the north, the east, and a few urban areas in the west. It doesn't matter where you go however. All the local media is ignoring Pensacola, just like the national news services. If they intended to make trouble for us there would be a huge propaganda program rolled out to paint us monsters where they have local control and can push a partisan message, but it's quiet everywhere. There would be lots of video of crying children with dirty faces, shots of damage, and sad stories of orphaned kids who by a miracle of chance were off at the zoo or something when their parents were blown up by the spacers. The Europeans are wringing their hands over it much worse than the USNA."

"All the economic disruption hasn't hurt local broadcasting?" Jeff asked.

"Far from it," Chen assured him. "They're selling really cheap radios and small broadcast TVs like crazy. People want something cheap to keep their kids occupied in the camps. All the camps have wireless access, but it's slow because the agency running the camp typically only has money to buy a pipe like a hotel would use for a hundred guests, and they have five thousand people trying to connect. There's no money to upgrade actual fiber trunks into new areas as the population moves. The adults all want access and there is no way to ration wireless. You can run out of food or water and it takes hours for them to get ugly, but let the crappy slow wireless go down and a camp becomes a mob in minutes.

The local schools can't run classes online serving thousands of new kids, each with his own device, like they've been accustomed to doing, and they are obligated to provide schooling. The FEMA people and the local schools both want to put the expense off on the other. So rather than pay for a decent pipe into the camp, the schools buy cheap air time and show the class on local TV. It isn't perfect. They broadcast off hours and expect people to record. Some do, some don't bother, but it meets their legal requirements. The cheap TVs don't have the memory to hold that many classes if people have say three kids, each in a different grade. So the people who care still end up making informal little grade classes around one TV in the camp. The kids text their work in and use a lot less bandwidth.

"But a lot of the refugees aren't in organized camps. They're in places they can't get decent net access for a phone, but they are close enough to a city to get broadcast. There are stations in areas where the migrants fled to in the south that had gone all online, and now they've rushed to bring their transmitters out of mothballs or buy from abroad. People want local news to help them with the unfamiliar area they're in now. If they are in Baton Rouge they want Baton Rouge news not New York.

"Local advertising is making the small stations profitable again. They may be in dire straits as a group, but the migrants are still a huge economic force, and local markets are aware of that. Some places the migrants make up half the population already. Lawyers are big advertisers and stores near camps run specials just for migrants. There are all kinds of services to represent them to local agencies for benefits, and permanent housing, private job agencies and services like searches to find missing children or relatives who left the family during their trip from up north. I'm figuring a lot of them are some kind of scam, but they're all paid advertising. Even the agency ads."

"Maybe this chaos will damage the Patriots so badly we'll have little trouble from them in the future," Jeff speculated. He seemed hopeful.

Chen looked at him concerned. "Jeff, sometimes you are...detached from social things. The Patriot Party pretty much destroyed themselves as an organization. They aren't coming back. At least not under that name. Most of them ended up Sons of Liberty. Right now there is kind of a reverse action in progress. Sons of Liberty are becoming smaller local parties, either city or county organization mostly. It's too dangerous a lot of places to be SOL with God's Warriors in the ascendancy.

"Now you have to ask yourself...Why don't they just bow to the inevitable and go over to God's Warriors? Wouldn't you?" Chen asked Jeff.

"Oh. It's really hard for me to think like that. I have a hard time imagining myself as either, so it's hard for me to put myself in their shoes and try to know what they would do," Jeff admitted.

"Yes, that's the point. They are so different they can't imagine switching over. They may look more alike than different to you. They both are strongly nationalist for North America, but aside from that they have very different core values. They don't agree at all what they want North America to be and to do. If they were sharply divided geographically maybe they'd break up into two countries. But they are diffused into each other's areas too deeply."

"What's going to happen then?" Jeff asked.

"That huge mass of people is going to keep right on feeling the same way they always have. They may be suppressed in expressing it. If they try to take on a new name and form a national party they may even be outlawed and kept from doing so legally. They can call themselves anything they want, and fracture into small local groups, but most of them are still going to hate spacers.

"After the War Between the States you couldn't legally be a Confederate, but that didn't mean they thought differently. They still had their own customs and hated Yankees for a hundred years. It takes generations to moderate, and that's even with a lot of easy movement between areas that came later.

"If it isn't actively suppressed there will be a new national party that embraces all the same ideas of the Patriot Party or the Sons of Liberty within a few years, a decade at the most I'd guess," Chen said. "The party, by whatever name, will form because there's a mass of people who all think that way."

"OK, I'm understanding it a little better," Jeff said. "They aren't going to suddenly like us no matter what happens internally. And at most we just have a few years before they may be able to reorganize again and express it more effectively."

"That's about the size of it," Chen agreed.

"Then we shall have to use the time wisely," Jeff decided, "to make sure it just doesn't matter if they hate us."

* * *

Captain Sass finished updating his file about the special equipment and personnel being accumulated at Armstrong. He was generating his twice a week report to his new superior, Colonel Norman, who was not the first among the Council of Colonels. Norman was the new replacement after the unfortunate assassination of Colonel Allister. Sass was just as glad to not work for the executive head. He'd come within a half minute of walking back in the room when Allister was shot.

He didn't take it as a demotion or miss being pinned on the bull's eye at all. His belated increase in service rank was also welcome. It put him on a par with the other Colonel's assistants. Allister had been a bit too believing of his own ideology about the unimportance of public rank versus party authority. As a captain he had to flip his collar and pull party rank a lot less. Unlike Allister, he had a life and a family to support. The increase in pay made a real difference to him.

Sass frowned. There was a list of freight and three new enlisted assigned, as well as a report on two civilians returned and their risk status, but nothing on any intelligence. They had two agents inserted and one was tasked with producing immediate assets within Central. He should have heard something about that by now. This document was produced by Corporal Schaefer. He would be an intelligence clerk, a glorified secretary, and he would just deal with logistics, not spooks, but this should be attached to a primary report about human intel from his superior. He looked at the chart and found the fellow over Schaefer, a Lieutenant Carlisle and got him on the screen. Once again his new rank saved him time and effort, not needing to prove party ranking. Things went so much smoother when everybody stayed in the same grade in both party and service.

"Carlisle, Sass here. I have your man's report on the build-up schedule at Armstrong. But nothing on your source development in Central. It was my understanding you had a man and two targets. We need some information on their internal structure and any awareness of our Armstrong activities. What is happening on that front?" Sass demanded.

"I haven't gotten my expected report from our agent. He was supposed to make his first recruitment a couple days ago. He makes a weekly report in code phrases to a handler who is his supposed sister, and that never happened. He has an alternative means of making an emergency report using a radio, either outside or from any port with a clear view of Earth. That hasn't happened either. He has never received a call from his purported sister, so we do not want to break routine this early if he's having some minor problem. He may have had his shift or work assignment changed, or even been required to travel. It's always something. I planned to allow him some more time to report before doing anything that might call attention to him."

"Well if he hasn't made his customary weekly call to this fictitious sister...wouldn't it be normal for a family member to wonder if he was OK? It seems to me you could have the agent with the correct com code and voice call and try to connect. No need to contact anyone else if he doesn't answer his own com." Sass suggested. He wasn't ready to order it quite yet. Intelligence had their own methods and held their resources jealously.

"Yes sir, I believe that can be done once with minimal risk," Carlisle agreed.

"Good, I'll be in the office late today. Com me if you get any information," Sass said.

"Yes sir, I'll check and have the handler call if it's not deep in his usual sleep period," Carlisle agreed. "That would be out of character. I'll report back either way," he agreed.

It was less than an hour before Lieutenant Carlisle called back. Sass knew it wasn't going to be good before the man spoke from the furrow between his eyebrows.

"When our agent's Central com code was called we got a recording that the number was out of service permanently and would be reassigned after a thirty day fallow period," Carlisle said.

"He's dead," Sass said, bluntly.

"Perhaps," Carlisle said, visibly dubious. "He might turn up in time," he held out.

"Ha! About as likely as him walking in your door to report. If he does make contact again, you should assume he is compromised. He would be feeding us information under duress after they arrested and broke him," Sass said.

When the lieutenant didn't agree or acknowledge it as an order, Sass was explicit. "Mark the man's file and any related documents that he's not to be trusted after being out of contact for so long."

"Yes sir. I'll attend to that immediately," Carlisle said, but he looked unhappy.

Why did he have to tell the man such a basic, obvious thing? Sass wondered when he disconnected. The man was a fool, and Sass marked him mentally to be eased into something safer where he couldn't do near as much harm. He was party, so it would be a sideways move, they needed every warm body they could keep occupying positions in the military.

* * *

"Brett Holland just dropped a text on me asking if you were still going to call him," Chen said. "Or have you given up on the idea?"

"The reporter? No, I'm still curious. I've just been busy," Jeff protested.

"You're always busy. Here's his number" – it appeared in a box on Jeff's screen – "that's a throw away and he said when he leaves his present location tonight it gets lost."

"Mr. Holland doesn't want to be seen speaking to me?" Jeff asked surprised.

"Apparently not. You might ask him why if it bothers you," Chen suggested. "I can think of a lot of reasons, perhaps less so in Australia than elsewhere, but still..."

"That's OK," Jeff allowed. "I know I'm an evil spacer. I'm sort of getting used to it. I used to think I needed a shower when shunned, but lately I've come to revel in my villainy."

"That's the spirit. Just tell him that and he'll have some good copy for a story," Chen advised.

"Yeah. I'll call him right now while I'm in full form," Jeff promised.

Chen just nodded before disconnecting. Jeff wasn't sure what was sarcasm and not.

Brett Holland appeared to be in a restaurant. At least Jeff had never seen a private home with deeply fluted red leather upholstery running shoulder high around a banquette. It was a bit gaudy unless they were trying to create a retro look. Retro like sometime last century in a Las Vegas casino...

Holland fiddled with his pad or phone after answering, until he was framed just so before he withdrew his hand. He then cupped his hands one on top of the other on the table before him. It was a very controlled pose. That and the fussing with the camera made Jeff tag him as a bit fastidious, maybe even obsessive compulsive.

"I was surprised to get a call asking if I'd care to speak with you. I couldn't imagine anything I did would catch your interest. I didn't put a question to you," he said, turning it into a question.

"You didn't, but your face displayed interest," Jeff said. "At least in contrast to most of the others, who looked like they'd rather be covering something like the opening of a new shoe store or an elementary school field trip."

"You have...little affection for the press," Holland noted.

"I loathe them," Jeff said, unembarrassed. "Nothing against you personally, in fact my dear friend and associate April Lewis pointed out to me that your crowd aren't as bad as the paparazzi, but I haven't had the joy of meeting them, to help moderate my views."

"And Ms. Lewis has had the joy of their attention?" Holland asked. It seemed to amuse him.

"Yes, landing in Hawaii once, she found her way blocked and flash cameras thrust in her face. It was a terribly rude experience," Jeff said, looking disgusted.

"And frightening I'd imagine," Holland allowed. "They jostle and elbow each other for space as they all press in on you. I've seen video of them harassing entertainers. It's horrible."

"April doesn't frighten easily," Jeff assured him. "She shot a few of the closest in the foot, and they quickly scattered like a broken company under heavy fire. They had no heart for it at all..."

"The girl who wears black!" Holland remembered suddenly.

"Sometimes," Jeff agreed. "I've had occasion to take her to dinner in public where she wore a beautiful crème gown with seed pearls, and yellow diamonds for jewels. But that isn't the radical, militant image the press was interested in promoting."

Holland grimaced at another jab at the press, but it was true and he couldn't object.

"I won't try to defend my profession at large. A lot of them are shills and asses. I could be making a lot more money if I went that route instead of writing fluff pieces and human interest stories. But I have some personal standards. Have you read any of my work?"

"No, I asked one of my agents to look into seeing if you would speak to me," Jeff said. "It didn't occur to me to ask for a sample or a synopsis of your work. If you do fluff, which I take to mean light subjects instead of serious editorial work, then why did your net have you cover my news conference?"

"This may offend you, but the editorial staff here looks at most space news as very narrow interest material. It's an exotic location and the business side of it doesn't touch enough of our readers. People who are interested in space seem to be hobbyists more often than investors or tourists. If we do a destination piece in Fiji more of our followers may actually go there. I was assigned to follow your release because none of the heavy hitters wanted to waste their time."

After a silent pause Holland said, "Well, I see it did offend. I can't blame you. Nobody wants to hear they aren't important in the public imagination."

"Offend is not the precise word. Amazed is more like it. The things we make in orbit are irreplaceable. Drugs and electronics you can't make below. We matter."

"Yes, but not one person in ten can tell you where or how anything is made," Holland told him. "Even if they knew their phone was made in Hong Kong they'd still have no clue where the critical chip in it was manufactured."

"The story too," Jeff persisted. "It was about a thermonuclear device being detonated. A city was heavily damaged. Believe it or not, it weighs heavily on me that innocent people were harmed, even though I offered to stop it. You can damn well assume the people deciding to do this were far away from any danger themselves. Surely it doesn't lack interest for not being in Australia?"

"You seem sincere...and idealistic," Holland allowed. "A couple generations back Australians connected with North Americans more. We're both English speaking...more or less. But we've drawn apart culturally. Very few Australians travel to North America now. We're not all that welcome, any more than Europeans. Business travelers yeah, but business is down, and a lot of that is bulk goods, and commodities. Australians expect bad news and horror stories out of North America now, so they've grown weary of it. I suppose if you had a war with us like you did North America there would be more interest," he said wryly.

After Jeff was silent a moment he added, "That wasn't a suggestion."

"Don't worry. I didn't intend to bombard Australia to generate interest," Jeff said, waving the idea away. "Actually we're negotiating landing rights. We'd like to land shuttles and move goods through Australia if it can be done reasonably. It's been tough getting a yes or a no. They keep wanting to talk to officials instead of business people. We don't have any officials in charge of trade deals. We have maybe a half dozen people you could reasonably label officials of any sort and they don't concern themselves with trade. Trade is the province of businessmen," Jeff insisted.

"Let me guess. They want to work towards some sort of treaty?" Holland asked.

"Yes. Nobody is going to ask the Assembly to create a treaty," Jeff said. "It's a crap shoot what the Assembly will decide to do once you get them rolling. Right now nothing is prohibited, so what is the advantage? Any change could only be some restriction, because we can already do as we please. If anyone did try to add restrictions they would be opposed, maybe even called out."

"That's undoubtedly a foreign mindset," Holland said, nodding gravely. "They are used to sitting down with their peers and deciding what the little people will be allowed to do, and how much of the action they can skim...pardon, tax from them. You have to be confusing to them. You weren't shy to say you have agents, and you have weapons. No company would ever admit to either here. It makes you sound like you have the authority of a government."

"I do have authority," Jeff objected. "People work for me gathering information. What does it matter if you call them agents or analysts? They observe and report. Yes I have weapons. Most Home citizens do. Most of our ships are armed, and nobody has to clear their use or possession, they all have the authority to use them, and bear the consequences and liabilities if they do."

"Even I'm getting a little mental disconnect here," Holland said, making a vague motion around his head. "Governments and corporations exist to diffuse responsibility, if not outright hide it, too often. To whom are you responsible? Who licenses your weapons? Who says what the limits of your business are and all the obligations to your employees? Who is the governing authority over you?"

"I am subject to censure by my peers if I offend their sense of right and wrong. If I fail to meet the terms of a contract they would come down on me with both feet I assure you. It's a very small community here. I'd be shunned, frozen out of business if anyone had the least doubt of my honesty. There are no millions of greater fools to pass a loss or failure along to and then discard their custom because there are plenty of other marks to fleece."

When Holland looked at him unbelieving Jeff added, "I govern myself, the same as other Home citizens, and nobody says nay to me unless they have a complaint after the fact."

"Now that is a very dangerous concept," Holland said, looking genuinely alarmed. "I wouldn't put that out in a public interest article. I have to live with my authorities even if you don't seem to have any. If I did write that up my, editors would kill it, and then they'd start looking at my submissions with a more critical eye, because they wouldn't trust me."

"All the previous assemblies are available as public record on our net," Jeff told him. "You're a journalist. If you can't access them I bet you know somebody who can. If you examine them you'll see what I'm saying is true."

"I'm not doubting you," Holland said. "The veracity is not the point. The story may be there and a few people will go to the bother to retrieve it. But if I shouted the story from a well known public forum they'd be very unhappy with me. This would be seen as subversive. There's a broad range of attitudes about Home in the political community. A few are just terrified of you."

"Subversive? I wasn't suggesting you advocate our way. I wasn't even really suggesting you report it. I was just explaining how it works for background. I thought you might somehow be more receptive than the others about explaining why I protect my property. Perhaps I read too much into your apparent interest."

"So you were hoping for a more favorable treatment? And what do I get out of it except an opportunity to shoot my career in the head?" he asked, making a gun with his hand and holding it to his temple. "I've been keeping a low profile and avoiding controversy as a game plan already, and you want me to suddenly take a very unpopular position by trying to justify your actions? Why would I want to do that?" Holland asked.

"Well, it seems like your job, to present things fairly and from both sides, or as many sides as exist. Sometimes things are complicated with more than two simple ways to view them," Jeff said.

"You are, to put it charitably, naive. I can't really condemn you. I was too. In fact I was naive for far too long, which is how I got into this miserable racket. However I'm not going to throw away a degree and almost ten years in the profession to try to reform the industry.

"Let me explain. I have no idea how long this utopian experiment of yours is going to last. But it is dangerously attractive. I find myself thinking I'd like to come see it, and maybe, just maybe, consider joining in the experiment myself. It scares me. When it fails it will likely be devastating. I have no clue how it will fail or what will become of you people.

"It's so attractive I apparently let it show on my face. If the public was encouraged to examine it I can predict it would cause all sorts of problems. The vast majority of those who find it attractive have no chance of really immigrating, do they?" Holland demanded.

"No, actually we already have a huge influx of people right now. To the point rents are crazy and there just isn't anywhere to stay. People are renting out sleeping space on their living room floor," Jeff said.

Holland nodded. "And if people are jealous of what you are doing, and they can't come to you, do you know what they are going to do?"

Jeff shook his head no.

"They will agitate and complain and try to get the same things put into effect right where they are. The bureaucracy isn't going to accept half your ideas without a huge fight. It's entirely too much freedom. These ideas pushed just a bit could foment outright rebellion," Holland warned.

"I'd hate to do that," Jeff admitted. "We need stability on Earth and I'd like to do business with Australia, not disrupt it. But I'd be embarrassed to ever say there can be too much freedom."

"Then I suggest you leave well enough alone," Holland advised him, ignoring the crack about freedom. "The story about your bomb is already old news and dying a natural death. If you try to explain your position all over again it will only remind people about it. There's a time to just shut up, even if you feel you are right and want vindication. Better to let it just be forgotten than make trouble for everybody, including yourself."

"Your advice is appreciated," Jeff said. "It seems very good advice to me." His brow was furrowed with a look of concentration. Social things were hard and he was thinking on it all intensely.

"I will let this story fade out. However, things will stabilize here. Your predictions of failure have too many forces working against it. I'm working on it. For example I have a partnership trying to create more housing. If you are really attracted to the idea of coming to Home, you might think on this as a possibility. You will eventually see it's not failing. Sometime my enterprises are going to get to the point they need a spox. You can tell I'm not exactly a silver tongued devil. If you could come to believe in the system sufficiently you might advocate for it, as a job. It doesn't seem too great a leap from newsperson to...what? Minister of Propaganda? What would the civilian equivalent be? Something that sounds better," Jeff suggested. "That word has negative connotations."

"Public Relations...Did you call to make me a job offer?" Holland asked, shocked. "Are you proposing I defect?"

"Not at all. Your own statements made me think of it. It's not a hard offer. But think on it for the future. Keep it in the back of your mind. You infer your present circumstances are not happy. You are candid in admitting the limits of your present government without my speaking ill of them to you. If you get to where you are unhappy enough with the entire package to risk emigrating, then perhaps we can talk. That's all I'm offering," Jeff said. "Maybe we can talk again in a year or two."

"I am insane, but I won't say never. I might call you some time."

"Good, I'm glad we talked then." Holland still looked shell shocked when Jeff disconnected.

Jeff just briefly felt bad. He'd told Chen he wasn't going to offer the man a job. Well, that hadn't been his intent, and he hadn't, exactly. It hadn't been a promise, so he stopped worrying about it and dismissed it from his mind.

Chapter 12

The road to Armstrong was mostly long straightaways and several gentle curves that could be negotiated at speed. It was only interesting because it was Kurt's first time. He could see how it would get quickly boring. There were hills in the distance several times, but the bumpy regolith near the road didn't have enough variation to make any part of it remarkable. There were no human structures at all.

The other drivers he'd asked for tips or items he should take along all agreed. Most of them said to bring a good book or music, and warned him to set the alarm for the end of the controlled portion of the road, to loud. If it was a good book, or if you closed your eyes with the music, you could ignore the gentler alarm until the much louder collision alarm jolted you out of your reverie.

Kurt was assigned a van to allow him to drive without a pressure suit due to his bandages. Some trucks had a separate pressurized cab and most drivers elected to wear a suit as an extra layer of safety even if they planned to sit out loading and unloading at dock. A van allowed him to walk out the rear if there was room and enter the terminal. He'd been assured he was hauling small packages and there would be a clear path to exit before he was unloaded. He'd entered the same way, and found there was a path, but it was quite tight even without wearing a pressure suit.

The alarm warned him that he needed to resume manual control, and the steering wheel vibrated as soon as he put your hands back on it. You could tell by the feel it was on manual again. Kurt was new at this, so he gently turned it to the left, towards the centerline to confirm to himself he really did have control again. The truck dutifully eased left at his input and he corrected back right before it warned him he was leaving his lane.

"Maintain a minimum thirty kilometers per hour. At the street sign for 16th Street S.E. brake starting at the sign and turn right," his navigation software instructed him. The route was shown on the heads-up screen and highlighted in pale yellow.

A brighter yellow ball started blinking at the intersection on his screen when he reached the turn-off sign and continued until he made the turn and straightened back out. He followed instructions to make another turn, drop to twenty kilometers an hour, and turn into a drive for the Armstrong Supply Depot. He was told to stop behind another vehicle at the end of the short ramp and wait for the truck park traffic to clear before proceeding.

Kurt watched a much smaller vehicle leave the docks and exit around the building rather than out the access road beside him. After it disappeared around the corner of the building the truck ahead of him pulled into the middle of the park and turned around. There were a few seconds hesitation and it backed to a dock door and mated to it. Not door, port, Kurt reminded himself. Door would make him sound like an idiot or an Earthie. A green light over the port came on after about ten seconds. There was room for six vehicles to unload, and only two were occupied.

"You may enter the center area and turn the truck away from the terminal," his navigation said. "You will be instructed to engage automatic docking and this program will terminate. Do not touch any of the controls while docking is underway or the program will terminate and you will have to affirm there was no emergency to a live operator before it can resume."

That seemed easy enough. Kurt drove towards the terminal and made a sweeping turn until he was pointing looking back at the entry road. The screen on the dash showed, "Docking net detected. Touch X to terminate connection to navigation and control. Docking will auto-connect. There may be a delay before docking initiates. Be patient please."

Kurt touched the big X in a box, reaching across himself with his left hand. The right was bandaged and didn't activate the screen, he'd tried it when he left Central. The screen changed to a backup camera view. There wasn't any delay as it had warned was possible. The truck backed up slowly without any further instructions, the steering wheel turning slowly one way and then the other to line him up on the port. The truck slowed as it came within centimeters of the dock, and then there was an almost imperceptible bump, then a sharper brief motion as the grapples locked and sealed the van to the terminal.

"Seal confirmed and pressure is equalized. Your vehicle will automatically unseal if you do not terminate the process from your control screen within thirty seconds." a different voice told him. "If you intend to leave the vehicle through the freight port please touch the second X box on the screen and unloading will be delayed until you enter the terminal and confirm your entry on the com screen assigned to your port."

Kurt touched the lower X and got out of his seat, careful not to bump his hand on something, the cab of the truck still unfamiliar to him. He had to turn sideways and shuffle a bit to get past the narrowest place where a big skid with a box on top intruded. When he got to the dock there was a com station protected by upright bollards, and a man waiting. He took care of marking his arrival on the screen and got out of the way before turning to the man. A loading bot glided into the van immediately.

Nobody had mentioned he'd be met. The fellow was young, had short hair, but still more than Kurt was used to seeing on suit workers. He had on all tan clothing that looked like a uniform but had no insignia or rank markings. More importantly he had on a pistol with a lanyard. It didn't look like a Taser.

"What's that?" the man asked, pointing at Kurt's bandaged hand.

"What does it look like?" Kurt asked. "It's a bandage." It surprised Kurt because it was obvious, and he'd already grown used to not fielding stupid questions all the time, like Earth.

"I have to ask if that's permitted," the guy decided.

"Ask who?" Kurt asked.

The guy opened his mouth like he might answer and then instead said: "Wait here." He walked far enough away to keep Kurt from listening and talked earnestly into an ugly com pad instead of using the warehouse com console.

"You can't leave the terminal area with that unless that is opened to inspection. There could be anything inside," he informed Kurt when he returned.

"I didn't intend to anyway. I was promised a half hour turn-around at most. I'm not even picking up anything. This is my first time here, but I was told there's a coffee room and a restroom for drivers in the terminal, that's all I need."

"Follow the blue line on the floor and it'll take you to the break room. Don't go off in the stacks or beyond the break room to public pressure," the fellow warned sternly.

"Sounds good to me," Kurt said, and bit off what he wanted to add. He really did need to stop being so...expressive, even if the fellow was an ass.

There were two drivers in the coffee room. One in a suit without a helmet and one in overalls. They were sitting across from each other at a table, one with his feet up on a second chair. Kurt sat with the improvised foot stool between him and that driver.

"Careful," Kurt said, pointing at his boots on the chair. "If the guard comes in that'll probably get you thirty days in solitary."

"You mean the concierge?" the fellow asked. "That and the valet parking just mean this is a fancy place now. If you really want to frost his cookies ask him to run into pressure and buy you a bottle of Bourbon. The commissary here has a few pints for about twelve hundred bucks, USNA. He got all prickly when I asked him to run a simple errand."

"He isn't allowed to say he's on duty," the other fellow said. "You're just trying to trip him up and make him reveal his true nature. I came to attention and gave him a proper salute when I came in. I think he might have sprained something keeping from returning it by reflex."

Kurt lifted an inquiring eyebrow and tapped his ear, then twirled a finger around to ask if they weren't being monitored here.

"Yeah, undoubtedly they are listening," the near man replied. "I'm way past playing pretend, gave it up years ago. It's always something. If they don't like it they can make me go back to Central. I'll take my cargo with me and they can have ration bars tomorrow instead of the potato salad and other stuff I brought. I'm told they just started this silly crap of guarding the entries two shifts back. As if we're going to back up a long trailer with an armed squad and invade them through a freight portal." He added a disdainful snort.

"Earth Think," Kurt judged it. "Oh well. Not my problem, I don't have to live here. This is my first freight run. I'm on light duty because of my hand," he said lifting it to show what he meant. "In a week I'll be doing something else. If they give me a hard time I'll turn the run down tomorrow. There's lots of other things I can do one handed."

"Yep, heard about that," the guy across the table said. "Friend of mine was having breakfast when you...got hurt. He said after the show you put on he'd like to see what you could do with a tactical spork. He's seen a little action himself. Spent a few years in the Pan-Arabic Protectorate and it left him a warped sense of humor, like so many vets."

Kurt could feel his face burning with a blush. "Is the coffee worth trying?" he asked avoiding any further discussion of his actions in the cafeteria.

"Not as good as ours. Cheap dark roast." the fellow said, amused at his evasion. "The machine will take ten dollars USNA if you have them, but it won't do a currency conversion. If you pay a bit it gouges you the full bit and doesn't give any change."

"Thanks," Kurt said. He did have dollars still. Might as well use a few.

"What you hauling?" the lounging one asked when he came back.

"A whole bunch of packages, mostly small, in a van. I've got no idea what's in them. I wasn't even given a manifest to be able to look," Kurt realized. He hadn't thought about it before. "It was so easy, and almost all of it automated. I can't see why they don't make the whole process automated. If they don't want to automate the yard maneuvering here and switching systems they could have one guy do it remotely from a tower who can see all the yard and ports."

"You're aboard to prevent theft. Not so much a guard as a witness, or they'd demand you be armed. Probably a big pair of salad tongs for you," he jabbed. "The truck could dock here and then they lose the record it was here. Things can get mysteriously erased. Or there's the possibility the truck could be hijacked along the way. If you block its path these trucks will stop for any obstacle. Artificial stupids are too easy to fool. And then it's easy to gain entry either by hacking the on-board controls, or if you don't mind damaging the truck, just pry the door open."

"And you're hauling food," Kurt said, remembering his conversation.

"Yeah and I'm taking a light load back," the trucker said. "Not much goes back. We get most Earth goods through Home, and Armstrong just doesn't produce much of anything. I'm unloaded, but waiting for them to fetch stuff to the terminal. It should have been here, but..." he shrugged.

"I'm driving a tanker," the guy across the table said. "Two tons of water, and probably done," he said tilting his pad up and looking at the time. "I'm just bullshitting with this no-good because we don't cross paths on the same shift all that often."

Another man came in carrying a package and wearing a loose hoodie jacket. He nodded to them and laid the box on the table.

"Hi Carl," he said, nodding at the fellow on Kurt's side. "Be right back," he promised and went in the restroom. He wasn't inside the door two seconds before he came out with his hood up and a machine in his hand like a big pistol, but it had an open horn shape instead of a barrel. He sidled along the wall back firmly against it until he was below the corner of the room, raised the odd device pointed at the corner above and triggered it. The lights flickered brightly once and the coffee maker started emptying itself without releasing a cup to receive it.

The fellow sat the EMP gun on the floor, apparently it was a single use device, and produced a small can of spray paint on a telescoping stick. He thoroughly sprayed the small lens set in the corner. That was insurance apparently, in case it wasn't properly fried. From an inside pocket he produced a paper pad with a message already written and handed it to the driver near Kurt.

Carl raised his eyebrows and handed the paper tablet to Kurt. Kurt held it carefully square to his face, like somebody did recording. The gesture wasn't lost on them. It said: "Your load was delayed. Leave now without it. You have five minutes to clear the terminal." Kurt passed it across the table to the other trucker who seemed anxious to read it.

Meanwhile...The local fiddled with something inside the cuff of his hoodie. It contracted, losing all its bagginess and changing color to match the room walls. He opened the package on the table and removed a brace of pistols and a belt with extra magazines.

What he did next really freaked Kurt out. He pulled the hood over his face. It had an opaque domed surface different than the rest of the jacket, sort of like a fencing mask, he fiddled with it and it got almost clear like a real faceplate. He tugged at the cuffs and they formed gloves. Then he tugged the waist of the jacket until it hung below his hips, halfway to his knees. Kurt had no idea such a thing was possible. It looked surreal. Lastly he buckled the gun belt on and tied an orange brassard around his arm.

He frowned at them for still being there, staring at him, and made an emphatic go gesture to them with one index finger swept in an arc up and away from him. The he held up a hand with fingers spread to remind them they had five minutes. His face said this was serious.

Carl stood and urged Kurt to his feet with a gesture. The other driver was halfway to the door, the pad left on the table where he'd been sitting. Carl seemed worried Kurt might not take it seriously and had a hand at his back propelling him. He was convinced. Whatever was going down he didn't need any more urging to go. They all headed for their trucks without another word between them.

The robot was removing the last bin of small boxes when Kurt got back to his truck. The guard was nowhere to be seen. The com screen asked him to touch a box to indicate he was reentering his truck. When he did so, it acknowledged his unloading was complete and he was free to board.

When he sat back in the driver's seat he saw the tank truck was moving across the yard headed for the access road. Kurt followed his own procedure to undock and request departure. Another truck was leaving as soon as the tanker reached the road out. That must be Carl. The man must have ran to his truck to be that far ahead.

The screen indicated his port was being closed. Before it was sealed all the way he heard the CRACK/Crack/crack of a weapon discharge and echoes in the warehouse. Then it repeated rapidly again. The last time was muted as the port sealed and the sound had to pass through the hatch. He waited a long thirty seconds until it indicated he was released and he heard latches retract. The truck went straight to local road control, not needing the terminal software to pull straight away from the dock. When it inquired if he wanted a reverse return of the trip here he punched the yes button quickly.

Kurt grabbed the wheel to activate manual control and followed instructions to go out the same access road he'd entered. Followed the same infuriatingly slow twenty kilometer per hour speed limit as he did coming in, lest it create problems with the traffic control. He made the first turn and got on the higher speed lane, and his truck came to a stop on its own.

"Net wide safety pause initiated. The Local Traffic Net is down." Said the screen. But the map still remained, minus the highlighted route. That was fine he knew how he'd come in. It was obvious on the screen. The road to Central was labeled.

It also informed him - "All local traffic is unlocked for manual control and encouraged to seek a safe parking area. Minimal speeds and care advised. Automatic collision avoidance is downgraded to the individual vehicle level." Forget that. A couple hundred meters and he'd be back on the road to Central. There wasn't another vehicle in sight through his windows, and he could drive all the way back on manual if he had to. He headed for the main road cautiously.

Once he turned on the main highway the screen asked him if he wished to resume auto control until it reached another net controlled zone. That made sense since he was pretty sure highway guidance was all Central right up until you got to Armstrong's local net. Central built both the road and the truck, although he had no idea how the system actually worked. He was glad to turn control over to them and lean back in his seat and have a good meltdown.

Who that armed man with the strange jacket was, Kurt had no idea, but whatever was going on back there, he was sure he didn't want to be in the middle of it. Now all he wanted was to be back home before anyone decided to mess with the vehicles in transit. When they reviewed his requested spex video, they should find it very interesting he decided.

Kurt hadn't gone a full kilometer when a bright flash in his outside mirrors startled him. He leaned and craned, looking in the mirrors, but couldn't really see any detail but an orange glow, then he remembered his backup camera. He pulled the menu down the right side of the screen, picked the camera and was shown a receding view of Armstrong. The glowing part wasn't the terminal he'd just left. It seemed to be off to the left, which would be west. Two fingers spread on the bright part zoomed the camera in. There were still glowing chunks of something falling leisurely in the lunar gravity.

This seemed like a big enough deal that he should call Central and tell them now. He pulled out his pad and checked the icon to make sure it was linked to the truck. He'd been told to call 000 for emergency services when he arrived at Central, but he'd never done so before.

"Unable to access satellite net," showed on his screen. Well that was interesting. The road guidance obviously didn't use the satellites or it wouldn't be working. He checked the truck screen menu again and there wasn't any way to communicate through it, not even a simple break-down alert. Neither was there any way to instruct it to go faster. If it did go down he could still drive manually, and he decided he better watch closely. The truck should stop him safely or alert him to take control if it lost guidance, but it seemed like a bad day to assume anything.

* * *

"We've lost all com with Armstrong," Dakota told Heather. "We can still do Earth direct, and Home and the other parts of the moon by relay. Armstrong is dead to everything."

"Hmmm...Early aren't they?" the Sovereign asked, calmly. "I didn't think they could be ready."

"Do you have any instructions?" her friend and peer asked.

"No. Everybody who needs to respond has been instructed what to do. You can do a public announcement to all com codes and informing them we have no contact. Anyone who isn't brand new or an idiot can figure out what that means."

Dakota nodded and went to do it.

Heather restrained herself from asking a hundred questions. People out at the pointy end didn't need somebody distracting them when they were busy. They had a plan to follow when the Earthies invaded again, and Heather was sure she would get word when events unfolded far enough to assess how the plan was working.

It was however almost a half hour before any report filtered back to her, and Heather was having a hard time reading her normal business messages and restraining herself from demanding reports. When Dakota finally appeared on her screen it was a relief. Her relaxed face alone said there was no big disaster even before she spoke.

"The weird thing is that nothing is happening. I don't mean nothing unexpected, or nothing bad. I mean literally nothing. There is no unusual traffic down the highway towards us. No launches from the Armstrong field directed across us. No other launches at all for that matter. Besides com being down we've had three of our own sat passes now that detected no local radio chatter when they passed over Armstrong. Not even encrypted traffic, just quiet.

"I also have images from our own satellites. One of the ships on their field is gone, but we don't think it lifted. There's debris and marks on the pavement that suggest it blew up. The satellites do show some rover traffic. It's only in Armstrong, and a lot is around administrative buildings, but we don't know why. We don't have resolution to show individuals well, especially with the sun near straight overhead. We have four vehicles on the way back down the highway to us. All of them known.

"There were five vehicles in transit to Armstrong and we stopped them by dropping outbound control. Four of them used manual control to turn back to Central. One turned around and tried to go to Armstrong again when their guidance worked after they turned. When it wouldn't work they turned back again. Only the one turned on manual controls and appears to intend to drive on manual all the way to Armstrong. We really need to have an option to send low bandwidth text messages to vehicle screens through the traffic system."

"Do you think the lone vehicle refusing to turn back is involved in this somehow?" Heather asked.

"No I spoke with the business owner who rents the truck. He said the driver is, to quote him, a pig-headed Finn, who will never imagine something could be different this one time. He'll just be hell bent on delivering his load if he has to get out and hand carry it, cussing the traffic system all the while."

"I hate to hear our people using ethnic slurs," Heather said. "You might counsel him to not be so quick to ascribe shortcomings to ethnicity."

"I'll leave that to you." Dakota said, "His supervisor is his older brother, so I'm not sure I have the tact to correct him on that without insulting both of them."

"Well, sometimes people who are fixated on a goal are useful," Heather acknowledged. "One can only hope he doesn't drive into a situation that will bring him to harm."

"It's funny, his boss was more concerned about the opposite problem," Dakota informed her. "He seemed to be worried somebody would get hurt if they obstructed him."

"Mark him as one to hire if his boss fires him," Heather said. "I'd use him shamelessly."

"Yeah I can see him as a guard," Dakota agreed. "Except he might not let you in."

"Don't keep people on alert too long," Heather warned. "If they try to stay focused, and nothing is happening, they tire easily. Better to have most of them stand down and take short shifts."

"Good idea," Dakota agreed. "We didn't plan for a long silence after being cut off. I have two rover crews sealed and suited up in tunnels waiting to pull out and do fire missions. I'll have one of them unbutton and return to pressure on a ten minute call status. Anything else?"

"Just wait. I'm not about to send anybody there with no idea what is happening," Heather said. "We only have a few people positioned forward. The rest of us can just get on with our usual business."

* * *

"Mr. Singh, I'm Bart Riley, with the investor group that just launched the Borghild on a second ice recovery mission. We are going to refurbish the Yuki-onna as we sell off the excess water from her mission as well as some remaining personal shares. We're interested in licensing several items of Singh technology that would make the mission more profitable. I wonder if I might schedule an extended conference of several hours with you soon to discuss what we'd like to buy?"

"I'm sorry Mr. Riley, but I'm not interested in doing business with your group. I thank you for your interest in Singh Technologies, but I believe you can still run a profitable ice recovery without my products." Jeff reached for the disconnect, but not aggressively enough to cut him off.

"Please! Hear me out just a little more," Riley asked, before Jeff could disconnect. Jeff paused with his hand extended. It would be really insulting to cut him off now, so he nodded and withdrew his hand.

"We're aware you have licensed some devices to another ice recovery group for shares. We'd be willing to do the same thing if you don't have an exclusive agreement. We're not flush with cash from our previous mission, and could offer you better terms for shares in any case.

"Our analysis is that it will be quite some time before there is any market saturation. There's good money to be made for and from all the players in this game for some time to come. There isn't any real reason not to support several groups and make money from all of them for the foreseeable future. I'd be happy to send you our market analysis and business plan if you'd like to see our numbers."

"Ah, that was a reasonable assumption," Jeff allowed. "No, I'm not locked in to the other group. I had some objections to how you conducted your first mission. I'm afraid in the current climate at Home, with the customs we've embraced around dueling, I can't speak freely. You might have legitimate reason to take offense and call me out if I explain myself in detail, so I'd rather not express my feelings in depth. I'll hasten to add, I haven't said a word about your affairs to anyone outside my most intimate business circle. I've kept my own counsel on the matter, so I haven't slandered you."

Riley was visibly taken aback. This wasn't going any direction he'd expected. He blinked a few times rapidly and was obviously thinking furiously. He could tell Jeff wasn't going to give him the luxury of a long time to make a carefully considered answer.

"I...I didn't know how badly the first mission went had become public knowledge," Riley admitted. "How much are you aware of the problems the mission encountered?"

"It hasn't gone public, but I'm aware of all of it," Jeff answered truthfully. "I might know aspects of it you don't. And if you were offering me a partnership in your newest endeavor, then I'd have been very...disappointed, if you didn't make a full disclosure of previous difficulties to me, or any serious investor you brought in. The people who failed were executives of the partnership, the actual command structure of the ship, I assume they had shares as minor partners, and weren't simply hired crew. That's customary in these sort of new ventures. So the partnership is certainly culpable for their errors in my opinion. Our laws are still lacking in detail on those sort of things still, but if the matter were brought before the Assembly for judgment don't you think they might find your senior partners responsible to some degree?"

"This is something we discussed, and are concerned they might see it that way. We've decided to keep quiet on the matter given the hazard. I thank you for your discretion," Riley hastened to add.

"I don't care for gossip," Jeff explained. "You'll have no problem with me on that count. I won't blab your business about, because I don't like it when people do it to me."

The conversation had given Riley time to think, and he wasn't thick.

"If you wish to tell me, I give you my personal word I won't call you out. Even if it does offend me. One can't realistically promise not to be offended, but I won't act on it. Neither will I divulge the matter to my partners, if you wish to tell me your objections in confidence. I wouldn't be calling you if I didn't have some respect for your standing in the business community, so your displeasure troubles me."

Jeff considered that, and Riley gave him a silent moment to think on it.

"All right, fair enough. I'm friends with Mr. Anderson who hired as a rigger and all around vacuum worker on the voyage. The three who returned your ship safe performed well beyond any reasonable expectation for their experience and pay level. That's in marked contrast to the responsible parties in command who failed in their duties miserably.

"Now it just so happens I'm Barak...Mr. Anderson's, banker as well as a friend. We've gone on vacation together and I've ties, in several ways, to him and his family. I even met him at dock when he returned to Home. When he gave me his pay voucher, I was able to cash it from my pocket change."

Riley had the decency to look embarrassed at the look Jeff gave him.

"Not only did he and his mates save your bacon by returning your ship and iceball intact, but I have to say he had the remarkable restraint to not say a bad word about you to me, for meeting the exact terms of your contract with him. I doubt I'd have been so nice, at least in private. No petulant Earth Think about how it wasn't fair, or complaints about the ordeal your poor planning put them through. In my opinion they deserved a generous bonus for saving your entire mission.

"Indeed, his only concern seemed to be for his crewmates who found themselves in similar straits. He was fortunate to be able to give them shelter here at Home for a few days. I was able to direct them to my partner Heather Anderson on the moon to secure them employment all together, where they could be a support group for each other. From what she says they have been marvelous workers, flexible and undemanding. I don't understand how you'd let somebody like that go. I've been counseled myself recently about retaining skilled workers, so perhaps I have a new appreciation for it. But I doubt the folks on the moon would let go of them easily, now that they see their value.

"I fear if I did business with you I'd be treated the same way. Exactly correct, by contract, and not a single penny more. The worst thing I can say about that, is it's almost as bad as Earth."

"I can see how bad that looks," Riley admitted. "May I just say a few things in our defense?"

"Sure, I'm interested," Jeff allowed.

"My partners and I were foolish about the risks of currency values. None of us had expertise in that side of the business and didn't do anything to hedge the risk. We got caught with a ton of USNA dollars. What's worse, we even had some EuroMarks we had to dump when they started depreciating. The hired crew did have the option to take a twenty percent advance against twenty five percent of their pay, and all of them took it. So they got the benefit of that when it was still worth much more. We also aided them in obtaining much better professional credentials than even their expanded hours merited.

"Now, we had the Borghild pretty well paid for even as the Yuki-onna was launched. It wasn't assembled, but the contracts for the pieces were all let and paid for. Fortunately for us, very few of the fabbers and ship shops went under from currency losses. They were smarter than us. But all the remaining funds from the pre-sales for the Yuki and the Borghild were held in Earth currencies. Some of us even put our personal shares for water from the Yuki into the Borghild.

"If we hadn't already used most of our funds to build the second ship we'd have certainly gone bankrupt. As it is our personal shares from the Borghild are supporting us. Only one fellow sold all his shares out as futures right away. The price of water is up, and our personal allotments of the second ice ball can be pre-sold just like we did the company share, for much better money now. Most of my partners aren't complaining, but they are scrimping and watching their expenses very carefully. The cost of living has gone up sharply. We are all in the position of hoping the second mission for the Yuki-onna is fully profitable to save our butts. We simply don't have the cash to award generous performance bonuses to crew no matter how well they performed."

"I understand all that. I've been no stranger to finding I didn't have enough funds to proceed with what I wanted," Jeff allowed. "But, you seem to have decided that if you can't pay a debt of honor you can just decide to forget it. I haven't heard any sense of obligation from you to make it right later."

"All right. I can see that," Riley said. "But I don't know what you expect us to do that we can do for sure. I'm reluctant to make promises I might not be able to keep."

"Just acknowledge that to your people. Tell them you valued what they did and will see they are rewarded if and when you are able. When you've done that I'll work with you. Oh, and you'll probably have to tell me yourself, because I doubt they'll mention it to me," Jeff added.

"I'll speak to my partners, and see what they think is possible," Riley promised.

"Thank you. Not to sound too arrogant, but I think you'll feel better about yourselves if you do that."

"I'll let you know how they respond," Riley promised, and disconnected.

* * *

"Lunar com is back up, sort of," Dakota told Heather.

"Sort of?"

"There's a Mr. Harshaw on the line from their com shack who wants to talk to you. He's not offering to open up full access yet. He says he's a member of the temporary committee to organize the Lunar Republic." Dakota said.

"Well isn't that interesting? It's almost twenty four hours since com went down. Can they really have had a revolution in just three shifts? Do you think I should speak with him?" Heather asked.

"You don't give up anything by talking. I'm not saying to agree to anything. I'd have pumped him for a little more information, but I figured I'd leave that up to you," Dakota admitted.

"So you expected I'd talk to him?"

"Well yeah. But I didn't promise. I'll tell him to go away if you want," Dakota offered. "Or hand him off to somebody else if you think it's a bad idea."

"No, no...just curious," Heather insisted. "I'll speak with him."

She should have warned me...Heather thought. Harshaw looked rough. He needed a shave. The closer she looked he needed a shower too. He had grime thoroughly rubbed on the folds of the jacket he was wearing and one side of his face. He was wearing one of the thin quilted caps with ear flaps that some vacuum workers favored in a suit. She wondered if anybody could wear one of those without looking like an idiot. He just looked tired, and he wasn't wasting any energy trying to look cheerful or friendly for her.

"Sovereign Anderson, did your secretary tell you my name?" he inquired.

"Yes Mr. Harshaw, and that you are one of a committee which intends to create a Lunar Republic. Might I ask how many are in this committee and how goes your efforts to affect this change?"

Harshaw blinked slowly like he had replies formulated for an entirely different set of questions. Heather saw suddenly that he was much more tired than she'd realized.

"We started with eight yesterday," he said. "I know two are dead. There might be six of us still, if we haven't lost any more on the committee, I know we lost others. As far as how it is going...pretty well, everything considered. We've been up all night, killing Earthies, and I'm so tired...I know we have a few holding out in the fueling facility at the port. I really don't want to direct gun fire into that building. If we damage much there I'm not confident we can repair it easily. We have two who took off in a rover and they may make it all the way to the New Marseille, and they're welcome to them as long as they don't try to come back. So I believe out of fifty eight known Earth soldiers we have killed somewhere from forty seven to fifty three."

He looked at her like he expected a reply. "It's hard to tell you see, when the pieces are too small."

"You've won then," Heather said, "that seems a remarkable feat, against professional soldiers."

"They were stupid," Harshaw said, contemptuously. "How do you find people with spacer skills to assault a space target, when hating spacers is a required to be a loyal party member?"

"That does seem a conflict," Heather agreed. "They were newbies?"

"They lost two the first week to suit accidents, when we weren't trying to harm them. The plan was to actually protect them from their own foolishness until they were in a routine, with a schedule, so we could get all of them, or at least most, all at once. We wanted to act while they were still not entirely acclimated to lunar gravity, while they were still clumsy."

"We've observed this...shift in personnel going on for near a month," Heather admitted. "That seems like it would have been stretching that plan."

"Yeah, the early ones were starting to be coordinated, but they never established a decent routine! We couldn't plan anything when their schedule changed every time they got a few more people. They had an administrator..." Harshaw visibly cut himself off. "Let's just say he was incompetent."

"So you balanced the odds on everything and acted yesterday," Heather prompted.

"Yes, we had a list. Mostly it depended on sabotage. They had no drills for emergency pressure loss. They showed a video to new people coming in about how to put on an emergency suit. They didn't even do a video for hole patching kits. I suppose they were expecting their people to read the printed instructions after they noticed the pressure dropping. We delayed sabotaging the suits and leak kits until the last three days. We were afraid they'd have a real emergency and discover the stuff was broken. We could have started much earlier and made it easy on ourselves. It was only a half dozen who had some idea what they were doing and were armed that gave us all the trouble. The rest never know what hit them." His head kept drooping as he spoke.

"So, are you part of the new government?" Heather inquired.

He jerked his head back up, surprised. "No. All eight of us agreed to sit out the first election. It hopefully establishes we aren't doing this just for personal power. After there is an election and a mayor and officials serve a term, then if any of us want to run that's fine. I'm an engineer. I have no desire to hold elective office. A couple of the others might give it a go, later on."

"So, to back up a little...what is the purpose of this call?" Heather asked. "Just to inform us you've had a successful revolution?"

"We are hoping you'll recognize us," Harshaw said. "If you decide we shouldn't exist, we're pretty much screwed. We're realists about that. All this will have been for nothing. We'll need trade with you, more of it than in the past, just to feed our people and keep everything running.

"A lot of us have been working towards this as a goal, for further down the road, but then we saw them getting set up for a second invasion attempt on you guys. We wanted no part of that. Not that we figured they stood any chance of actually overrunning you and winning. They were totally in denial about that. But we figured the collateral damage from your response might not leave much of Armstrong standing. Surely we deserve some credit for saving you the trouble," Harshaw reasoned.

"I'd think so too," Heather agreed. "We were waiting for the invasion. When com was cut we thought that signaled it was beginning. If they had come down the highway towards us we had some nasty surprises waiting."

"The com break wasn't directed at you," Harshaw explained. "We took all com down hard. Both the local net and connections to Earth and the rest of the moon. The point was to deny them the opportunity to issue orders and adjust to our actions. We were following a simple plan that would work without real time coordination, so it favored us. It wasn't possible to be selective, what with our resources and time constraints. Our people were actually starting repairs to com in just a couple hours, while the fighting was still going on."

"So, now that you're connected again, have you called Earth and informed them that Armstrong is no longer under USNA control?" Heather asked.

For the first time Harshaw looked amused. "To hell with them. As satisfying as it will be to inform them, they'll find out when we get around to it. You are the first call out we made. The Earthies are limited in projecting force to the moon, but you have overwhelming force on the moon. We're not idiots who don't realize it. We and the French exist at your pleasure. Even the Chinese recognized it or I don't think they would have withdrawn from the moon. It was far easier to withdraw than quietly live with fact they held it by your unspoken permission."

"They are more than limited by circumstances to project power to the moon," Heather reminded him. "We are serious about the L1 limit, and if they cross the line on that declaration we shall actively enforce it by any means necessary. Even if that means removing their ability to make lunar capable vessels on the Earth's surface. Even if it means removing them entirely as a political entity."

"We're counting on that," Harshaw admitted. "We didn't do this to provoke the Earth powers into testing you, but neither did we let it hold us back."

"Let's dicker," Heather suggested. "Are you willing to entertain some concessions in order to get our recognition, and to pay for our umbrella of lunar protection that you used to your advantage, without bothering to consult with us?"

Harshaw looked shocked. "I shouldn't have called you before I slept. I'm not sure I'm up to that level of negotiations. I didn't expect you to be so blunt in demanding anything from us right away."

"You mean you expected me to frame it in all kinds of hypocritical diplomatic language about ideals and solidarity and humanitarian goals?" Heather asked.

"Yeah, that's customary," Harshaw agreed. He rubbed his face wearily and looked distastefully at the hand that rubbed the dirty side. Apparently he had been unaware of it. "What do you want? Trade concessions? Border controls or extradition treaties? What's your price?"

"We had several scientists defect to us from Armstrong rather than accept being shipped back to the Slum Ball. They are for the most part willing to continue their research, but hampered by a lack of equipment. I'll be quite up-front with you. We intended to seize those items from Armstrong after we defeated the anticipated invasion. I can't see how the equipment is particularly valuable to you without the researchers. They are the real treasure. So how about cooperating on restoring their needed devices to the scientists?" Heather requested.

"Why not move the scientists back to the equipment?" Harshaw asked. "It seems much easier. They aren't in any danger of being sent back to Earth, now."

"I'm not going to send them anywhere," Heather said. "They came here of their own free will and if they want to leave that's fine. We don't really have a big enough community to support a large body of research. We don't even have a university yet. But we're willing to shelter them if that's their wish. We are already anticipating one of them going to the French. You are welcome to invite them to return if you want. But I'd oppose any forced repatriation."

"No, no, that's not my intent at all. We're not going to be like the USNA who regard talented people as commodities," he vowed. "But you don't know that, yet, and that is our origin, so I can't blame your distrust of our motives. I don't have any problem with reuniting the scientists and their facilities, either way. They can return, if it's their will, or we shall facilitate the removal of their equipment."

"Do you have the authority to make such an agreement?" Heather asked.

"Yes, I'm not a sovereign like you, but the entire committee agreed that they would all back whatever necessary agreements had to be made when we established contact with the outside again. It was by no means certain I'd be the one surviving to do so. We foresaw we would not be able to meet and work out every detail as a body. We are practical people, and realized there will be unforeseen changes and challenges. They are one of the prices of our independence and we knew there would be other prices than hardship and blood."

"Very well, then you have yourselves a deal," She sat up and her entire demeanor and voice changed. "We shall acknowledge your right of self determination, recognize your government when elected, and remind any and all opposed of the L1 decree, should anyone make threats," Heather promised, counting them off on her fingers. "That is Our will and decree."

Harshaw looked confused briefly at her change in manner, and then slowly got an amused smile. "That was the official and royal 'We' wasn't it?"

"Yes," Heather agreed, back to her milder private voice.

"That's the first time I've ever encountered it, except in a period video."

"Then you should visit when matters are settled. We can have you to Our luncheon, and We can provide amusement and a memorable experience," Heather offered, teasing him. "But for now, We think you should go sleep. I predict that your call to North America will be less pleasant, and you'll need your wits about you speaking with them."

"I find that excellent advice. Thank you," Harshaw said, and disconnected.

"See? I couldn't have satisfied the man," Dakota said. "You needed to deal with him."

"Not at all. I could have named you my Special Envoy for Lunar Affairs, without acknowledging their legitimacy as a nation by naming you an Ambassador to them specifically. I'd simply name you as my Voice within your field of interest, who could bind me to agreements as if I'd done so personally."

Dakota looked stricken. "Don't you ever do that to me. I don't want that hanging over my head."

"Some people would jump at the opportunity to wield such power," Heather told her.

"Some people would juggle hand grenades as a hobby," Dakota said.

"A poor simile," Heather said. "A grenade has a much smaller lethal radius than a government official in full plumage."

Chapter 13

"I'm afraid I advised you badly," Myat said from the com screen, with a serious expression.

"Well, that's refreshing honesty," Huian said. "I can't think of anything we're committed to that's irreversible. Tell me about it and we'll see if we can't fix it."

"It doesn't need reversed," Myat acknowledged, "to my relief. Neither your Mr. Singh nor his investors have gotten back to us about the ship, the VSHC12, so we are not committed to it. My metal broker friend contacted me again and said the Vietnamese company has three more modern ships they must remove from service and all of them could be had for less than they were asking for the VSHC12.

"He said they have a whole list of other assets they wish to liquidate, harbor tenders and harbor properties, warehousing and things like heavy trucks and supplies to maintain and refurbish such vessels. He is totally unwilling to buy even one vessel himself, because the market for metal has dropped so badly, and is still headed down. Indeed, he said if he were offered one free, the cost of fuel and crew wages to tow it to a breaking beach would deter him. He didn't say it outright...But he seemed apologetic for forwarding the previous offer."

"Nothing lost since the vessel wasn't purchased," Huian said.

"Except my reputation," Myat said ruefully. "And his with me a little bit. I'm trying to learn more about the industry instead of depending on my acquaintance as an expert, because I see his knowledge doesn't extend beyond the scrap metal part of it much. I'm just glad I didn't push the deal harder, and my funds didn't get sunk into it."

"Sunk is not a propitious word to associate with a ship," Huian advised her. "I know the volume of trade is down. Is there enough trading in the local stock markets to assess the value of the company offering these vessels?"

"It's a State Owned Company, not a public one. So it's hard to get reliable information about it."

"Mr. Singh, Jeff, doesn't know much about Earth shipping either, but I know he asked a boat owner he deals with to find out more for him. A much smaller boat, a charter. But the fellow will know who to ask. I'll remind him of my interest and will share it when we know," Huian promised.

* * *

Barak read the message again, to make sure there wasn't some kind of catch or slippery disclaimer beyond the obvious one. It didn't ask any sort of release. If there was some trick to it he couldn't see it. Alice was working and he wasn't supposed to call her, but Deloris was free to take messages even though she was on call.

"Yes, I got a message too," Deloris said, from just the look on his face, before he could speak.

"Does it look genuine to you?" Barak asked. "I mean, they say it's contingent on the success of the current mission, but do you think they are going to play games with us and define success so narrowly we'll get cut off without anything again?"

"I don't think so. This isn't some sudden attack of conscience," Deloris said. "It's been a couple months now, and as much as I'd like to believe in the tooth fairy, she doesn't suddenly credit your account and make a deposit under your pillow because she's been laying awake at night worried you got shorted. No, somebody jabbed them with a sharp stick and shamed them. This is a PR move to make them look better to...someone.

"One of your friends," Deloris decided, looking shrewd, "because I don't know anybody with enough mojo to make them worry about how they look. That's fine with me. I don't care who laid the word on them. I'll take it and pretend it was their generous nature that finally caught up with them."

"Yeah, it could be one of three...four...Well, maybe five people," Barak guessed, frowning.

Deloris was amused watching him ponder potential benefactors. From someone else she'd take it as bragging. Barak didn't have it in him.

"I thought about trying to make a big enough stink to force them do something like this back when we were staying at your mom's. A whisper campaign, and some veiled comments on local net sites. Not the sort of an issue I'd have the guts to bring up with an Assembly, since they paid us by our contracts just fine. I just didn't have the stomach for it. Alice said pretty much the same thing, and we both decided to hell with them. We'd just never work for them again."

"You never spoke to me about that," Barak said.

"Well yeah. I have to admit we were afraid you might get all idealistic and decide it wasn't fair and you were going to Do Something."

When Barak looked a little hurt, Deloris explained. "That sort of a campaign, to pressure somebody with public opinion is a delicate thing. If you complain too loudly it can go the other way. People can get tired of hearing your complaint, and before you even notice, it has totally backfired on you. You can end up making others not want to hire you if they fear you'll do the same to them. We love you, but you're still a bit short on experience compared to us."

"Yeah, sometimes I know that, and sometimes I don't," Barak admitted. "But I'm still a little miffed you guys didn't talk to me about it."

"Fair enough. I'll talk to Alice about it," Deloris promised. "How much did they promise you?"

"Twenty thousand kilograms for exemplary service, and a five thousand kilogram bonus for duty at personal risk, in unavoidably hazardous conditions. Raw pumpable water from cometary grade ice, FOB their returned iceball in trans-lunar halo orbit," Barak read off his message.

"Mine says Twenty thousand for blah-blah service, and a five thousand bonus for taking command beyond grade and experience. I bet anything you want to risk, that Alice's reads the same, but the bonus for some other quality better matching her specialty," Deloris said.

"No thank you," Barak declined. "It may be a windfall, but it was hard-won enough I don't want to throw it away on a stupid wager."

"See? You're still green, but you're getting smarter by the day," Deloris said.

* * *

"Com is back up," Aukusti said, "You could have told me you were safe and coming back."

"Didn't need to," Jaako said, scowling at his brother. "I made the delivery, got a receipt. You didn't ask for anything else."

"There was fighting. We were worried about you," Aukusti said.

"Bah, if you're going to worry about every little thing go deliver it yourself. You can worry where it might do some good. I'll stay here and do you the favor of assuming you know what you are doing and will be just fine without fretting about you."

"I know you know what you are doing," Aukusti said, exasperated. "Things happen that don't depend on you. It could have been dangerous."

"Fine, figure out how much the hazard pay is worth and put it on my account." Jaako agreed.

"So you didn't have any problems?" Aukusti asked.

"I didn't have any problems, but it's always something. The idiots over there are all in a tizzy, unsure what they even want. If they keep it up we need to add a stupid tax for wasted time on delivery to their dock."

"Just tell me what happened," Aukusti demanded.

"I locked up to the dock, went back through the truck and there was some dimwit in a superhero costume standing at the port com. He's wearing a pair of pistols at the dock like he's some kind of border patrol or customs agent. He tells me they aren't receiving freight today because they're having a revolution. I told him that's no concern of mine, revolt all you want, I have twenty cases of produce that will be mulch tomorrow if I don't off-load it. People have to eat even when they're revolting, maybe more so if it's a lot of work.

"He says there probably won't be anybody come and take it to the kitchens, just take it back.

"So I asked his name...

"He got all suspicious, and wants to know why I want his name.

"Because somebody is going to be responsible and pay for the refused goods, probably you, I say. Not the fellow laying on the deck with all the holes in him."

"Wait, back up. You didn't say anything about a guy on the deck. Dead I take it?" Aukusti asked.

"I'd assume so, he certainly wasn't moving and this guy didn't seem to be too torn up about it. He didn't have the orange thing on," Jaako said, touching his sleeve, so I figure he's on the other side."

"Which side?" Aukusti demanded. "Rebel or the regular Armstrong guys, the USNA?"

"Well the dead guy had some sort of a uniform on. I mean, it looked like a uniform, but without any of the stuff they put on, patches and metal stuff and what do you call it?" he asked drawing a rectangle on his shoulder with his fingers.

"Ah, metals, service ribbons, fruit salad," Aukusti supplied.

"Yeah, the orange rag on the vertical guy's arm definitely looked like something improvised, so... rebel I'd guess. I didn't ask. None of my business," Jaako insisted.

"But you said you delivered it," Aukusti remembered.

"Yeah, he said take it back, and he didn't like it, but he told me his name is Porter. I said fine, I'm going to use the toilet there in the coffee room and buy a cup and I'll take the truck back to Central. Well nothing was going to make this guy happy. Whatever you wanted to do he just automatically didn't want you to do. So he says I can't go 'wandering around' to use the restroom, just leave.

"I told him it's an hour back to Central, I'm not going to make a mess in my truck, so I turned away to some freight they had stacked there and started to unzip. He freaks out like he never had to go where the urge strikes you, and yells at me to go use the restroom." Jaako just rolled his eyes.

"Then when I come back, I mean, he's already flip-flopped and changed his mind once, so I ask him if we can't punch the arrival in the dock com and at least see if the system is up? Glory be, he agrees to give it a shot. It acknowledged as sweet as can be, just like it's supposed to, and a bot come rolling and loaded everything on a cart.

"I doubt this guy has ever seen a truck unloaded. He seemed to think a whole bunch of people would line up and pass boxes. If it didn't head off to the kitchens I don't know where it went, but I got the confirmation code for delivery, so it don't matter to me if it piled the crap in the corridor somewhere. I did my part," Jaako insisted.

"You did, brother. But he might have got tired of you arguing and shot you," Aukusti worried.

"Ha! Can you just imagine what our Lady would do if they start shooting her people for giving them a little lip?" Jaako asked. "They just think they had some trouble with the Earthies."

* * *

"Mr. Lewis, I'm Kenji Mishima for Mitsubishi Aerospace," The man was new to Bob, middle aged and well groomed and wearing a very well tailored suit that subtly said Hong Kong instead of London. He was utterly lacking any life extension therapy, Robert could tell at a glance.

"There has been a change in the ownership status of Mitsubishi 3. The North American corporation has been dissolved and its assets transferred to the parent company. It was a wholly owned subsidiary registered in Delaware, so there was little difficulty doing so. Yesterday, the USNA Congress was required by the military government to meet in a late night session and impose a wide range of capital controls we can't accept. The new laws demand the entire income of foreign operations must be funneled through North American banks in dollars, and subject to greatly increased taxation.

"They may decline our filings to dissolve, but there is little they can really do since the real assets are now in translunar orbit beyond their reach. We used a common agent who represented thousands of corporation, so there weren't significant assets in North American accounts, or even a physical office. Our original charter only addressed an intent to build a facility in Low Earth Orbit, so we've been out of line with the original intent for some time now. You'll be getting new documents that reflect the name change and as little as possible will be changed otherwise."

"I suspect they may find other ways to express their displeasure," Robert Lewis said. "I'm sure you must have other North American interests."

"That's one reason we haven't done this sooner. Mitsubishi has other interests and physical assets they may move on, now that we removed our North American ties for M3. The foundations of our North American banking operation are safe at this time. That's not to say they have been immune from the disruptions affecting the country, but moving against our bank operations would hurt them at this point. We saw this coming and have positioned ourselves to minimize our loses."

"You were already paying me in Australian dollars on a Private Bank account," Bob pointed out. "How does this affect our relationship?" He thought about it and frowned..."Assuming we still have a relationship. Am I still employed or is this a dismissal notice? I've been grappling with the idea of quitting, so if you're firing me it will resolve my indecision for me."

"Not at all. We're not unhappy with your performance," Kenji insisted. "What has you thinking about leaving after such a long run? We're aware of the labor shortage and economic boom. Are you tempted by other opportunities? Mitsubishi has the advantage of being a very stable low risk employer."

"Well the business climate does make a move easy," Robert agreed. "But I'm not sure I see my position as low risk. We're in a very odd situation here. We have very few laws and aren't adopting any Earth code of laws. So the body of laws is growing very slowly, and there is a great deal of uncertainty. Home does not recognize corporations, so that puts corporations like Mitsubishi in a sort of limbo until there are more rulings, which right now means from case law."

"Are you concerned Home will nationalize the structure of the habitat? Quite a few of us were surprised that didn't happen immediately when you seceded," Kenji admitted.

"No, public opinion runs very deeply to preserve property rights. People want to avoid the direction things took on Earth, and North America in particular, since most of our citizens either lived there or lived under USNA law here. For example, if I tried to introduce the concept of forfeiture at the next Assembly I'd be dead the next day. I'd be called out and there would be a line of applicants demanding to be second, third and so forth, to put a bullet between my eyes. They won't steal your corporation's property, but it would be difficult for them to decide who owns it at this point."

"Not the shareholders?" Kenji asked, with interest.

"No, if you reject the legal theory of corporations that's pretty hard to accept. We had a motion to allow corporations, second or third Assembly, and one of our people stood and gave a long speech on the history of how corporations started as out with a limited life, and as you mentioned, with a specific limited charter. Slowly those limits were corrupted until their rights eclipsed those of real persons, and they could subvert governments.

"We have sole proprietorships and partnerships in which some real person is always responsible. If that is used as a basis for adjudicating any complaint against Mitsubishi then I'd expect to be treated as a partner in their eyes, with all of the liability of an individual and none of the protections of a corporation. I'm paid well, but not that well. My personal wealth won't cover a judgment if you don't reimburse me. And I'm definitely not paid well enough to accept a challenge to duel to settle some issue for Mitsubishi," Bob warned him.

"I don't see the legal basis for that," Kenji objected.

"The Assembly pretty much does what they feel is right at this point," Robert said. "They may make an effort to make a person whole...or they may decide to treat it as a criminal matter and punish the wrong-doer. There is no clear distinction yet between criminal and civil law. At this rate it's going to be years and years before we have a body of law that addresses most situations.

"Not everybody here is of North American origins. We have people from European nations, India, Australia, even Japan. They all have diverse cultural ideas about what constitutes justice, and they can articulate their fondness for these ideas and sway a surprising number of people. One benefit is that almost everybody is cautious about bringing a case before the Assembly. I certainly am! You better be very sure of your righteousness, because they can provide a resolution you never expected. Of course that also delays building up case history that people avoid bringing actions."

"I didn't understand your increased...exposure. I don't think anybody at Mitsubishi does. What can we do to adjust this, not just for you?" Kenji worried. "If you decide to move on it would be a large factor in trying to hire a replacement."

"Make sure the resident manager knows how far you will go to settle judgments or fines. I may not have time to consult in the middle of a trial, so I need to know what you will pay without getting legal on com and trying to find somebody with authority to make a decision."

That made Robert think. He should make something else clear. "We don't have lawyers, so you can't send someone to represent you in that capacity. You could appoint somebody to speak for you, but they wouldn't have any special standing.

"I'm surprised though. I rather expected that I'd just be almost automatically let go for even considering the possibility of leaving the company," Bob said.

"Perhaps fifty years ago." Kenji thought about it a moment. "Even as little as thirty years ago for management positions, but reality changes, and the reality is the needs of the company and the worker change so fast now that a lifetime of corporate fealty isn't practical."

Robert Lewis gave him a little poke to see how he'd react to any mention of life extension therapy. "And that lifetime may be even longer soon, exacerbating the situation."

"As you say, and we have no idea how that will play out, here or there," Kenji agreed blandly. "I shall instruct several clerks to search the minutes of your Assemblies, and assemble a summary of those discussions and decisions that might bear on to how they could treat Mitsubishi in the future. Once we reflect on those I'll see that a document is created to guide you in representing us if an issue should come before your Assembly. Is there anything else you require at this time?"

Require was such a precise and unexpected word. Robert got the feeling Kanji said very little that wasn't quite precise. It felt like a question inside a question.

"No. Thank you. That would be a tremendous help at this time," Robert agreed.

"Then, until we have need of words again," Kanji said, with a nod that wasn't a bow at all.

Robert looked at the blanked screen and reviewed everything in his mind. The more he thought on it, he was sure that if he'd asked for money or perks it would have lessened the importance of his other request. He wasn't broke and the added security he stood to gain was worth far more than a few thousand dollars a month. He decided it went very well indeed, but he still worried there would be reprisals. They might be direct instead of aimed at other Mitsubishi interests, so he would alert Jon as head of the militia, and Mr. Muños in case issues were brought up in the Assembly. And April, yes he should let her know to pass word among her business partners and friends. If nothing else they should be reminded occasionally that the older generation were still players.

Chapter 14

"I'm sending you to Armstrong as a peer, because I want them to understand how important this is to us," Heather said. The fact she'd called Dakota down the hall to a face to face meeting emphasized its importance. They did a lot of everyday business on com.

"If they give you any trouble about what you can load up and remove, tell them to talk to Dennis Harshaw. He never described himself as having any particular title, but if they don't know who he is something is very wrong and his committee to install a government isn't as big a whoop as he indicated. If that doesn't fix things call me, but I don't want you to take anything by force, at this point."

"But maybe later?" Dakota asked.

"Absolutely. We originally intended an armed raid to remove the equipment if we had to fight the Earthies. I'd still do that if we they renege on cooperating, but you aren't going to be equipped to do so. You're simply going to have technicians and movers to load stuff, not fight. If you had to fight there would be unnecessary casualties, on both sides, and possible damage to what we wanted in the first place. Also, initiating a fight while Dr. Holbrook is along to point out what he needs would be stupid. If he gets killed the whole reason for removing the stuff is pretty much gone. If we do have to use force I intend it to be overwhelming force that can act decisively at minimum risk."

"Sounds good to me," Dakota agreed. "But I can still wear my pistol can't I?"

"Certainly, I want them to get used to the idea we're not going to disarm every time we visit. Maybe we can influence them to break away from that ugly North American custom too. Don't argue about that either, just offer to leave if they want to make an issue of it. Remember when I sent Annette to Camelot I gave her my pistol as a sign of authority. That worked there, but I doubt it would be understood as a sign of authority at Armstrong. I'm going to institute a new custom."

Heather reached down on the floor and got something Dakota hadn't seen and handed it to her. It was too big to be a meat tenderizer and too light to crack heads. Dakota wasn't sure what she was supposed to do with it. Whatever its purpose it would be a pain in the butt to carry around on top of everything else she needed.

"Don't look so thrilled," Heather instructed, sarcastically. "You can make a holster to hang it, or put a lanyard on it for convenience.

"OK...Maybe like a bayonet frog," Dakota allowed. Heather leaned over and pecked a search silently in her pad.

"That's a new term to me. I should have known they had to put them somewhere when they weren't...fixed to the rifle," Heather said, remembering the other odd usage.

"But you still haven't explained what I'm supposed to do with this," Dakota objected. She gave it a few experimental and very aggressive swings to access its heft. "It doesn't have enough mass to do any real damage. I'd think it should have some spikes if you want it to be a weapon, not uh...fins, and it looks too pretty anyway. Is it gold?"

"Gold plated. I'm nowhere near rich enough to waste that much gold on a prop. It's supposed to be mildly menacing, so I'm glad you thought of it as a weapon. The weapons with spikes were called morning stars, but this is a scepter. It is however modeled a bit after the weapon called a mace," Heather allowed. "Rather than a crown or symbol I wanted the flanges to project a bit more...authority."

"It would have a lot more authority if it had maybe two more kilograms mass," Dakota suggested. "Then I'd be seriously worried about getting smacked in the faceplate with it."

"Yes, I understand. But it's easier to carry if it isn't too heavy. The point of it is pure symbolism," Heather explained. "It represents my authority, and I intend to send it with you or anyone I send out on official business with outsiders. If we have occasion to send ambassadors anywhere they will carry it. So don't be shy to explain what it means if anybody asks why you are carrying it. I want it to become common knowledge. I wouldn't want you to actually hit anybody with it and get it all dinged up. Maybe tap a door with it to demand entry, but that's about it. I thought about a ring, there's historic precedent for that, but we so often wear pressure suits that nobody could see a ring."

"Get the ring made too," Dakota insisted. "It will be a lot handier for a state dinner or a meeting over a conference table. If you park this on the center of the table in front of you, like a center piece, it lacks subtlety."

"Alright," Heather agreed. "We'll do that too, and reserve this for occasions when the point of my sovereignty needs more emphasis than subtlety."

* * *

April got a pang of guilt when she saw her father's com code in the corner of the screen. She took a couple seconds to recover and make sure that reaction was off her face before she accepted the call. After all, she got along better with her father than her mother, so why did she feel this way? Maybe because she hadn't called him in weeks. But then he hadn't called her either, she reminded herself firmly.

He looked relaxed when she answered, but it took a lot to knock him into emergency mode. "I no longer work for Mitsubishi North America," her Dad informed April.

"Wow, you finally decided to open the taco stand?"

It was a long standing family joke.

"Alas, not yet. It's simply that Mitsubishi N.A. is no more."

That alarmed April a little. "Then who owns M3?"

"The parent company. I wasn't told all the details," Robert said. "I assume they paid back a ritual dollar or something. The lawyers know all the rituals to make such things legal. But since we're beyond North America's physical reach, there's not much they can do about it. They can file suit and get injunctions and they'll get told to go pound sand."

"They may find other ways to express their displeasure," April worried.

"Exactly why I called," her Dad agreed, "just a heads-up to watch for anything."

"I'll mention it to Jeff and Heather, Chen and a few others," April promised.

"People who work for them will be getting documents. I'll tell Jon after talking to you," he said.

"Thank you, Dad. I'll start those calls right now.

"That's good...Love you," Robert Lewis said, and disconnected with a nod before April could return the sentiment.

So, he called her before Jon. That was interesting. She wasn't sure if that meant anything. She knew who she would call first, punched in the shortcut for Jeff and related the story.

"I think they may have already started," Jeff said, unsurprised. "I was just talking with Irwin, and they informed him the Fed system has ordered all the banks under their system to refuse correspondent accounts with The Private Bank of Home. So the SWIFT system is closed to him in North America. It's always something," he complained.

"Does he still blame you for alienating them?" April asked.

"Not anymore. He seems to have gotten past that. He figures they'll continue trying to cut us off completely, but I'm proud of him, he finally figured out they are hurting themselves in the long term. Off Earth is growing faster than legacy industries, and the other countries aren't going to cut themselves off from the things only we can make. They don't have the political pull to make them cut us off anymore, not even their traditional allies."

"Perhaps you and Irwin should create an off Earth banking association," April suggested.

"There's just the two of us, and our minor presence on the moon. We hardly need any sort of a trade association yet," Jeff objected.

"I bet there will be a third bank on Home within a year," April said.

Jeff wasn't about to contradict her. She was too good at this sort of prediction.

"We know that New Marseilles wants to declare independence," April pointed out. "Will they keep banking with the French system or have to scramble to set something up? Can we get a foot in the door there? And we should have something, at least an automated teller on ISSII. How about Mars? Who does the banking for Mars?"

"I don't know," Jeff admitted. "There's only about two hundred people on Mars. There are a good dozen nationalities, and I'm not sure anybody even uses actual physical money. Would you use up your mass limit with money you weren't sure anybody would want? They may just have local accounts to buy the few personal items that are available, and do their banking on Earth."

"Paper money doesn't mass much. If they didn't take some cash along I bet they write out IOUs and credit chits. There are always a few who seem to have a deep seated urge to bet on stuff. I can't imagine there are two hundred people and you can't find a poker game," April told him.

Jeff thought about the people he knew and several poker games, both publically known, such as at the Fox and Hare, and a couple very private ones. He'd been made aware that on Home you could find a game of backgammon, craps or hazard. Especially among the beam dogs. He also couldn't image that among two hundred people they didn't have at least a monthly game on Mars.

April saw that abstracted look Jeff got thinking about something, so she continued.

"You might at least pay someone to be your agent on Mars. If they use bits for poker markers and other personal services then we will be known to them for banking and financial services outside the control of their countries of origin. It positions you to expand when the population expands. You do expect that don't you?"

"I do. Just not soon. They've even lost a few residents the last few round trips because the funding is tight. You know I designed a vessel with your Grandpa dedicated to the Mars trip. We have been making small changes to the design whenever the state of the art advanced. We could build one right now to make the entire trip under better acceleration than an ion drive, but there's no reason. Mars just doesn't produce anything worth the expense. And getting there quicker is not cheaper than the long slow way already done. I see no way to make it pay," Jeff objected.

"Is tourism too impossible a dream?" April asked.

"Right now?" Jeff asked. "Yes. The people on Mars don't want to devote resources to tourists. Your Grandpa knows two people on Mars from his time in Earth orbit work, and they have a fit when a politician forces a personal inspection tour. They have a long list of researchers and scientists who want to go and can't get passage. So they wouldn't welcome even a small group of real tourists. I imagine they would object they don't have accommodations and don't want to divert resources to build them. That's not even figuring all the little things, like suits, they'd need. If the Earth economy was booming I'd think maybe we could get some of the big universities to dig into their endowment to pay for passengers. But not the way things are now."

"I'll think on it," April promised. "Maybe the only way to cover the cost would be to sell real estate like Heather did on the moon. Do that and you'd be providing your own destination."

"The present occupants honestly believe all that garbage about 'the common property of mankind' and such. They might not be friendly to new neighbors." Jeff warned.

"Armstrong wasn't friendly to Heather either," April pointed out. "The question is, What are they going to do about it?"

The adversarial look on April's face bothered Jeff. There were so many other things to do to which nobody would object.

"There might be other tourist destinations, with even more spectacular scenery, and no unfriendly natives to oppose you," Jeff suggested. "Barak went on and on about how Jupiter looks filling the sky. He insists that even the best high definition video doesn't give the same impact."

April perked up and her eyebrows gathered with sudden thought. "Maybe sell a couple seats to go along on an ice mission. We'll have to do a cost analysis. See if the added life support doesn't cost too much. The added mass would be negligible one way. I bet there are at least a few people who'd pay ten Solars to stand and look up at Jupiter."

Jeff was surprised. "I recall Earth ships, ocean going vessels, not spaceships, used to carry a few passengers even on what were mainly freighters. I have no idea if they still do that. I have Li researching some things about big ships. I'm curious enough I'll ask him that too."

"Maybe the extra people would add social stability," April speculated. "That would have value even if you didn't make all that much a head on them."

"People outside the chain of command," Jeff pointed out. "I have no idea what dynamic that would change. I bet passengers could be a pain in the butt."

"Of course...they're people. But the Commander is The Law under way," April reminded him.

"I know I'm the one being taught social things," Jeff admitted. "But I don't think you are cut out to be a cruise director."

"Commander maybe?" April said, hopefully.

"You know what galleys were?" Jeff asked.

"The ships?" April asked, and nodded yes.

"I'm not sure what they called it... I'm not even sure it was historically accurate, in fact I think I saw it in cartoons, but you'd be perfect for the job of the guy at the back who beats on the drum, and the rowers have to keep up with the pace he sets."

Jeff was afraid that would offend her. Instead she laughed.

* * *

"I have a fellow from New Marseille, an Albert Poincaré, holding to speak with you," Dakota informed Heather. "A politician," she added, like an indictment.

Something about Dakota's manner was off...And she'd walked down the hall to tell her...

"That isn't who I was speaking with trying to arrange for Dr. Holbrook to go there. I don't know this new name. You are withholding something," Heather accused. "And you are amused. It worries me when you're amused. Is he another one like Harshaw, running a revolutionary committee?"

"Good guess," Dakota admitted. "Very similar, but not quit as revolutionary. I didn't ask the details but they aren't literally up in arms. Let him explain," she urged.

"Very well, but I'm not going to abandon my breakfast," Heather decided. "He can talk to me while I finish, if he wants to speak to me."

Poincaré seemed indifferent to her continuing to eat. Indeed he seemed oblivious to it.

"Madam, I am Monsieur Poincaré of the French base. How may I address you?"

"Try Heather. What's going on at your colony?" She asked, continuing to spoon oatmeal.

"We usually avoid colonie," Poincaré said, though he didn't seem to take offense. "Our habit has been to say avant-poste, but we are going to have a new level of autonomy."

"And how did you attain this new independence?" Heather asked. She was careful not to sound skeptical or accusing. She was genuinely interested.

"We negotiated the terms of it," Poincaré said. His face said he had some pride in that accomplishment, and well he might. How often do people accomplish that without bloodshed? Was Heather's honest thought.

"France has some experience of actual colonies," he reminded her. "They have learned the hard way the wisdom of letting go rather than automatically seeking conflict. It leaves us with a relationship still, which satisfies everyone rather than utter alienation."

"I congratulate you on that," Heather said sincerely. "I spoke with a Monsieur Torres about one of our refugees from Armstrong going to New Marseille to work with some of your people, and we did a deal trading tech for a tunnel boring machine and other things. Is that deal dead now? The scientist part at least, since we already sent the small machine and had the tech delivered. Do you still want the larger machine they anticipated buying?"

"We are strongly encouraged to seek economic independence as well as political independence. So our arrangements with you for such projects as the tunnel boring machine will likely increase. I'm contacting you more for the political side of things today rather than commerce. What I'm hoping for Ma...Heather, is to affirm with you a favorable standing, perhaps even a formal alliance with you, to allow trade and more. You are aware we've obtained a variety of seeds and cultures, and wish to become food independent. We're well aware you are ahead of us there. Is that something with which we can further partner with you?" Poincaré asked.

"To the extent that I've promoted such activity from my own resources, yes. I've committed a lot of our tunnel boring hours to food production tunnels. Some of them are being cultivated by my own employees. Some are leased to subjects or foreign residents. Nobody is prohibited from starting their own, but we have substantial infrastructure.

"Nothing we've done is proprietary, and you can follow all our efforts and experiments, including the failures, on our local net. I decided to keep everything open as a matter of policy to promote growth. Everything public is easily found and satellite com will carry the bandwidth easily and cheaply. There are private enterprises that are developing products which aren't public knowledge. You'll have to come to some accommodation with those people, and either buy their help or their products outright, or offer them something like local cubic or tech in compensation.

"I won't however get involved in markets. That is, I won't support or hinder a business with tariffs or taxes. Neither will I reveal the private business of people who lease cubic from us. As long as you don't restrict Central people from conducting business there, I won't hobble your people here. So there is every opportunity to work together."

"Does that mean you will tax our people who conduct business at Central at the same rate as your own?" Poincaré asked hopefully.

"I only tax property owners," Heather explained. "We have a bit less than four hundred land owners right now. I tax them according to their surface area. So far I have no outcry that they are oppressed. How they derive income from their holdings is up to them, but it encourages them to do so rather than let it sit unused and costing them money. I have accepted labor in lieu of cash for those not engaging in any cash generating businesses."

Poincaré looked shocked, and then distressed. "You don't tax your subjects or foreign residents at all? No income tax? No fees for services provided?"

"No, and I realize this can create a problem for you," Heather admitted. "We have a lot of people wanting to move here from Armstrong. They tend to be the more aggressive entrepreneurs, but they are held back because so few of them have the means to set up here."

"I will have to think on how to address that imbalance," Poincaré said, scrunching his eyebrows.

You could reduce your tax rate, Heather thought, but that might derail their pleasant conversation, so aloud she said: "I'm uninterested in knowing what my people make," Heather assured him. "As soon as you demand to know how much you can extract from them instead of telling them what you require from them the lying will start. They will avoid making anything if at all possible. Then gaming and lobbying starts about what is income. How can it benefit any country to discourage enterprise and generating profits?"

"Well yes," Poincaré agreed. "I've studied economics, although it wasn't my major. How you tax will affect how money is put to work. Too many people seeking to park their money in passive investments can be damaging too."

"I don't tax capital gains either," Heather said, waving that idea away. "Nor are there taxes on inventories, services or inheritances. The closest we come is I set a landing fee for non-landholders at the spaceport of a tenth of a gram Au per metric ton of a craft landing. If they sit there more than fifteen days they start getting a charge for storage. The land owners pay for the field in their tax to me, so why should I subsidize outsiders to compete with them by granting free landing rights?"

Poincaré blinked and thought a moment. "Air fees, water fees? Tax on cubic cut?"

"I don't provide air or water. If people lease cubic, air is an insignificant item supplied with the cubic by every landlord of which I'm aware, unless some idiot allows a leak. There are lock fees, but they are modest. I want people to cut new cubic. It's not like running a hab with a central environmental system that has to charge. I realize you have a centralized system because you started in surface structures. I'd never make an issue of Central people being charged for necessary services. Of course if they don't use those services you wouldn't charge them, would you?"

"I'm...not sure how they do that," Poincaré admitted. "I don't know if anyone has their own sealed off environmental systems."

"I bet they made rules against it, if you go research it. At Armstrong you couldn't even own a suit, much less your own air plant. They wanted control of everything so they couldn't become independent. If they wanted to ship you back to the Slum Ball they didn't want any argument."

"We are trying to come to an agreement with the provisional committee in Armstrong also," Poincaré said. "It may be some time before we finalize anything. Every proposal made is taken to debate, and seems to generate more questions rather than any quick agreement. Although you are physically on the other side of Armstrong from us, we may be actually cooperating with you sooner. Simply because we can have this conversation with one person who has the power to decide yes or no. No such executive exists in Armstrong yet."

"Are you able to bind your new government to agreements?" Heather asked, pointedly. She decided it was not the time to mention that she had recognized the Lunar Republic. Perhaps the new republic valued Central's, that is Heather's, recognition more than Marseille's.

"Nobody exists at the moment to contradict me," Poincaré said with a smile. "That will hold at least until we have elections, and then establish various agencies."

"So somebody may undo everything we establish in a year," Heather said.

Poincaré shrugged. "You risk that dealing with any sovereign entity," he said. "You may be dead tomorrow and I'll have wasted all my words today. Whatever we establish between us has at least the advantage of momentum. It's easier left in place than altered if leadership does change. If we worry about its impermanence we'll never do anything. The pyramids would never have been built, because someone might stop them half way and tear them down."

"Your point is well taken," Heather said. "You are welcome to do business here. There are no entry documents, no licenses to do business. The law is what I say it is. If I find somebody objectionable they get expelled. We are developing a body of law, but the less complicated it becomes the better as far as I am concerned. People are encouraged to come to their own agreements. If they require their sovereign to sit in judgment they don't always like the results. Better to compromise at times than lose utterly."

"We shall retain the French judicial system, and diverge from it only slowly I suspect. What is the basis of your decisions?" Poincaré asked.

"I'm from Home," Heather reminded him. "I'm heavily exposed to North American influences, but you should look to the base principles rather than recent history. Think of the direction English common law took. The sanctity of contracts, individual rights and responsibility. I've judged cases on homicide, intellectual property rights and drunk driving already. The trials are all public record if you want to get a feel for how I ruled, and perhaps more importantly what questions I asked and how I reasoned."

"I'm trying to imagine how you can function without a body of law defining what is permissible. And meanwhile assembling it piece by piece," Poincaré said, looking distressed.

"People have very similar ideas about whether basic things are right or wrong," Heather said. "The law formalizes it. But I have yet to find anyone astonished they can't just kill whomever they please. We have very few people of non-western cultures to complicate public opinion. Weren't all the formal bodies of law originally assembled just that way? Piece by piece, case by case?"

Poincaré blinked and considered that, but made no reply. Instead he asked, "How might a lawyer of French training be certified to speak before your court?"

"There is no bar between the people and the officers of the court," Heather said, drawing a line with her hand. "Anyone may show up and ask for a judgment. If you wish to hire someone to speak for you or advise you that is fine. Some people are not eloquent. Some people are fearful of speaking in public. And a lot of people need third party advice on whether they are being damn fools to even bring a case. If they have to pay for counsel perhaps they will listen to it better than free."

Poincaré laughed. "I'd heard similar things said," he agreed. "One's passion on a question is not a good indicator of how others will see it. Sometimes that needs pointed out in a way friends and relatives are loath to say."

"I mentioned we have a scientist from Armstrong who is considering emigrating to you. But things have changed. First of all we were able to get his equipment released to him. Also he'll have to be advised the political situation there is changed. He may still rather work with your people than in isolation. I'm not of a mind to influence him one way or another. He's well worth having, but a bit of a short term expense too. For all I care he can go back and forth freely to work here, as I've gifted him with land, or work with his peers there."

"There will be security concerns if they are working on proprietary things," Poincaré worried.

"That's your concern," Heather said. "Whether you can trust him, or your own people for that matter, to isolate their projects which have to be kept secret. It's true, people with such creative talents don't always seem to have a security-based focus. I'll tell you right up front we want your process for creating a thin effective body armor. But we're willing to buy it not steal it. You need to discuss all that with your technical people," Heather suggested.

"I will, and assign someone to research your legal history and provide me a summary. I simply don't have time for such a project. When I have some answers, and undoubtedly some more questions, I'll get back to you," Poincaré promised.

"That sounds good to me." Heather said, disconnected and looked around. Dakota had quietly let herself out sometime during the long conversation, without a word. And her breakfast dishes were empty, but she couldn't remember taking a bite. She'd been running on full autopilot.

Chapter 15

"We have a ship for you," Myat assured Jeff.

He was so skeptical from the previous offer he just lifted an eyebrow silently.

"Don't be that way," Myat said, to the dubious look. "This is a much better deal, and you didn't get burned by the last one. I did withdraw it before you actually turned it down," she reminded him.

"But only because we stubbornly delayed while you were rushing us to accept," Jeff thought, but he didn't say it out loud. She was well aware..."There's no urgency about this one?" he asked, which was somewhat milder a response than his real thoughts.

"Look, Huian made me present this offer directly instead of through her. I won't do anything again to make her doubt my judgment. I'd like to regain her trust until she'll broker my deals again. There's no urgency, as far as the offer being open. The ship is anchored in Singapore harbor so it isn't running up dock fees, and they have waived anchorage fees, but it's a security concern. The owners are bankrupt and it is an uninsured vessel. The crew was mostly Nigerian and abandoned it when they hadn't been paid for some time, and the ship was running low on stores. The local court has asserted not just a lien, but forfeiture for public safety, and is asking, begging, for anyone wishing to lay claim to it. They don't want to lift the accommodation stairs that took the crew off. If they need to board a pilot quickly they don't want to drop him from an aircar or helicopter. So the harbor master has two security guys, in two shifts, mooring to the end of the ship's ladder guarding it, and one climbs to the deck and does a circuit once a shift."

"So, there are fees adding up for anybody who claims it or offers a deal?" Jeff asked.

"Supposedly five thousand Singapore dollars a day," Myat said, "but they aren't really spending that. They are using a couple of cops who are pulled off something else, and fuel for the pilot boat twice a day."

"What are Singapore dollars running now?" Jeff demanded.

"They insist they're on a par with Australia, so there's almost no official exchange. But the black market rate is running three of their dollars to one Australian. If you just offer to take it off their hands they might refuse because it looks bad. But offer them anything cash and I'd be surprised if they turn you down," Myat insisted. "They don't want others abandoning ships there, and that's a danger."

"What sort of ship?" Jeff asked.

"Bulk carrier, gearless, that is, no cranes and crap cluttering the deck you'd have to remove. It was designed to haul grain and the machinery to unload it is dedicated and installed on the docks. It's three years old. I was told it hasn't been stripped or looted by the crew, and the com gear is still hot and running from solar power. I can give you links to look around the ship with its own security cameras if you want," Myat offered.

"What other costs?" Jeff demanded, knowing there would be more.

"The same as before...eventual entry to Home for my ship breaker friend as a finder fee, if it gets too nasty for him and his family on Earth. And he'll need to cover pay and a percentage if you want him to raise a crew to move the vessel," Myat said.

"I can agree to help him with that, but not in the next week or even month. We should have someplace to put them in about year. What about you? Don't you want a fee or passage to Home?" Jeff asked. Surely she wanted something.

"If I decide to come up I can pay my own way," Myat assured him. "I don't anticipate that happening for some time, years if not a decade or two. I'll do this deal to facilitate everything else our house is doing with you through Huian. I owe her. Also, we can't keep dropping stuff with reentry vehicles and picking them up in drop zones. Somebody is going to wise up and stop it."

"Not to mention the expense," Jeff agreed. "We are still interested in a ship, so send me the files on this one, the link to the security cameras, and I'll show it to my partners and get back to you quickly. The fewer days it sits there running up charges the better the chance that they'll accept an offer."

"OK, attaching that right now. Thanks for hearing me out," Myat said, and disconnected.

Jeff made sure where that was saved and thought about it. If it looked as good as she said he might start low...offer fifty thousand Singapore dollars, and present it as a done deal to his investors if he could buy it outright with his own funds. Then all they'd have to cover was the modifications to run it off one of his fusion generators, and the things like landing pads on the deck. First he better call Li and see what he could arrange for crew, if he wanted to buy it. He'd prefer Australians, and had little desire to hire back crew who had abandoned the ship. There might be lingering resentment and feelings they were still owed back pay, and he was trying to get closer ties with Australia.

He checked the time to see if Li would be sleeping and put a call in direct to his boat.

* * *

"Heather, Masseur Poincaré is on com again, wanting to speak with you. He wasn't willing to discuss what the call is about with me," Dakota said, obviously put out at that.

"That's fine. If he becomes a nuisance calling too often I'm not shy to tell him," Heather said, "but I have time to chat a bit."

The problem, oddly, was he didn't want to tell Heather what the call was about either.

"I'd like you to send someone you trust to be shown...something of importance," Poincaré requested. He gave every indication with his voice and body language that it was important, but refused to reveal it on com.

"Is it an emergency?" Heather asked.

"No...but it's time sensitive. I want to clean up the site after your representative views it," he insisted mysteriously.

"I'm short on people," Heather told him quite honestly. "I'm reluctant to send my peer Dakota you just spoke to. She's busy with a lot of critical projects for me. And there are very few people I feel free to send who can act with authority and speak with my voice."

"Ah, I see what you are saying, but we don't need that. This isn't a negotiation. We don't need a representative, just...well, a witness. Someone you trust as an observer who will be discreet."

"Oh...Then it doesn't even have to be someone sworn to me," Heather decided. "I have a man I trust to be observant, and he's used to working in a suit, so I can have him there on an open hopper in a couple hours. Does that satisfy you?"

"Thank you, yes, he can take some video or stills and show you the matter on his return. I'm really not comfortable discussing the matter or sending images through the satellites."

"Whatever," Heather said, a bit dismissively. She really didn't enjoy all the intrigue, and suspected it was overblown. No way was she going to yank somebody doing vital work for these sort of games. She probably could have hidden her feelings better. "I'll have him lifting within a half hour," she promised and disconnected before he could drag it on.

"Dakota, is that Kurt fellow, Bowman, still doing odds and ends before he goes back outside on the printer project?" Heather asked.

"Yes...I happen to know he's working on the fungus tanks today," Dakota said, and frowned.

"Oh come on, he's pretty smart and doing a pretty fair job at everything he's been asked to do. I can't see him deliberately working against our interests even if he isn't sworn to me. Is it the killing thing?" Heather demanded.

"Damn right. He scares the...he scares me," Dakota admitted. "You saw the same video I did. That creep never knew what hit him. Kurt's not gene mod to be faster and he still had the man mortally wounded before he could lift his hands off the table. All the rest of the attack was just mindless frenzy," Dakota said, and shuddered visibly at the memory.

"Yeah, probably," Heather agreed looking thoughtful. "I'd thought before he might have been savable if Kurt hadn't gone at his neck and opened the artery up, but you know, on thinking about it further I think you're right. With the fork through his larynx it would have swollen and suffocated him before anybody could have done a trach' on him."

Dakota felt her throat with one hand and looked sick. Heather's calm discussion wasn't helping her at all. Heather thought she could jolly her along with sick humor, but saw it was beyond making that work, and she better stop.

"But as you say...Greg King was a creep. If you think about it, if Kurt had called security on the spot to tell us the man was a USNA agent, I'd have probably ended up executing him myself. Not as spectacularly, but still, I wouldn't have relished the chore," Heather allowed.

"Yeah, I guess it's all the same," Dakota allowed. "But I'm still scared of him."

"And your feelings are perfectly valid," Heather agreed. "I don't expect you to ever be best buddies with him, and I'd never force you to work together."

Dakota looked relieved at that.

"On the other hand, you aren't really expecting him to run amuck and do it again are you?"

Dakota looked perplexed at that and frowned. "No, I can't actually say I do. On an intellectual level I don't see risk there. But emotionally I'm still not comfortable."

"Well I'd like you to call him off the tanks and I'll instruct him and send him to see what has Poincaré in a tizzy. If you want to be elsewhere so you don't have to see his ugly face feel free to bug out. I just want to make clear to him he isn't a representative, just an observer."

"I think I can handle that," Dakota agreed, "as long as I don't have to get all chummy."

"Heavens no, you can stand back and protect me," Heather allowed.

Dakota smiled, but it was a very brittle smile.

* * *

"How would you feel about forming an off Earth banking association?" Jeff asked, after the waiter took their dishes away.

Irwin considered it very solemnly. Jeff didn't rush him to answer. It was a new idea for the man. And Irwin was very conservative. Change wasn't something he embraced easily. He was also on his third beer, so that might slow down his processing the idea.

Irwin finished the last of the bock and burped. He lifted his head slightly to catch his eye, and then tapped the empty glass for the waiter, who immediately nodded to indicate he'd fetch another.

It was the first beer they'd had in some months, strong doppelbock, although Australian not German. It cost $200 Australian a half liter glass, and Irwin seemed determined to drink all of it at a sitting. An impossible task for this evening, even though there were several other patrons in the Fox and Hare helping him valiantly. Jeff knew he'd lifted six kegs, three of this stuff, and three of a nice pilsner.

Jeff was nursing his second, and happy he'd had a good supper to buffer it, which had also been mostly imported items, and thus just as dear. He felt a little buzzed already at a beer and a half, and had no desire to be hung over in the morning.

"Will we have monthly meetings?" Irwin asked. Surprisingly he didn't sound slurred at all. But then he easily massed twice what Jeff did to absorb it.

"I suppose so," Jeff agreed. He'd have agreed to most anything not too crazy at the moment to jolly Irwin along. "The hope would be, that since we're the only real off Earth bankers right now, the others will join us when they set up shop. It seems better to get ahead of it before somebody else gets the same idea and acts before us. Even if we don't have much to do at first, since we've always cooperated."

Irwin frowned and leaned over, peering around the edge of their high backed banquette to see who was seated next door. Jeff couldn't imagine anyone would be interested in spying on them about banking. If they were there were better ways than eavesdropping in a nightclub.

"Eventually we'll have an Earth bank brave enough to open a branch without the protections of being a corporation. There's too much money flowing this way for them not to. They might like to be in a trade association, especially in such a different environment. We can offer them advice on how to deal with the Assembly and the different culture. We should think carefully ahead of time how we'd treat such a hybrid creature," Irwin warned.

Jeff was amazed how lucid Irwin was. The man was racing ahead and thinking of things that hadn't occurred to him already despite the strong beer.

"How do you think that will happen?" Jeff asked.

"Unless the Assembly does a sudden turn-about the only way an Earth bank can open up here is to send a very senior partner with a lot of autonomous authority. That's not going to happen until housing eases up. A multinational bank isn't going to send a senior partner to live in hot slots. Thanks to you it will improve in about a year," Irwin added. "However a rich individual or a group of local businessmen might easily open a competing bank. Given the amount of capital flowing into Home we can hardly begrudge that. There are lots of small services neither of us have wanted to offer or integrate into our businesses that someone might easily pick up. Home is safe, and courier service is cheap, but I think we'll see a big enough demand that someone will do armed courier and local safekeeping," Irwin said.

"April predicted we'll see another domestic competitor before the year is out," Jeff revealed.

"Ten Solars, even up, says she's right," Irwin offered.

"So you've given it some thought?" Jeff deduced from his quick offer of a wager.

"Nah, I'd just never bet against her. She's...Well I heard a good one that nails it...A fellow was quoted as saying April knows the change in your pocket when you haven't counted it. Damn near true. She makes everything her business."

"She has been a tremendous asset to the bank and our other businesses. Not so much in minutiae, but in broad trends and opportunities," Jeff admitted. "Starting a bank was actually her suggestion. She mentioned it almost off-hand just before leaving to go down to Earth."

"Does she have an opinion about forming an off Earth banking association?" Irwin inquired.

Jeff had the decency to look embarrassed. "Again, it was actually another suggestion she made, at the same time she predicted we'll have another bank by year's end."

"Well that's good," Irwin allowed, instead of being critical, to Jeff's relief. "Not everybody is a detail person and somebody has to have a wider vision. I'm in favor of this association, in broad terms...but I'll want to think on it and plan it carefully to be adaptable for the long haul. For starters, if we can meet here once a month, and perhaps have a cap on serious business at an hour, and can wear funny hats from time to time, then I'm on board."

"That seems a reasonable start on the proposition," Jeff agreed, more amused at the funny hat crack than he wanted to let Irwin see. "Until our next meeting then, that seems like sufficient business today." Perhaps the next meeting would consider business first, before any serious drinking started...

"Seconded, move to adjourn to dessert."

"Carried by acclamation," Jeff agreed.

* * *

Kurt presented himself at the entry in a suit liner. "What can I do for you Ma'am?" He gave a polite nod to Dakota that didn't hint that he knew how badly she'd reacted to his killing of the Earth agent.

Heather motioned him over. "I thought you were helping with the fungal vats," Heather said, eying the suit liner. It had creases that said it wasn't fresh. "I didn't mean to drag you in and make you unsuit. Is the hand functional?" He had a white elastic knit glove over it, but no bulky bandage.

"I was helping with the vats," Kurt said. "They had one go bad and are afraid it will get cross contaminated to some other culture. It's always something. They have me cleaning it with a suit on, sealing the waste in metal drums, and vapor sterilizing them and the suit in a temporary lock. It's a really nasty soil bacterium. It must have snuck in on a batch of spawn. The hand still hurts if I try to squeeze it too hard, but this is really light duty today, and they gave me a size larger suit gauntlet. "

"Well, the chances of contamination will decrease as we cultivate our own spawn," Heather decided. "The more generations away from Earth dirt, the harder for anything to lurk unpropagated."

"If you say so," Kurt agreed easily enough. "I'm picking up a little knowledge here and there, but I'm far from being any kind of farmer."

"Keep that humble attitude," Heather instructed. "I'd like you to do a quick task for me. You'll need to take a hopper to New Marseille. They've had a peaceful transition to a new government and there is a Monsieur Albert Poincaré who has been instrumental in that. We mostly have just his word for both the state of affairs there and his own status, but I'm fairly sure you won't be walking into danger like happened at Armstrong.

"I have not committed myself to any formal treaty with these people. Nor am I sending you to treat with them in any formal capacity. Poincaré called on com all mysterious and wants me to send someone as a witness. I'm stretching my patience with him to send anyone at all, but I have no desire to send a peer whom he can pressure to speak beyond their authority.

"Are you willing to do an overnight trip, observe whatever momentous event he wishes to display, and report back to me? You need not respond to any entreaties the man makes. You don't have the authority, you aren't even sworn to me, so you need feel no pressure."

"Actually, I've been thinking about what you told me, that it's possible to be sworn to you, and still be a voting citizen of Home. I'd like to talk to you a bit more about being sworn." He blushed and looked down. "If you'll pardon me presuming you'd want me as a subject."

"What is your motive to swear to me?" Heather asked, suspiciously.

"Entirely selfish, Kurt admitted. "What I'm hearing is that nothing happens on the moon unless you permit it, and you are between Home and Earth. It seems like it couldn't hurt to have your protection when I don't have a lot of other pull with anybody or other connections. I've heard some...stories. I was led to believe you'd be less than amused if somebody screws around with your people. You stopped the North Americans from dragging their bolters back to Armstrong. I asked around about what you said at my trial, about calling arty down on them, and people confirmed it. So, I realize there's a cost. You can call on me as you will, even if I move back to Home I presume. But it still sounds worth doing to me."

"If you consent to go to New Marseille, let us consider that when you come back. As I was explaining, you will be under less pressure if perceived as a paid man rather than a sworn subject. That is not a promise to take your oath, but I'll think on it. Or would you rather not have another adventure so soon after Armstrong?" Heather asked, and appeared to really mean to allow him to choose.

"Nah, I haven't seen the French place, and you've got me curious. I'll go, but I'm not rated to pilot a hopper," Kurt reminded her.

"That's not a problem. We have an excellent pilot who is qualified on much larger vessels and just qualified on lunar hoppers recently. If you will grab whatever you wish to take on an overnight trip you can meet her at the field," Heather consulted her pad..."Let's say in an hour. You can wear a normal soft suit. Pull a fresh one if yours is soiled from the tank work. The field controllers will direct you and your pilot's name is Deloris Wrigley. She'll also overnight and be on call to run you back. It isn't worth running the hopper back and forth for an overnight stay. Take pix of whatever they wish to show you. You don't have to contact us before returning, since they obviously don't wish this on com."

"Will they take my bankcard at New Marseille for accommodations and meals?" Kurt asked.

"If they don't extend hospitality to you just come back," Heather said. "You are invited, more than that, requested. I'm doing them a favor to send anyone with them being so coy about why."

Kurt's smile said he liked her style. "Thanks Ma'am. See you in a couple days then." He gave Dakota a polite nod on the way out, and for a miracle she managed to return it.

Chapter 16

"I have a crew hired for you, and the previous master of the vessel is still in Singapore and willing to work for us," Li informed Jeff. He left the message on com, because it had been the middle of Jeff's night when he sent it.

"They didn't balk at working for their previous wages. The cost of things has gone up, and the standard rate really isn't keeping pace. But truth is they'd probably work for room and board given the number of seaman out of work," Li told him.

That might be, Jeff thought, but it didn't mean they'd be happy workers if they felt it was a bad deal taken in desperation. He wanted contented workers who wouldn't begrudge extra effort if the situation called for it, and wouldn't leave at the drop of a hat. Who wants to work with a crew full of resentment? When they were on station and sorted out he'd increase the wages of the ones he wanted to keep and let the others go. Even then, he'd give them a separation payment. Things were rough on Earth. Why build a group of people with a grudge against them?

"There is air service between Darwin and Singapore again since the flu has run its course, and I expect all the crew will be aboard by four days from now," Li said.

That was good. Once the ship was in international waters he'd be dropping a team on it to set up security and arrange further modifications of it to their use. The new power source and external drones to protect it. Something he didn't want to happen at dock with union workers demanding to do the job and prying eyes from who knows where in Singapore. They would be loading some steel, cables and other supplies in Singapore, but they were for fabrication not cargo.

Once they were located in the area of open ocean in which they intended to loiter, well away from busy trade routes, one team would start to work on modifying the ship to run on fusion power. They could make the changeover when weather conditions were safe enough to allow them to drift for a short period. A second team would go to work on the front hatch, modifying it as a landing pad.

If the design his ship builder, Dave, supplied him tested well, then they could arrange to procure more steel and progressively convert three more hatches to landing pads. The only part of the design that Jeff had any question about was the arresting gear. The shuttle had to land centered within two meters, and the guidance had to position it not only on the hatch, but radially within twenty degrees.

The landing jacks extended almost three meters from the edge of the shuttle. An over- cap with three openings to the hatch face had to be hit accurately with all three landing jack pads. It then rotated to entrap them and lock them down. Raised retaining lips rotated into place over the pads on the ends of the landing jacks and moved the whole shuttle . The hydraulics were strong enough to slide the pads across the hatch, under the whole weight of the vessel, until they were pinned against backstops. Once they were fully trapped there were coarse serrations on both pad and arresting gear to prevented them from moving radially if there were heavy seas. The whole structure would take about twenty seconds to rotate to the locked position.

Li had warned him there was a phenomena known as rogue waves that might still topple a shuttle if one hit the vessel from the side. Topple it or damage it so badly it wouldn't matter if the landing jacks were still held. They would avoid the known areas where such giant waves were documented, but they also needed to subscribe to a commercial radar survey which watched for known patterns that sometimes predicted those waves and warned subscribers of their likely creation. It was only about 70% accurate, with false positives. But such a catastrophic event was well worth guarding against even at those odds. If such a rare event did happen it was the duty of the pilot to turn the ship stern to the wave. The tall superstructure at the rear was sufficient to break most such a waves in any ship made in the last twenty years, and should shield any shuttle on their deck.

There were all sorts of things they could do to customize the ship to be more efficient for their tasks. Modifying it to load and unload freighters transferring cargo to them was a big item, since it was designed to transfer things at dock. But he intended to start making money with it right away, not get carried away with being a perfectionist.

* * *

April scanned down the list of shows and articles her bots retrieved from Earth sources. She hadn't checked them in a couple days. Over time she'd edited the bots until they did a pretty good job of discarding things like documentaries that mentioned specific dates. Fiction was also a waste of her time usually, although a lot of anti-spacer propaganda was presented as fiction. Still, it didn't often tell her anything new.

She almost didn't examine one story, until she saw the key word count was just off scale. Looking at the title was usually sufficient to delete a good two thirds of the bot's other catches. On rare occasion she read the first paragraph or watched the first couple minutes of a video on fast forward before deleting it.

This wasn't fiction, it was a public channel on health issues. British supposedly, but sent to a lot of English speaking markets including India and North America. The 'expert' being interviewed was dressed in a white lab coat, and a very expensive tie, which would establish his credentials with most of his viewers. They refrained from overdoing his image with an obsolete stethoscope. For the deeper thinkers they went to the trouble of saying he was a molecular biologist, but said nothing about his career history except that he was a researcher associated with a Scottish hospital.

He was seated behind an improbably neat desk, which was another authority conferring image, and the man interviewing him was seated in a shell chair that pivoted. April found it distracting that he moved it back and forth. He had on a proper suit and tie, and had his legs crossed at the knee displaying a shiny hard leather lace up shoe only an Earthie would wear. They were both turned to the camera a little so they had to turn their heads toward each other.

April glanced at the text generated from voice recognition. It had quite a few more error marks than she was used to seeing. She went back to the video at the beginning and found out why the program struggled so, the man had a strong local accent. In fact it was so thick she went back to the text, even with the odd error it was necessary to ignore. She scrolled past the first few minutes of pleasantries and establishing his credentials, until they started saying something of substance as far as her interest.

"So, Dr. Carson, you were called as an expert witness for the crown because you understand the underlying basis of these so called life extension therapies?" the interviewer asked.

"Yes, I'm not a therapist, John. I deal with the numbers on a much more abstract level. I can look at a lab report and tell you much more about a fellow than staring at him all day sitting in his skivvies on an examination table. Appearances deceive and doctors sometimes fall into false conclusions and popular memes, just like lay people. Last century we had a hard time knocking the silly idea from doctor's heads that a 'glowing' tan was a sign of health. It's really a warning marker for skin cancer and when you see one it's time to ask where they got it, to see if they've been exposed to tropical disease and all sorts of nasty things associated with impoverished third worlders like TB and parasites."

"Mine was picked up golfing in Spain," John said, "looking at the back of his hand a little embarrassed like he'd never seen it before.

"And I assume you have the good sense to keep up the prophylactics that suppress Melanoma," Dr. Carson said. "The thing is, if I were looking for markers for that, or any number of problems it wouldn't be apparent to me if you'd had life extension therapy or not. A person so modified doesn't suddenly display an amazing spectrum of vibrant health. They are still subject to infection, injury and if they lose a finger or a hand to amputation they still have to have the same treatments to stimulate growth."

"But they do look younger don't they?" the newsman asked.

"Yes, which is all that matters to some vain people," Carson said disapprovingly. "I have no idea if the treatments do any damage to your mental health when applied to older persons. They may escape the sort of catastrophic side effects that the Germans saddled some of their young folks with trying to create prodigies. Many of those youngsters are now in mental hospitals as adults."

"Yes, the 'Wiz Kids'. John agreed. "That was pretty well documented at the time."

"I'm not a psychologist," Dr. Carson disclaimed, "but it must be hard to assess if an adult has an alteration in his personality from LET, since they have to be well outside the norm and a risk taker of questionable judgment, to seek this therapy as an adult."

"Kiss my butt, Doctor," April muttered at the screen.

"Indeed, that was the whole question of the case at law in which I consulted. If it was within the reasonable freedom of choice for our subjects to seek such therapy. Not that we'd offer it here," he said a bit indignantly. "But people travel to Italy and the Balkans, Laos and Japan. They have different standards for medical procedures, or China even, where I'm not sure they believe in any standards except that they'll take your money. Should we admit such people back into our county, and resume responsibility for their health in our own care system, in their now altered state?"

"Well, we know the court decided no," the newsman said. "I wonder though, doesn't the fact they look younger reflect that they are healthier in some way?"

"Bah! It's a scam," Dr. Carson said. "Those terrible gene modified pets they made, the PermaPups, and the others, the kittens that never matured. Does anybody think they were healthier for looking young? They looked young right up until a couple days before they died, then..." he made a graphic flopping motion with his hand.

"The truth is we have no solid evidence that these so called life extensions actually extend life," Carson insisted. "It's all theory and supposition and you are betting your health now against a possible longer life. Nobody is going to know if there is any increased life span until we see these people reach their eighties, nineties and see how many survive, and what the tradeoffs will be. Will they have more or less dementia? Will they still look pretty good and just suddenly die one day? We don't know. The biggest thing that people falsely think is that it's rejuvenation. Even the advocates of it don't say that, but if people have this false expectation we don't see it corrected either. I think the court came to entirely the correct decision to protect the public and our limited care capacity."

The rest of it was pretty much repetition. She cut the critical block out of the video to share with a few close friends. It was good to see how the Earth governments were suppressing the treatments. It amazed April that it worked. Nobody ever mentioned that when all the data on how her generation benefited or not from LET was gathered, one thing was certain. None of the people who didn't try it would be alive to benefit from that knowledge.

The other very amusing thing was that April had seen lots people with and without Life Extension Therapy, and witnessed them making the transition. She could tell from a quick look at someone's face if they'd had the full range of genetic modifications done past their twenties. The wrinkles and sags of middle age might be moderated, and somebody in their sixties might look like a healthy forty at best, but they never looked like a kid again. The newsman John was heavily gene mod at a glance, and a flaming hypocrite.

* * *

As soon as Kurt unbelted and stepped down from the open hopper, Monsieur Poincaré was waiting for him, said, "No need to go in and unsuit first. The site to show you is very close and then you won't have to put your suit on again until you go home tomorrow. I'll drop Miss Wrigley at the lock and she'll be assigned quarters next to yours and join you for breakfast."

They hadn't actually discussed this. In fact they hadn't spoken much at all on the flight. But Kurt was uncomfortable letting them be separated. He had noticed Deloris was armed, with a large holster on the outside of her suit, something he hadn't seen as often on the moon as on Home. That gave him an idea to raise an objection. He spoke up and hoped she wouldn't contradict him.

"Deloris is my pilot and security. She'd be remiss to leave me unescorted," Kurt insisted.

Poincaré nodded, but hesitated to speak. Likely it took him a second to adjust to the idea before he trusted himself to reply. "Ah, very well then, I'll call and dismiss her escort waiting at the lock. Fortunately we have extra seating in the jitney," he said, and invited them to the vehicle on which he'd arrived. It looked like a stretch golf cart with fat tires and an extra large sun shade.

Poincaré had a driver who remained seated and didn't speak with him. If he called he did so privately and on a different channel than he shared with them. The jitney, as he styled it, had six seats, all sized and comfortable for vacuum suits and room for luggage and gear.

In the shade Kurt cleared his faceplate to transparency and looked away from Poincaré toward Deloris. She too had her faceplate set clear. Kurt assumed she would know helmet talk and with a quick series of twitches and winks said: Thanks for going along with that.

Her face was turned to Poincaré and she couldn't reply in kind. Kurt had no idea if the French had the same sort of facial sign language, but even if they didn't or it was quite different she didn't want to be seen communicating around their host. She had a perfect poker face, not even tracking his facial movements with her eyes. Kurt was impressed with her control.

"Would you turn your suit radios down to minimum power please?" Poincaré requested. "The com sats can pick them up easily otherwise and I'd like to be able to speak freely."

"Sure, mine goes down to a tenth watt," Kurt volunteered. "Does that look good now?" he asked, inviting the man to check his field strength.

"Yes, Poincaré agreed, and when Deloris said, "Radio check, radio check," he nodded again. "The satellite com network was originally put up by the North Americans, so it was a reasonable concern. They might be able to eavesdrop on the common suit frequencies."

The jitney turned away from the buildings and crossed a surprisingly large landing field with several small craft and a full sized shuttle parked well away from each other. The sun was near straight overhead and Kurt wasn't sure of his directions anymore. They came to the edge of the paved field with only the barren moonscape between them and the near horizon. There was a small pad designated for ground vehicles to one side at the end of the marked lane they had been following, but they ran off the end onto the regolith. It was obvious from the tracks fanning out from the road end that others had been this way regularly.

They hadn't gone far before a bump in the distance resolved itself as something other than a large rock. There was a dark band to be seen all around the bottom, which revealed itself as the shaded area under a canopy. The one side had the cover brought down to the regolith at a gradual angle to it wouldn't cast a shadow for satellite cameras. It was slightly past full lunar so things clicked in Kurt's head and he was oriented again. The direction they were facing was roughly towards Armstrong and Central was off beyond and a bit to his right. The jitney pulled in under the canopy high end with plenty of clearance.

The canopy was large, perhaps three times as long as the wreck it covered, but they needed room to park the jitney hidden under it, and there was a big streak of melted regolith behind the wreck that would stand out like a sore thumb from above. Poincaré kept quiet and let them look at the wreck a bit.

"I see a drive wheel at the back and tracks in the regolith behind it in the blast shadow. I assume the raised lumps along each side are the big drive train components that didn't melt easily. The two bigger lumps must be the electric drive motors for each track." The middle was mostly gone. That wasn't surprising. If it was a North American rover, as he suspected, they had an aluminum body which Central people referred to derisively as 'beer cans'. Kurt could see now that the smear behind the vehicle wasn't just fused regolith, it was also mixed with the melted remains of the rover.

"Are you showing us this as a warning that you have a new weapons system?" Kurt asked. "I know My L...I know that Sovereign Anderson has indirect fire weapons and missiles, but to my knowledge she doesn't have the kind of heavy beam weapon that could do this sort of damage."

Kurt didn't expect him to laugh, although it was a strained sort of uncomfortable laugh.

"You sold us this weapon," Poincaré insisted. "The rover here showed up from Armstrong the day after we brought the tunnel boring machine back from central. It was in two sections and we placed it on the field with the ship crane and joined it up. Not too difficult an operation since it was designed to be split like that, with joints and connectors near the middle from the start."

Kurt nodded, because he'd worked with the machines.

"The field controllers saw the rover approaching and demanded it stop a couple kilometers short and allow an inspection. We'd heard there was chaos at Armstrong and worried the trouble was coming here. Worried it was armed people or even that it might be a bomb. They ignored us, didn't respond to the radio at all. The tunnel machine was assembled and ready to crawl over and go down the elevator. When the operator heard the controllers trying to stop the rover, and getting panicky about it, he took the machine over to the edge of the pavement instead and looked for it.

"When the rover was about a kilometer out he painted it with the alignment laser and jockeyed the machine around on the tracks to get it pointed right. The rover was coming almost straight at him so that wasn't such a difficult thing. You can adjust the outer ring of rock crackers, the big lasers, in or out a couple degrees to make the cut tight or loose. He turned them all the way in to focus it as much as possible and turned it on full power for about thirty seconds." Poincaré sighed. "Three or four seconds would have been entirely sufficient for a thin hulled aluminum rover."

"If he'd been shooting at him driving past at an angle he might have missed," Kurt guessed. "He'd have to lead him and get everything lined up without any significant elevation or depression and let him drive into his aim point. I've seen those machines moving and they only go at a slow walk. They don't turn easily or smoothly sitting in one place."

"Yes, well a lot of us are conflicted whether the operator is a mad man or a hero," Poincaré admitted. " We don't need this complication right when we are finessing a peaceful withdrawal from being dominated by France. It's always something. We neither want to be seen as doing something war-like immediately upon being granted our independence, not do we wish to involve Central as a supplier. You know how Earth propaganda works. The USNA news machine will read our statement that it was a tunnel boring machine with a droll look and a wink at best. If they see conflict to their advantage they'll be screaming all sorts of nonsense that it's a mysterious lunar death ray."

"I'll relay this to Sovereign Anderson," Kurt promised, "with pix to show what happened. The idiot might not have known how to use the radio properly, you know. It could have been one of the Earthies they wiped out trying to get away. If so it's amazing he made it this far without wrecking the damn thing. I got trained on rover driving recently and it's not nearly as easy as it looks. One of the favorite tricks for new rover drivers is to hang it up on a rock wedged under the undercarriage. It's hard to judge their size in lunar lighting, with the absence of the normal visual clues an Earth person expects. The more so the faster you try to go."

"Thank you, walk around and get shots from other angles if you wish," Poincaré invited. "Do you have any suggestions how to approach the North Americans on this?"

"I was told quite sternly I was to be an observer here," Kurt insisted, "and I have no authority to speak for Heather as a subject or peer. I'm simply a hired man who had a loose enough schedule to come collect data for them."

Poincaré nodded acknowledgment, looking very unhappy, and biting his lip.

"May I make an observation here entirely on my own? Just one fellow spacer to another and you can take what you want from it or simply ignore it." Kurt offered.

Poincaré made a gesture of flipping both hands out in resignation, because you can't really shrug in a moon suit. You can, but it doesn't show well. "What can it possibly hurt? I'm short of good ideas. Everyone here seems afraid to suggest anything lest it go bad and the stink attach to them. Please, speak your mind freely."

"I just returned from a couple months on Earth. Things in North America were...chaotic. It was a bad choice going back, bad timing at the very least. I thought I'd be of help to my family, but that didn't work out. The south, not Mexico but the old south of the USA, the rural areas particularly, have always been a bit rough and they can be as insular as any other region that has its own customs. Now they're getting a lot of people streaming in as refugees. The politicians will have a fit if you call them that, but it's the truth. Some of them have no respect for the locals. That's fine up to a point. They will call the law and the authorities will do what they can when they are able. But if they push down your fences, steal your livestock and bother your women, no southerner is going to sit on his hands waiting for the Sheriff to come tomorrow when things have gotten to that point." Kurt hesitated and looked at him for some sign he was following the narrative.

Poincaré made a stiff little nod to go on.

"So the good old boys, rough fellows, have a saying: "Shoot, shovel and shut up." I can't see how calling Armstrong and reporting this can bring you anything but trouble. They have enough on their plate that I doubt they are concerned with what happened to one rover fleeing their revolution. If they were at all concerned with it they'd have been in pursuit. If it were something else they'd be asking. Now, I've heard that confession is good for the soul, but I've honestly never experienced that myself. It mostly seems to attract trouble for me. With a little luck, if there's no rover sitting here with USNA marking on it, they may never ask what happened to it," Kurt suggested.

"That does have the merit of simplicity," Poincaré agreed. "You mean it literally?"

"Yep. Shucks...you're a third done. It's shot for damn sure. Get a back hoe or a small dozer in here and scoop a trench. It doesn't look like you could have any organic remains to worry about. Push the junk in the hole and cover it over. Pull the canopy down when the satellite coverage is thin and run a couple rovers all around here and along his old track to cover up the distinctive tread marks, and don't forget the last part, that's critical...shut up."

"That seems pragmatic to me. I'm going to suggest that course to my peers. I won't credit you but will assume full responsibility for the operation," Poincaré said.

"No credit needed," Kurt said, "and no blame accepted."

"Indeed. If it goes sour my colleagues will blame me no matter the source, so no benefit to be had in giving them multiple targets. I do thank you however. I shall remember you were of help."

"Damn right! You owe me one," Kurt agreed.

At Poincaré quizzical look Deloris spoke up. "A colloquial expression. An eventual favor owed."

Poincaré nodded and agreed. "Indeed, it shall be carried on my books."

Later at dinner Kurt spoke pretty freely to Deloris, he didn't really care by that point if they had the dining room bugged. They briefly compared notes on how they arrived on the moon. She didn't get too explicit about how close she was to her two partners, but Kurt quickly decided there wasn't any spark of interest in him there. He'd finally grown up enough not to mistake common politeness for being receptive to romance.

"I am glad you stopped them from separating us," Deloris mentioned. "If they wanted to do it now it wouldn't matter. But when we'd just arrived, and seen and spoken to nobody but Poincaré, and not seen for ourselves what the situation was in the public spaces..." she indicated where they were with an encompassing wave. "I didn't want us out of communication. Who knew if we'd need to beat a retreat to the hopper?"

"Yes, I would have had a hard time finding you once separated. I've never been inside here to know my way around, and it's kind of strange," Kurt said. "It reminds me of ISSII where I stopped recently. They tried really hard to make it look like a street, but no street like I ever saw in Mobile, Alabama. The paving here in Marseille is even stranger than ISSII. It doesn't seem very practical to me."

That amused Deloris. "That's supposed to be like cobblestones. It's very European. They went to a great deal of trouble to make it look like an older French town. The street lights are kind of neat too."

"It's wasted effort for me, Kurt admitted. "I get that the lights are supposed to be artistic, but the pavement seems designed to make you think about every step, even in hard boots. It has to be really uncomfortable to walk on in soft moon boots."

"Fortunately, Poincaré seems to have as much authority as he claimed, and we were never at risk."

"Yes, I think it would get sorted out even if we were detained. Heather after all has a reputation. We are here on her business. But better not to let it get to that stage. I'm considering swearing to her if she'll have me," Kurt revealed. "That would be even more protection."

"I didn't know you could ask," Deloris said.

"One can ask anything," Kurt said, wryly. "Her assistant, Dakota, is much more than sworn, the woman is a peer, and has been from very near the start. She may veto my being a sworn subject, and I think Heather would weigh matters and see keeping her happy as more important than my utility."

Deloris raised an eyebrow. "Would it be indelicate to wonder why?"

"Oh...I figured everybody knew."

"That's above my social strata," Deloris admitted, drawing a line with her hand above her eye level. "I've seen Heather a couple times in the cafeteria. It totally amazed me she went through the line and ate the same stuff as us. I'd have expected her to at least have it taken to her private quarters. I'd never presume to go up and chat with her. Besides, there is usually somebody talking to her and another hanging back waiting his turn."

"Yeah, and if you shot both of them and gave her a few moments of peace she'd probably give you an award. Nobody wants to decide anything without her blessing," Kurt said. "I got to know her...We got to know each other, because I had to stand before her justice. You can look it up if you want. All her legal decisions are on the local net."

"Can't you just give me the short version?" Deloris asked.

"I was sitting eating supper and a fellow sat beside me and demanded I spy for North America. Didn't try to recruit me at all, just ordered me and threatened my sister when I refused. I killed him."

Deloris scowled. "Is that why the elastic glove?" She hadn't wanted to ask.

"Yeah, I totally screwed my hand up jamming a fork in him," Kurt said. "It needed surgery and it still isn't healed a hundred percent."

"Oy...

"Heather ruled it justified," Kurt added quickly. "Dakota never met me, though we'd seen each other, and it set her attitude toward me. I can tell she's very leery of me."

Deloris decided she shouldn't dig any deeper. At least not with Kurt himself for a source. "I hope it works out for you. Perhaps you should simply give her some time to get over it," Deloris suggested.

"That's a possibility. I haven't discussed it with anyone else, so I'm short on advice. I won't be able to move back to Home for about a year anyhow, so I do have some time. I wish I'd just called security and turned the man in to them as an outside agent," Kurt admitted, "but I just had this visceral reaction to his threat. It's hard to explain why. He surprised me where I thought I was safe from his kind, and it was fear not anger that drove it. Being dog tired coming off work didn't help either."

Deloris nodded. She could understand that. "One of my partners did a similar thing. We were stressed. The captain was already acting the fool. Then there was a fire aboard with alarms jolting us out of our sleep. Barak couldn't raise the bridge and he went there only to find the captain had abandoned his post to go have an illicit liaison with the XO. He came charging at him and Barak smacked him in the face with his fist. He had similar second thoughts later that he was simply standing in front of the hatch, and the man intended to thrust him aside, not attack him. But at that instant he reacted to it as an attack. It got complicated."

"Striking the Master? Yeah, doesn't get much more complicated than that," Kurt agreed.

"It seems like it's always something. The whole voyage got way too complicated," Deloris said, bitterly. "We launched with a crew of six and came back with three alive."

It was Kurt's turn to look shocked. "I was told we had two fatalities during the entire construction of M3. Both during the original phase when the core was built. Even so, one of those is suspected to have been a suicide. I don't ever intend to sign up for a deep space mission now. I never had any idea they were so dangerous. And they've kept it so quiet," he marveled.

"One of ours was a suicide," Deloris said, "the XO. She even left a note. Basically stating remorse over killing the captain. The voyage wasn't that dangerous. The ship and equipment worked reasonably well. Three petty, stupid people in isolation for a couple months without adult supervision were very dangerous however."

"The third fatality then...was it a love triangle?" Kurt guessed.

Deloris gave a little chuckle of amusement. "No, he died from kicking the snow off his boots."

When Kurt looked bewildered she explained. "The snow off the iceball would stick to his boots and he was constantly stopping and hitting them on the engine pylons sunk in the ice or the hand line posts to knock it off. When he came back in the lock after a shift he'd do a very thorough job of slamming them sideways into the hand rail post because the ice had ammonia and other organics in it, and would smell horrible, like cat piss and bad cheese in the lock. The locking collar for his suit boot was perfectly safe and fine for normal use, but it wasn't designed to take repeated blows to the inside edge of the sole. That side thrust put forces on the flange two hundred and fifty millimeters above it that it was never designed to take. After a few hundred repetitions the flange developed a crack and it propagated. The cold was probably a factor too. When only about a third of the flange was actually holding anything the suit pressure blew it off."

Kurt could picture it. Standing upright the boot coming off would result in the entire suit emptying in less than a second. It would propel him upward like a rocket.

"Whoosh..."

"Exactly," Deloris agreed. "In fact his partner coming off shift with him heard a roaring sound on the radio, looked back out of the lock and he was gone."

"By the time he tried to say anything there was no air in the suit to transmit the sound to the microphone," Kurt realized. "That tells me something else. He'd unclipped his safety line before he was securely in the lock," he said, in heavily accusing tones.

"Yep. He was notorious for that, and ignored his partner reproving him for it, mocked him actually, because he was the supervisor. The captain failed to discipline him for that too."

"I've seen this sort of thing," Kurt said. "Although usually it just resulted in a dinged tool or damaged material, a pinched finger that can be grown back, or maybe a bad bruise. But it almost always takes at least two errors before somebody gets hurt. I count at least six serious safety violations there."

Deloris squinted in thought. "You picked up on one I didn't see."

"The suit had to have run past a hundred hours for him to kick the snow off hundreds of times," Kurt said. "A hundred hours is as long as the best suits are rated before a visual inspection in very low temperatures or other harsh environments. That means it wasn't given a thorough visual inspection and test in over-pressure before being returned to service. Or that boot would have been caught. Either from a visual inspection of the locking flanges or it would have blown off when tested at two or three times the working pressure."

"Ah, I suspect that's because they took longer to position the motors and pin them to the ice than expected. I don't think the planners foresaw using them enough hours to make provision for suit maintenance. I'm not sure anybody aboard was even rated for that job," Deloris admitted.

"Seven errors then," Kurt added. Making a check mark in the air.

Chapter 17

"Thank you for taking a day off with me. Chen said I was displaying symptoms of burnout. So I dumped my work messages on him for a couple days. He more or less told me I don't know how to delegate very well." Jeff could admit that to April. He wouldn't to just anybody. He was slouched on her couch with the wall screen blank, absorbing a very cold pale pilsner.

"Is he just blowing them off until you get back or did you give him authority to settle things?"

"I told him to handle it," Jeff said. "I gave him access to everything but my weapons codes."

April, as well as Heather had those codes. She couldn't fault him retaining those.

"I told Chen that Jon will be calling to arrange for Home Security to buy some of our hunter-killer robots. He wants them for his own department spaces. He knows what our unit cost is and is authorized to negotiate a discount for Security. Jon is still reluctant to allow them in public spaces.

"Also, Chen's been working with Li to arrange our ship platform. No reason he can't continue that without me. I'm conflicted about Australia," Jeff admitted, and paused to think about it. "I and don't know where that's going. I doubt he'll have occasion to deal with that. I'd like to get landing rights but keep getting the run around. When I held a news conference about the North Americans stealing our weapon from orbit pretty much everybody was hostile. They honestly seem to feel that no mere property is worth protecting with lethal force, unless you are a government, then it appears to be OK to shoot people down like a dog if they jay walk or enter a park after hours."

April couldn't help snickering at that.

"There was a journalist who caught my eye because he didn't ask any questions," Jeff related, "but he had that sharp attentive look, quite unlike the others. I arranged a private interview with him. I mean...I wanted him to have an opportunity to interview me in private. I thought he might be more forthcoming with questions away from his peers."

April said nothing, letting him go on or not as he wished.

"It turns out I was interviewing him more than the other way around," Jeff admitted. "I'm not sure it was wise, and I don't know how serious to take his remarks. He intimated he is unhappy in his work and unable to speak honestly, avoiding controversy instead. He said I'm naive and that he used to be like me. I suggested he might be happier to emigrate to Home eventually, and invited him to consider that some time in the future. That seems stupid now, since he was predicting our experiment will fail horribly. He did admit there is a spectrum of opinion about us. So I'm still not sure which way public opinion is weighed there."

"Well you, we, have the ship. If the Australians don't want to grant landing rights we have a work around. I wouldn't give away too much or pay extravagant fees to have another access for Earth markets. We still have Tonga and they seem solid, if limited," April reminded him.

"We do have a resource. My grandparents on my mother's side still live in Australia. They've never been shy to tell me what they think. I've visited there when I was little, and my mom talks to her mom all the time," April said, but cut it off at that and frowned.

"But you don't now?" Jeff asked at the uncomfortable silence.

"It's always something now, I seem to set her off so easily. It's gotten so awkward speaking to her, because I'm weighing every word, and I still manage to upset her. My grandmother that is, my grandfather never says anything much, just pleasant generalities. My grandmother seems to think I'm eight years old and should still be at home under my mother's thumb."

"Your mother did vote against your majority. I remember you telling me that. I take it she hasn't softened?" Jeff asked.

"I'm not certain what her problem is with me," April admitted. "We'll talk once and she'll have news to share and tell me all about her students and things she's done with the lessons. But then the next time she'll be critical and upset about something she read about me in the gossip boards or a friend told her. I told her just not to read those sites, they never have anything good to say about anybody."

"I don't appreciate my father, and how well we get along, like I should sometimes," Jeff said.

"And you have the bonus of a wonderful mother-in-law," April reminded him.

"I do. We don't talk a lot, but it's not because of conflict, like you with your mother or grandmother. We're just both so busy...Do you propose asking your grandparents, maybe just your grandpa to see how their friends and neighbors feel about spacers?"

"Yes. I'll have to think on how to approach them. They have a common com code and my grandmother answers most of the time. There's no way to get my grandpa on com for sure instead of her. It's been long enough since we talked I may call and just try to catch up on social things and then do another call later to ask questions, if the first call goes well enough. But not now."

"No?"

"No, that's business, and you are off today. I think you need to take me to the Fox and Hare for a nice dinner and to look around and see some people. I have a dress, well more of a tunic, that hasn't been seen in public. Do you want to ask anyone along?" April offered.

"It's pretty hard to take you there, when you're an owner and won't be charged. I could take you to the Quiet Retreat, and that way I can pay for it. I'd rather have you all to myself. We can speak freely and come and go when we want."

"The Retreat is too quiet for me. It's taking me if I walk in on your arm. I don't think either one of us is going to worry about the price of dinner. But do you have something suitable to wear so people don't mistake you for my server and try to wave you over to get a drink?"

"I haven't bought anything in ages," Jeff admitted. "I'd bet you've seen every piece I own."

"Then it's good we have some time. I'll take you shopping and you can get something cut to measure and auto-tailored in plenty of time," April insisted. "I'll pick for you."

"Maybe," Jeff agreed. She had a mischievous smile.

* * *

"Are you sure I don't look ridiculous?" Jeff worried. There wasn't a mirror handy but he looked down at himself, uncertain, fussed with the new jacket and tugged the cuffs out.

"Would I set you up to look silly?" April asked.

"Not on purpose."

April suppressed a flash of irritation. It's true she didn't have any credentials as a clothing designer. She tried a different tack. "Would Frank dress you in anything that would not reflect well on his or Cindy's reputations as designers? Or put you out the door in anything less than well crafted?"

That was different. April could see on his face that her second argument spoke to how Jeff thought. He didn't know anything about fashion, he wasn't sure she knew anything about fashion, especially men's fashion, but he'd seen lots of little comments in the local news sites and social boards that made it clear Frank and Cindy had a following of people Jeff respected. He'd take their consensus.

It was true jackets were not a common item of dress wear on Home. Part of that was because it was a fully controlled environment. A word to the house computer would raise or lower the temperature. The few men who did wear them were older and rather conservative. Mr. Muños for example, often wore not just a jacket, but a business suit, though even he skipped the tie. The tie was in danger of being inseparably identified with Earth, which would pretty much kill it even as a future fad.

The jacket wasn't the very structured sort with padded shoulders. Jeff was slim and it enhanced his natural form instead of trying to make him look muscular. April had seen some very fine European suits. Heather's mother had clients who wore that sort of thing. This was softer and much less bulky. The lapels were plain and narrow. There was no button closure, but it hung closed when standing, and the sleeves short enough to show off the fancy shirt cuffs.

The very plain deep chocolate brown jacket served to frame a very busy shirt with brighter tones of tan to bronze in geometric patterns and solid color lining on the cuffs and collar showing. The jacket fabric looked plain at a glance but when he moved there were tiny flashes of light. Not as gaudy as a sequined garment, but certainly not boring.

The pants were dead black, but had a stripe down the side of the leg with the same sparkly points of light. Jeff drew the line at hard shoes, buying a pair of soft Moon boots in flat black. The whole outfit worked very well with his coppery Indian skin.

April considered the overall effect critically and went to look through her things. Her brother had left her a few things as an inheritance. A beautiful Hermes silk tie nobody she knew would wear. A pair of earrings that were definitely not Jeff's style, and a gold anchor chain she sometimes wore herself. But tonight she draped it around Jeff's neck.

"There, it's a loan not a gift. I'm attached to it."

"Really?" he asked, fingering it. "It must be a hundred grams."

"About half again that, most anchor chains are made hollow, but this one is solid. And yes, you never wear jewelry, but it's yellow gold, and it goes with the outfit perfectly without being too much. It would be way too much bling for a t-shirt and jeans, but not this."

"I put myself in your hands," Jeff said. "Except the stupid shoes."

* * *

"Would you like to have a snack or get coffee?" Kurt asked his pilot back at Armstrong.

"I'm still full from New Marseille," Deloris said. "Those heavy sauces stick with you. But I bought two bottles of cognac there to bring back and sell. Maybe I can sell one and we can go back to our apartment and crack the other one open," she suggested.

That surprised Kurt. He'd been really enjoying talking and trading stories with her, but had dismissed the possibility of any romantic interest hours ago. He just didn't see it in her face or body language at all, but this invitation said otherwise..."You said you have partners. They won't mind a sudden guest they've never met? We could go to my place," Kurt offered, still off balance from the sudden shift in his perception of her interest.

"You said it's really tiny. Ours is comfortable for three, and I don't expect to see them anyway. Our shifts are so crazy. Last I checked the work schedule Barak won't be back for a half shift and Alice for almost ten hours."

"It would be nice to be able to turn around without bumping something," Kurt nodded agreement.

When they arrived however, Barak was on the lounge with Alice's head on his shoulder. They had an old movie on the wall screen and were sharing a big bowl of popcorn. Barak was in shorts and pink footies, and Alice was wearing a T-shirt suitable for a giant. They were obviously not expecting any company.

"You're off?" Deloris said, surprised. "It's a miracle."

"The boring machine broke down and they said they didn't need me in the way," Barak said.

"I had the opposite," Alice admitted. "Against all odds nothing of mine busted."

"We haven't all three had off at the same time in months," Deloris said.

"I shouldn't butt in then," Kurt said, taking a step back to excuse himself.

"What do you mean? It's going to be a party, and you want to leave?" Deloris asked.

"Oh please stay," Alice said. "Deloris just took you to New Marseille right? We'd love to hear the whole story without her embellishments."

"Just for that I'm not going to tell you about dodging space pirates on the way back," Deloris said.

Kurt looked from Alice to Deloris, uncertain. "Is that good with you?" he asked Barak directly.

Barak regarded him with a somber expression. "I have found things go much smoother if you do-not-argue-with-the-ladies. They have more experience in life than I do, so putting myself in their hands, I have only learned and benefited from their wisdom."

"Well, how can I argue with such an endorsement?" Kurt decided. "Is there more popcorn?"

* * *

"What do you think?" Heather asked, after Dakota saw the condensed video.

"He still scares the snot right out of me," Dakota said. But Heather knew her manner of speaking. She hadn't clipped the end of the statement off abruptly, closing it, so Heather waited.

"But he might be useful to put a little fear in others," Dakota admitted. "I'm sure Monsieur Poincaré is not stupid. He has to realize Kurt would employ the same pragmatic strategy towards him if it should ever become necessary to shoot, shovel and shut up."

"You may be right," Heather decided. "If that causes him to tread a little lighter with us that's not entirely a bad thing," Heather agreed. "Kurt did exactly as instructed and disclaimed any authority, but Poincaré is a politician. He may just take that as a token statement to maintain my deniability."

"You'd never use him as a...mechanic, would you?" Dakota asked darkly.

"Certainly not, but one might have to be careful with a man like this. If you sent him the wrong signals he might do a little volunteer work. I'll be careful of that," Heather promised.

"Yeah...Will no-one rid me of this turbulent priest?" Dakota quoted. "I'm glad you know that's how it can work."

Heather nodded agreement, "And I'm always surprised what a classical education you have."

* * *

The maitre d' Detweiler gave April an appraising glance, but showed a twinge of surprise at Jeff. That satisfied April that she'd done a good job of altering his normally dull appearance. Detweiler was known for his poker face and unflappable demeanor, and she'd gotten through to him.

"A quiet nook along the wall?" Detweiler asked, anticipating her usual custom.

"Not tonight. A small table on the floor near the stage, if you would," she requested.

Detweiler smiled. He understood right away what she was doing. Not often one to put on a show herself, she was showing off Jeff tonight. While she looked nice and had on a new outfit, Detweiler was observant enough to notice she'd avoided any really showy jewelry. Jeff was the one who'd had an obvious transformation. To that end he put them front and center right behind a small table facing the stage, visible to everyone.

After he seated them Detweiler spoke on pocket com to his stage manager. "Rex, when you switch lighting between acts ease the lighting down a bit and catch the couple up front from behind with the edge of the spot please. Yes, Miss Lewis. Her gentleman has a bit of a sparkle in his jacket and I'd like to make it visible. Oh? Sure, if you can peg him with a narrower beam with faded out edges and not make it obvious that would be wonderful. Yes, good, ramp it up slowly."

April tinted her spex enough to spy on the edges of the crowd. They were so far forward that didn't work well, she couldn't turn her head far enough. She turned on the rear looking cameras to examine the crowd, the ladies in particular. She zoomed in and was satisfied a few were looking almost at her, which meant they were looking at Jeff beside her. A few were holding their head at that slight off angle that said they were using their spex to record or transmit. Then she noticed a few of the men were doing the same.

That was fine, her work was obviously paying off. People were either noting him to comment or find out who he was. He might not be anything like a celebrity, but as important as he'd become in Home business, she wanted him to be more recognizable. Seeing him in one context, like on the gossip boards, would lead to other interest. Some of it good, some not, but that couldn't be helped. He was smart. He could learn to deal with that too. Needed to learn to do so.

Jeff leaned close to her, head to head over the menu, and spoke low about what to order. They had drinks already because their server knew what to bring them. Jeff seemed aware how exposed they were here because he'd have never leaned close and spoke so quietly sequestered in a banquette along the wall. April gave him a little nuzzle, nothing obnoxious to do in public, but if she was going to put him on display she didn't want to encourage anyone else to be predacious. Her hand joined his on the menu also. He just smiled at her touch.

There was one stunning woman at the end table near the wing of the stage who was looking at him like he'd do just fine for appetizers, instead of the cocktail olive on a skewer she was making a great show of eating. April wanted to rip her heart out.

The man with her was older, but gene mod and not her father the way he was trying to hang over her. His manner was proprietary, but much more obvious than April's. He was hard to peg. He could be any flavor of Mediterranean or further to the east. She was older than April so she knew the woman wasn't a Home native. She didn't know everybody by sight now that there were so many, but this woman hadn't been around back when she did know everyone. She looked to be plain vanilla Anglo, nothing exotic, so likely North American. Her outfit didn't look European either.

Jeff looked distressed. "That woman near the edge of the stage is glaring at you like a maniac. I think I've seen lesser dentition on an enraged leopard." Jeff glanced at her again and then dropped his voice little further and leaned closer. "Her brows are furrowed and she looks angry, but that smile is friendly not hostile. The two halves of her face don't match. I think she caught me looking at her and turned in her chair and posed. And the man with her looks angry, but at her, not me," he said, confused.

"She's not aware I even exist, she's flirting with you outrageously," April informed him. "So obviously, that her companion is now upset. He's likely feeling cheated, because I can't believe her companionship is anything other than a commercial arrangement. About the only way she could snub him worse would be to get up and try to transfer to our table. Of course that would be a mistake, because at this point I might just shoot her dead halfway here."

Jeff laughed a little and stifled it. That scenario wasn't hard to envision at all. "You mean that look is supposed to be attractive?" he asked.

"Think on it," April invited him. "I'm sure you've seen advertising on the Earth channels where women displayed that same pose and facial expression to sell ground cars or body wash."

Jeff briefly started to turn his head back and then decided against looking again. He looked like he was going to say something and then got that 'somewhere else' look he got when thinking about something really hard. You could just see the process end when it all clicked into place and he came back to this world.

"OK, a lot of things add up better now," he decided. "Why middle aged men buy impractical sports cars, why some really stupid porn my friends couldn't explain works, and the entire plot of some videos suddenly make a lot more sense. She doesn't look attractive," Jeff asserted. "She looks more deranged."

"You have to be trained to see flirting as a signal," April assured him. "It's cultural not hard-wired. We grew up with much smaller groups of mixed age and gender. There were never enough of us to segregate ourselves in groups by age and gender. I'd bet she grew up in North America, attending a secondary school with a couple thousand students. The boys and girls had a long period of isolation in which they only socialized with their own gender. It was encouraged and expected to do so for modesty and to learn to display social norms. The transition at puberty then becomes awkward and you need these signal sets to be assured non-verbally that you are welcome and won't be rejected if you seek a relationship. You can't just ask, because being rejected is devastating.

"That's in western societies where you pick your own companions and mate. It's a little different than other cultures. The politics of equality have damaged that system some, but not destroyed it. It has made some reject ever becoming comfortable with the opposite sex or seeking marriage. Your father's culture arranges marriages so there isn't such a mess of social signals around dating. It's a game where they don't know the rules or how to play without being seen as awkward. The same with other Asians, though less than a couple generations back."

"Oh my God," Jeff suddenly realized. "It's another form of Earth Think."

"Yeah, I guess it is," April agreed. She wasn't about to argue against that. When it came to Earthies.

The singer on stage finished and their server returned to take their order. He wouldn't stand right in front of the stage and converse with them while she was performing, though he'd quietly serve them and fade back away. The couple at the other table also took the opportunity to leave after a very brief exchange of words. The man left looking grim before the singer was all the way off stage and there wasn't any prolonged goodbyes or a parting peck. The woman didn't look at him when he stood up and let him get well ahead before she followed. April was pretty sure their evening had come to an abrupt halt earlier than planned. She wouldn't let it ruin hers.

Normally April was very conservative in what she ordered. She had a minority interest in the club and they refused to present her a bill. She was aware at least one of the other co-owners wasn't so careful, but he had a much bigger stake too. She felt it was taking advantage of the other partners to order lavishly. Indeed she limited how often she came, especially on very busy nights where she might displace a paying customer. Tonight however she was putting on a show featuring Jeff so she ordered the elaborate and showy items for those taking video and reporting to the gossip sites. It was fun to give them an eyeful for a change.

When they returned home she had to restrain herself from going immediately online and searching to see if Jeff had been noticed, and commented upon. It was awkward doing so with her spex, and anyway, Jeff was too smart to let her get away with more than reading a short text before he figured out you were distracted and splitting your attention between him and your spex. April gave it up and decided it had to wait until tomorrow.

* * *

Jeff went off with Gunny the next day to catch an early opening for handball. Later times were reserved weeks ahead, and Jeff's vacation was spur of the moment. April was delighted to be able to look privately to see if her show had been effective.

A couple sites had a still pic of Jeff with a little commentary. Home had a lot of new people coming in so the writer felt it was necessary to explain who Jeff was. That was fine, that's exactly what April wanted, and the new people were a big part of why she wanted to put him out there on display.

There was a mention in What's Happening which April regarded as a much higher level publication than the common gossip sites and private blogs. The woman who posted social things regularly just did so as Clara, but April doubted that was her real name. There were only two Claras with com codes. One was a research scientist who April doubted had time or inclination to write a social column. The other wasn't a native English speaker who would never write as well or use the same word patterns the columnist favored.

A few of the gossip sites mentioned her first and then more as an afterthought that Jeff had upgraded his appearance. One just said he 'cleaned up nicely' which she wasn't sure how to take. Clara on the other hand mentioned him first and guessed correctly that April had taken him in hand. She even said his outfit was by Frank and Cindy, so she must have recognized their work and called to confirm it.

The search showed a lunar site mentioned them dining with supporting pix, and referenced them as friends and peers of the Sovereign. It surprised April that Central now had a population big enough to support a news and social site. They only had a few hundred people. April was pretty sure they hadn't hit a thousand yet. Also it was eye opening to see they had some sort of stringer feeding them Home stories, to that site, even if it was an unpaid hobbyist. It was well written. Would they retain any interest in Home society when they grew bigger themselves? That would be interesting to think about. As far as she knew nobody had opened a private club or restaurant at Central. She'd ask Heather about it next time she could visit.

One gossip site didn't seem to have the usual tacky tone. It said Jeff's look was young and modern without being outlandish. It had a real com code to a Melisa, no last name given, to offer comments or contributions, so April decided to thank the writer. If it went well she'd share where Jeff had the clothing made and see if she could promote him any other way.

The screen opened on a young woman. She made an odd little motion of her head as if it surprised her to see someone. But if you answer a com signal it isn't any surprise to find someone there. There was something else odd but April couldn't put her finger on it...

"Hello Melisa. I'm April Lewis, I read your piece on Jeff Singh at Pertinent Personalities and want to say I was pleased with the overall positive tone. I'm not just Jeff's business partner but a friend, so thank you."

Melisa gave a small smile. "Good! Are you a regular reader?"

"Not really. I don't have the time to read anything social regularly, except maybe What's Happening," April admitted.

Melisa gave a little nod. "I really appreciate any tips and leads. I'm pretty busy with a job and do this as a hobby, but anytime you have something, feel free to leave it to voice mail."

This indifferent attitude wasn't something April expected, and gave her pause. Now Melisa sounded like she wanted to get rid of April. The other thing bothering her clicked finally too...The background behind Melisa looked flat. Even a plain bulkhead in residential cubic had some texture and usually some gradient of lighting or shadow. The woman had the camera set high too. You could barely see the top edge of her shoulder.

When April didn't say anything for a bit Melisa raised her eyebrows and tilted her head back a little.
"Did you have anything for me tonight?" It didn't quite fit the flow of the conversation, if you could call it that. Melisa was just questioning not really contributing. April had a sudden horrible suspicion and flash of anger, because she didn't like being taken for a fool.

"Pibit gerth tibble bin tat!" April said, spewing nonsense gibberish.

Melisa looked concerned – but it was a generic concern that seemed...odd. "I don't know what you mean. If that's a foreign language I don't know it."

"You're a damn AI. And you can tell your mistress I don't have any use for self important people who can't answer their own com, and think it's cute to see how long they can string people along with an Artificial Stupid. You think you are so damn smart and feel superior to fool a few pathetic people. Well I called as a friendly ally and I'm leaving disgusted with you. It's a fool who makes enemies when there is no need!" April stabbed the disconnect so hard she hurt her finger. In the old videos they slammed the telephone receiver down when they hung up mad. That seemed pretty therapeutic to her right now.

The terrible part was she couldn't vent about this. She didn't want Jeff to know she was actively doing PR for him, and Gunny had already heard her lecture about how insulting it was to have people try to pass off an AI on them. He didn't see what the big deal was, and had said so, referring to it as a 'pet peeve'. It was a deep principle to her. Banks, stores and schools might use an AI, but you knew that right when you logged on. That was the difference. They weren't tricksters.

Chapter 18

"We're going to finish, and test one landing pad, before we start on the others. It's not like you have a line of shuttles in orbit waiting to land," Li said.

"No indeed," Jeff agreed. "In fact we'll have to have Dionysus' Chariot test it. She's quite a bit lighter than the dedicated shuttles will be when finished. The first test flight we won't commit any heavy freight either. Just a couple submersibles and the new power plant. But the landing pads will have the same geometry, just not quite the full spread."

Li looked hard at Jeff but didn't say what was on his mind. "The gross loading isn't likely to be a problem. This is Earth and steel is cheap. We are not under the weight constraints of aeronautical engineering. We'll make the cover strong enough to handle multiples of the anticipated load. I'm just glad you got a gearless carrier. We don't have cranes to take down. There wouldn't be much we could use the scrap for either."

"Any problems with the crew understanding what we're trying to do?" Jeff asked. "It isn't like sailing from port to port. I'm sure you had to get new software routines to loiter around a set location out in the middle of the ocean. Have any issues come up about doing that?"

"Ships sometimes have to hold station waiting for a pilot or for docks to come open without anchoring. They can circle or do a racetrack or figure eight. A ship this big will take a long time to turn, moving just enough to have steerage. Once we have the entire drive conversion in place we'll have better thrusters to actually hold the ship oriented without steerage. I'm sure we'll develop certain routines to make landing easier and safer. We may travel with the wind for landing, which is just opposite of what aircraft carriers do."

"Will it be much faster with fusion power?" Jeff asked.

"Not unless you want to spend a fortune on new shafts and props," Li explained. "You'd be better off to add an auxiliary propulsion system. Even there, nothing is going to push this hull very fast. The power requirements go up exponentially, and the start point depends on the width to length ratio. The only way you can get fast boats is to get them up out of the water in plane. Ships like this don't do that. It's not strong enough no matter how much power you had. It would just break."

"Maybe some day...we can design a single landing pad vessel we can move somewhere quickly," Jeff speculated. "If we should need to drop near a particular area."

"Why am I hearing target instead of area?" Li asked.

"I have no idea," Jeff said, trying unsuccessfully to look innocent.

Li gave him a look that said his innocence was suspect, but moved on.

"The other thing that will need adjusted is leave for the crew. Normally a ship like this spends a week or two between ports. A bulk carrier takes five days to a week to load. The ships officers can get some leave, except the ones dealing with supervising the loading. Usually the ordinary seamen don't get off. They are hired from third world countries with lower wages and can't afford a lot of wealthier ports. The security issues have gotten worse all the time and they aren't welcome ashore most countries. There are too many concerns about terrorism and them disappearing into the population. The ship, too, is concerned that once ashore they will never show up again, and you'll have to rehire to replace them in a hurry. It's not uncommon for crew to stay aboard for a full year's contract now. In fact the purser will keep their passports locked in the ship's safe. We aren't interested in hiring crew like that."

"I had no idea their life was so restricted," Jeff said looking alarmed. "I want better quality people, even if it costs more. One horrible incident of theft or sabotage would completely negate any slight savings their lower wages might have afforded. We have political issues too. There are parties who might insert agents or pay crew to spy or cause serious damage."

"Yeah, you'll have to pay more," Li agreed. "We have the same problem on the Tobiuo. In most ports we have people constantly approaching us to hire on. It isn't just third world crew that we avoid. Since the economy went south we have all sorts of fellows who can't document their experience and will lie through their teeth to get aboard at our home port in Italy. You have unemployed young men from all over Europe there who find it easier to exist in the warmer climate. We worry that we could be three days out, have our throats slit in the middle of the night, and the Tobiuo would have new owners."

Jeff felt with one hand under his chin, protectively. "You have some ideas on how to minimize the danger of that happening to us?"

"First of all you are drawing from a different talent pool on large commercial vessels. We tend to be approached by people who have served on private yachts and racers. We're depending on the previous master for a start. We're basically hiring all officers," Li explained. "Some of our positions will have to be named...creatively. We're going to be asking them to do work below their skill level. But given the lack of work to be had and the fact we can pay at or above their previous rates we should be able to fill the positions. The master was Australian and we are limiting our hires to them. Australia came out of the flu better than most and their economy has proved more resilient. We have a bigger pool of good talent that isn't desperate."

"Good, because I'd hate to have to deal with paying them in USNA dollars or EuroMarks. Those banking systems are increasingly hostile to us," Jeff said.

Li was amused. "Oh believe me, these fellows would gladly take their pay in Solars or in kind of Home goods. They'd worry about the conversion themselves and be glad of it. But Australian dollars are sound, we can write contracts in them and be sure it won't shift horribly in a few weeks. But we are going to need a few extra hands so we can give shore leave and have people to cover. The platform will stay out indefinitely so we need a regular schedule for leave. I'm thinking a week every quarter and more for long service."

"Perhaps you should look into how oil drilling platforms work things," Jeff suggested. "That seems closer to the model of what we're going to do."

"The middle administration, yeah, but the legal situation is completely different. A platform attached to the sea bed is under law of the nearest country even if outside the legal limit. We'll be a ship under way all the time. That has to have a different command structure," Li insisted. "You might also consider how you want the vessel renamed. I assume you do not wish to retain a Chinese name. You'll find some are still superstitious about that, but I doubt our Australians will care."

All this is exactly why we need your help," Jeff admitted. "Carry on and let me know when we can drop a test flight. I'm really looking forward to it."

"Thank you. I'll keep sending you updates," Li promised, disconnected, and immediately made a different call over a new concern.

"Chen? Li here. I just got through speaking with Singh. He wasn't totally explicit, but he gave me the impression he wishes to drop on the first landing with new untested equipment. Actually ride it. This is just totally irresponsible for him to risk himself. No way do I want to confront him on it, but if that's what he really meant we have to find some way to dissuade him."

"I'm not sure how to do that," Chen admitted. "I work for him, as do you." he reminded Li.

"He's not the only investor on this venture is he? I know it was his idea, but others have an interest to protect. Leak the possibility to the other investors and they'll have a fit that their golden goose is going to play test pilot," Li suggested.

"Maybe, if I can do it and not get caught, or act like I didn't think it would be any big deal to reveal...Yeah that's the way to do it. He'd believe it was an innocent act easier, because that's how he thinks. He'll put all the blame on the other investors for not being reasonable, by his measure."

"I knew you'd figure out how to handle it," Li said. "Thanks."

* * *

"It's odd you'd be asking me that," April's grandpa said. His face showed real puzzlement too.

"I've no clue why from this end," April said. She hoped he wasn't going to make her guess. There were times when she was much younger that he had delighted playing that silly game with her.

"Your grandma and I were watching the telly just yesterday and they mentioned trade with you guys, with Home, and the moon. Normally I expect them to always have something nasty to say, but they mentioned we buy goods for which there isn't any other source and left it at that. They didn't slip a barb in at the end. It was so different your Gran and I just looked at each other and raised our eyebrows. We're more sensitive to that than others, since we have folks up there, and have had snippy remarks over it from church friends and local business people. But it was different enough that it surprised us."

She found it interesting how he lumped Home and the moon together. "Any softening on Life Extension Therapies?" April asked, hopefully. "That would be a real shocker.

"They'd have to get the preachers to come on board for that. They're still saying it thwarts God's will and the bible says man's lot is three score and ten," Grandpa said.

"Jeff is trying to get landing rights in Australia, but we aren't putting all our eggs in one basket. We still have Tonga and can land in the ocean, but now we're getting a ship altered so we can land on it. So we wondered what public sentiment is like now."

"Bah, don't worry about public sentiment," her gramps said. "It will be whatever the talking heads tell the sheep to believe for a week."

That shocked April. She'd never heard her grandpa be so cynical before.

"And I shall tell your grandma that you are concerned about public opinion, and getting landing rights for your business, but I shan't say a word about your young man. She gets all tight lipped and unhappy if he's mentioned," Gramps admitted.

"Is there anything I can do to soften her on that?" April asked. "Does she realize he's really well off? I mean, it's like most rich people, he has all kinds of assets but they aren't necessarily liquid. It's all tied up doing something and as soon as something gets a cash flow we're off to put it to work on something else. Besides, we agreed to pool resources, with a three way split when we declared the revolution and I'm as rich as he is. I don't need his money. With what Bob left me and what I was paid to go down to Earth after the war I probably have more actual cash than Jeff."

"When you declared the revolution?" Gramps asked with a peculiar look.

"Between the three of us. We never said anything publicly, we just gave others a little...nudge," April said. From the look on his face even that was too much to absorb. April felt a pang at his attitude, because she'd never admitted their alliance so frankly to anyone. It was certainly past doing any harm, and obvious to everyone who knew them now, but it hurt to finally say something and have it doubted.

"Your mom and dad have never mentioned that. Come to think of it, they've never said if they had any part in leaving the USNA." He said the last like a question.

"Dad represents Mitsubishi, so he has kept a very low profile to not compromise his ability to speak and act for them. Mom just never seemed very interested in politics, before or after the revolution. He did mention to me recently that Mitsubishi has terminated their North American corporation, so it's a Japanese subsidiary running it again. Apparently they are still happy having a non-Japanese manager. Since he has to deal with mostly ex-North Americans and Europeans that makes sense. He makes a good buffer knowing the different culture.

"Mom...I don't think she approves of any change. She's stayed out of politics, and she voted against my own majority. I'm not sure she wouldn't do the same today," April admitted. That got no reaction at all from her grandpa, so maybe he agreed with her mom. April just hoped he wouldn't back track and ask too specifically what she did in the revolution.

"Yes, but your dad intimated he doesn't want to keep doing it forever," her Grandpa said, ignoring any discussion of her mom or her.

That surprised April. He hadn't been so forthcoming with her. "It's been years," April admitted. "I guess I'd get tired of doing the same thing after awhile. They treat him really well though. The housing allowance alone is generous. But we have a huge labor shortage. He'd have no trouble having a pick of lots of things to do. The more so for his experience."

"He mentioned the moon, but I suppose it's all the same there too?" Gramps asked.

"Oh yeah, they have more work than people too. But the moon is still very much frontier. It isn't very comfortable there. There's hardly any retail business or entertainment. I own land at Central on the moon, but I haven't had the time or money to develop it. I have a long sloping tunnel down and a storage room. You couldn't live there yet," April said.

"Central is where your other friend is now?" Gramps asked.

"Heather, yes. She's the sovereign there," April agreed.

"The Queen?" her grandpa asked, squinting a little. Did he think this all fanciful? Did he think it funny? Maybe just some sort of role-playing game?

"I've heard her called Queen of the Moon," April admitted, "but she's never styled herself that way. The French and the USNA have sites too you know. She doesn't dictate to them."

Her grandpa did look disbelieving, or at least very dubious.

"So are you a subject?" he asked a bit distastefully, "or are you still a citizen of Home?"

"There's no barrier to being both," April assured him. "Heather herself is a citizen of Home and votes in the Assembly. I'm a peer by her word, as is Jeff. She's named about a dozen peers." She wasn't sure at all how being Australian would affect his views on those matters.

"So, you're sworn to her?" he asked. "Monarchies are kind of going out of style."

"No, we didn't have the ceremony," April said. "Though I've seen it."

April had never actually thought about it before, but it made perfect sense.

"We were peers and sworn to each other long before she ever declared her sovereignty. That was something that came up as a bit of an emergency. She'd sold land to people from Armstrong and they were fleeing to Central with USNA forces in pursuit to force them back. The refugees wanted her to intervene, but she was reluctant to engage them without some greater authority than she felt she possessed. Well one of them knelt and offered to swear to her if she'd protect them."

"What does 'engage them' mean?" Her grandpa asked. Skeptically. She was sure of it now.

"She let the refugees go on to Central and waited there. When the USNA rovers came into sight she laid an artillery barrage on them and destroyed them."

Her grandpa looked at her hard and allowed a considerable silence.

"Why haven't I heard anything about this?" he asked.

"You just did," April pointed out. "You told me moments ago how useless the talking heads are on the telly. Would you really expect to hear it from them?"

That produced a flicker of doubt, but April was pretty sure it was all too much for him to believe. And he was the reasonable one she'd made sure to speak with instead of her grandma. She excused herself and disconnected, perhaps a little abruptly, but politely. She was afraid she'd say something unkind. If she'd told the same story to her grandmother she was pretty sure the woman would think a psychological evaluation was in order, because she'd think April delusional. They both had a hard time imagining anything outside their personal experience, or what the telly told them, no matter his disclaimer of talking heads. That didn't include revolution and exploding spaceships, not even in fiction.

Her mom and dad had been trying to get them to come to Home for years. This conversation today convinced April that was a lost cause, and they'd never be persuaded to leave their comfortable familiar surroundings. If her parents wanted to keep pushing that they could, but April resolved never to mention it again. It made her a little sad, they would likely never get Life Extension Therapy, but it wasn't anything she could change.

* * *

"My grandpa indicated the Australians may be softening on the basis of one news report," April told Jeff. "I think that's far too thin a datum upon which to draw any conclusions. His advice was to ignore the broad public opinion and concern ourselves with the government stance. He was unusually blunt in saying the one forms the other, not the reverse. He may have a point, but I'd suggest you hire a news clipping service to watch for negative and positive keywords in Australian stories about space. I did not have a good conversation with him, so I don't want to keep checking back and asking his opinion again."

"I thought you talked to him because you didn't get along as well with your grandmother?"

"You're right. But it still didn't go...great. He scoffed at the news programs he sees, but obviously didn't believe what I told him any better. He even said he would censor what he said to her to exclude the fact I mentioned you. He said she gets an unhappy face when you are mentioned. That upsets me. I hate this attitude I'm a delicate little flower and you, or anybody else, may take advantage of me. I'm grown up damn it!"

"I wouldn't assume you're at the center of this problem," Jeff said. He had this sad look April didn't understand. She just looked at him quizzically.

Jeff sighed, heavily. "You usually teach me social things. But this is an area in which I have more experience. Your grandparents are older and more thoroughly immersed in Earth Think. The Australians are still basically an English culture, not just the language..."

He looked at April but could see she still wasn't making any connection.

"They may have a very hard time accepting you have an Indian boyfriend," he finally said bluntly.

April's mouth was actually hanging open.

"I'm rather dark too," Jeff elaborated, "obviously not black, but not sufficiently white either. I doubt anyone would mistake me for Italian, or call me swarthy. Some folks have told me I look like a full blooded Native American to them, but that's silly, I've seen photos and the shape of my face is all wrong, they're just looking at the superficial color."

"You're beautiful!" April objected. "Coppery, like one of the pennies Jon collects! I can't believe that would matter to anyone."

"It's a pretty common...opinion actually," Jeff said, matter-of-fact. Refusing to even call it a prejudice, or get emotional about it. "They probably look at me and smell curry. You know the English got upset at Kipling for saying, "’E was white, clear white, inside." Of Gunga Din. Then he made it worse by saying he could be a better man than a Englishman. The attitude still lingers.

"Ask Ruby about how she and Easy have been treated trying to vacation on Earth," Jeff said. "You can make people act a certain way with laws, but you can't change how they feel. In honesty, even on Home I occasionally see a certain unguarded look that I recognize. It makes me doubt what feelings certain people harbor on the matter."

"You know, Ruby did tell me a little about that, but it's been years and I haven't thought about it until you made me remember. Of course, they're black, and that was North America."

Jeff just tilted his head, and gave a questioning look, like...So?

"Yeah, same cultural roots," April acknowledged. "I thought maybe they were sternly disapproving that we haven't married. Not that I'd ask you to satisfy what they think proper. But then I'd feel obligated to ask Heather too and that would probably make their heads explode..."

Jeff was laughing so hard it shut April right up.

When he finally ran down to where he could speak, he wiped away the tears and smiled.

"You asking me, instead of the other way around, would be entirely sufficient to make their heads explode," Jeff said, illustrating on his own head with his hands. "Marrying below your class is much worse than your granddaughter merely having an embarrassing boyfriend. That's just a temporary embarrassment. Add in the complexities of our loving Heather, the weird woman from the moon who thinks herself a sovereign, and I can almost guarantee you'll be able to see the flash of their outrage exploding from orbit."

April felt like she should be indignant, but she found herself snickering at Jeff's word picture.

"Very well. I think we've established there will be no pleasing them, so I'll stop worrying about it. If there's always something hidden and unmentionable, we can't have an honest discussion. They have my com number any time they want to call," April decided.

"Don't hold your breath," Jeff advised her. "It's a talk they'll avoid, because it isn't about facts, it's about how they feel, and it's not terribly defensible if you say it out loud. It isn't really acceptable to express those sort of feeling openly down there either, so they get covered up where they still exist."

"This is about how I feel too," April objected. "Are my feelings any less valid than theirs?"

"I'd say how you feel is much kinder," Jeff said. Which was just the right thing to say.

* * *

"We lucked out," Chen informed Li.

"You leaked Singh's intentions and didn't get caught?"

"Better. He casually spilled the beans on himself to a major investor. The guy chewed him out up one side and down the other for being an irresponsible risk taker. I'm relieved. If I did leak it and he found out five years from now he still wouldn't forgive me. Trying to manage your boss is a dangerous hobby. Better in hindsight, and all the relief I felt, to have had this issue out with him honestly.

"Hmm. Perhaps you are right. Although it seems an excessive obsession with honesty."

"Li, keep that up and you won't have to worry about Singh. I won't trust you."

He disconnected to let him think on that a bit.

Chapter 19

"Mr. Singh, I'm Gary Morgan. I'm an executive assistant to the Coordinator of Legislation for the Australian Prosperity Party."

"Good evening Mr. Morgan." Jeff considered his title. The man must be at least four layers down in the structure of a minor party. It didn't seem like this could be too important for them to send him to speak for them. "I don't wish to offend you, but I'm unfamiliar with all the political parties in Australia. So I can't speak intelligently with you on any issues. I'm simply not aware of your party's principles nor membership. With that in mind what can I do for you?"

Morgan waved that away as unimportant. He didn't seem offended. "I understand. There are seventy two political parties in Australia and I'm not fully conversant with the ideals of every one. It only takes five hundred registered members to have a party recognized, and some of them, like the Free Beer Party, have obviously been formed simply to tweak the noses of the major ones, the Liberals and Labor."

"Ah...that's interesting. Our own Assembly accepts spokesmen for certain interest groups, but they only need two hundred members. It's mostly to cut down on unnecessarily long Assembly meetings because they agree to consolidate their proposals and have one spokesman instead of all of them speaking individually. The individual members still vote and can introduce other issues. Indeed they are not forbidden from voting against their own representative if they have internal conflict or some other spox persuades them."

"That's...amazing," Morgan said, looking thoughtful. "How many such groups bother to organize and exist if they have no real power?"

"We are nearing four thousand citizens, and last time I looked there were only three," Jeff admitted. "Of course several have existed and then split over some issue and been unable to gain two hundred members again."

"What sort of issues are represented?" Morgan asked.

"Well, you know how people are...every Assembly has fresh issues raised. It's always something. The one theme that seems persistent is from the Freedom Party. Most of us refer to it as the Moocher Party. They wish any resident to have automatic citizenship and a vote in the Assembly without paying utility and maintenance fees. They come from places where it was acceptable to live on the government dole and air really was free, not to mention a few see water and power as human rights. They mistakenly think Mitsubishi should be the government and supply cubic and utilities free. Except for a hard core of maybe a half dozen people most members withdraw in the first year after they see how things really work. The party recruits very aggressively with new arrivals. If immigration ever slows down they will drop under two hundred and go away."

"Well of course, we all have to pay taxes," Morgan said, shocked.

"Not taxes," Jeff corrected. "Taxes are cheap and voluntary. Mitsubishi is a private company that owns the physical structure of the habitat. A lot of people rent directly from the corporation, and everybody pays a quarterly fee for air, water, power and keeping the public airlocks, dockage and balance systems working. Taxes only pay for internal security, a coordinator and gear for the militia. That's much cheaper. We have a cost sharing arrangement for health care with Mitsubishi. They provide cubic for the clinic and a base level of support, because their construction crew has been a big user. There's a line item every year to support clinic upgrades and maintenance. They keep a couple extra people working above what Mitsubishi would support too.

"People don't usually take long to recognize that if they vote Moocher Party it's basically seizing the infrastructure and privatizing it. Of course hearing people call it the Moocher Party might help them clue up too. First of all, such folks appear to assume we'll just steal the hab from Mitsubishi, and then they don't seem clear on the idea that somebody is going to have to pay for it to be run, and Mitsubishi has done a fine job running it efficiently so far."

"Taxes are voluntary?" Morgan asked.

"Yes. If you want to vote on what gets funded and other matters you agree to pay taxes. If you don't you simply have no say," Jeff explained.

"But they have a right to be represented," Morgan objected, sputtering, "just for...existing and breathing!"

"Nope. They owe Mitsubishi for breathing. Believe me they will collect too. The Assembly will support them on that and eject anybody not paying their bills. That came up the second Assembly already. Security will put them on a shuttle with connections to The Sl...uh, Earth. They can exist for free, as long as they can hold their breath," Jeff joked. Morgan didn't think it was funny.

"I was going to speak to you about your desire to have landing rights for Australia. We have one seat and usually vote with the Liberal Party. The committee that controls such things has a Labor majority, and we thought we might add our voice to help shift the opinion on granting rights, but we could never align with people who would deny the basic necessities of life to people."

"Sorry you feel that way," Jeff said. "Just to clarify. I'd never deny the necessities to anyone, but they do have to pay for them. There are occasional folks who don't have family or didn't act prudently to buy insurance or save, and need a little charity, but charity is voluntary. I won't vote to rob my fellow citizens to create a permanent class of people entitled to live at the expense of others."

"You sir, and I say this for myself not the party, are a monster."

"Well, I doubt that leaves us much to discuss then, so good day to you," Jeff said pleasantly, just to irritate the twit, and disconnected. He wasn't sure upon reviewing the call that he wanted landing rights bad enough to deal with people like Mr. Morgan. He'd never revealed what the Prosperity Party wanted in exchange for their support, before he'd been outraged and offended. Somehow Jeff suspected they weren't going to offer to help simply because the people of Home existed and breathed, so they had a right to land on Australia.

* * *

April wasn't expecting a physical delivery. She got a call on com that Eric Pennington was at her door with a package for her. He was silly about it, insisting on handling their packages personally. She knew for a fact he had several kids working for him to courier packages, and he didn't need to show up personally to maintain a relationship with them. When she objected he just got all formal and said – "It is my pleasure."

She answered the door and found him standing there with a medium sized flat box.

"You could have used the door buzzer," April reminded him, hooking a thumb at the small flat screen beside the hatch.

"I never think of that," Eric said with a shrug. "I buy com service anyway so it all costs the same. This way I can call you from half way back to the elevator, so it saves everybody time."

April couldn't argue with that. She wondered if anybody would bother to have door buzzers in a few years. Except the folks who made them an art form, that played elaborate interactive video, like Heather and Barak's mom, Sylvia.

"You need my hanko?" April asked, eyeing the plain box. It wasn't FedEx or Larkin colors.

"It's from my sister, so you don't need to sign at all, I'm just delivering it as a favor. It isn't even a paid job."

"My, how you've come up in the world, doing philanthropy now," April teased him. "Would it bother you to take a cup of coffee for your trouble? I just started a fresh pot, and you can watch me open it and see what I got."

"I saw it already, because I saw her working on it, but I'd very much like to see you open it. Lindsey would enjoy having that told to her I'm sure," Eric said.

April stood back and waved him in. Eric looked around approvingly and commented. "I see you've gone to a full airlock entry. Sweeeet." he said, drawing it out heartfelt.

"Yeah, there was a newbie who bought cubic on the same corridor and begrudged the room it took. He's from Kuwait and made of money. It was advertised in What's Happening really cheap. I suspect he just told his contractor to get rid of it. So I grabbed it. We didn't even have to disassemble it completely to get it down the corridor so installing it was cheap too. I bet after he's here a year or two and finds out a curtain lock requires annuals and a stranger snooping around your cubic he'll be wanting one again. Then he'll find out what a genuine Mitsubishi lock costs to lift piece by piece. I wouldn't be surprised if he offers to buy it back."

Eric seated himself when she led him to the kitchen table, and he put the package down and slid it over to her side. She got a nice mug, one of the insulated ones and poured him a coffee. He took one of the cream packets she included and stirred it in. April poured her own but sat it well to the side where it couldn't spill while she was opening her package.

"I haven't commissioned Lindsey to do anything in awhile," April remarked as she opened the thin box carefully. "I don't have any place left to hang a big one." Eric said nothing. She was just making small talk, not pumping him.

April expected a drawing. That was after all what Lindsey did. The subject matter was what surprised her. She was sitting with Jeff at the little table in the Fox and Hare. They were very detailed at the center of the drawing in the style Lindsey had made her own. Jeff was looking at her, and Lindsey had caught the mischievous look he got perfectly. She was looking at him, and it made April blush. Was she really that transparent? But Lindsey got the intensity of her feeling right, so she must be. At least to somebody as observant as she.

The singer was in the background and as was her style less detailed, but the colors were still fairly strong. To each side were other tables, although the outside edges faded away to muted colors and a sort of line drawing beyond then. The couple April had seen get angry with each other and leave were still there and Lindsey had that all figured out too. Not that that was so hard. With those sort of people it was always something. The woman wasn't looking at her date, she was looking over at them, and the man looked sullen.

"My goodness, was she there?" April asked of Lindsey.

"No, she had a picture off a gossip site and a video off another. The video wasn't very good, but the still pic of you two on which she based the detail was decent."

"I have no idea what to send her," April said. "We've always worked to a negotiated commission. I've seen her stuff for sale and a piece this size must go for a tenth Solar by now."

"Twice that easily," Eric confirmed, "but please, don't send her anything! It's a gift and she'd be upset to be sent pay. She'd be upset with me for not making that clear."

April looked at it again and marveled. There were even little sparkles in the jacket, how did she do that? She pushed it to the side and cried in her hands.

Eric looked stricken. "Is there anything I can do?" he asked.

"I'm not unhappy," April had to explain. "I'm just too happy to contain it. I'm overwhelmed. This is so nice, and it must have taken hours and hours to do it for me."

"Nah, it's really scary to see, because I can't do it, no matter how many times I see her make it look easy. She'll make a little pencil sketch to the side in about ten minutes and then go straight to the final drawing. She blasted through that in about two hours. If I did it I'd have to label you and Jeff so you'd know which was which."

April wasn't through crying but she was laughing at the same time.

Eric seemed reassured but still a bit dubious. He tossed back the last of his coffee and stood up to go, uncomfortable. "Then I'll tell her you were pleased," he said. Still with a little question in his voice. "She made it just because you're friends," he repeated. "Thank you for the coffee."

"We're friends too," April insisted, feeling he was excluding himself. She came around the table and gave him a hug. He was just short of head high to her shoulder and she had to lean over. He surprised her by putting his arms up around her neck and hugging her back, hard.

"Thank you," he said again and headed for the door. He looked like he might cry, which surprised April. Hadn't he known he was her friend too? Did she have to tell him? Apparently so.

* * *

"There he is," Li called out, and pointed.

Captain Havilland squinted and tried to discern the shuttle in the bright sky. This was the first time he's seen one come in, so Li was at an advantage, besides having the eye sight of a younger man. He moved his head a little side to side, because there were some faint reflection on the inside of the glass house that was their bridge. There was an overhead, and an overhang shading the glass, but almost no obstruction of the view on three sides.

There was a wheel, but more like an automotive steering wheel than the huge wooden affair with spokes that the public still pictures as a ship's wheel. The helm included an instrument panel to rival an aircraft for complexity. There were flat screens and control levers for the throttles. The console extended to each side and had a grab bar on each side of the helm at the back edge. The helm had a seat that could be brought forward to reach the wheel or run back so the helmsman could stand. There were two other seats on each side, set back slightly, and all three had sturdy belts.

It was hot and humid outside and they had no desire to go outside to watch the shuttle come down from the catwalk. It was also a first attempt no matter how confident everyone felt, and the bridge offered substantial protection. Captain Havilland glanced at the limp fabric wind indicator outside, that supplemented instruments on top of the superstructure. He didn't bother the helmsman by leaning over to examine his instruments. They were still running dead on with the slight breeze, almost fast enough to have zero airspeed.

The captain finally was sure he had the shuttle sighted. The point of light was not from ablative action. First it wasn't coming in that fast. It had bled off most of its speed out of sight to the west. The faint spark was the engine at idle, just running enough thrust to keep the atmosphere out of the thrust chamber.

They planned to let the shuttle land on autopilot. The human pilot would just have his hands on the controls, ready to override and lift off it there was any problem.

"Isle of Hawaiki, this is Dionysus' Chariot, Captain William Costa sitting the right seat. We have you sighted and on radar. Still on auto. Three minutes out. Is your deck clear and have I permission to land?" The one screen showed Costa head and shoulders in his acceleration couch. He had on his helmet but the face shield locked up. His eyes were down on the board not the camera. He looked to be about seventeen.

"Deck clear. The grappling gear is powered up and operational," Havilland said. "Bring 'er in."

The faint star had flared while he was speaking and was bright now. It didn't seem to be slowing down much at all. It came down like it was going to bore a hole through the bow of the ship.

Havilland, a veteran, demonstrated his reflexes by grabbing the rail in front of him and bending his knees for the expected impact. He looked ready to go down all the way behind the stout console.

Dionysus' Chariot dropped like a stone and didn't come to a hover until two meters off the hatch. It then dropped and had all three pads on the hatch in another five seconds. The steam from below boiled up and obscured it, but the pilot reported, "Down, at idle, weight on all three pads."

"Locking you down," the helmsman replied, flipping a switch on his board. They might give control of that over to the shuttle later, but for now they still had control from the ship.

"All three pads locked down. You should be secure and safe to shut down," the helmsman said.

Havilland stood back up straight and sucked in a big breath. The roar of exhaust ceased.

"Bloody hell. I've seen missile strikes plunge through the deck lazier than that approach. Fuel's cheap enough to waste a little more and not scare the crap out of us. I find it hard to believe he could react fast enough to goose her back in the air if something happened that last hundred meters!"

"I have to admit that was spectacular," Li said. "Don't forget the pilot is gene mod. He has the best reflexes money can buy. As fast as the best test pilot or world class athlete of twenty years ago."

"I'll stick with big ships," Havilland decided. "It's true you better think ahead a little further, because she won't stop or turn in a hurry, but it's much more leisurely piloting her."

"I've never been on a ship," Bill Costa said on the radio. "I mean a...wet ship. Should I ask permission to come aboard like in old videos?"

"No son, you are already aboard when a smaller vessel is on or in a larger one. Come on out when you feel like it. We have crew waiting to give you a hand and off-load. You realize I was about to throw myself off the rail thinking you were going to bore a hole through the bow?" Havilland asked.

"Shucks, that was the conservative five G approach," Costa insisted. "Ask me to put on a show sometime and I'll drop like a hawk on a rabbit."

"Have you actually ever seen that?" Havilland asked skeptically.

"Sure, I was raised on a Kansas farm," Bill said. "But this is going to be a treat. I've never seen the ocean before. I mean...except from orbit. Shutting down my board now," he informed them.

"Kansas..." Havilland said. "Somehow it's easy to forget most spacers aren't really from out there."

"Oh a few are," Li said. "I've had the pleasure of hosting them on my boat, as will you. They look just the same, mostly. Except for the ones that dress weird and the ones with tattoos. But then they will say something that sounds like English, but you are standing there looking at them blankly because it doesn't make any sense to an Earthie."

Havilland looked at him, a little distressed. "I'm an Earthie?"

"You are, and I still am, even though I've been out there," Li said.

"It's derogatory isn't it?" Havilland demanded.

"Well, it sort of depends on how they say it. It can be near neutral, or pretty snitty. But it's definitely a club for which neither of us have a membership card."

"I don't feel like an Earthie," Havilland protested.

Li shrugged. "It's like having an accent. I never have an accent," he assured Havilland. "It's always the other fellow, isn't it?"

"There's that," Havilland admitted.

* * *

"Assembly tomorrow," April reminded Jeff.

"Are you proposing anything?" he asked.

"I don't plan to. But I'm sure I'll vote on a few issues."

"Well yeah, but I don't know of any big proposals. People seem to have accepted that we'll just be at war with North America if that's what they want, as long as they don't do anything stupid."

"Put that way, I'm not very hopeful, April said.

"Yeah, they haven't done anything stupid since they decided to steal my bomb and take it apart. It's been weeks. That's a pretty good run for them," Jeff admitted.

"Do you know of anybody who wants to force an end to being at war?" April asked.

"No, how can you?" Jeff asked puzzled. "I mean, we could surrender or resume hostilities. How else could you end it? We can ignore it but it takes one party to declare war and two to fight it."

"I don't think they could actually fight North America and be sure of winning without you."

Jeff looked surprised at that, then thoughtful. "I won't be forced into it from our side."

"Yeah, I know," April agreed. "You want to go to the cafeteria? It's been packed the last two times. People had to go home and attend on com who couldn't get in."

"You can make a case for things better there," Jeff said. "If you speak from home you are just a floating head on a screen and you don't have the impact of the audience around you."

"Then we better get there early," April said.

Chapter 20

"I need some riggers for some special high value cargo," shuttle captain Costa said. "These are items not detailed on the manifest. They are crated up about three meters long and have eyelets and take-holds. Each masses near a half metric ton. They need multiple lines on them and they can't be loose on the deck at any time. They have to be secured until they are inside. If that means attaching and removing lines in sequence as they are moved then it will be necessary to do so. If you have someplace to take them into the superstructure rather than down in a hold that's to be preferred."

"What are these items?" Captain Havilland asked. He'd been told they would be bringing security devices and power equipment. But this sounded far too much like they could possibly be munitions, and he worried about bringing them right where all the ships vital systems were concentrated.

"I don't want to say on open com, but they will be held in storage very briefly. Once they are given a final check they will be...removed from the ship," Bill Costa promised.

"We have a very secure purser's locker that was used for high value cargo. It is down a passageway with a flat uninterrupted deck to roll heavy items straight through. There are two serious hatches between the weather deck entry, and the actual vault. It has cameras and alarms, and the bulkheads can't be breached without extensive machinery or explosives. Will that do?" Captain Havilland asked.

"That will do perfectly. Once these two items are removed the rest is high value, but of the normal range. Your new power plant is only about thirty kilograms. Oh...I sort of forgot this is your first shipment. The rest is all packed in sealed boxes, most about six kilo max. They can all be dropped in a net and put on a push cart or hand carried short distances. Mr. Li used to receive them down slides when we unloaded to his ketch, but sitting on her tail like this we can't use that. We do however have a one ton powered gantry that sticks out the open hold a meter and a half."

"Our Chief is at your base with two hands," Havilland informed him. "If you will drop your hook he'll ride up and help you secure the cases to unload."

They watched as the officer casually stuck a toe in the relatively small hook and grabbed the cable one handed. A wave to those above saw him reeled in. It wasn't anything anyone on the bridge would have volunteered to do. The seas were very mild today, but lifting off the deck on the end of a twenty meter cable he had to be a pendulum from the motion. Not to mention the breeze.

"May he have the joy of it," Li said, watching. "It's been a few years since I rode a bosun's chair up the mast. Nothing I've missed," he assured them.

The crates came down, slowly and carefully. Captain Havilland used the bridge binoculars to see the operation in greater detail. He couldn't find fault with it, or they would have quickly heard.

* * *

The tables furthest from the serving area had already been moved and a slight riser of nesting cartons installed as a sort of stage for the Assembly. It simply had a sheet of decking overlay on top such as Housing used to temporarily cover work in the corridor. There was room for three chairs without crowding, and space for Mr. Muños to set a small computer with a com link.

The big flat screen on the wall behind was commandeered to show the video link of anyone speaking to the Assembly via com, should they want to share their face. A few didn't. April had no idea why, perhaps they thought their appearance would prejudice people. She had to admit there were lingering pockets of Earth Think, particularly among the new people still getting integrated.

There was a custom with seating, not a law, nor any published rule, but the prominent business owners and leaders in associations such as the militia sat to each side of the podium. A few of them always arrived early and took possession of these tables. On only a few occasions had April seen new people unaware of the custom get told a table was being held for friends.

April and Jeff had sat at different tables for different Assemblies. The custom didn't have that rigid a structure. But it was always against the same wall as the platform occupied by Muños, their Registrar of Voters, Jon Davis, head of security and the militia, and April's father who was resident manager for Mitsubishi. There were those who had a prominent part in the revolution who would sit there uncontested, but not everyone took the privilege. 'Easy' Dixon who piloted the shuttle that initiated the hostilities of the revolution would have been welcome, but preferred to attend from his home.

The cafeteria lacked the grandeur of an Earthly legislature with a dedicated capitol. There was no physical way to have one that could seat everybody when the Assembly was the whole body of citizens. It was as impossible as the desire one fellow had for a vast park on the habitat. He'd worn down people's patience with him by proposing it over and over each Assembly. Now if he stood to speak most people signaled on com they had heard enough in ten or fifteen seconds. It was just a time waster.

April felt bad for him, because it was to the point now that he'd be cut off before every getting an opportunity to speak if he might have a different proposal or question. But he had brought it upon himself. Last Assembly she had encouraged him to go speak to Heather Anderson, the sovereign of Central, because such a park was much more practical on the moon.

Today, when they walked in Irwin Hall who ran the Private Bank of Home was sitting alone at the second table to the right of the stage. He gave them very subtle come here tilt of his head toward the empty seats. Irwin was low key and very conservative. He even wore a jacket.

Jeff walked April to the table but didn't sit down. "I'm getting coffee, do you want one Irwin?"

Irwin made a passing motion with his hand. "I'm jittery enough," he said, declining.

Jeff didn't ask April. He knew she'd take it and to bring it black. What he did wonder about was why Irwin was nervous? Well...more nervous than usual. By the time he walked back with two mugs April had him deeply engaged in conversation, and having missed the start, he stayed silent. April could get the facts out of him better than Jeff could anyway. He had a tendency to ask too many questions and interrupt someone unburdening themselves. April was a snoop, and long experience had taught her an occasional nod and 'uh huh' often produced more information than direct questioning. Of course it took longer, the flood of speech often seeming more random than demanding just those points one wanted to hear. But it all came out eventually. Jeff just didn't have the patience.

Jeff checked his phone, one ear sort of listening to Irwin ramble on. That was enough to make Irwin stop talking and ask if he had something going on? April briefly looked irritated as she understood just checking his phone was enough to derail Irwin.

"We dropped our first shuttle to the ship we have set up as a landing platform," Jeff informed him.

"It went OK? It's down safely and unloading?" Irwin inquired.

"It is," Jeff assured him. "I really didn't expect any particular problems. The mechanical systems are simple and way over engineered. It landed and the landing platform grappled the landing gear just like it was designed to do. It's a calm clear day with very little in the way of waves. If it had been stormy with high seas we'd have delayed. Now that we've seen it work, we will try it out under worse conditions, but it seemed prudent to not stress the systems by making the very first arrest difficult."

Irwin nodded in approval, his conservative side appreciating that approach. "It will break somewhere, in a storm or such. No help for that."

"What I am more interested in than just the demonstration of the first landing is the cargo. Our platform has been at sea several days, and I'm concerned we might have opposition from others who will not welcome our intrusion into Earth affairs, even if it is off in international waters."

"You think somebody might try to sink it?" Irwin said bluntly.

"That's always a possibility. We are still at war with North America according to their recent denial of the previous surrender and treaty. They could sink it and have every legal justification in the eyes of many people. We aren't very popular in a lot of places. Tonga and Japan would object. France might. Australia I have no confidence at all. They seem to be sending me mixed signals."

"Well, since we bombed the UN off the map there is the matter of a forum. There's no one place to get everybody together and discuss it. I don't mean that critically," Irwin hastened to say. "But I think I interrupted you. How does this cargo relate to your vessel's security? Are you arming it with things like anti-aircraft missiles?"

"That's not a bad idea," Jeff allowed, "eventually. When we get to the point of having defenses in depth. However we can see and defend from above fairly well from orbit. What worries me more is an attack from below. I had to warn off a submarine from our ally down there before. It was a bit of a bluff considering my limited capacity. I want to make sure I'm not bluffing at all next time, so I sent down a couple submersibles."

"Manned?" Irwin asked, clearly surprised.

"No, no not at all. Submersibles as in drones, not submarines. We have neither the design expertise nor funds to build something so grand. I wouldn't have any idea where to recruit crew or how I'd pay them. I think you have to be nuts to climb in one anyway," Jeff said.

"Yeah, well a lot of people feel the same about strapping yourself in a shuttle," Irwin countered.

"Indeed. To the good if it keeps down the immigrants with which we are flooded," Jeff said.

"So...these drones. I assume they are armed?"

"The the second one we designed is. The first is a weapon itself. It would have to sacrifice itself to stop someone, but we already had a lot of the parts contracted and some assembly done when a couple of Dave's boys started asking me why I didn't do this and that after seeing the plans. We ended up making another one with a sort of torpedo. More like a missile since that is the tech we know, but it does the same thing."

"But not as fast, underwater and all," Irwin said.

"Not as slow as you might think," Jeff countered. "We have two separate propulsion technologies each drone will test. If the drone with the launchable weapons is a bust so will the torpedoes be a waste. We're using the same tech on both."

"There's Muños," Irwin said. He did that eye flick inside his spex everybody knew was a time check. They still had ten minutes. "Gotta check something," Irwin said, excusing himself, and tilted his head back so his spex had the relatively blank background of the overhead as a background.

"What was Irwin nervous about?" Jeff asked April. They had a bit of privacy here, and he didn't care if Irwin heard, so he just leaned over and asked quietly.

"He heard somebody is going to ask why we don't get our own currency, like Earth nations do, and is concerned to stop it early and completely. Yeah, I know," April said at his disgusted look. "We got away from Earth, and now every idiot who comes up because it is different, wants to make it the same."

* * *

The one sleek shape, removed from the foam nest in which it lay, was complete. It was not a pointed shape but a tube, the opening large for its diameter of about a meter. It was almost all of circular symmetry except two bumps to hold machinery on the tapered rear, blended very smoothly and gradually into the shape. At the very front it had a rim around the opening that had numerous short thick fins. Certainly too small and stubby to propel it. They looked more like a saw than a propeller.

"What the devil do those do?" Havilland asked pointing. "Grind a hole in the target?"

"We hope that creates cavitation," the tech from Dave's told him. It does what a propeller does when driven too fast, but deliberately. The cavities should persist at speed back past the widest part of the drone, to reduce drag, if we've calculated right."

"And the other?" Havilland asked, pointing with his chin.

"It's supposed to go fast in a sheath of cavitation too," Billy Costa explained. "But instead of mechanical cavitation it uses ultrasonic panels to create them. It didn't used to be practical, because it needs a lot of power, but with a fusion generator that's not a problem. It doesn't run them all the time, just when it sprints."

Havilland looked at the ships machinist Billy had assisting him. He was fastening what looked like a huge spike on the nose of the second drone. "Are you sure that isn't too technical for my man?" he worried. "If we screw it up Singh will have us swimming back to Australia."

"No problem. It's a straight up bolt on job. Simple as anything and the glass steel bolts can't be over torqued by a normal human."

"Looks like a bloody swordfish," Havilland said. "Is that the ultrasonic thingy out on the end? Or is that a weapon to ram into a ship?" There was a slight enlargement at the tip, perhaps as big as a standard beer bottle.

"No the panels are on the body. That is actually to get a sensor group out ahead of where the cavitation would mask the sonar in it. It has separate weapons it releases, unlike the first design. The long point is like those long spikes you see on some aircraft, and for the same reason. They are to reach outside the disturbance envelope the plane itself creates. In theory...it will be able to track a target while moving at speed. If we can find frequencies that the cavitation isn't particularly efficient at generating. It's going to be loud," Billy assured him. "We didn't think of this early enough to make it on the first drone. And that system promises to be a lot louder over a wider range of frequencies. The ultrasonic one can be tuned, within limits."

"How fast are you hoping to push these...things?" Havilland asked.

"Now that is an interesting question. There have been previous super-cavitating weapons, and at least one very small manned vessel of which several copies may have been made. The third Russian Republic had a torpedo that was supposed to do a hundred and fifty knots or so. But all of those used basically a rocket motor, not only for motivation, but to generate the gas envelope. We'll be using vacuum, actual water cavitation without gas, and much easier to turn on and off. And it can run for a much longer time. But if everything goes right I would be disappointed in anything less than two hundred knots," Billy told him.

Havilland looked like he wasn't sure it wasn't a joke. He decided not to ask any more. "We'll have them safely in the water tonight," he promised.

* * *

Muños called the assembly to order in the usual manner. He took a little more time to explain things because there were so many new people. Not only new citizens, but new arrivals observing their first Assembly and deciding whether they wanted to just be a resident or assume the obligation of citizenship. He mentioned the archive of previous Assemblies and encouraged people to examine them.

Robert Lewis had to explain the changes in corporate ownership that Mitsubishi had forced. It got fairly involved and ran near an hour before everybody was satisfied. That led to the fact North America considered itself at war with Home still.

Eduardo Muños cut that discussion short by pointing out nothing had really changed since the last special Assembly, and there was no point in reopening the discussion unless somebody could show there was a significant new point to ponder. Twenty seconds of silence established that there wasn't, and he insisted they move on. People were already weary over the long discussion of corporate ownership.

The proposal about a national currency finally came to the floor, authored by a young man named Patrick. The fellow proposing it seemed to think their own currency was necessary to a public identity. What horrified Jeff was that the fellow proposed to make Solars the official currency. What sort of idiot would bring such a thing to the floor of the assembly without speaking to the man who designed and made those Solars? Irwin spoke against it briefly but dispassionately, calling it unnecessary, and pointing out countries that got along just fine using other countries' currencies as their own.

Jeff let another fellow speak because he didn't want the two bankers speaking back to back. He was an older fellow, Macedonian by origin, and actually helped, recounting how he'd several times been the victim of sudden shifts in currency exchange rates under several different governments, and he wanted the freedom to hold whatever money he wanted.

Meanwhile Jeff leaned over and asked April quietly to find out who this Patrick fellow was bringing the motion. He didn't recognize him.

Jeff stood and was gratified Muños called on him because he had several others.

"Mr. Singh of the Solar Trade Bank," Muños said by way of explanation, to spare the feeling of any who might wonder why he was favored to speak.

"Mr. Muños," Jeff said, giving a respectful nod. "I agree with the previous speakers and would elaborate. We are getting along without a government that dictates every detail of our lives. That's why so many are coming from Earth, and even a few from the other habs. We have exactly five people employed by our taxes, eight if you count the clinic we partially employ. Contrast this with slightly more than half the population in North America being government workers. Closer to sixty percent if you count the contractors they dropped from their statistics recently.

"Once you start down this road it is never turned back. Eventually somebody will decide that since it is the official currency our taxes must be paid in Solars, there goes the freedom that Mr. Bojan said he wanted. He'll have to deal with exchange rates and availability to pay his taxes. Then we'll find the instability so inconvenient we have to have an official rate. The only way to make it stable is to regulate it, so we need a bureaucracy. I assure you any such official controls will quickly be a central bank, setting artificial interest rates and manipulating the markets. Such an organization will quickly be bigger than our entire current body of public servants. They will quickly be deciding budget matters instead of the line by line vote you have now," Jeff predicted.

"Perhaps you are lazy..." Jeff said, and gave a shaming look around at the crowd in the cafeteria. "This is not a little thing. It's a step back towards being slaves like all the Earthies. There's not a country there that has our freedoms, and if we lose them...where will you go?"

"The moon!" somebody called out from the audience.

"Perhaps," Jeff agreed. "Though you know it can't absorb us all in a short time. But I object. Why should we have to flee because we were too stupid to stop the usual incremental progression that seems to be the natural evolution of governments towards tyranny?

"All this leaves out my last reason. The design and the production of Solars, the idea, belongs to the Solar Trade Bank. If anyone tries to make it official in any political sense, we will stop making them. We do not have the services of a patent system. But I will challenge anyone who appropriates them. They are private and our firm have done the work to make them trusted. If you want a currency make your own. Call them Homies, or anything you want, but you won't be permitted to ride on our coattails to get the public to accept them, you can demonstrate they are reliable and gain your own trust."

Jeff made a motion like he was going to sit down, but before he could the young man who had introduced the measure started a slow mocking clap. Every eye in the cafeteria turned to him. By the fifth clap he had everyone's attention.

"Such brave words from a killer of women and children. I don't believe you have the guts to challenge anybody you can't kill by remote control," Patrick said.

April was poking Jeff in the butt with her pad. She had the information on who the man Patrick was and where he was from, but Jeff was ignoring her. It didn't matter anymore.

Understanding dawned on Jeff's face. "You sir, have wasted all our time. This was a ruse from a provocateur. You could have simply spoken to me privately and challenged me without boring all these people with your private quarrel. May I assume you are Patriot Party scum?" Jeff asked.

"I did not credit you with the honor or the nerve to meet me without a public humiliation. But you insult me right there sufficiently to challenge," Patrick said. "I'm one of God's Warriors."

"No matter. All of you fanatics are pretty much the same to us. Shall we just dispense with this waste of the citizen's time or do you insist on bringing it to a vote?"

"As long as you are challenging me, let us just say our duel will decide the matter."

"No, I intend to kill you, but I won't leave Home with this foul legacy if I should die. Mr. Muños will you bring the vote?" Jeff requested.

"On the matter of making the Solar the official Home currency, how do you people say?" Muños said in very abbreviated form. Everybody understood the issue.

The tally only ran to a bit more than six hundred before it timed out with no new votes coming in. They were all against. Nobody wanted to vote yes. Jeff wasn't sure if it was because they really rejected the idea, or if they were afraid a yes vote would bring another challenge after he disposed of Mr. Patrick.

"0700 in the new ring industrial corridor," Jeff said. "Be there on time and I shall put a shot between your eyes," Jeff promised.

"I read this as your challenge," Patrick said. "I have the choice of weapons."

Jon Davis stood with a stormy face, and that was a scary thing to see. "This is ridiculous," he objected. "Mr. Patrick clearly instigated this entire thing. As Jeff said he is a provocateur. I only object because I want to stand second to my friend, Jeffery."

"Let's not quibble over it," Jeff said, dismissively. "I can send Mr. Patrick to hell by any route of his choosing."

"Sweet," Patrick said. "And all by your own filthy rules."

Chapter 21

The first submersible was floating somewhere below. Billy said he'd drop it to a hundred meters and let it just float with the current for a bit while he helped lower the other. He assured them he wouldn't lose it. Both could be controlled by his instruments. Captain Havilland gave him leave to put his controls on the bridge temporarily. The antenna he put out on the catwalk made Havilland suspect this temporary control was done remotely through a geostationary satellite. He had no idea how.

"Very nicely done," Billy said as Havilland's crew eased the second drone into the water. In reality they could have been dropped over the rail and probably survived, but why take the chance of doing some damage? Dave was a manufacturer of spaceships, and it stretched their ability and experience to create something to work in an opposite environment, under pressure instead of vacuum. Dave joked he simply had to build it reversed, but of course it wasn't that simple.

"Before I move either one of them I'm going to test the sonar," Billy said. "First the unit at the end of the spike." He activated that. It was pointed off approximately south.

* * *

Five hundred kilometers north a small USNA submarine was coming toward them, moving dead slow. That meant about three knots, at which speed they were effectively silent. They were in no hurry at all, because their target was station keeping. The captain suspected if they got close enough undetected the mission might change from surveillance to intercept.

The vessel had modern batteries and thermo electric generators with cores heated by radioactive material. The vessel not only had noise absorbing coating on the hull, it had noise deadening surfaces inside. It was carpeted, with shock absorbing tiles under the carpeting. There was not even a cooling fan or air circulating fan with a rotary element in the boat. In extreme silent mode the small crew would not even speak, communicating on screens in text. The chief sensor tech touched his screen to indicate a contact. That showed on the captain's screen and the helmsman's. They both waited for the follow up.

"Sharp very high frequency spike to the south. Could be biological or mechanical, of indefinite origin. Range uncertain, well over a hundred kilometers due to the space of time over which reflected pulses arrived," he typed on a keyboard that didn't even click.

* * *

"Well nothing is in the water ahead of number two. The sonar is very narrow in emissions. It 'sees' about a ten degree cone very well but falls off rapidly on the edges. We got a little noise off bottom reflections, but nothing significant," Bobby said. "Most of this tech is obsolete, at least twenty years old, but that doesn't mean it doesn't work, it's just mature. The fact we have power out the wazoo to waste helps. We bought the specs and even some components from the Swedes and the Argentines."

"Didn't they wonder what use spacers would have for sonar tech?" Havilland asked.

"Europe is still a mess economically from the flu," Billy said. "We offered to pay in gold, but they decided to take their pay in fabrications our shop could do for them. They didn't make our intentions their concern. Neither did we inquire about the purpose of their parts."

"This front sonar lets the drone follow a target. That part of the software is ours, modified from missiles. Too bad there is nothing out there to reflect a signal. It would work off a whale or a surface craft just fine, to maybe a hundred kilometers. But we can run the drone out a ways and use ourselves as a target. The big question is if it will work with the cavitation running? That may take some tuning. We'll scan for a frequency that the cavitation doesn't produce strongly." Seeing Havilland's raised eyebrow he added. "Assuming there is one."

"Now, the panels that produce cavitation are driven by an oscillator. However if they aren't in use they can be used as active sonar by applying a short spike or square wave. We have a lot of power and a lot of panel area, so it helps make up for the fact our software to analyze the return is out of date. We may be able to see big ships and things like sea mounts and islands out to a thousand kilometers." He touched a screen and said, "On its way."

"Sir," the helmsman addressed the Captain, "The engineer asks if one of the drones has collided with the ship. He notes a loud bang that scared, uh, that alarmed them. He sent two crew along to check for leaks or damage."

Havilland looked askance at Billy and got a nod. "No Mr. Goodall, tell him that was a sonar pulse, but he is correct to have a damage team check out all spaces. Anything that loud may have popped a bad weld or plug."

"They may hear other noises," Billy warned.

"Relay that information too," Havilland told his helmsman.

* * *

The captain of the USNA Silverfish sat to the right beside the helmsman. The signals tech sat facing away to the side of them. The weapons officer sat to the left with his back to them, on the helm side.

The signals tech suddenly seemed to levitate in the edge of the captain's vision. He looked over and the man had both hands on his earphones. He slowly relaxed, but didn't take them off. Over the man's shoulder the captain could see an orange spike clear off the top of the screen, slowly scrolling to the left.

"What was that, and are you OK?" his captain put on his screen.

"I'm fine, just really startled, and thank God for good filters or I'd be deaf. I have no idea what that was unless a diver smacked our bare hull with a sledge hammer." That was unlikely at three hundred meters in motion.

"Can they see us?" the captain asked.

"We are nose on to the source. The possibility exists they will miss the return signal if they have fairly old sensors or software. With that kind of power, if they have outrider receivers and modern software, they can probably read the build plate riveted on our hull in the boat yard," the man admitted.

* * *

Billy had four screens set up in a cluster. One showed an overhead map of the ocean with them in the middle. The second showed a tactical map such as a weapons officer would want. Another showed the two superimposed on each other. The third showed a 3D representation of the sea floor with color coding where there were areas that gave no return, such as behind a ridge, or of uncertain validity. Billy was proud they'd spent the funds to buy enough computer power to draw the contours almost real time.

When the drones were operated from orbit the mapping would be integrated with chart data, and deep penetrating radar and lidar. The chart would also build up details from various angles as the ship intended to move around in the same area. Jeff and his partners were reluctant to leave the actual long term operation of the drones aboard the Isle of Hawaiki for security reasons.

The sea floor image expanded from them in a circle, but slowed down as the computer lagged with the data. It was out at two hundred kilometers now and running about a thirty second lag drawing the contours. The detail, of necessity, got fuzzier at a distance. The near ocean floor showed some complex wrinkles and bumps. There was also what might be a shipwreck about sixty kilometers to the west north west of them. The targeting screen showed a couple schools of fish, and then to their delight a surface vessel crossing west to east a hundred ten kilometers south east. The labels on the screen were in English. No need to know Swedish.

"The software says the ship is about our size," Billy said, pointing at the boxed caption on the short dash. It even had its long dimension aligned.

At eleven minutes the tactical sonar screen drew a short arc on the screen like a parentheses, convex side pointed back at them. "What's that?" Havilland asked from his seat. He was too far away to read the text.

"It says possible bow shot of either a sperm whale or a submarine at shy of five hundred kilometers," Billy read off the screen.

"Really?" Havilland asked, laughing. "Male or female," he asked.

"I don't think a nose on view tell us that," Billy joked.

"Well you wanted to move these around anyway. Why don't you run one off a ways, stop, and take a look at it from a different angle," Havilland suggested.

"I want to test the first drone with the mechanical cavitation first, but in the slow mode. It has an electric drive that uses the electrically conductive sea water like a linear electric motor. I'll set it moving toward that target at about four knots. Then I'll try out the second drone. It's not made to be so silent. It will be interesting to hear the difference. Then I'll try them in fast mode."

Havilland gave a nod. He was just making a suggestion, but he was the master at sea. He didn't want the young man to forget that, so he gave his assent.

* * *

Jon and April, Chen and Irwin all jammed into April's living room. Even Tetsuo, more commonly known as Papa-san had arrived looking concerned. Tetsuo bluntly offered to go "Make the fellow disappear," and Chen had nodded a clear agreement to that. They were both ex-spies, well, mostly ex, except they obviously still retained a fairly loose and pragmatic view of disappearing people. The one that bothered him was Jon. He considered Jon a pillar of moral rectitude, and Jon looked thoughtful at the idea rather than outraged. He didn't even want to turn his head and look at April beside him. She was probably checking the charge on her pistol...

"I'm disappointed in you, all of you," Jeff said. None of them bothered to look abashed.

"He's an agent of the government that just rejected their solemn treaty with us," April said. "He basically admitted he was just here to use our own laws and customs to do an assassination under color of law. Crying out loud, they are at war with us still by their own declaration. I should have followed my instincts and burned him down where he stood!"

"You are right," Jon declared, "But it's so hard to weigh all the moral issues and come to a decision on the spot. After thinking it all through you make a good case, but it would look really, really bad to people to do so after such a delay. I applaud your restraint, because you can do something like that and come to regret it, but I have to admit your gut feelings were spot on, this time."

"He's the sort an agent will do in the field as a freebie, just because he's a jackass," Chen said.

"You aren't taking my meaning," Jeff told them all. "I'm hurt nobody has the least shred of confidence in me. I'm faster than him and stronger than him. He's God's Warrior and they are death, literally, on gene mod. More than that I'm smarter than him. You've all been sheltering me from risk for years. Believe it or not, I'm not a helpless little kid!"

"Well, obviously he's not going to pick pistols since you indicated you expected them," Jon said.

"It doesn't matter," Jeff said. "I have never been a wonderful shot with a pistol. That's no great loss. You aren't going to teach me the use of any exotic weapons between now and the morning even if we did know. We have all the Wednesday night sparring sessions that we've done together for unarmed combat and sword," Jeff told Jon. "I doubt he knows about that. I'm glad April has her grandfather's swords, because there is a world of difference between a dummy practice sword and a real weapon. I know what the proper sort feel like. I can't imagine the fellow will show up with bows and arrows or throwing stars. I'd be happy with pipes even, like Dakota had to face."

"We value you," Jon said. "Without you I don't think we would have won our revolution, and without you our future is much more uncertain."

"Thank you, but you can't count on me," Jeff insisted. "I could slip in the shower tomorrow and break my neck. You'd have to carry on."

"Is there anything we can do?" Jon asked.

"Have a medic there, take video, and bring me back to a nice breakfast here afterward. Everybody invited," he said, just to make it clear. He didn't think to ask April if he could invite a crowd to her apartment, and under the circumstances she didn't even think about it.

* * *

"I'm moving the first drone off now," Billy announced. "Might as well send it to meet that target too, but directly at it, not offset like the spiked version." He watched his instruments and was pleased. "I'm at five percent power, making about four and a half knots. I can't pick up a thing on my passive sensors."

"That's stern to us?" Havilland asked. Then he frowned. "Or maybe without props it doesn't matter."

"No, I think that's a good point actually. I'll have it make a slow circle and see if it is noisy from another quarter." Billy did so with a touch of the screen.

"Not a whisper. Let's speed it up until we get something," Billy said.

"There...getting some low frequency noise at almost eight knots," he said, pointing at the bottom of the one screen. "I don't think anybody could hear that unless they are right on top of us."

* * *

Ten minutes later he was proved wrong. "Very low frequency rumble," the sensor tech on the Silverfish reported. "From the south and likely coming our way. Definitely not a current induced noise. Picking up! May be a hydrodynamic drive," he decided. "It has similarities to known drives."

"Are there still any in active military service?" his captain asked.

"Yes, they are still quite usable if you can go slow. This one isn't. In fact he is still accelerating."

'Come west thirty degrees and let's open up some angle on this thing," the captain ordered the helm. "I'd like a range before he is too close and some idea what it is. Increase speed to six knots. They probably can't hear us anyway, but certainly not over their own noise now. We can go to throat mics and earphones."

"Aye," was all the helmsman posted to his screen.

* * *

"I'm going to ease back the speed on the tube drone a bit and let it continue on autopilot. Let's see what the number two unit can do," Billy said. He was enjoying having an audience.

"I understand the hollow drone sucks water through. The other one had the oddest pods hanging off the back, were those the propulsion units?" Havilland asked.

"They are. Three of them, and I know they look odd. I can't tell you much about them, because the fellow who designed them tried to explain them to me and I still don't get why they work better than plain old props. He assures me they do and I have to accept he knows what he's talking about. Dave assured me they worked in a scaled down test. They are steerable and nobody expects them to be very quiet, just efficient and terribly fast."

"I'm no engineer," Havilland admitted up front, "but it's rare you can build something to do everything well. It's usually a balance and compromises."

"Yes Sir," Billy agreed, with a nod. "Starting number two up. Then I'll take her off to the west to see if I can get a look at our target from a better angle. No point in going slow with this one. I'll take her up to ten knots right off."

"That's sweet," Billy said after a few minutes. "She is up to twenty knots on seventeen percent power and no cavitation activated at all. It's going to be fast alright."

"OK. Getting forty three knots before I really hit the drag wall," Billy said after a few minutes.

"That's better than they estimated. Turning west. Let's see what we can do with some cavitation." Billy flipped a switch and activated the ultrasonic panels at low twenty percent power. A mere two tenths of a megawatt.

* * *

"The first vessel has eased back on power but still in motion," the sensor tech reported on the Silverfish. Another source is turning screws. It sounds more like a torpedo but with multiple screws. It's hard to tell how many with the heterodyning. The computer says three or five. I don't believe five. Nobody in their right mind would make it that needlessly complex. The artificial stupid has no common sense."

"Picking up screw counts," he said after a pause. "From Dopplering shift relative to the first screw noises I estimate it is making about forty five knots. Ahhh..."

"Ah what?" the captain asked, sharply.

"The second noise source is moving west the same as us."

That wasn't good. Was it moving to block them? "Is it a ship or a weapon?" the captain demanded.

"It's unlikely to be a ship. It's simply too fast," the rating insisted. "It doesn't match the profile of anything, Chinese or otherwise. You can't test something like this in total secrecy. Somebody would have recorded the sound even if they couldn't connect it to a definite vessel."

"The way they're speeding up and down, turning and maneuvering..." the captain said.

"Yes Sir?"

"They're testing it now," he deduced.

"I concur. That makes sense Sir, but it's the Spacer ship up ahead," he said confused. "They bought a bulk carrier, but had to hire crew," he repeated needlessly. They'd all had the same briefing. "I wouldn't expect them to have any expertise in wet navy matters."

"Apparently they are not as naive as we thought, to plan a large loitering platform with no protection. And they have detection. The one device might have started towards us as a coincidence. But it strains credulity to think they launched a second one which just happens to be on an intercept vector. They saw us with that big ping."

The sensor tech said nothing. The helmsman was frozen like a statue. The captain was thinking, and what he decided might mean their lives.

"Ohhhhh!!!" The sensor tech called out, louder than was prudent. This time he did snatch his earphones off. The captain didn't reprove him. He could hear the rasping horrid noise from the earphones clear over at his seat. It was like the Almighty's own nails drawn down the blackboard of the heavens. It sent a chill up his back and raised the hair on his neck.

"Supercavitating action," he said, without even looking at the computer for confirmation. Nothing else sounded remotely similar. When he did get his wits back and looked it was ugly. "Computer estimates the device has sped up to a hundred twenty knots. It will cut across our heading in under three hours. It..." the nasty buzz from his earphones changed pitch and got louder as Bill doubled the power to the panels. "Correction. The device is accelerating. A hundred forty knots, one sixty, one seventy...stabilizing near one eighty knots."

"Surely that's as fast as it can go," the helmsman said, unbidden. Nobody offered any bets on that, but they looked unhappy.

"You can't track the first object through that noise can you?" the captain asked.

"No Sir. It was headed straight at us on our previous heading. It would eventually pass astern of us if it continues, but I have no way to know if it maneuvers."

"I have no desire to be bracketed by vessels or weapons capable of a hundred eighty knots, and no idea of their weapons' capability and reach. Turn sixty degrees west and bring her up to twenty knots. Make your depth five hundred meters, slowly. Cut speed back to six knots without further orders immediately if the cavitation noises stop."

"Aye Sir," the helmsman said and sounded relieved. There was a slight surge forward as he brought it up to speed smoothly, but he banked perfectly and they couldn't really feel the turn.

The captain typed carefully into his Moniker communication unit. "Target vessel has high powered sonar and has detected us near five hundred kilometer range. Unknown vessel or weapon was launched at our previous position. A second unknown platform with supercavitating propulsion capable of one hundred eighty knots is maneuvering in relation to our altered course. Both platforms display Space systems neutrino emissions."

They'd know that, they had to run filtering to even communicate with the Moniker through their noise, but he tossed it in anyway. "Have turned right angles to primary approach and am withdrawing under cover of their drive noise. In my opinion closer approach will result in our certain destruction. Captain Chaffee, Silverfish."

The cavitation howl stopped and they were pushed forward a bit in their seats as the helm dropped back to six knots. "What the devil are they doing?" Captain Chaffee asked. The sonar pulse rang again like striking a bell.

"If they haven't seen us before they have now," the signals and sensor man, Church, assured them. "We had our round, soft nose to them before, but we're showing them our side now. They had to shut the cavitation down to ping us. I should note that the other platform that was on an intercept course to our initial location has gone silent again. When they stopped to ping us there was a window to listen for it."

The Moniker filled the screen with a new message.

"Orders are unchanged. Withdrawal is contraindicated. Turn to target and approach aggressively. You are confirmed weapons free. REPEAT. You are free to launch on original target or to intercept the new platforms. This Moniker channel will be temporarily dedicated to your tactical board data. Route that feed to Moniker. Confirmed, Admiral Hastings, CICUSNAPACFLT, Hawaii."

"They want us to charge in and suicide to give them data on what the Homies can do," Captain Chaffee said. "They're holding the Moniker channel open for our tactical feed so they see how we buy it. Here's the message," he said, and shared it to the bridge crew.

"I've never seen them hold a Moniker feed open like that," the sensor tech said. "My understand was PACFLT only has one to share around."

Chaffee noticed the man didn't immediately route the feed without his order.

"OK fellows, time for truth," Chaffee said. "Do any of you know if we have a hidden political officer? I thought maybe with only sixteen aboard we might not have one, but I need to know."

"No idea," the sensor tech admitted.

"I suspect the alternate watch helmsman," their own helmsman said. "I don't know, but I got the feeling he was shifty. He pays way too much attention to conversations that don't include him. He's sitting right beside your number two when he has the conn. A political officer wouldn't be much use back in engineering spaces where he wouldn't hear what is happening and why immediately."

"Anybody else?" Chaffee asked, looking around. The other two shook their heads no.

"Mr. Jones," Chaffee told the weapons officer. "I'd like you to get the medial officer and visit the alt-helm at his bunk. I'm releasing an Air-Taser to you," he said, reaching under his station and unlocking a gun safe with his touch. "His privacy shield will open to 7-4-7-2. I'd like him sedated and him, his bunk and locker searched carefully for any weapons. He should be cuffed and put in another bunk. That code will work for all of them if you should need to extract him."

"Yes Sir. I need to know Sir," Jones said very carefully, "in order to carry out my orders should need arise to improvise...What is your ultimate goal?"

"At the moment, I desire not to feel a pistol on the back of my neck if I don't volunteer to kill us all. After that is no longer a worry, we can discuss it," Chaffee offered.

"I hear Australia is lovely this time of year," The sensor tech muttered without seeming to address any particular one of them directly. Chaffee ignored it.

"How much force is authorized if Mr. Hastings does have a pistol secreted?" Jones asked.

"No lethal weapon is authorized aboard. If Mr. Hastings has one he is not only in violation, he is a direct threat to my command. I want him dealt with by anything necessary including lethal force. But I don't have a pistol to offer you, just a Taser. I'd appreciate it if you start with the selector set to less than lethal, but do what you need to," Chaffee ordered. "Best you act quietly and with speed when you open his shield, before he is fully roused."

"Aye, aye, Sir. I'll do my best."

It was quite awhile before Jones returned, long enough to worry them all.

"Sir, I recovered this," Jones said, offering a slim six millimeter pistol in one hand, and two plastic magazines full of caseless charges in the other. "It was inside his personal computer. You can't open the case without tools, but we noticed he had had a monitor cable when no use of a ship's monitor would be permitted. The case pops right open when you insert the cable."

"Ingenious," Chaffee allowed, making sure the pistol was cleared before sticking it in a pocket. "Sixteen crew on this vessel, with him, and he needed sixty rounds for his pistol?" he asked.

"Perhaps the gentleman is a terrible shot," Jones guessed. "May I ask how you wish us to proceed with his confinement, having no brig? The doc says he'll be out for about three hours and useless for another. He has nothing that lasts longer and doesn't advise using it more than three times unless you want him dead."

"If he's dead he's going to stink quickly," the captain said. "There's no port at which we might seek shelter in reasonable cruising range before that would happen. Our freezer is still full and I don't wish to waste stores. Most of it will stink, just a few days later, if we allow it to thaw."

"You could put him overboard," Jones said, practically.

"I've already shut down the Moniker while you were aft, and pulled the cables off it in case the shutdown isn't really a hard stop. They can't track us and I don't want to surface where we might show up on some satellite scan," Chaffee said.

"The five hundred and thirty three millimeter legacy weapons tube still uses a gas expulsion system," Jones said. "You don't have to surface to discard...trash. You can load it up in a bag and blow it out down to about five hundred meters. Past that I know I can still launch a weapon, but I'm not sure about expelling...debris."

"I bet they didn't teach you that in weapons school," the captain said.

"No Sir, that is a bit of legacy training from old school Chiefs," Jones admitted.

"Thank you Mr. Jones. I'll think on all that," Chaffee promised. "Mr. Wallace, take her back twenty degrees south, and bring her up to twenty six knots," he ordered the helmsman. That approximated a course to Australia, and was their fastest speed without telling every passive sonar in this hemisphere where and what they were.

"Aye, Sir!" the helm agreed. The first order that made him happy today.

Chapter 22

"Do you need something to help you sleep?" April asked.

"What, again?" Jeff asked, teasing her.

"I probably won't sleep a wink," April insisted.

"Then you should take a pill," Jeff said, reasonably. "Or use the electric thing."

"Either sometimes leaves me out of sorts the next day."

"Well, I certainly don't need that, do I?" Jeff asked. "Not to be unkind, but what I really need is just a dark room and some quiet. If you want to sit up and worry go ahead, but since you aren't second to me, or third or fourth, you can afford to be tired tomorrow."

"OK, I'm going to go read and make some hot chocolate and be quiet," April promised. "Love you," she said, which she didn't say over and over every day.

"Thank you, I love you too. And stop saying it like you are saying goodbye," Jeff ordered.

April just nodded, not trusting her voice, and left him.

* * *

"I waited until watch change so we could all be present," Chaffee explained. The control room could not contain them all and there were four listening through the open hatch.

"We have committed to mutiny from our command," Chaffee said bluntly. "As soon as I refused an order which was sheer suicide, and disabled com we were all committed. You know nobody from this vessel would ever have their loyalty free from suspicion. The only question now is what are the best circumstances we can find for ourselves.

"Mr. Church, first watch sensor tech, "Captain Chaffee pointed to him, "suggested Australia. They are an English speaking country with tech that doesn't seem under the North America's control. We can hopefully trade the Silverfish for citizenship or at least residency, and probably even a cash settlement or allowance. If any of you are determined to remain sailors they have a navy.

"If we went to any of the Asian countries, the culture is alien and I don't trust them not to repay us with a quiet execution. The South American countries, even Brazil and Argentina don't have the tech capacity to appreciate the Silverfish. They are also intimidated by North America and it would be too easy to find us and terminate us there. Europe...Europe is still a mess right now despite what the news says. They have strange politics and no telling what they'd do with us. They might be horrified at being tossed a hot potato and just hand us back. Any other ideas?" Chaffee invited.

The XO leaning against the bulkhead just inside the door uncrossed his arms and stood again. How about doing a deal with the Homies?" he proposed. "They apparently have a much deeper appreciation of naval architecture and systems than we thought. God only knows, they have enough money to afford to buy us out from what I've heard. If we can get a lift to Home. I have a lot more confidence the USNA will have a harder time reaching me there than Australia."

"I doubt they have the lift capacity to take the Silverfish to Home," Chaffee said.

"No need," the XO, Mr. Carlson said. "We can cut out the Moniker and the code computer, take the advanced weapons out of the launch tubes and that's eighty or ninety percent of the value. If they want to sell the rest off to Australia, they can do so. In fact, I'd suggest it to them."

Chaffee looked stunned. "I admit, I never thought of that. It's an audacious plan. If anyone is totally opposed to going to Home then they could remain with the ship. I'm sure they would welcome experienced hands who know the vessel. Do we have further thoughts on this?" the Captain asked, suddenly much more democratic.

"Sir," said Jones, "my understanding is passage to lift is much harder to buy than a ticket for the down leg. If anyone is displeased with life there after giving it a go, a return to Australia, or anywhere on Earth should be much easier."

"That says a lot about the general consensus," Carlson pointed out. "People on the average don't want to come back. Despite what the talking heads on the telly tell you."

That got a disdainful snort of derision from several there. They might not have been in open rebellion this morning, but they weren't idiots either.

"Show of hands." Chaffee said. "Three choices. Who wants to go to Home?" Twelve hands went up. "Who wants to stick with the Silverfish and go where she is sold off, probably Australia?" Three hands went up. Chaffee was pleased and relieved to see nobody was adamant on a solo course.

"Very well, all we have to do is figure out how to approach the Spacer vessel without getting our butts blown off by them, or our own people, trying to keep us from doing so. Mr. Wallace, bring her about in a wide turn, and approach our initial target. We shall discuss how to do so safely, but there is no reason to keep putting distance between us."

"Aye Sir, but begging your pardon, what was the third option?" the helmsman inquired.

"Why, to join with Mr. Hastings in exiting via the legacy torpedo tube," Chaffee said.

* * *

Somebody was shaking April's shoulder persistently.

"Lemme 'lone," she said closing her eyes tighter.

"Well if you don't want to come along fine," Jeff said. "You can stay here and prep breakfast for us when we come back."

April remembered where Jeff was going and her eyes popped right open. She was still confused to find herself looking at the heathered grey fabric of her couch. She didn't remember going to sleep there.

"I'm up!" she insisted to Jeff's back. He turned around blinking in surprise at the sudden complete reversal. He was dressed in the outfit she'd had made for him recently, the fancy shirt and sparkly jacket.

"Why are you all dressed up?" she demanded.

"Why not?" he countered. "It's a special occasion. It seems every time a person does anything now, good or bad, somebody feels compelled to put the video of it online. Kill or be killed, at least I can do it with a little style. Besides, it's a psychological edge. You keep telling me to consider the social side of things. I think your average Earthie seeing us on the telly would say, "Come look Martha, this ugly thug in the rough clothing is trying to kill the nice young man in the pretty outfit. He must be a celebrity. Is he a singer or vid star or what?" Don't you think?" Jeff asked.

"I think you're nuts, but I like you that way. Just don't get it all ripped and stained or I'll kill you."

"That's the nicest thing you've said about this stupid affair yet," Jeff said, happy.

"Have you had coffee?" April asked. For sure she needed some.

"No, but we're running out of time. You go shower and I'll make the coffee.

Jeff was already sipping his coffee when April came out. He'd expected perhaps she would go with her very sinister black outfit complete with swords and a belt with cases and pistols. Instead she had on a gorgeous off white gown, almost light honey colored with seed pearls sown in designs. She wore her best necklace with canary diamonds and matching earrings.

"It goes with your browns," she said simply.

* * *

"They pinged us again, so they know we turned and are approaching them again. Worse the fast platform, the super cavitating one, is sprinting to get between us as we approach the Spacer ship," their sensor officer informed them.

"Mr. Church, I'd like you to set the active sonar to ping every two minutes at lowest power. We can't hide, and might as well acknowledge it. Perhaps they have somebody smart enough to see it as a white flag. If they have someone really capable of thinking outside their tactical training, they will find a way to respond to that message."

Nothing happened for several minutes and then Mr. Church announced. "I have new cavitation noises. I think it must be the first platform we lost contact with. The bearing is correct. They seem to be running the system through a wide range of power settings and speeds. It has a very different pattern than the other super cavitation system."

"Yes," Chaffee said with conviction, "we interrupted them in their sea trials. We're being tracked and probed with at least two systems they've never used."

"How nice of us to give them a real world problem to test their equipment," Church said.

What was there to say to that? Everybody sat in silence until Church spoke again.

"They seem to have settled on a setting for the device that was just reactivated. I don't have an estimate of its speed yet, but I noticed it seems to have moved slightly on a bearing that would indicate it is also going to cross courses with us."

"Behind us," Captain Chaffee said. "They're going to bracket us. That's what I'd do."

"Active sonar. A new one," Church said. "On exactly the same bearing as the fast super cavitator getting ahead of us. Apparently they have a lower powered sonar that doesn't need their drive shut down to function." After a bit he reported, "Second ping at low power. Exactly two minutes after the first, just like ours." Nobody said anything, the question was too obvious. They all waited with anticipation. Sure enough, at exactly two more minutes there was another ping.

"And we see you too," Captain Chaffee said. "Now if they only had some way to tell us, 'Alright, come on in, we won't shoot.'"

Church scrunched up his eyebrows thinking hard and eventually volunteered his thoughts.

"I'm not sure how I'd do that," he admitted. "But if I wanted to send the opposite message, 'We're just about ready to blow you away.' I'd increase my pings to maybe a fifteen second interval. I think if they should do something like that, with all respect for your command, Sir, we should come to a halt or at least dead slow."

"Sir, we could surface at that point and use the international distress frequencies to call them on the radio," the weapons officer, Jones suggested.

"I'm quite reluctant to do that Mr. Jones. I'm afraid that the loss of the Silverfish, especially with the Moniker system onboard, would be enough reason for our own to take us and them out with a ballistic missile or a hypersonic from Hawaii, and no concern how it looks."

"Yes Sir. I can see that. I'm not sure the Homies would allow that, Sir. And if they did succeed I imagine the launch source would end up looking like a certain Chinese space port."

Chaffee looked surprised. "You think they have an over watch on their ship and intercept capabilities?"

"Above the water is much more their natural element, yet they moved to immediately protect it from submarine threats like us. I can't believe they didn't have that threat covered first. Do you remember the Spacer girl in the news awhile back, who destroyed a Chinese sub near Hawaii?"

"Yes, and PACCOM was upset they could pop up so close to the island undetected," Chaffee remembered. "They were aware of it as soon as it breached, and wasted time talking back and forth, trying to get permission to fire on her. They could have had a missile on it in ninety seconds, instead the Spacers laid a veritable barrage of kinetic weapons on it about four minutes later. It was overkill, and a horrible public relations failure, foreign weapons like fireballs streaking across USNA airspace one after another. The civilians all had time to call each other and run outside to watch it like a fireworks show. But you have to have a very precise location to target with Rods from God sort of weapons. I really doubt they are accurate enough to hit a hypersonic in flight. If it's facing the right way the pilots can actually duck. And a ballistic weapon is an even smaller target."

"Yes, but since they have weapons in the hundreds of megatons range...How close do you have to get to swat something out of the air with that big a boom?" Jones asked.

"Now that is an interesting question, Mr. Jones. I hope we never have to find out. I'd rather not be close enough to write the after action for that scenario."

* * *

Jeff wasn't sure who would be at the duel. Mr. Muños had made clear on previous occasions that he expected to officiate. But every challenge until now had been resolved by one party or the other yielding, or failing to meet, and being expelled by the Assembly.

The old location to call a duel had never seen use. The new location in the third ring was better. The industrial segment of the corridor was wider, the acceleration felt like a standard G, and facing each other so closely in the plane of rotation the ballistics would be effectively like being on Earth.

People had no idea from the challenge what weapons would be offered. Patrick gave not a hint. No matter how wide the corridor or what backstops were positioned, a lot of people would be reluctant to risk the chance of a stray shot catching an innocent bystander. For all they knew the idiot Earthie might pick blunderbusses. Jeff expected several people to take video, but wasn't sure if anybody would stream it to public channels. It seemed a bit tacky to broadcast.

When they came to the elevators there were a half dozen people waiting to go down to the new ring. But when Jeff and April got on and hesitated, waiting for the others to board, they waved them on. He thought about it as they dropped, trying to understand why, and decided it was a respectful gesture.

They were about ten minutes early, cutting it finer than Jeff had planned. There were about thirty people lined up along the side. Someone, probably Mr. Muños, had managed to convince them all to stay to one side. Jeff only recognized about half of them. A few looked like they were beam dogs by their attire. He saw three with video gear, but one surprised him. Adzusa Santos was there with a full professional video rig. He had no idea she was on the hab, and April would certainly have certainly told him if she'd known.

April squeezed his arm and gave him peck on the cheek. She didn't have anything more to say and went over to Adzusa and gave her a hug.

"Mr. Singh," Eduardo Muños, called to him, and motioned him over.

Patrick, or whatever his real name was, was waiting there. He was dressed in heavy trousers with a substantial belt, but a thin sleeveless shirt with no arms. It showed off that he was obviously a serious body builder. His arms were cords of intertwined muscles. He had tattoos, which surprised Jeff. God's Warriors opposed any body modification, not just internal gene mod, but tattoos and piercings. Even pierced ears. But then he probably got them before joining the movement, Jeff decided.

"It is my obligation to ask both parties if an accommodation can be made before blood is spilled," Mr. Muños said.

"Just get on with it old man," Patrick said disrespectfully.

"No. First I'll have my say, then we'll 'Get on with it.'" Muños said evenly. "Should you survive, Mr. Patrick, you will have a day of life, and then tomorrow morning you will meet me here at the same time and place and I'll have the pleasure of killing you for your cheek."

"I have no regard for what you consider your honor," Patrick said, "or your opinion of mine. I intend to leave Home on the first shuttle to anywhere after killing Mr. Singh. Your assembly will not have to expel me. Your death has no value to me and my business here will have been done."

"I see," Muños said icily. "Do you have your choice of weapons?"

"I do." Patrick removed the case under his elbow and opened the lid for Muños. There were two daggers in the felt lined case, points both in the same direction, oddly. Most cases for presentation of knives or pistols placed them facing in opposite directions for a pleasing symmetry. Not entirely utilitarian, the daggers were of fancy Damascus steel, the blades heavily etched to show off the pattern. The guards were minimalist, more to keep one's hand from the blade than to fend off another. The hilts wound with twisted wire like a classic sword, for a good grip.

Muños took the entire case and turned, laying it on the floor, hiding his actions with his back. He picked up the weapons, taking them completely out of the sight of the duelists, so Patrick would have no advantage if they were not equal weapons in every way. Patrick looked very uncomfortable. When Muños turned around he offered Jeff the choice of the two.

Jeff picked the one in Muños left hand. It was a little closer to him. When Muños gave the other to Patrick he observed the oddest thing. Patrick got very still for an instant when Muños thrust his hand out to offer it. Then he took it with an unnatural delicacy for a man accustomed to weapons. His fingers held carefully, like it was glass and he was scared he'd drop it. Jeff examined the man's face, but it showed nothing, except contempt for Jeff.

"You shall both walk each way ten paces at my command," Muños instructed. "Turn and face each other. I shall drop this handkerchief," he said, withdrawing a silk pocket square from his jacket. If you turn or charge before you have reached ten paces or before the handkerchief reaches the deck, it's my responsibility to burn you down before you can engage the other illegally." He drew back his jacket to show his weapon and establish he was prepared to do so.

Jeff couldn't remember if Muños ever showed a weapon conducting the Assembly, but he had to look when Muños said burn instead of shoot. It was a laser pistol of his own manufacture.

"A gentleman of your age, shouldn't you have your pistol in hand if you intend to intervene?" Patrick asked with false delicacy.

"Do you think so?" Muños asked. Suddenly the laser was under the man's chin, rock steady, the pressure of it tilting his head back. It happened so fast it was like a magic trick, the move from belt to chin unseen. He might as well have plucked it from behind Patrick's ear, like a coin whose appearance was a mystery. Jeff suddenly decided Muños had found time to have some deep gene mods.

"Perhaps not," Patrick allowed. If he was rattled he didn't show it. But he had not managed to display the slightest ability to react in time to protect himself. Jeff had to wonder that he didn't learn anything from that. Did the man think he would be slower than Muños? Did he have a fanatical belief in divine intervention? Muños put the pistol back in its holster with exaggerated slowness. For the first time Patrick didn't radiate arrogance, but that was too late and not enough change to matter.

"Turn, gentlemen, and advance your pace by my count." When he was done and at ten he instructed them to face each other. Jeff removed his jacket, retaining it by the collar, and switched the knife to his right hand. He'd accepted it with his left. Patrick considered and switched hands to the opposite. Jeff was surprised he didn't object to the jacket as an unfair advantage. Still, Jeff was examining the dagger carefully, still trying to figure out Patrick's strange behavior. He turned the blade and watched the light play off the pattern and the thin shiny cutting edge. Then he saw it. The very point, for only a few millimeters had a stain. It wasn't quite as shiny as it should be. Nobody maintaining such showy pieces would have failed to wipe them quite clean.

Muños looked from one to another and dropped the red silk to the deck.

Patrick took a step forward confidently, but stopped and looked astonished when Jeff rushed at him headlong. A couple steps into it Jeff hauled back with his arm to throw. There was no subtlety to it and it was telegraphed plainly to Patrick. Jeff had no experience throwing knives. There was no effort to try to make it arrive point forward. He just threw it as hard and as fast as his gene altered muscles and reflexes allowed. Which was very fast indeed.

Patrick unlocked his knees and started to duck under the throw. He was far too slow and only succeeded in lowering his face into the path of the weapon when it would have caught his chest had he stayed still.

He did however manage to get an arm up to fend it off. It bounced off high from his upswept arm, leaving a streak of red showing across his forearm. After almost hitting the overhead, it struck one of the beam dogs who cried out angrily. Jeff had no idea if Patrick even felt the cut. Jeff changed direction and switched his lead foot, cutting across the man as he slashed at Jeff, passing him on the opposite side he expected and sweeping his jacket down to deflect a cut already awkward for being on the wrong side.

They both whirled about, Jeff turning faster but he stopped, facing back, and didn't close on Patrick again. They were almost as far apart now as when they had turned at Muños' command. Patrick never did turn completely to start back at Jeff. He stumbled as he turned, took three steps sideways and then one backward, each slower than the last, off balance like a drunk and fell. He did try to throw his weapon, far too late, falling over backwards and half way to the deck. It landed barely a third of the way back towards Jeff, and hardly slid at all on the nonskid deck covering.

Patrick went into horrid convulsions, his back arching. He looked like he was trying to shake himself apart. Jeff was sick and horrified to see the beam dog who was struck doing the same thing. His partners were trying to help him, except for the fellow who, figuring the situation out quickly, stepped on the blade and held it down covered before anyone could try to pick it up.

Jeff walked over and picked up the dagger between them very carefully, holding the point safely high in the air away from casual contact, before anyone approached him. "I claim this trophy by right of battle," he announced.

Mr. Muños went over, to recover the other, and put it in the case. The beam dog talked to him to make sure he understood the hazard before he'd consent to remove his foot.

"For God's sake be careful with that," Jeff said when Muños offered the open case to collect the second weapon.

"I know," Muños said, fastening the clasps with special care. "Unless you object, I'm going to put a couple turns of tamper-proof tape around this. It scares me as bad as a box of cobras."

"It might be cobra venom for all I know," Jeff pointed out. "Maybe worse. I have no idea what works in seconds like that."

Jeff turned his jacket in his hand to find the front and put it back on. There was a slit down the back most of the way from the collar to the very hem.

"There might be toxin on that," Muños warned. "give it to me and I'll have the medic bag it as biohazard."

Jeff handed it over with exaggerated caution. Holding it away from him. When Muños turned away to do dispose of it Jeff finally turned himself to join his people.

"I hope you don't mind, I've invited Adzusa to come have breakfast with us," April said.

"It's not like we had a private tête-à-tête scheduled," Jeff said. "The more the merrier, but I'm afraid I ruined my good jacket. I'd be scared of it now even dry cleaned and vacuum tumbled."

"That we'll speak about later," April promised. "In private."

Chapter 23

"This is unacceptable," Colonel Norman declared, like the universe trembled at his displeasure. "I want a fast plane, a hypersonic if one is serviced and on call, with a big enough weapon to take out that damned bulk carrier and anything remotely near it, including the Silverfish. Who the devil named that anyway? It sounds like a stinking bug."

"The Secretary of the Navy," his aide said, "back...under the Wiggen administration." One had to be careful how things were phrased. "Under the last elected administration," would be construed as a critical statement. You might as well say under the last legitimate government. "The man probably never saw a silver fish in his life. Be glad some Senator didn't urge him to name it the Cockroach."

"Treat it like one," Norman ordered. "I want it squashed, and I want immediate word when that is accomplished. It's out in the middle of the Pacific, nobody is close enough to argue they're harmed, only a few nations have enough satellite coverage to even know it happened."

And why is that? His aide thought, but refrained from asking the colonel. It took too many mental steps for the boozer to connect the fact the Homies pretty much cleared the sky of sats a couple years back, to the idea they might be irritated and do something nasty if their ship was harmed.

"Yes, Sir, Sending that to Hawaii right now. It's the closest place to launch a weapon," he said. And if they retaliate, they will know it was from there, not anywhere near us, was his other thought.

Unable to connect PACCOM, his screen said, in a red rectangular box. Secure cable does not show response. Civilian pipe also down. The last told him it wasn't a single point error.

"Switch priority cable traffic to an encrypted satellite link." He chose off the message form.

"Ground station Maui does not respond. Uplink tests and confirms. Downlink unable to get station confirmation on ping," the screen said.

"Test secure terrestrial radio link, PACCOM, now." He selected, and waited a few seconds.

"No automated response from far station. San Diego, Seattle and Anchorage all report failure," the system reported.

Crud...It's always something, he thought.

"I'm sorry Sir, I have no com to Hawaii," he said.

"That's impossible," Colonel Norman said.

* * *

It really wasn't a party. April was glad nobody reveled in bloodshed or cracked jokes. Still, the gathering wasn't as somber as a funeral, but it wasn't a celebration. The mood was predominately relief. April called before even heading home and ordered up a big buffet. It might have made more sense, as many as they ended up with in her apartment, to just go to the cafeteria.

Jon was deep in discussion with Chen, Irwin with Tetsu, and Muños came in late with somebody she didn't know in tow and got in a long conversation with Jeff. That was fine with April because it allowed here to drag Adzusa off to one end of a couch and interrogate her over coffee.

"This duel happened too fast for you to have heard about it and come from Earth, so you were here already," April reasoned. "Can you talk about why, or is it a big secret?"

"Not at all. I'm here because Mitsubishi took control of the habitat again," Adzusa said. "It has generated far more interest in Japan than you might think from the news. Of course, nobody is pushing a public debate about it, because it's seen as defying the North Americans. Another time the various political parties would be arguing with each other over this sort of an action. Now, everybody is sort of holding their breath, because the North Americans aren't regarded as very stable. In fact, some privately say they are institutionally insane. Nobody want to take a hard position that could become very uncomfortable if the USNA government, or one of its factions takes note of it. If the North Americans start something like a trade war, the outspoken could catch some of the blame for supporting the removal. Or worse, they could counsel caution and be seen as siding with the Americans. That wouldn't be very popular right now."

"How do you feel about it?" April asked.

Adzusa opened her mouth and visibly caught herself and shut it again. Then she looked over everybody in the room, which April found paranoid. Did she think any of them might be USNA agents?
Still, even after her inspection, she answered very carefully.

"It's probably a good thing they test themselves on...a lesser issue. I think further estrangement is inevitable. If a greater issue presented itself, suddenly, then I'm not sure they wouldn't fall back on habit and knuckle under to the North Americans."

"You sounded like a politician testifying before an investigating committee," April complained.

"I have people who trust me that I must be careful not to compromise, even by accident." Adzusa said.

"Probably some of the same people you're talking about didn't trust me enough to confide in me. I'm just much better at figuring things out than what they'll credit me. That doesn't mean I feel free to say just anything when I know it'll cause them trouble, even if I'm not sworn to secrecy."

"Anybody else, I'd think that was over the top puffery. But I've seen you connect the dots often enough I wouldn't bet on it," Adzusa said.

April just nodded. She had no desire to try to weasel more out of Adzusa on that topic. If she succeeded it would just upset her and worry her later. "Still, even if it's not the story you came to cover, you have the video and the story of the duel. Do we have to worry about the North Americans having a fit when they see it?"

"I don't think so," Adzusa said. "My mentor, Genji Akira, hasn't been automatically issuing his stories in both Japanese and English as was his custom for some time. That may cost him some readership in other areas, like Europe, but he has never wanted to be known as a provocateur. He also is being...careful. There are strong opinions he may wish to express soon, and saying the wrong things now could weaken his ability to steer the debate later. I agree, and continue to bow to his expertise. I'd never insist on something going out differently under my name unless I strongly disagreed on principle, and was ready to abandon his sponsorship."

April disliked all the weasel wording. It had very low information content. What big issue did Genji expect to surface on which he wanted room to maneuver? Adzusa hadn't quite promised the video wouldn't be distributed to the North Americans. Like anything loose on the web a few people will have the ability to find it and translate it, but if it wasn't published as public content by a big service it would never be a social force. That would have to be sufficient.

April steered the conversation to her Hawaiian house, people she knew, and general gossip about Hawaii. Even that produced caution in Adzusa's replies. It really must be unstable if she was so worried. When Muños headed out the door with the fellow he'd brought along Adzusa begged off, saying she had to intercept them in the corridor and try to get an interview. April was glad to give that her blessing. She'd sucked everything out of Adzusa she was going to get.

Everybody else left fairly quickly, and April was alone with Jeff, who was still on his phone, deep in an earnest conversation with someone. He had to be exhausted after the duel and playing host to the mob after, but she wasn't his mother. She had plenty to keep her busy until he was free.

* * *

"I was worried Adzusa would post a big story about the duel and get the North Americans all upset again..." Jeff said when finally free. He was looking at his pad perplexed. Everybody else was long gone from April's place, and it was afternoon, but they were far too stuffed from an extravagant breakfast to have even thought about lunch.

"I had similar thoughts, and discussed it with Adzusa. My take is the video would be hugely embarrassing to the North Americans, not you," April insisted. "I wouldn't worry about Adzusa releasing it. She indicated her service, well at least her boss, Genji, isn't keen on posting sensitive materials to the English language market. For reasons she wouldn't make entirely clear. But even if some of it leaks out, Patrick was a cheater and a foul poisoner, and he still managed to murder an innocent bystander besides losing spectacularly. That aside, I'm hearing a huge but...in your statement," April guessed.

"Yes, a couple buts. Maybe related." Then he appeared to change his mind. "Or maybe not..."

"Well, just tell me what happened without all the anguish and analysis," April insisted.

"First of all, the Isle of Hawaiki had a submarine lurking nearby when my man, Bill Avis, was doing the testing of our defense submersibles."

"That's not good," April stated the obvious.

"Well no. But it responded rather erratically to his testing and maneuvers," Jeff said. "They acted like they were going to withdraw, and then turned around and came back. Then they started pinging the Isle every couple of minutes so she would know exactly where they were. Billy assures me that isn't anything any sane submariner would do."

"They had no choice. They were ordered to turn back," April deduced immediately.

"You're right," Jeff agreed, surprised again at April's perceptiveness, "but they didn't know it at the time. Billy started pinging them back, echoing their signal, in effect saying, "We hear you," until they got pretty close to the submersible drone in front of them."

"That must have been nerve racking. This drone, did it work pretty well when they were testing it? Would the sub have been concerned about it?" April asked.

"Yeah it was able to get up to almost a hundred eighty knots. Faster than any big ship. It might be faster even but Billy saw some problems at that speed and doesn't want to push it any faster right now. The other one though, the original one that is built like a tube seems a bust. It couldn't break through sixty knots even pushed much harder than the other one. I think we'll just retire it and bust it up.

"I don't think in knots," April admitted. "What is 180 knots in kilometers per hour?"

Jeff had to check his pad, or at least needed to if he wanted to be exact. "330kph."

"That sounds pretty fast for under water. That's as fast as most aircars can go," April remembered. "No wonder they didn't want to try to get past it."

"When they got in closer Billy used the targeting sonar on the spike of the submersible and started sending them Morse code."

"I forget about that stuff. I probably wouldn't have thought to do that," April admitted.

"To leave out a lot of pointless detail, they wanted to surrender," Jeff said.

"Just like the Chinese ship that came in here and wanted to surrender."

"Yes, and just as chancy. Who knew if they really wanted to surrender, or just get close enough they could launch a missile from so close in they couldn't miss, and we wouldn't have time to intercept?"

"I take it that's been established?" April asked.

"The sub is tethered on a boom they fabricated pretty quickly and are trailing off their stern. They are cutting a lot of high end equipment out of her. Some of it is interesting enough that it will be coming back up on the Chariot," Jeff said.

"And when it's stripped?" April asked.

"Australia has been kind of lukewarm about allying with us. Even allowing us landing rights. I'm going to call that reporter I talked to, Brett Holland, and ask his opinion on who in their government would care about getting the kind of tech this hull will have, and try to use it as a bargaining chip to get landing rights. I know we have the Isle of Hawaiki now, but landing on a runway is cheaper and the more choices we have the better for us. For everybody," Jeff decided.

"The crew are going to be more of a problem," Jeff admitted. "Billy had already explained we are so packed with immigrants that people are renting out sleeping space on their floors before they ever called me. So they were not surprised I had no way to start bringing then up immediately. They're going to have to take our word that we will work a deal with the Australians if we can. If not we'll pay them on our own for the sub. I'd rather partner to share the cost if we can.

"I gave Billy authority to negotiate for me, in their hearing. He already has two of them agreeing to stay on the Isle of Hawaiki as temporary crew. Three of them will go to Australia even if the sub doesn't. The main thing is they can tell we intend to treat them well one way or another. They are all welcome to come to Home when there is housing. I will lift them even if I have to put temporary seats in and lift them with the Dionysus' Chariot. I told Billy to promise that. It would take two lifts too...expensive."

"I thought Billy was Dave's employee, just there to test your submersibles?" April said. "But you're saying 'my man' now. Was he an agent and you never mentioned it?"

"Well he is, and was, Dave's man, but he'd already started talking to them. He'd established a rapport with them, partly because he wasn't my rep. They trusted he didn't have an agenda. By that time they were dead close to each other and talking on a jury rigged hydrophone.

"They heard me ask him to deal with them as a second job, so everybody understood where they were in relation to everybody else as far as obligations, with no secrets, no hidden agendas to worry about. It was a three way conversation by then, though they've never had to deal with the speed of light lag. They thought I was over thinking everything and indecisive until Billy explained why I hesitated so long at everything they said.

"I pretty much had to hire him on the spot and promise to pay him for doing the second job. Li wouldn't touch it with a ten foot pole and Captain Havilland said driving one boat is as much as he needs on his plate, and I don't know or trust any of the new crew there. Who was I going to send down and how would I get them there?"

"The North Americans may decide to destroy it rather than let you see its secrets," April warned. "That's what you did," she reminded him.

"Ah, well yeah, except they seem to be very busy with something else," Jeff said.

April just looked a question at him.

"That's the other big thing. It appears Hawaii has declared its independence once again."

"Ah, finally the other shoe drops...that doesn't surprise me at all. It's probably what Adzusa was being so coy about. I knew my house boy was conspiring to bring that about years ago. And my neighbor, Diana, recently gave me enough hints that things were about to come to a head, she just wasn't free to say anything on com. It's been an on and off, hot and cold issue for a long time," April said.

"Your house boy? Did you have anything to do with this?" Jeff asked suspiciously.

April started to object, and then remembered how her good friend Jelly had said, "Indeed, by the most amazing coincidence, there does seem to be a history of expensive damage, death and destruction, strewn closely behind when you get rolling." The trouble was she couldn't argue it wasn't factually true. It just wasn't what she intended. Her friend Jelly, indeed most of her friends, were willing to concede that. She really didn't want to be at odds with Jeff. What he thought about her was important, very important. She'd been worried she might drift apart from him or Heather with them apart and so busy with different things. So she answered very carefully.

"Not directly. I did not fund him, or encourage him, other than give him a job. It was just at normal wages too, not a ploy to channel him funds. I didn't encourage him, but I didn't turn him in, why should I? He just wanted what we did. I find that a pretty good reason. I knew of a smuggler and an unlicensed jitney and other activities in Hawaii, but never thought to make any of it my concern. I broke the law in Hawaii, but it's North America. You can break the law three times before lunch, having breakfast in and staying home all morning!"

Jeff looked to be examining her words carefully. Deciding if anything was disingenuous. Then he surprised her by simply asking, "Do you think they will succeed?"

"It depends on how they treat the haoles. There aren't enough pure blooded natives left to win a revolution. If they try to exclude fourth and fifth generation residents who have never known anywhere else just because of where their great-grandfather was from...no, that's not gonna work. Do they think they are going to depopulate the islands? The islands depopulated themselves about as far is it's going to go voluntarily when the economy went in the crapper after the flu. I have no idea what their goals are. They may even seize my house as an evil absent landowner. But I'm actually surprised the North Americans haven't stolen it already. If it's gone it's gone," April decided. "It's not worth inciting a war over a house. They..." April stopped and looked surprised.

"They who?" Jeff asked, a little irritated.

"Answering your question opened up a whole new set of ideas," April admitted. "Hawaii has a big population of North Americans. They are a factor. But they also have a significant population of people of Japanese descent."

"Are they a factor too?" Jeff asked.

"They might be, if Japan decides to recognize the new government. I'd bet that will depend on how they intend to treat their minorities, including those Japanese," April guessed.

"You really think they'd have the guts to make such a clean break with their former ally?"

"Possibly," April allowed. "Nothing lasts forever, and their long time friend appears to have gone schizophrenic on them. From what Adzusa said, they don't have much confidence in them being rational and dependable allies anymore."

"Then we'll have to see if they grant non-natives property rights and a franchise. If they want my support I'd have to ask them up front what they intend to do. I'd want some assurances they aren't going to try some revolutionary excesses like others have, and seize property and kick people out."

"Realistically, I don't think I have enough influence to do much about it," April said

"You could just kind of accidentally lose a rod down the chimney," Jeff said, with a dropping gesture. "Just to deny them the pleasure of stealing it."

"I'd be scared of hurting Diana's place next door," April said. Then had a different thought. "Unless they take her property too. Then I might not worry about damage. They'd still get the land."

"Anyway, are you suddenly opposed to revolution?" April teased him. "Are you the man now?"

"No, no...it's just, it gets complicated if you start dabbling in other people's revolutions. I wouldn't endanger what we have trying to export revolution. It always seems to go badly and get corrupted. If they want to revolt let them do it themselves, and at most recognize them after," he counseled.

April nodded at the sensibleness of it. "Heather has kept Central out of the chaos at Armstrong," she said with obvious approval.

Jeff also just nodded his agreement that such a course had been wisdom. "I am the man at Camelot," Jeff admitted. "If anybody else wants the job I'll sell the whole thing off cheap," he vowed. "May I remind you we're both peers of the Sovereign of Central? I've just been too...busy to oppress the peasants properly."

"I know. And I've been thinking we need to spend more time at Central, and with Heather," not equating the two of them. "You scared me badly this morning," April finally said. It might seem a non sequitur, but Jeff had been waiting for her to say it all day. It made perfect sense if you knew the unspoken statement was, "Get yourself killed and you won't be spending any time with us..."

"What else could I do?" Jeff asked. "I'd have destroyed my reputation to do anything else."

"It was a thinly veiled attempt at assassination. I should have burned him down where he stood," April said. "The duel is supposed to be for matters the law doesn't address, or matters of heart and honor, not filthy politics."

"Maybe his politics were that important to him," Jeff said with a shrug. "He did die for it. Home is certainly that important to me. I'd like to think our politics aren't filthy. Is that possible? The thing is, I can't see living in a world run by God's Warriors. It would be a horrible narrow life. I have to wonder if he could really envision what it would be like?"

"You are making me think too much. And I don't like some of the things I'm thinking," April said.

"Out with it," Jeff said, prodding her with a finger.

"OK, how about this?...You reject the world Patrick wanted. But, could all the people on Earth live like we are? If you forced them to, would they be happy with it?"

"Not a chance," Jeff agreed without hesitation.

They sat and said nothing for awhile.

"But a lot of them can't seem to find any way to live that pleases them," he complained.

"Yeah. That's kind of sad. But what I'm saying is...it's not our problem."

"That's exactly what I was saying about exporting revolution," Jeff said. "It doesn't work."

"Then we're in agreement. We just got there from different ends," April said, making her forefingers touch from each side.

"Good. I like us like that," Jeff said, and pulled her closer.

* * *

"These people aren't part of our western civilization," Garry Morgan objected. "They are of deplorable moral character and not worthy of any recognition, much less an exchange of favors with our great nation of Australia." The faces around him were hard and impatient. Their minds were made up and he was just an irritant, wasting their time.

"Did you not see the video? They still duel! The Prosperity Party objects strenuously to any accord with them." He ran out of time and sat down, thoroughly put out at the larger parties. He wasn't even privy to the committee that discussed the details of the secret deal they were getting to recognize Home and grant them landing rights. Even the military was firmly in the camp to approve it. Why? What possible interest could they have in a bunch of radicals and weirdos out beyond the moon? Finally he got up and walked out, rather than watch the final vote to align with these savages.

* * *

In Japan, the vote in the Diet was much quicker than Australia, with no debate.

"As our interests are increasingly intertwined with Home, there is no advantage to receiving Home goods through third parties, such as Australia and Tonga, at higher cost. To offset such needless waste, we see no barrier to receiving vessels from Home directly, with certain controls and limits. The legal ownership of the habitat has recently returned to full Japanese control, under Mitsubishi corporation. Also, we have a history of good cooperation with the present political governance. Therefore, please see that we are attaching a rider to the commerce bill which describes the spaceports authorized for such entry of Home celestial vessels to Japan. Our procedures for Japanese exclusive control of their admission to our airspace, the short term limited admittance of crew in lay-over, and customs classifications for the entry of such goods is spelled out in the rider."

* * *

"Mon Dieu! I don't approve of the legal aspects of returning to the duel," the Prime Minister of France said, in reaction to the leaked video, "but the Homies do have some style."

Msr. Broutin smiled. The PM knew he favored Home. He made a point of razzing Broutin about it. The previous PM had been much more the romantic and inclined to favor Home too, but their attempt to get Home recognized by the whole European Union had been badly received and never implemented. Joel had been President of France then, not Prime Minister, back when that had been attempted. They weren't fast friends quite yet, but they had a better relationship now than before.

"You realize the lovely young woman in the gown and jewels is the same one I showed you a few years ago in a sinister black outfit like a commando, festooned with weapons?" Broutin asked.

"Really? The pirate? She has matured. She's still quite young, but so poised," Joel admitted.

"She's gene mod, so I doubt she has changed appearance all that much, but the dress does show her off to some advantage," Broutin agreed. "Undoubtedly she has matured...mentally. The young gentleman has some style too, doesn't he? The outfit was rather modern, but it did have a certain flair without seeming to be so casual like so many of the young people wear now. You'd think they were headed to the beach or race track when you see them in a decent restaurant."

"I know just what you mean," Joel said. "There are still a few places that have standards to be admitted. But it's a losing battle. I suppose the majority of them would have no custom at all, and have to close their doors if they didn't admit the casual hordes, and Americans in t-shirts," he said distastefully. "I suppose after we're dead and gone they'll be dining in their pajamas and wonder what we old fossils were raising such a fuss about."

"Say what you want about Home, they've matured as a nation too. They've been supportive of our moon base and their ally at Central hasn't interfered in Marseilles' transition to independence. They are not pressuring us or others to repudiate the North Americans who have been acting like asses. The idiots said that they now don't recognize the treaty they made with the Homies and implied they are still in a state of war with them. A lesser nation might have lacked the confidence to ignore that foolishness and bombarded them to rubble," Broutin suggested.

"Their internal stupidity is impeding the international recovery from the flu and the attendant economic chaos," Joel complained. "I also don't understand China and their continued lack of order, but then I've never understood their thought processes. I've expected better of the North Americans when it comes to economic practicality."

"Home, on the other hand, has the fastest growing economy in the Earth-Moon system," Broutin pointed out. "Australia has recognized them and given them landing rights, and Japan, as xenophobic as they are, did the same just yesterday." Broutin said.

"You're promoting the idea of recognizing them again to me, aren't you?" the PM said. "I don't think it will fly anymore than before. There is still too much opposition to it in the Union, as weak as the Union has become. More opposition in some quarters after the flu. It's superstition and innuendo about the gene mod issue, and you can't even address it because they won't admit that's the problem. The Poles alone would raise a stink sufficient to sink it. The new Pope is spending nine or ten months of the year there. He might as well move the Vatican there for all his wintering in Italy lends it legitimacy, and the Church is still firmly opposed to such gene mods and will be for a long time. Certainly long after we are dead and gone."

Broutin didn't argue that. They might be gone from governance, but he intended to be around a lot longer. He'd already had some of the non-cosmetic treatments...

"Come now. How much unity is left in the Union? Every year sees a bit more agreement nibbled away. The UK has come in and out three times on different terms each time. The Scots and the Irish can't decide if they want to belong to either or both. We were worried about being the first to recognize them before, now I'd say it's easier to worry about being the last. What other issue would you worry about what the Union wants rather than what is good for France?" Broutin asked.

"I suppose you want to go quietly have some talks with them on the matter?" the PM asked. "Are you sure you don't just want to revisit your charming little pirate?"

"I could do that on holiday if I wished. My understanding is the young duelist is her beau, so it might not be timely or politic to show a renewed interest. And after all Joel...It is my job. Who would you send otherwise? The Minister of Agriculture?" Broutin asked.

"I suppose not. You may have a point. The Norwegians or the Turks might beat us to the punch and be smart enough to get an exclusive engagement for this part of the globe, shutting us out."

Chapter 24

"Grandeza Lewis, I wonder if my wife and I might have the pleasure of your company and your young gentleman for dinner? We have no evening commitments for the next ten days. I'm afraid we may slowly become homebodies if we don't make some effort to socialize. Would you mind sparing a few hours to liven an older couple's evening and perhaps get us mentioned in the gossip sites before we fade into obscurity?"

"Oh come on now, Carlos. You can't have breakfast in the cafeteria without three boards reporting how you had your eggs," April scoffed. He didn't object to being called Carlos. He and Sofia called themselves Ferdinando and Sancha when they'd had first come to Home. They were under a cloud of disapproval for having received life extension therapy via an unplanned infection. The strict moralists didn't care if they hadn't done so purposely. It still tainted them willful or not. Until a bunch of the critics had the same experience. April regarded that as delicious karma. Enough people had eventually recognized them that now their identity was an open secret on Home.

She ignored the title he conferred, because he was the only person in the universe to call her that. She'd already resolved to accept being called Lady Lewis, so she didn't object. He demanded she just call him Carlos, since he and his wife had stepped down from the Spanish throne. But he seemed to enjoy calling her Grandeza. He similarly addressed Jeff as Lord Singh, to the puzzlement of waiters and bystanders. Maybe that was why he enjoyed doing it. He did have a healthy sense of humor.

"Do you want to go to the Fox and Hare?" April asked. "They've been getting champagne again, band I'll call and reserve a bottle, if you want. They sell out of everything coming in pretty fast still."

"No. I don't want to do the Fox and Hare this time," Carlos insisted. "It's nice, but they won't bill your table, and I don't want to mooch, we want to treat you. Also, Sophia wants to dance, so we'll do the Quiet Retreat."

"OK, that would be fun to dance," April agreed. "Let's say Wednesday at 1900? I'll call if Jeff can't do that, but pretty much any time is equally inconvenient for him. I'll insist he name a time if he tries to weasel out of it."

"You do that," Carlos said approvingly. "You become dull if all you do is business day after day."

"Thank you, Carlos. I'm looking forward to it," April said, and Carlos signed off with a nod.

The interesting thing was, Carlos hadn't mentioned Ben and Martha Patsitsas. The two couples had come to be near inseparable, and she'd expected them to be part of the package, but Carlos hadn't mentioned them. Perhaps they'd be there and he'd just neglected to tell April. She wouldn't mind if they were all in a big party. Ben was an interesting novelist, and Martha was Martha Wiggen, previously President of North America. It was no surprise they found so much in common, since Martha had to flee her country just like they had.

April dropped a text to Jeff. Now...what could she wear? Something that she could dance in, and that hadn't been seen in public too recently. Or she could buy something.

* * *

"What was that idiot thinking to brag on being one of God's Warriors in front of their entire assembly? I did not authorize such an operation, and it's presumptive beyond excusing to do so without national level permission. Do you realize how bad it looks to have lost the duel so spectacularly?" General Kilpatrick asked. "You've heard of viral videos? Well, this stupid thing has been a video pandemic to rival the Great Flu, without a national or a commercial network ever touching it. The snide remarks about how it must be God's will and how dipping your knife in poison shows a lack of faith are actually hurting recruitment. One well known blogger referred to it as a David and Goliath moment, but that we're too stupid to figure out we're the Philistine.

"It didn't help the video switched over and showed the construction worker dying horribly too. We're painted vile murderers, and there's some special horror about murder by poison. It's universally seen as sneaky and underhanded. Anybody who attends a duel should know it's risky, but I have yet to find any way to say that, without it sounding like I'm blaming the victim. Find out who sponsored this so we may discipline them."

"I've had the membership roles searched," Bellini said. "In particular there are no members in military service surnamed Patrick who are unaccounted. The civilian roles are less reliable, what with the movement of so many people. But one supposes traveling to Home alone sets a barrier with which few individuals could deal. I doubt this is one zealot running ahead of us."

Kilpatrick looked at him, astonished. "You imply the fellow, Mr. Patrick, was not one of ours? How can you find that credible when the man was risking his life under our banner?"

"We've seen evidence on several other occasions where the Sons of Liberty recruited under false circumstances," Bellini said. "They have had their own agents represent themselves as God's Warriors to recruit the pliable and unbalanced. Indeed, they have gone so far as filling a meeting with a dozen false agents to create the appearance of a local organization to a potential recruit. We have video of just such a meeting from our own spies within their organization."

"So, this may have been a sort of false flag? Done in our name by our double-damned ally?" Kilpatrick asked.

"It would appear to be possible, even likely. This may have been coordinated, to remove the principle owner of this new shuttle landing platform at the same time. The new rebellion in Hawaii cut that off cold. Their main command stepped in and removed the Pacific Commander for attempting this. But there is considerable sentiment lobbying their leadership to conduct a strike on the new landing platform from the mainland or a ship at sea."

"That would invite retaliation," Kilpatrick said. "And they won't, can't really, discriminate between us and the Sons. They'd invite destruction down on all of us. Send orders immediately that all levels of our people are to oppose any strikes into the Pacific. If it takes sabotage to avoid it then I don't care if they have to crater runways or damage assets to prevent it. Whatever it takes."

Bellini nodded, and tapped a few lines in his hand-held. "I had the orders composed, anticipating you might order exactly that."

"Absolutely. We need to head off another spectacular failure like Pensacola." Kilpatrick said.

"Do you want him finished off?" Colonel Bellini asked. "It was obviously foolish to engage him in anything approaching a 'fair' fight. The devil has those filthy gene mods, and he's quick as a literal snake. But I can get a man there who will just shoot him down like a dog, even if it's suicide. If we are stuck with the blame for it we can at least take charge of the game and show a win."

"Can you?" Kilpatrick asked. "The Chinese tried exactly that direct sort of assassination a while back and failed. The price of success has gone up too. I have reason to believe finishing Singh off would be as terrible a mistake as sinking their ship. Let me show you a video that aired in Japan the next day. As far as I know it hasn't been translated or released in English. I find it telling she hasn't tried to see it distributed wider at all. So it's not a propaganda piece. The Lewis woman happens to be fairly fluent to speak to the reporter in Japanese, but the faithful who sent this to me had it captioned. Apparently Lewis knows the reporter. She may not even have seen it as an interview, but was just talking to an old friend."

"Here it is. Take a look at this."

Kilpatrick started the video toward the end, after the duel and the accidental death of the beam dog, complete with all the horror of the medical personnel trying and failing to save him. The camera’s viewpoint showed Adzusa turning away from that scene, when April Lewis approached and hugged her, ignoring the video rig sitting on her shoulder. Maybe she had briefly forgotten it was on.

"Do you intend to avenge the murder of this iron worker?" Adzusa asks.

"It's awful, but it's not my concern," April insists, a serious expression on her face but not angry. "He has relatives, or the Assembly can seek retribution if he was a citizen. His killer is dead," April says, looking back at the dead Warrior nobody had bothered to cover. "You can't kill him twice."

"Well yes, but he did announce he was one of God's Warriors," Adzusa remarked.

"That's bothersome," April agreed. "I should have burned him down where he stood when he announced that to the Assembly. He was declaring himself no better than an assassin. But it was so unexpected I didn't think through all the implications right away. I've been counseled that I would have looked terrible to the public to do that, but it's a mistake I won't make again.

"He didn't say plainly that he'd been sent. But how many people have access to an assassin's weapon like these poisoned knives? We saw the Sons of Liberty as just a front for the old Patriot Party. They seemed a greater enemy before, but it's obvious now that one is no better than the other. If they ever kill Jeff, I'll send them all straight to hell."

Adzusa seemed alarmed at that. She had some experience of April. "You don't mean that metaphysically...do you?" she asked in a frightened voice.

"No, I mean I'll drop four or five billion megatons of thermonuclear fire on the scum," April promised, looking Adzusa straight in the eye. Still seemingly unaware of the camera.

The camera had her in extreme close up, face alone framed from an angle, and she still wasn't angry, more grim, with narrowed eyes. The lack of really hot emotion was all the more frightening. Bellini noticed the newswoman, knowing her, didn't question that she had the means.

General Kilpatrick cut the video there. "That's the relevant part. Do you doubt that woman in the least? Do you want to bet a half billion lives and the existence of your nation on it?"

"She meant it...stone cold serious," Bellini agreed. "She's a monster to be able to contemplate it."

"That's interesting. At what point does it become monstrous? Ten? A hundred? A thousand? A million? Do we need to kill this man? He's not contending with us for North America, it's just...offensive that he even exists. I'm not sure now is the time to worry about that. Whether you believe her or not, I'm ordering you to leave them alone. I believe her and I won't take the risk."

* * *

The Quiet Retreat really was quieter than the Fox and Hare. April had made fun of it a few times, not unkindly, but teasing. She found it pleasant tonight. You could talk without feeling you were ruining the act or music for others. They laid it out to cut the noise from one table to the next, and the entire room was sound deadened more. You could still hear the music. In fact you heard it better without the background hum of activity and whispered talk. Perhaps her tastes were changing too.

Carlos and Sophia were at a premium booth or banquette, she to the inside and he stood to give April a slight bow and shake Jeff's hand. The Patsitsas were not in evidence which made April feel special. They hadn't gotten drinks, so perhaps they hadn't been there long, but April couldn't imagine a waiter trying to give Carlos the hurry-up.

When the waiter returned he had a roll along cooler for a magnum of champagne. He proceeded to decant it without any discussion, so Carlos had already arranged it.

"You seemed to have a taste for it," he said to April by way of explanation.

"Oh, thank you. It's still pretty scarce," April said. "We have a lot more freight coming up, but it's so expensive I feel guilty to take it off the menu for the paying customers at my own place. Maybe in another year we won't run out of things like this between shuttle runs."

"I've heard Jeff is working at it diligently," Carlos said.

"We have an ocean landing platform now," Jeff said enthusiastically," and we seem to be getting a foot in the door to get normal landing rights in a few countries."

"Indeed, that's as it should be. If you would like to add Spain to the list I have the name of a fellow in the appropriate ministry who'd welcome speaking with you," Carlos said.

April looked astonished. "I thought you were on the outs and carefully keeping a quiet low profile, so they don't cut your retirement allowance off."

"We certainly were," Carlos agreed, smiling. "But it seems they want to have something here, not a real embassy, because with the Assembly that's hardly workable. Not even an official consulate. But they want a conduit of some sort to contact both what few officials you have, like Eduardo Muños, or Jon Davis, or local business people, such as..." he indicated both April and Jeff, with an inclusive wave.

"So, you are sort of back to being semi-retired now?" April asked amused.

"Well, they were already paying for us to be here," Carlos pointed out. "They just boosted our remittance a bit and then asked nicely if we'd have a word with you. They were at least kind enough to show the carrot first instead of the whip. I approve actually, it's an efficient use of resources, and it gives me a hair more confidence some politician won't cut us off as a show of cost savings."

"I'll be sure to contact your man," Jeff promised. And that was the last they spoke of business.

* * *

Billy Costa was ready to be back home. Seeing the ocean was interesting for about ten minutes the first day. Then he wondered why people got all poetic about it. Over the next few days he did see it in different moods and colors. Right at sunset it could be pretty for a few minutes. He even saw some decent waves come up one day with a bit of foam, but no real storm.

Li's ketch picked him up while Billy was there. Now that was a pretty boat and complex in ways he wasn't sure about, as far as the function. They used the sails, but he was pretty sure they made it look easy with long experience. It didn't escape his notice it wallowed back and forth on waves he could barely feel on the Isle of Hawaiki. The Isle was so big it was like a habitat more than a vehicle. He had to stop moving and grab the rail to be aware of any rolling motion.

The food on the Isle was pretty good. They had a grill on the deck outside the galley that let them cook over a real charcoal fire. The beef was a treat, except they served it so often he was getting tired of it, something he never expected. Pretty much everything was frozen, but of good quality. They had more potatoes and rice than he was used to, and lots of sweet drinks and tea. But the cook apparently didn't know how to make a sauce that didn't pour out of a bottle, and their coffee didn't impress him.

There were little things that bothered him that he tried to tell himself to ignore, but he didn't do a very good job of it. The ship was dirty. Not just the living spaces but everywhere. There was dirt and grime in the corners and recesses. It was hard to believe the vessel was only a couple years old. He never saw any vermin, but he'd never looked to see where his food was prepared, because he didn't want to know. His mother's house in Kansas was never like this, he was positive it wasn't any false memory. And the spaces on Home never had a pattern of grime on a hatch and cleaner areas around the release where everybody touched it to open it. Maybe wear on the finish, but never just dirt. People wouldn't put up with it.

The crew talked a lot over dinner and he quickly had a reputation as being quiet. He wasn't all that quiet back home, but the conversation seemed boorish to him. They recounted supposed adventures and tried to one-up each other. He had no interest at all in soccer or other sports. Their views of other nations seemed to be rather shallow to him. He agreed the Chinese were not to be trusted, but he based that on the long view of their history, not how a Chinese merchant tried to short change them in Perth. Their view of women was something that would get them called out on Home, by the ladies themselves.

The original idea had been for the crew to install the Singh fusion power source. He'd refrained from implementing that program after talking to the supposed machinist. He saw to the device being prepositioned but not uncrated. He didn't trust either the machinist or engineering mate to hook it up without busting something or killing themselves.

He'd privately said as much to Captain Havilland, and been told with far less argument than he expected, to arrange for a technician to come down to install it. The captain didn't exactly defend the men, but said they were fine for systems they knew, and assured him he didn't want to deal with the same specialties manned by people from third world countries. He's claimed he once saw a boat with nothing but a hammer and an adjustable wrench in the engine room. Everything else had been stolen and sold off in port. Billy hoped he was joking.

Finally it was time to leave. There were several devices crated up in his hold that were supposed to be tech that Home didn't have. Some of the sonar gear was better than what they had, but the goal was to extract the software and reverse engineer the hardware, not just re-install it and try to get it to work. The device called the MONIKER was some kind of com gear. Billy was most leery of it, because the captain of the sub had warned him it contained a demolition charge for destroying the core. He assured Billy it had the initiator removed, and the device was almost impossible to set off without that. Almost didn't make him feel good about it, but the machine would need to be significantly disassembled to remove the charge.

Home ships no longer asked Earth control for clearance to land or lift. As a courtesy he pinged a relay satellite with his longitude and latitude and with a message to ISSII that he'd be lifting for orbit and trans-lunar insertion in sixty seconds. They could share with Earth control or not as they wished. If they didn't like that they were welcome to try to shoot him down. The Chariot was armed and didn't need to ask permission up any chain of command to respond to threats. He also copied Home local control with his estimated arrival. That put the information in all the critical off Earth systems. Earth could go pound sand. He informed the bridge of the Isle that he wished to be fully ungrappled at the top of the hour, local. The helmsman acknowledged and at twenty seconds short of local noon he felt the rumble of the landing jacks being uncovered.

"Clear to lift." the Helmsman said, so that he finished the statement right on the mark. He seemed the most on the ball of all the crew. Billy had the plasma chamber pumped down, and stabbed the power button a scant half second later. The aluminum cover to the exhaust throat vaporized and the shuttle lifted like a missile. He was anxious to go and more acceleration used less fuel in the long run. He ramped up smoothly to six and a half G, felt a slight shudder as the Chariot went transonic, and saw the horizon rotate into view upside-down as the auto pilot rolled him over pointed east and then bumped the ship up to eight G. He kept it to that, unsure how much the technical cargo could take. The odd tidal gradients of the compensator tugged at him unevenly, his lower legs actually lifting slightly. At his head he only felt about two G, and half again that was pressing his butt back. He passed some very high ice clouds, and the sky outside his front ports turned dark quickly, the way it was supposed to look.

* * *

"Do Carlos and Sophia like me?" Jeff asked, troubled.

"What do you mean?" April asked, surprised. "They adore you. I enjoyed last night, didn't you?"

"Yes, but it bothered me it turned out they wanted to do business," Jeff admitted.

"We've done things with them before and business never came up."

"That's true."

"You do business with me all the time and never question my motives," April pointed out.

"Yeah, but that's different," Jeff insisted.

"Good, but tell me why." April demanded.

"There's only a few people I trust completely," Jeff said, demonstrating with his hands cupped around a very small area. "Then there's everybody else," he said, waving an expansive hand.

"I can't say that's the stupidest thing I've ever heard," April admitted. She sat and thought about it a bit and then took their plates away and topped off their coffee. She could see it wasn't safe to make a blanket argument against something, if it kept him safe in this world.

"I'm thinking about it," April said.

"Yeah, I know," Jeff said. He wasn't in any hurry.

Sometimes April wished she could ask Jeff to do a brain scan and stimulus/response study. She suspected he'd show some interesting responses. Perhaps similar if not exactly autistic. It was so invasive however. She wasn't keen to have one done herself. Once you did one they could pigeon hole you, and nothing was ever 100% safe if you kept the full digital record instead of just a summary. Not unless you saw the memory destroyed out of a disconnected machine...Her parents had agreed never to do a deep study of her or her brother Bob. That kind of testing had a really bad history from their own childhood era. It was worse on Earth where they could hang a judgmental diagnostic code over you practically in your crib.

"How does anyone get from the wild," April asked, with the same wide sweep of her hand Jeff had used, "into the trusted group?"

"Always act in my interest from when I've first known them. Like my dad," he said.

"Or, make a formal alliance..." he added. Still leaving the statement hanging open by the way he trailed it off.

"Like Heather and me," April supplied.

"Yeah."

"How about Jon?" April asked.

"He's always acted in our interests. Or at least explained the best choice he could suggest when there wasn't any other option or certainty," Jeff said with conviction.

"Dave?" April asked.

"We have a long history of solid contracts. He's always been honest, and when adjustments had to be made, fair. I trust him," Jeff said, but then looked distressed. "But I don't know if he likes me."

"OK, so your core group of trusted has at least two sub-groups. Based on what?" April asked.

Now it was Jeff's turn to sit and think. It was visibly difficult.

"People who treat me well, in my estimation, but some, we have an emotional attachment, and some not, or it's at least indeterminate," he decided.

"Some people are never going to tell you they like you," April insisted. "They weren't raised in an environment where that was normal. Some have had it misinterpreted or abused and given up verbalizing it. Many, many, people expect it to be better demonstrated, than said out loud. Have you ever told Dave you like him?"

"No," Jeff said, and looked stricken. "Don't ask," Jeff said, holding a hand up. "I know what you're going to ask next. I don't say that to Dave, because I learned it makes some people uncomfortable. And because it's safer to let them say it first."

"Bingo," April agreed. "Isn't there anybody who you trust deeply, but they never asked to be your ally formally or said that they like you?"

"Barak, but he's a special case. He's got ties to me by both Heather and you. And he's one of the people I expect to act on principle. There aren't a lot of those either..."

Jeff frowned and expanded that. "I know a lot of people who will act on principle. But we may not agree on what principles are right to follow. In the very extreme, I expected Patrick to act on principle, but it made me kill him."

"Tell me a couple," April requested.

"Oh, easily, Eduardo Muños, Irwin Hall, Jon Davis again. Your father actually..."

"Maybe you need a couple more circles," April suggested. "Like a target, with your trusted people in the bull's-eye, and a ring of people on probationary status around them, out all the way to confirmed enemies on the rim."

"No, nothing so simple," Jeff said, then paused at April's hurt look. "You've help me immensely, but that's too...self centered. It's helped to verbalize this. But what I see, now that we've discussed it, is not a set of rings, but a big Venn diagram, and I'm going to think on it and refine it. I'll find where everybody fits, and probably a big circle floating off unconnected for unknowns and strangers. Thank you," he said sincerely.

"Glad to be of help," April said. That seemed safe.

Chapter 25

"If he's going to be here all the time we need a bigger apartment," Barrack said.

"Are you unhappy with Kurt?" Deloris asked.

"You're hearing what you're afraid I'll say, instead of what I actually said. Don't be putting words in my mouth. Come right down to it I could probably live with Kurt easier than you and Alice. He's neater, he cleans the shower drain, and he doesn't try to talk to me before my second cup of coffee. But four people and one bathroom is tough. We need at least another half bath but preferably a full one, even if we have to cut stone," he said pointing at the back wall. "It's probably easier to just contract for a new place than remodel. This one will sell in ten minutes, tops."

"He hasn't indicated he's going to stay on the moon even," Deloris said. It seemed to upset her.

"I know, he's mentioned a few times he intends to go to Home again and sign up to pay taxes. I don't think it would be a kindness to try to deflect him from his long term goals," Barak said. "I also might point out he still has his own place and hasn't asked to move in and let it go. He still keeps his clothes there and goes back to change and shower mostly, thus what I said about needing a bath."

"Except we really like having him here," Deloris said, pouting a bit. It wasn't like her. At least she did say 'we'. "While he's been here there's more often somebody at the apartment when our shifts are all different. I hate coming home to an empty place. He might be waiting for an invitation."

"May I ask what attracted you to Kurt?" Barak asked. "You've never brought anyone else home from one of your pilot assignments. Not that I'm being critical of him. I think you're a fine judge of character, but I don't understand how you did it so quickly."

"A couple things," Deloris said, scrunching her eyebrows together, thinking. "He was interested in me, but he wasn't pushy. We were talking like old friends pretty easily. Most guys just keep after you even after they know you aren't interested. I think I surprised him with my invitation, after he was sure I wasn't interested. And he said some things about making mistakes. That's just so rare in anybody now, to actually admit they aren't above error. It really didn't take long to see what sort of person he is, and I'd hate to see him not be part of our lives again."

"You still have us, and if Kurt moves back to Home, I bet he'll be happy to have a lovely pilot drop into his life on a regular basis, and brighten it with her presence."

"If he doesn't get bogged down with...other obligations," Deloris worried.

"I have a hard time imagining he's going to go the whole solid main shift work for a multinational with a Mrs. at home, flowers on the corridor wall, cartoon greetings on the door screen, and two and a half kids and a cat."

"Probably not," Deloris agreed. "I'd bet more the other way, that he'll take a post on an ice runner or Mars for awhile."

"What you said...for awhile. We're all going the life extension route," Barak pointed out. "We've all had the basic preliminaries and everybody is making enough money we shouldn't have any trouble getting the newest work and upgrades. If we live as long as we think we might, then there is no reason to lose people from our lives forever. As long as we are all civil and don't estrange anyone we can accumulate a huge cloud of real friends and associates. Much more than people used to when they had limited travel and short lives. Why not have close friends who say they are off for a decade to do something in the moons of Saturn and you'll just say – sweet, see you in a decade. You'll have some good stories."

"That quite a vision," Deloris allowed. "I haven't thought about how living longer will change things. I like the idea of knowing people in every port."

"And you're maybe just a little greedy," Barak teased.

"I'm a pilot," Deloris said. "I want at least two back-ups for every vital system."

* * *

"The Japanese ceded us landing rights," Jeff said.

"And yet you don't sound all that thrilled by it," April said.

"A little surprised maybe. I'm happy to have another port, and I'll use it quickly to establish we intend to use it, before some politician up and rescinds it. It's harder to take something away that's in use. If we delay a month it just encourages one of the parties opposed in the first place to do that."

"But?" April asked.

"But it irritates me that they made a rule that crew can't stay over more than ten days, and they have to get a visa if they want to leave the area of the port at which they landed. They define that as being in the same prefecture. We don't cap their visits here."

"That's incredibly generous for Japan. One thing I learned from my Japanese class is there's a wall. The Japanese will be polite, hospitable even, but they don't really approve of foreigners. I suspect they'd all be much happier if we just didn't exist," April said. "Be happy they didn't say they had to stay in the hotel and not go out in public until they lift again."

"I kind of figured all that out when my dad made me study Japanese," Jeff agreed. "But it's been years. I sort of expected it to change."

"That kind of thing takes generations," April assured him. "I thought for awhile I should go live a year or two in Japan if I wanted to be really fluent, but I've decided it would just irritate me to see the conformity and deal with the crowds and noise. Japan has a lot of school and workplace behavior I'd consider bullying, and you know how well that would go over if anybody tried it with me."

Jeff made a derisive snort. "You'd try to organize another rebellion," he predicted.

"It didn't seem...my cup of tea. Works the other way," she pointed out. "Did you notice the surge of Japanese coming to Home as soon as it was Japanese owned again?"

"Uh...no."

"Bet you won't either. We've different than North America or Europe, but it's still a foreign culture."

"I did have a Japanese fellow say something good about Home," Jeff remembered.

"Oh? What was that?" April asked.

"He noticed that we don't litter, just like in Japan."

* * *

"You seem despondent, Elder Bellini," The lieutenant seemed worried about that. As well he should be. He applied self criticism quickly, to see if he was at fault, and upsetting his superior. If it was he, then the man would have to correct him. He was unaware of any transgressions on his part.

"It has nothing to do with you," Bellini assured him. "I am conflicted and trying to resolve a doctrinal matter, internally."

"You have the ear of General Kilpatrick. Surely for someone close he'd spare a moment to listen and help you resolve it?"

"My problem revolves around general Kilpatrick," Bellini admitted. "He desires to avoid conflict with the heathens of Home. They are dangerous, but everything in me says it is wrong to back down, even temporarily, from such a great evil as tampering with God's perfect code of life."

"Perhaps then speak with Colonel Brink. I've found him a virtual fire of faith. When he speaks you can see the spirit dwelling in his eyes. It's almost scary. He has never cut me the least slack in my devotions, not that that's bad! It's been all to my good. I believe he'll know how to help General Kilpatrick. I feel your problem is far out of my depth, but I will pray for your resolution."

"Thank you, Lieutenant. I know the Colonel by reputation. I'll speak with him."

* * *

"Heya Kiddo, you got any plans for supper?"

"Diana! You're on local com!" April said, amazed.

"I'm going to have some heavy gene mods done, and this seems to be the place to do it. I don't have to worry about avoiding jurisdictions that won't like what I've done to get back home. That's another thing. The times are a bit uncertain, and I decided an absence from Hawaii was prudent right now. If things look sweet...I may go back. If not, well this seems as good as any other place I'd care to live."

"But it's impossible to get a room on Home. Even a hot slot is a problem. Where are you staying?"

"The Doc, who claims to know you, has been losing business because of that very problem. He didn't have anywhere for his foreign patients to stay, so he divided up his own living space and made two really tiny rooms to house patients. The rooms share a bath and I'll have to eat at the cafeteria. But he said you can buy a card and it's not that bad. I haven't been by, I called you first. But I saw pictures, and it doesn't look any worse than your average jail cell. I can do it for a week."

"You absolutely will not. You'll come stay with me," April insisted.

"I seem to remember you don't have much more room yourself," Diana said. "You described the bathroom being like a travel trailer. You sit on the throne to shower."

"That was ages ago when I first met you. I have my own place now, I haven't been living with my folks for a couple years. I have two couches or a big bed. The bath has a real shower and a kitchen too."

"All the comforts of home," Diana quipped. "I'll call Ames and tell him to pedal the live-in package to somebody else and I'll do the treatments out-patient. He better give me a discount or I'll make his life miserable."

"Tell him if he doesn't give you at least a partial rebate you'll write about it in "What's Happening". He'll know what you mean, and be happy to comply. It makes you sound like you know how things work here too."

"Which I may seriously need to learn."

"Can you find your way here?" April asked.

"Have a map," Diana said with no confidence at all.

"A paper map?" April said with scorn.

"Yeah..."

"Totally useless. Are you down to the one G level with the offices and cafeteria yet?"

"Not yet. That's where I was going, but there was a fellow who was friendlier than I liked and a mob jamming into the elevator, so I went back to the security station and asked the lady cop where there was a public com. I mentioned calling you by name. She looked like she had never heard of the idea of a public phone and handed me her pad. Did you know the cops have your com code in their one touch list? I'm not sure if that's good or bad."

"Only to the good," a muffled voice said. "Jon Davis will want to know why, in horrid detail, if we don't take care of Lady Lewis."

"Who's this Davis?" Diana asked skeptically.

"My boss, the head of Home security," the voice said off camera.

"Lady Lewis?

"Don't ask, and we don't do titles on Home!" April said extra loud for Margaret to hear. She was doing that just for Diana's benefit. It wasn't sincere or funny.

"Yes, M'lady," Margaret said a prim voice, just to be irritating. Diana raised an eyebrow.

"Here's what you do. Go down to the business level. That's all the way down to the full G deck, and there's a ship's chandlery there. Tell Zach I said to give you his best spex and get you an account on Home com. Put it on my account with him and by the time you have them on your face and a com account I'll probably be there. If I'm not have Zach show you how to do a map with them. It'll be 3D and guide you point to point. It's near lunch time and I'll meet you at Zach's store and take you over to the cafeteria, it's right there."

"This Zach knows you?" Diana asked.

"Unless he worries about you being an Earthie and denies it. He's kind of paranoid. He might decide you're an assassin or a bill collector. But you can tell him I'm on the way over."

"I'll do that," Diana promised.

When April arrived at the Home Chandlery and Provision Company not only was Diana there with a set of spex on her face, but Margaret was there in her powder blue security uniform with a beret and an Air Taser. They were both perched on stools and Margaret was drinking coffee from one of Zach's house mugs.

"I only had to work the shuttle docking today and was going back off duty. I walked Diana down so she didn't get lost," Margaret explained.

"How can you get lost in a big tin can?" Diana asked.

"How can you get lost on an island surrounded by water?" April countered.

"Ouch...I hear some pretty stupid tourist stuff so I better not say any more," Diana agreed.

"Has Zach showed you the map functions and door to door directions?" April asked.

"I have, now I'm trying to sell her a gun. Never too early to start fitting in," Zach said.

"And if I'm out of here in a week or ten days I can't take it home. Well actually, I might be able to," she corrected. "But I'm not going to count on it."

"That's not a problem. I buy used guns," Zach said.

"Used a week, and probably never shot? I shudder to think how much it would depreciate in that time," Diana guessed. "Why don't you just rent them for folks like me who'll only be here a week or two? Just like rental cars or vacation condos."

Zach looked at her with his mouth hanging open. Then he turned and disappeared in the back and returned with a slim automatic pistol in a clip over holster, with an integral magazine pouch. He laid it on the counter and slapped a coin down beside it.

"Sixteen in each magazine and one up the snout. If you shoot more than that you can buy them. Drop it off any time before you leave on a shuttle, or April can tell you who to pay to courier it to me from the dock."

"How much for seven days, maybe a couple more?" Diana asked, not getting what he was doing.

"For anybody else, I think a half gram a day, but for you it's free, and the coin is your fee for giving me the business idea. I don't know why I didn't think of it, and I thank you. Any other ideas you have please speak up. I'll reward them similarly."

"Thank you, Zach, I certainly will." She scooped the coin up and looked pleased.

As she was clipping the gun inside her waist band, Margaret remarked. "As safe as Home is, I feel better not having you march around unarmed."

"Sweetie, you assume too much," Diana said. She tilted her head, sort of theatrically, and lifted a flat hand to her hair with the fingers bent back, like she was going to make a great show of patting it in place. Suddenly there was a good two hundred millimeters of thin stiletto in her hand. She smiled, reached out in front of her and did a funny little shift of the knife back and forth like a slight of hand trick. April wasn't sure exactly how it was possible one handed, but the handle split in two and folded around both sides of the blade in a little dance, enclosed it and looking more like a folded up hand fan than a weapon. The miracle was she still had all her fingers. Then she slid it in the back of her hair somewhere.

"Did you mention lunch?" Diana asked April.

"Yeah, put it in your spex, pick door to door routing, Home Chandlery and Provision to Cafeteria. It'll paint a line in your spex that looks like it's on the floor and you can lead us to lunch."

When they went out the door Zach was grinning big at April's joke, because the cafeteria was in sight, almost straight across the corridor.

* * *

"The crazy thing is, I thought I was being absurd," Diana confessed, as they got in line. "It never occurred to me it would be legal to rent out pistols. I can't think of anywhere on Earth you could do that without the cops fainting dead away in shock."

"I'm not going to sugar coat this," April told her. "A lot of people can't adjust their thinking to Home. It's so different people went back to Earth when we declared independence. And a few every year since have found they can't hack it here and returned. I think some of them thought we'd get over this foolishness quickly and return to all the rules and laws with which they were comfortable. We generically call this Earth Think, and it shows up in everything whether it makes any sense or not."

"Not just laws against renting out pistols?" Diana asked.

"Can you believe you can get your hair cut and styled with no government protection from the deadly scourge of unlicensed barbers or stylists?"

"I already noticed more buzz cut heads here than I've ever seen before. Even some of the women. How much training can you need for that?" Diana asked.

"That's because it's the only sane way to work in a pressure suit. Even people who don't do that every day often have to be available on short notice to do so. That's why I only have this little bit in front that I can comb up in spikes and wear with a little color added," April said, running a hand up her forehead. I have interest in ships and couriers and am on call to sub for people if they need me."

"Sub doing what?" Diana asked, checking out the small hot buffet.

"I've got my orbit to orbit and docking ticket, and am qualified to do open field landings."

Diana pounced on that. "So there is something that's government licensed?"

"Not at all. Such certification predates our revolution. It's an independent agency and you pay for testing, it isn't tax supported. I think the French started it. I'd have to look it up."

"If it was Earth based they'd have a big tax paid budget and charge you a hefty fee, both!" Di said.

"And thus you start to define Earth Think," April said. "I very much recommend the stuffed peppers if you like them. We still don't get them that often."

"I don't have a card yet," Diana objected. "Will they take cash?"

"USNA dollars? Probably not. But I never use my subscription for half of what I could. I'll put you on mine today and you can tell them you want a card. She'll bring it out to you when things ease off. That's Wanda up there running the counter and doing special orders. It doesn't hurt to introduce yourself and call her by name. She can be a little crabby still, but she's much better than she used to be."

"Go ahead and order for me," Diana said.

"Two of the stuffed pepper with all the trimmings," April said. "Wanda, this is my friend from Hawaii, Diana. Put her meal on my tab for now, but she wants to buy a week ticket."

Wanda checked Diana out, and it wasn't a superficial examination."She must be OK if she's with you," Wanda allowed. "I'll get her a week ticket starting tomorrow and you can carry her today if you come back for supper. Extra dinner roll and butter?"

"Thank you, dear. Yes for me. Diana isn't gene mod so you'll have to ask her."

"One sounds fine, thank you, Wanda," Diana said, and got a curt nod, as Wanda turned away.

"Let's get coffee and stake out a seat. By that time it will be up," April said, waving at the empty counter beyond the cashier's station.

They got coffee and set it at the far table April favored. When she turned to go back Diana balked. "What's wrong? Would you rather not sit so far away? It's always crowded next to the coffee machine. I like to sit off a bit where you can watch people."

"I'm used to not leaving my drink where anybody can mess with it," Diana admitted.

"I'd be less surprised to have an assassin walk in the door and open fire than anyone try to poison me," April said. "That's happened, but nobody could come over here and put something in our coffee without somebody noticing."

"And they'd say something?" Diana asked.

"They'd likely have them on the deck with a gun to their head and security already called."

"OK, Earth Think," Diana concluded, and left her coffee.

"I should have taken the extra roll," Diana concluded after a bite. "But, I'm going to be fat if I keep eating here. It's too good."

"Dr. Ames can take care of that too," April assured her. "You can have a metabolic tweak that lets you eat a lot more and burn it up. If food gets scarce you can do a several day fast and it re-sets it until you start eating more than about twelve hundred calories a day and it kicks it back in. You have much less chance of getting fat or becoming diabetic. You could, but you'd really have to work at it."

"He's supposed to do a consultation with me. Mostly I want to live longer. Sixty will be my next decade, and I can tell I'm not a kid anymore," Diana lamented.

"My grandpa Lewis insists that if the therapy made you forget, he wouldn't trade feeling younger and better for being stupid. Of course that makes me feel terrible, because I can only get over being young and inexperienced so fast, and I'll never catch up all the way."

"Honey, Some people never show a lick of sense and you showed more at... What was it? Fourteen? Than they do by forty," Diana assured her. "My second husband was rich, but I swear that man was never a grown-up. That's what killed him too, driving like an eight year old who had no concept of his own mortality."

"I thought you divorced all your rich husbands," April said.

"Nope, I was headed that way, but he saved us the aggravation," Diana said. "I did have the sense not to ride with the man driving, no matter how it irked him."

"Got room for dessert?" April asked.

"Not without being a pig. What have they got?" Diana asked.

Chapter 26

"Now that we have landing rights in Australia, Old Man Larson is busting a gut to get a runway landing shuttle built. He wants the Australians to build the airframe from cheap Earth materials and he'll license our power and have Dave build the drive," Jeff said. April could see he was calling from his office. She could see the screens and his man going back and forth behind him.

"Who's financing it?" April asked. "Larson?"

"The Reserve Bank of Australia," Jeff said. "They are parceling out pieces of the pie to smaller banks and claiming it's a first step, building three first generation shuttles, and after that a space station."

"Wow, this is the first anybody has seriously talked about building a new manned station in years."

"Well yeah," Jeff agreed. "Things were already slowing down before the flu, and then both China and North America went nuts politically and left world markets in turmoil. Nobody in their right mind wants to build from lifted materials. Even our third ring would never have been built without the Rock and lunar materials."

"You didn't get an exclusive on the landing rights?" April asked.

"Monopolies are unstable," Jeff insisted. "They have to be maintained. Usually by being bought over and over because politicians change. The new ones have to be bribed all over again."

"You bribed them for landing rights?" April asked surprised.

"The submarine," Jeff reminded her, unashamed. "They may yet be upset when they find some obvious gaps where equipment was torn out. It was beyond our ability to make some fake stuff up to fit in there anybody would believe. Of course we could have just scuttled her."

"No, no," April protested. "That seems, wasteful."

"I'm encouraged really. Things seem to be going much better. We have a minimum decent relationship with a few Earth powers. Supply is up and we're getting lunar goods to the point we don't have to worry we'll starve if Earth cuts us off again."

"The better lunar sources we have, the less likely they will cut us off," April said. "The leverage just isn't there once we have other sources. They just hurt themselves to cut off people paying in hard money. Not that the ones who really hate us might not do it for sheer spite. But we have more than one Earth source now."

"I haven't mentioned it lately, but have you looked at our numbers recently? Just the last six months even, we've done very well," Jeff said.

"No, I have enough to live on and a lump held back. The cost of money has been high enough that the lump has been growing nicely without trying to actively invest it. You've been doing that for me pretty well with our shares. I have a little of the money Eddie gave me in Irwin's bank too. He's been getting me around five percent on it."

"I'd say that's conservative," Jeff told her, "but Irwin is conservative by nature. You can get seven percent for private projects, like the ice ball recoveries, as long as they aren't as badly managed as Barak's voyage! When we started licensing tech, right after the war, I remember the first monthly payment for all three of us was five thousand USNA Dollars. That was about ten percent of our income, but it dropped off for a few months after that first surge. Fortunately we had very few expenses then either."

"Well the Dollar was worth a lot more then," April remembered. "At the time it all seemed like a lot of extra money to me. That seems so long ago."

Jeff shrugged. "Things have been happening fast. If we had more room for people it would be crazy. It would be like a gold rush with them all pouring in. As it is a lot of them are simply sending their money as a proxy. Prices would go nuts if they all arrived wanting services, and you wouldn't be able to make a living at anything but the best paying jobs. We'd probably be outsourcing services down to Earth because it would be too expensive to do here. They used to ship laundry to China from California to be done during their gold rush. Things get crazy in that sort of a situation. Of course we're more productive. They had no way to automate their laundry then."

"Some of the people working lower paying jobs have had a hard time," April reminded him.

"Yeah, and it has reduced some services," Jeff agreed."There are a lot of things you can buy on Earth that just can't be had here. It helps we don't need a lot of the overhead. Nobody needs an automobile. Earthies are spending much more on security systems and private police than we do. The cafeteria would never have developed such a monopoly on Earth. It started early with cheap cubic and has buying power no small operation could match. But there is the beam dog's cafeteria, and now there will be a smaller one on the third ring soon. We have two clubs and a couple unofficial ones."

"We do?" April asked surprised. "Why don't I know about them?"

"They serve the beam dogs and a few people who fit in the tight little society around them. Both are physically close to the dorm. Consider them a specialty market. You wouldn't be a customer and they are smart enough to know there are still vestiges of Earth Think that would want them shut down. So they don't advertise openly. I'm assured some of the personals in local sites are ads if you know the code words. Even in something as stodgy as "What's Happening". If you read the personals and a few of the ads don't make any sense to you...then you've likely found one."

"Oh, well that doesn't bother me," April decided. "Nobody's holding a gun to my head to make me go there. I don't think they'll run the Fox and Hare out of business."

"Long term, I don't see Home being where growth will happen," Jeff said. "We'll have non-rotating cubic nearby that will help for awhile. I even expect it won't be that many years before we have another habitat or two built near us. But I think most of the growth will be on the moon. We just can't build and maintain living space as cheaply as they can."

"You said something a little bit ago," April remembered. "Nobody in their right mind would try to build from lifted materials. But power and really efficient drive impulse is so cheap now, and Earth materials and labor so attractively cheap. Could you fabricate something like one of our rings and lift the entire assembly to orbit? Put ten or twelve drives under it just like an ice ball and then remove the motors and use them again later?"

"I'm...not sure," Jeff admitted. "You ask the most interesting questions. All I can say is I'd ask Dave to run the numbers for us, if you want me to. It shouldn't be too expensive to come up with some basic numbers. I can see some problems right away. The stresses a ring is designed to take are much different than those that would be put on it in the plane of rotation. You might put in some temporary braces to help with that, especially if the brace materials would have high value when removed. Do you want me to do that?"

"Please. You don't have to invest a huge amount," April allowed. "Maybe cap it at a few hundred hours for one of his designers. But I think it's worth looking at now, with the changes in engines."

"I'll do that," Jeff agreed. "It might make a difference in building other habitats, but it's not going to change the fact it's still going to be expensive relative to the moon. Home, and any companion habitats, are still going to be like an Earth city with cheaper suburbs. Like London or New York. I don't think it will suffer the same fate of decline some Earth cities have. It's a different dynamic to maintain things."

"Some of the decline of Earth cities was sheer stupidity. People made a conscious decision at some point that the city was in decline, and decided to basically mine the value of their buildings and property. Once such a mentality takes hold it's self fulfilling. I don't think we have the exactly same social forces either. But there's a lot more room on the moon and tunnel machines have a long life. The number of tunnel machines will increase steadily so the new kilometers of tunnel bored will go up each year.

"What I'm trying to get around to saying is that we should shift our investments towards the moon somewhat, and also, we're making enough income now that if you or Heather want to take a bigger dividend just say so, and we can afford it."

"I'll read the numbers, but I'm pretty content to let the money ride to make more money," April decided. "I do think if we're doing that well, I'll feel safe to use a bit more of the funds I'm holding to improve my property on the moon."

"You know, a couple families are making apartments available if you wanted a place all ready to stay with access to pressure and utilities," Jeff said.

"To rent or to buy?" April asked.

"Both, but they aren't unlimited in depth like your ranch. They're a defined cubic."

"Maybe. If I can get something close enough to Heather's offices and cafeteria," April allowed.

"The longer you wait the further away they will be, unless somebody resells. Or you can buy way out, beyond public pressure, and try to guess where new commercial development will take place."

"How about you?" April asked. "You're living in your office with a hired man. Would you want to work from the moon?"

Jeff shook his head. "I think Home is going to be the center of business and banking for a long time. The moon will have a lot of production, of things like food and heavy manufacturing. But shipbuilding and high tech needs zero G. I still want to be where the heavy action is, and be able to see people like Dave, and Irwin, and Larson face to face without taking a shuttle."

"If we just want to see Heather we're welcome to stay with her," April pointed out. "She plans on moving periodically until they reach a depth where the rock is a shirt-sleeves comfortable temperature, and then they will spread out. I think I'll wait until they hit that depth before investing in anything. Otherwise she'll move away from me vertically anyway.

"OK, that makes sense to me," Jeff agreed. "Do you want to do dinner tonight?" Jeff asked, which signaled he'd run out of anything to say on this topic.

"If you don't mind my house guest tagging along. My neighbor Diana from Hawaii is here to get gene mods and I wanted to take her to the Fox and Hare."

"We were just there," Jeff said surprised. "I thought you didn't want to go too often, because they write the owner's visits off and won't charge you?"

"Our profits for the club are as healthy as what you are telling me Singh Technologies is experiencing. That, and none of the other owners seem to be showing any restraint with the surge in money pouring in. I can't feel too guilty to take my share. It's seems that's how they decide to take their dividend, instead up upping the cash payout."

"Fine, let's do it then. You've said before she's a character. It'll be fun."

* * *

"A quiet banquette along the wall?" The maitre d', Detweiler, asked. He was appraising Jeff's lack of flashy clothing and a second guest this visit, correctly.

"That would be perfect," April agreed. Detweiler didn't fool her. Most people would think him poker faced, but she'd seen the smile around his eyes even if his lips stayed straight. Her use of public appearances probably paled beside some of the shenanigans he saw, and was more effective, she hoped.

Diana turned a few heads more than Jeff or herself, April noticed. It was getting to the point an Earthie stood out and caught people's eye as an oddity. The wave of immigration had slowed from sheer lack of capacity long enough for people to start to assimilate. People liked to fit in and some styles like hard soled shoes just made no sense in an environment that was all indoors by Earth standards.

Diana was not oblivious. "Got a few stares," she said when they sat down, quietly for her.

"Your blouse has buttons, and the shoes, although they aren't leather are still uncommon here. People tend to footies and what look like house slippers to you. And the floral print and the bright stripes on the shoes really stand out."

"What's wrong with buttons?" Diana asked, fingering one thoughtfully.

"Enough people work in zero G that the styles carry over," April explained. "Buttons gap when your clothing floats loose away from your body. You can put them closer together, but that has its problems too. The sort of cut that works in gravity doesn't even look nice in zero G, so they tend instead to stretch fabrics and elastic. If you get on a shuttle and loose a button, or any other small object, a lot of pilots would refuse to lift and charge you for the delay until it is found."

"Gum up the works somewhere huh?" Diana figured out. "On Earth people would just keep their mouth shut and hope nobody noticed."

At the look on April's face she said, "And so we are back to Earth Think I believe."

"Exactly. You'd be playing games with your life, and those of everyone else. Spaceships are hard enough to build without making them button-proof. Not only fans and other moving things that need internal clearances, you have circuit boards and chips that can't have a small random object touch them. You'd have to add screens and ways to get to the screens and clean them. There would be a weight penalty and add hours of maintenance."

"I have screens on my doors and windows at home," Diana said. "It doesn't seem burdensome."

"Yes, but in a spaceship it isn't just the ventilation. Back home, do all your electrical appliances have screens and filters? Your TV and your computer? Printer and monitor? Your refrigerator? Your lighting fixtures? Because in zero G things float. The vents being on the bottom of your blender won't mean anything in zero G, because it has no bottom side any more. Down has no meaning. If there is a staple or paper clip or coin, they can float in and short out electrical contacts or circuit boards. Even a piece of broken off lead from a mechanical pencil. Jewelry can break and have rings and pins and stones float away. The little piece of plastic that held the price tag on your clothing, or a cap off a pen, or the little plastic closure for a bread bag can jam a motor or solenoid or get under the seal on a hatch."

"No wonder you folks are paranoid," Diana admitted. "I had no idea. I'll stash the stuff with buttons away for my trip home, and look everything else over to make sure no little bits can come off. You know, stretchy stuff can be pretty unflattering for people my age, but I do have a few things with elastic waists."

"You look very nicely trim and in shape for any age," Jeff insisted. "But, you'd be better off to sell your personal items before going home, rather than take them back."

"If clothing with buttons isn't favored why would people buy them?" Diana asked. "At home I usually drop off old clothing I haven't worn in awhile for charity. It's not worth selling."

"The freight cost to lift anything makes it worth selling," April assured her. "There's a couple people who keep an ad in 'What's Happening' to buy your used clothing. They'll buy it as a lot instead of piece by piece if you want, and some will buy your return allowance to fill the bags and drop them. They'll cut the buttoned clothing down and alter it, or sell the fabric. Some might even end up in the charity bin."

"You have people who need charity?" Diana asked surprised.

"Indeed we do. There's a fellow who conducts religious services for a small private group who organizes it. Pretty decent of him to volunteer some of his precious cubic for that. It pretty much leaves him without a living room," April said. "He could sell sleeping space and make money instead."

"You realize that sounds crazy to me?" Diana asked.

"You just told me you give clothing to charity," April said, confused.

"Not the charity, the renting your living room for sleeping.. Where do these people go when they aren't sleeping? Do they share the bath and leave their things there in the day?" Diana demanded.

"It depends on the landlord," April said. "There are storage lockers a couple places, but they tend to all be as full as living space now. When one comes open there is somebody standing there ready to grab it. If you see somebody every day with a duffle bag they probably sleep on a floor or in a hot slot and keep everything they own in the bag. Some of them go to the gym and pay for a day to use the shower. Some just go in the restroom at their work or one of the few public ones and do a hand bath."

"I can't imagine living out of a bag like that," Diana admitted. "It wouldn't hold my shoes."

"You made me remember something," Jeff said. "We recently hired crew for a ship, a big wet water, ocean going ship in the Pacific. The fellow doing our hiring mentioned he'd received a couple crew member's bags already, sent ahead as freight, because it's cheaper than what the airlines charge to carry it as luggage. So it's a similar thing for them down on Earth in their work culture. These aren't menials either. The jobs are considered pretty high end."

"Interesting. I forget not everybody lives in big houses," Diana admitted.

The server arrived to take their drink order. All the drinks were on a daily special card. Jeff ordered a mint vodka, and April a mug of beer.

"We have an Australian amber tonight," the server said. "not too bitter and very smooth."

"You've had that before?" Diana asked.

"No, but we're still a bit behind on shipping luxury goods and some nights we don't have a choice of two beers. I'll take whatever we have," April said. "They are getting kegs again, but bottled beer is still too dear for shuttle space. The bottles you see. They're so heavy."

"Silly me I thought this was just the specials and there were other varieties," Diana said.

"The beer is still from Earth," Jeff told her. "We don't have brewing, yet. The vodka is from the moon and much easier to get. I have an interest in producing that, and so far we're keeping up with the demand."

"I'll have the watermelon vodka," Diana decided. There were no prices on the drink card, and local had to be cheaper. She had no idea what things cost yet.

The drink was surprisingly big. It had an actual slurry of watermelon and didn't appear to have extra sugar added, but it had a little garnish of actual melon rind. Jeff's drink had real mint leaves in it.

"We've only had water melon for about a month now," Jeff said. "It's still pretty rare because the production is only a couple dozen a week. They are grown hydroponically and the racks to support them are rather interesting."

"You grow them here on Home?" Diana asked shocked.

"Heavens no! The cubic is too expensive to grow things here no matter how dense you pack it. They're grown at Central on the moon. The racks are vertical against the tunnel walls to avoid the expense of making them mobile to get at the melons when grown. They're too heavy to move easily and don't stack well at all," Jeff said.

"The racks for other things like salads greens and turnips, radishes and cabbages are in flat racks stacked one on top of another," he illustrated with his hands. "When we need to get to the melons the racks are pushed into the center access aisle to open up room along the edge to get to the fixed melon racks. Nobody has figured out how to automate harvesting watermelons, yet. They only take about a half meter along the wall. It is some of our first mixed growth in the same cubic. We're going to try doing grape tomatoes along the edge of another tunnel too."

"I had no idea," Diana said. "I assumed it was all lifted from Earth."

"The moon is much cheaper from which to transport, because it take less reactive mass to lift things. Earth is such a deep gravity well it's always expensive, even with fusion power, and a lot of shuttles still get carried aloft with chemical fuels on a mother ship to be released. Of course with fusion power you can make chemical fuels cheaper than fossil fuels. It's a shame to burn them. Even methane. I imagine they'll stop burning it locally in time, it's just too valuable. With water as a source for reactive mass at least you are recycling it leaving Earth. Shooting it straight back where it came from."

"I never thought of it that way before," Diana admitted.

"We're getting more volatiles soon from regolith, and it appears we'll soon have an ice ball coming in more than annually from out system. Our next design for automated freight shuttles from the moon will use waste mass from processed regolith, the leftover stuff with the carbon and water and other valuables extracted, to bulk out the exhaust," Jeff said.

"Everything here is so complicated," Diana said. "At home in my yard we clear an area for a garden, put down some plastic and plant. It pretty much grows on its own. Most of the time we don't even have to water it. You can easily get three cycles of growth and harvest in a year."

"Some of our crops we'll get ten cycles a year," Jeff said. "But we are growing at higher pressure and concentrations of carbon dioxide than natural air on Earth. The temperature is controlled, and the light constant or cycled shorter for those crops that benefit from it. We've also experimenting with tuning our lights to specific wavelengths for different plants."

"I'm just a gardener not a farmer," Diana said. "I know they grow a lot of stuff indoor in Europe, but food there is more expensive too. I know they import a lot of grain from places that can grow it outside."

"Yes, grain is difficult. We can't grow wheat cheaper than importing flour. We'd like to try amaranth, but people who didn't grow up eating it balk at the flavor and texture. Rice is difficult and corn, corn takes so much room. And we don't have enough uses for the rest of the plant. We have a variety that grows to a little more than a meter and has four ears per plant, but it still isn't efficient enough. It wouldn't survive at all, outdoors in your garden in natural conditions. I suspect a lot of our plants are going to become specialized that way."

"We are in a similar situation on Hawaii," Diana explained. "We have a larger population to feed than cheap ways of farming will support. There are better economic uses for the land, and aesthetic and political reasons to limit a lot of farming operations. Nick has mentioned fertilizer run-off is a limiting factor. But all of that that leaves us at the mercy of disruptions in shipping and political blackmail. A large part of the population can't pay for more expensive food, and a lot of the people who returned to the mainland or Asia were those who could have paid more."

Their server asked if they'd like to see dinner menus and Jeff nodded yes.

"So, you don't have to worry about how secure coms are now, so tell us what is happening in Hawaii," April demanded. "And how thick my caretaker Nick is involved in it, and if I have to worry that people will come kick down my doors looking for him."

"You probably can go online and find out more than I know," Diana admitted. "Anytime I got too nosy about it Nick always said I couldn't be blamed for anything I didn't know about."

"Nor spill your guts about it to others..." Jeff noted. When Diana looked upset he added, "Not even under duress." He really hadn't meant she'd betray Nick.

"That too. But I have no idea what their full platform is. I don't even know how highly placed Nick is in the organization. At least he thinks well enough of me that he suggested about two months ago I should start planning a cruise or vacation someplace safer. He's honest enough I think he'd have told me if it was going to be one way for sure, so I could take some keepsakes. He talked about taking care of Ele-'ele like he expected me to come back."

Jeff raised an eyebrow, but with his head turned to April, not Diana.

"Her dog," April supplied. "He's huge, and it would be cruel to have him on Home."

"I've only seen a dog on Home once," Jeff remembered. "One of those tiny things a visiting tourist woman carried around in the crook of her arm, like a fashion accessory."

"I missed that," April said.

"It was back before the revolution," Jeff said. "She was some kind of celebrity."

They were provided the daily menu sheet. Diana looked irritated. "There's no prices. I didn't expect to mooch off you guys," she objected.

"You are giving us valuable international intelligence," Jeff explained. "Information that affects Home's status with Earth, our company's prospects to do business there, and the security of April's personal property on the island. That is not mooching. In any case, they won't show April a priced menu. It is their pleasure to serve her and her guests. She's a partner in the enterprise."

"Wooo... I've heard the expression, 'Your money is no good here.', but I've never actually seen it before," Diana said.

"So glad to extend the envelope of your experience," April said, wryly.

"Don't get all frosty on me, Kiddo. I'm not easy to impress, but that managed it."

"I've known April longer than you, and she still surprises me, frequently," Jeff admitted.

"OK," Diana acquiesced, making a show of reexamining the menu. "Thank you for dinner."

"The pasta is quite good with any sauce," April suggested. "I particularly like the bacon cream sauce. The petite filet is melt in your mouth good."

"A hunk of beef must be worth its weight in gold the way you are talking about freight costs!"

"The filet is from the moon," April corrected her."

"You're running cattle on the moon?" Diana asked unbelieving.

"It is grown...without the cow," April assured her. "It is very good."

"That must be...lonely. Don't tell me too much," Diana asked, holding a hand up. "I'll try it. But if you get too technical and make it sound gross you'll ruin it for me."

"Not another word," April agreed. "The mixed salad is quite good and the roast potatoes go well."

"All from the moon I bet," Diana said, but it was inflected as a question.

"All but the butter I think, and possibly some oil in the salad dressings," April allowed.

"Ah, here are our appetizers," Jeff said, spotting them before they reached the table.

After noshing on them a bit Diana admitted, "These are nice and fresh and crunchy. I know the olives have to be from Earth, and the cream cheese, but all the local stuff is wonderful."

"The cream cheese is fake," Jeff told her. "It's from local soy, the olives, yeah that's going to be a tough one. Maybe with some serious gene mod. We have a guy who can probably do something that radical. If we can get it to grow up a trellis as a bush," he speculated.

"Some things...why not just stay wealthy enough to buy the imported?" April asked. "It's not like we are in danger of starving anymore if they cut us off. Money needs to flow back the other way too, no?"

Jeff stopped and looked surprised. "Yes, yes it does. Thanks, it's easy to lose sight of that."

"Finally," April said. Diana didn't know what she meant, and then the house lights dipped a little. The first act was coming on and the place quieted down.

Chapter 27

The door signal was insisting April wake up. They'd stayed up very late talking, and she wanted to sleep in. The clock in the corner of her bedroom screen said 10:36. It really wasn't that early to be bothering someone, normally. April threw on a long t-shirt she sometimes wore to sleep and stumbled out to the door half asleep. She picked her pistol up in passing and hesitated long enough at the com desk to demand: "House, display corridor cam."

There was a very young man, boy really, standing in the corridor with a bunch of flowers. April couldn't have been any more surprised if it had been a horse. The kid tried the buzzer again and the house was smart enough to know she was in the living room instead of the bedroom, but not smart enough to see she'd looked to see who it was and stop pestering her. Diana stirred on the couch.

"Good morning," April said, opening the hatch. Her assertion totally lacked sincerity, and the boy, although he was perhaps ten looked dismayed. His eyes also followed the line of the arm held behind her, and he probably figured out she wasn't holding his tip.

"Begging your pardon, I have a delivery for this cubic," he said, hefting the bouquet of roses.

"The address, or are they for a particular person? Need a signature?" April asked.

"It's odd," the boy admitted. "Here's the card for them," he offered and extended it slowly like he didn't want to startle April. She took it left handed.

My damn reputation for mayhem, she thought ruefully.

The card said: For the lovely lady in the tropical print. You brightened my day. Eduardo Muños. It was written by hand in wet ink.

By then Diana was looking over her shoulder. April just handed the card to her.

"Stay here," April commanded. The kid looked worried but didn't say anything, didn't even nod. Damn, she hated it when people were afraid of her..."Acknowledge it please," she said, as nicely as she could so early in the morning.

"Yes, Ma'am, I'll wait right here," the boy promised. April hated being called 'Ma'am' even more, but she forced a smile, and tried not to show too much tooth. She walked away and didn't even try to hide the gun. The kid had that figured out anyway. She got in her pouch and got a bit card, remembered how badly she scared the kid, and added a second bit. That was extravagant, but what the heck...

Diana was still standing there, but at least she had the flowers now. When April gave the kid his tip he bowed way deeper than any Japanese had ever acknowledged her, and thanked her. He was even bright enough to figure out he was excused when tipped without her needing to formally dismiss him.

"Got a vase for these things?" Diana asked.

"No," April realized, and wasn't even sure where to get one. She could order one from Earth on standby, because they were heavy, weren't they? But the flowers would be history by then. Her brain wasn't working yet, and Jeff came out of the bedroom in spex, shorts and footies, and saved her

"I'll put those in the tall pitcher you keep for lemonade and mimosas," he volunteered. April closed the hatch, came back in, and laid the pistol on the com console in passing.

Since Jeff was busy doing something with the flowers at the sink, April started coffee. Diana knowing where the bath was from last night headed there on her own.

"What are you doing?" April asked Jeff when her task was done, and it was brewing.

"The cut ends get dry and they can stop taking water up. You should recut them under water before you put them in a vase. I'll add a pinch of sugar to the water too. It makes them last longer."

How does he know this stuff? April silently wondered.

Diana came out and April traded places and went off to the bathroom without a word. Jeff was getting mugs out and put the roses on the slab table between the couches. Muños favored bright colors and pastels, so the yellow roses didn't surprise him. They went with April's decor too.

"I'm going to special order some breakfast from the cafeteria," he told Diana. "I'll order up a buffet, unless you want lunch stuff?"

"They deliver? That isn't like any corporate cafeteria I ever saw," Diana said. "You haven't starved me yet. I'll take whatever you guys are having. Breakfast is fine."

"They don't deliver, but there are lots of courier services. The kids love it for spending money. We might get the same kid back that brought your flowers," he predicted.

"What did April give him? I thought she was getting him a tip, but it looked like a fancy business card, a double one that folds over."

"That's a bit. A certificate for a hundredth of a gram of gold," Jeff explained.

"Really? Kids can get paid in gold for running errands? No wonder they're hot to do it. Who guarantees it?" Diana asked. "I may start delivering pizzas myself."

"I do. Well, April and Heather too, as officers of the System Trade Bank," he added when Diana looked askance. "Irwin Hall of the Private Bank does too, but through our bank. I trust him to cover the gold if it gets called, but we will pay up even if he goes broke," Jeff vowed. "There isn't all that much out in bits to demand he transport bullion for every printing."

Diana was regarding the flowers, and card. "So, who is this Eduardo Muños? If I brightened his day so, why didn't he come by our table and introduce himself?"

"I saw him with some other people on the same level we were at, but across the room. Likely he didn't feel free to leave his company. Here, I can pull his image up from my spex and show you."

He routed the pix to the wall screen and it showed a slow sweeping scan of the whole room.

"Do you always record the entire room when you go out to a club?" Diana asked.

"Yes, if there is a problem later, if someone tries an assassination, we can identify who might be responsible," Jeff said.

"And this happens, how often?" Diana asked.

That irritated Jeff. "Often enough I can show you the scars if you want," he said sharply.

Before she could say more he froze the scan and said..."There, the gentleman with the soft unstructured creme jacket over the melon colored shirt." He was with two other men. They all looked of a similar age, and had drinks.

"A business meeting I'd guess," Jeff said.

"What sort of business is he in? Diana asked.

"Do you know, Mr. Muños has never made that very clear to me. As far as I know he's in the business of being rich," Jeff joked. "How he made it, back on Earth, I don't know. He's made a number of valuable suggestions to me, to talk to this person or that, but our business has never been intertwined to any degree. He does have deposit accounts in our bank. But of course I can't discuss that."

"But enough you know him," Diana said.

"Everybody knows Eduardo," Jeff said. "He's the Registrar of voters and conducts the Assembly. Let me tell you this, so you understand the trouble to which he went. There's a family on the moon selling flowers. That's the only source I know of unless Eduardo grows his own. To have called and gotten them ordered and on the early shuttle here would have been difficult. He probably had to call from his table last night at the club. A dozen long stemmed roses likely ran him five thousand Australian dollars, and an expedited shipping fee."

"He's not bad looking," Diana allowed. "Maybe a little young for me."

Jeff laughed. "Eduardo is older than you, but he's had Life Extension. After you've seen it enough you'll recognize the signs, but I was reliably informed that he was extremely good looking when he had a full mane of white hair and some wrinkles beside his eyes. He's almost as bad as April for knowing everything that's going on. He might have been looking you over, figuring that Life Extension is why you are here."

"Hmmm. I'm not going to marry again," Diana declared. "Been there done that."

For an instant Jeff thought that was a presumptuous stretch, from a gift of flowers, and then he reconsidered. Maybe they would be a pretty good match. Both were bold as brass.

"So, you guys...you three, have a bank, and a nightclub, what else have you got your hooks into?"

"No, no. The part interest in the Fox and Hare is entirely April's holding. She has a number of business interests her brother willed her. I'm not entirely sure what. She does hold a share in the bank and Singh Technologies with Heather and I. We all pooled our resources and agreed to hold them in common for...specific events, that are long past. But we have each acquired or started other interests on our own. We never vowed to keep bringing everything to the pool forever."

Diana's examination of him left him so uncomfortable he added. 'We don't often speak of it, but it's nothing you couldn't piece together from public documents and records, if you wished. Just reading all the archives of the public Assembly would do it."

"I knew she wasn't poor, to afford the house next to me in Hawaii, but I may have been badly underestimating how un-poor she is."

"This is not the home of a poor person on Home," Jeff said, surprised he needed to say that.

"I haven't seen any other apartments," Diana pointed out. "I've got nothing to compare it to.

"Compare what?" April said returning, hair wet from a shower. "Are you going to drink that coffee or just stare at it?"

"Let's start by all means," Jeff agreed. "I have breakfast coming. Diana was just inquiring about local real estate," he said, almost truthfully. "I was assuring her it's a very dear market right now."

Diana took a slug of the coffee, and made a noise they took to be approval. "And he filled me in on who Eduardo Muños is."

"Everybody knows Eduardo," April said echoing Jeff and dropped that subject. "We had a few billionaires want to move in from Earth. They came in and named a higher and higher price to a few folks who supposedly weren't interested in selling. When they reached a crazy enough level a couple of them broke down and took the money. Now everybody expects that kind of money to sell any cubic outright. But I think the tide of Billionaires dried up."

"But then, where do the people who sold out live ?" Diana asked her, reasonably.

"I assume they downgraded and paid another crazy price, just somewhat less, for a tiny place. Something like the picture you showed me that Dr. Ames set up. You can figure at the bottom of the chain somebody got bumped and had to live in hot slots or go homeless."

"That's terrible," Diana said.

"But a consequence of their own greed," Jeff pointed out. "We're trying to make unspun housing nearby, but it's going to be awhile. The preliminary work is on the moon right now."

"Another business venture?" Diana asked.

"Yeah, my idea, but I have just a piece of  it," Jeff said.

"That's breakfast," April said, and headed for the door. She let the young man carry the insulated container to the table and said, "Thank you, Eric."

"Are you aware there's a humongous spider hiding behind your entry camera?" Eric asked.

"Oh, don't bother it please," April said. "It's a bot to hunt other bots. You'll probably be seeing more of them in time. These are just in a local test."

"Oh good. I was worried about what something that big could be eating."

Eric stopped passing through the living room to smell and touch the roses. "Very nice," he commented on the way out.

"That reminds me," Jeff said, "Natsume got back to me about the tiny bot we killed. Neutron activation analysis of the remains suggests from isotopic ratios that the battery was Chinese. It's a stretch to say the rest was too, but it increased the likelihood of that."

"I thought they were too busy with their own problems to keep bothering us," April said.

Jeff shrugged. "China is big. There must be plenty of areas and enterprises that are moving right along, doing business as usual. Especially anything military will get priority on resources."

Di was ignoring all this byplay that didn't interest her. "The corner over there that's walled off, what is that? Your secret laboratory?" she asked.

"My body guard Gunny's room. But he's off doing security work for a client. You may meet him if he gets back in time," April said, opening containers.

Diana's face said she had even more questions but she concentrated on the food for awhile.

"You tipped the first one, but not this last young man," Diana noticed. "Why?"

"Eric owns his own courier business. You don't tip the owner," April explained. "He has this crazy idea he has to handle our account personally."

"Influence," Diana said. "I'm familiar with the concept myself. But he couldn't run anything back home. It's hard to get a variance and permit to employ a seventeen year old in your own family business. The state would take him from his family for child labor abuse, and ruin anybody who'd hired him."

"Perhaps Nick and his friends will correct that if they succeed in removing Hawaii from the grip of North America," Jeff suggested.

Diana looked like she wanted to say more, but she just said, "Perhaps."

April had the dishes laid out in the center of the table and they sat around it on the cloth chairs so common to Home. They folded up and hung on a hook when not needed. Jeff topped off their coffee and everybody was quiet for awhile while they were eating.

"I have a yellow light blinking on com," April said. "That's a second tier message or a news search that returned some solid results. Would it offend you to have me throw it on the big screen?" She said it to both of them, but was looking at Diana.

"Your place, your customs, if you don't mind me seeing it," Diana said, with a wave of her hand.

"House, display yellow priority com on screen," April ordered by voice from her seat. She had oatmeal with raisins and no desire to get up.

"You change your voice when you talk to the house computer," Di told her.

"You do the same thing when you talk to your dog," April observed.

Diana thought that was hilarious.

Seven news retrievals with seventeen to three key words. Five North America, one European, and one undefined. The screen showed silently.

"Show first with highest key words," April said.

"Official news program, National release, Tues. 1800 local time each zone, from the Joint Committee of Temporary Governance. Timothy Borden spox."

The program captioned the release, highlighting key search words.

Tim spoke breathlessly, and revealed there was a thankless mob action in Hawaii of bandits and criminals. He recounted some of the previous movements to repudiate Hawaii's statehood, laid it on thick what a privilege it was to have been admitted as a state, and glossed over the fact Hawaii had been overthrown as a sovereign nation, basically for commercial interests.

When he commented on the heathen nature of the Hawaiian culture it twigged Jeff to what was going on. "Ah...OK, he's God's Warriors faction or he wouldn't be bringing this up."

"This movement is not new, but its modern expression has new life from outside influences," Tim asserted. "The Wiggen administration allowed a Home operative free reign to operate in Hawaii." A window opened to the side and showed a shot of April running along a beach.

"That's you!" Diana said, stating the obvious, incredulous.

"An agent of the Presidential protective detail was even dispatched to Hawaii, and they all met and colluded with a notorious spy, resident on the island, and foreign news agents."

Thankfully Tim offered no pix of Gunny or Papa-san.

"After killing a senior member of Homeland Security attempting to arrest her, these people were involved in an incident that involved a Chinese submarine in Hawaiian waters."

"All true, but entirely lacking in context," April said to Diana's shocked looks.

"The three principles managed to elude authorities and slip off the island, probably by boat."

"How many ways are there off an island?" April asked, amused.

"These people all now reside on Home, untouchable and not subject to extradition from that lawless habitat. An agent of North America recently went to Home and tried to bring one of the master minds of this operation to justice. Sadly Mr. Singh, personally responsible for several criminal bombardments of Earth after a supposed treaty, forced him into a duel. The results were tragic. Our agent was cut by a weapon tainted with a neurotoxin and died."

The screen with April, cut to an ugly video of the Earthie Patrick flopping on the floor in weakening seizures. Jeff was holding the knife he'd picked up off the floor aloft like a salute. Mr. Muños was standing in front of a crowd in the background, as was April. The killed bystander was cropped out.

"And that's Eduardo!" Diana said, amazed again, but didn't note April being there.

"Yes, and if Jeff hadn't killed the son-of-a-bitch Eduardo had promised to do so the next morning."

Diana was staring at her, mouth hanging open. What she noticed most, at the moment, was April was continuing to eat her oatmeal, visibly irritated, but not enough to spoil her appetite.

"What our investigators have uncovered, is that this goes back further than any of us realized," Tim continued. "The duelist in the video, Jeff Singh, is son of a man who made his fortune suing the Governor of Hawaii, and the Hawaiian State Police for allowing the wrongful death of Singh's mother in a tragic terrorist attack. They have a long standing grievance with both the North American governance of Hawaii and the police, stemming from an ancient land dispute."

"Absolutely true," Jeff said. "But they didn't allow it. The State Police built and deployed the bomb that killed my mom. The Governor should have died flopping around like a goldfish on the floor like Patrick in the video there, but the best my dad could do was break him financially. He made his fortune himself, but he did nick them for a pretty big hunk of change. Because they were guilty." He buttered another muffin and added jam, munching on it unconcerned at the continuing slander.

The video continued on, showing old clips of the Governor and Jeff's dad. And news reports of the bombing, but not the trial of the police or the Singh's suit against the Governor.

The program moved on to saying Home was implicated in the disappearance of a Coast Guard vessel and most recently a USNA submarine. All this was presented in sum as a pattern of continued hostility from Home, and the reason the USNA could not credit the previous government's willingness to accept a treaty with Home.

"It is therefore necessary to temporarily stop all trade and support of Hawaii from the mainland, until this is resolved, and local authority repudiates any separatist movements," Tim said with a sad face.

"Notice, he didn't say they would blockade them, just stop exporting to them," Jeff said. "But this makes official that they are still at war with us, not just one authority's statement."

"You don't seem all that worried," Diana noted.

"I'm far less concerned with what they say, than what they do," Jeff said. "They can bluster all they wish. If they actually move against us in any physical way I'm quite capable of destroying them. All that garbage," Jeff dismissed the program with a wave of his hand, "was for domestic consumption. They rally the simple minded by painting themselves as under attack. They use having an opposition to say their actions have the legitimacy of necessity. And they are skillful in lying. The best way to lie is to tell part of the truth."

"Then what's the other part I'm not hearing?" Diana asked.

"It might take awhile to show you. Do you really want to take a couple hours to see it?" April asked.

"Yes, I think I have to," Diana said.

"Well, I'm going to make another pot of coffee then," April said. "Jeff, show her Mr. Patrick standing up to speak to you in the assembly, then the full video of the duel."

"It was him that started it, and his weapons, and they never showed the poor clod that got killed for nothing," Diana said, after the show. "They turned it all upside down."

"Indeed," Jeff agreed, "You might appreciate the encounter with the USNA Coast Guard our friends who have a ketch recorded. Then I have an interview with the captain of the submarine they report missing. He defected rather than attack our ship when he knew it to be suicide."

"Run 'em, this is interesting," Diana allowed.

"I imagine the people on the cutter felt righteous to point a cannon at them," Diana said much later, "I don't see the necessity given they weren't running, but they only would do so if they were sure the other boat was helpless. They were wrong," Diana added unnecessarily.

"In international waters the reality is the guys with the biggest guns do what they wish," Jeff said. Would you like to see documents about my mother's death and the court cases?"

"Nah, I can see which way the wind is blowing with these," Diana allowed. "It's kind of depressing, and I suspect you can beat me over the head with more all day long, can't you? I have my appointment with Doc Ames tomorrow and don't want to spend my whole day watching this crap."

"Easily. A couple days if you want to read court transcripts. They do love to talk."

"You don't want to just let them get away with this, do you?" Diana asked.

"They control the communications with the majority," Jeff said. "People who are smart enough to bypass net controls already know it's false. People in other countries pretty much know. I don't think we can make any real headway on what the greater mob in North America believes. Neither do I speak for all of Home, although they make it look that way. I don't want to sound as if I believe I can speak for Home, nor do I want to sound strident and desperate. Let them rant, as long as they behave," Jeff said.

"Let's go out and do something fun then," Diana said.

"Tonight we'll take you to the Quiet Retreat," April promised.

"What's that?" Diana asked her.

"The competition for the Fox and Hare. It's the only other serious club on Home. Do you dance?"

"Oh yeah. Sounds good to me."

Chapter 28

The next morning Diana went off early to start her treatments. She didn't get back until late.

"Ames says I won't even make it back here tonight," She warned April the next morning before leaving. "He says I need to have a slow drip in me that will last twenty hours. I'll be in a treatment bed."

The end of the third day she came home exhausted, ate like a starving wolf, and fell into bed. Her face was quite puffy and pink. It looked like she might peel a bit like one does with untreated sunburn. It alarmed April a little. She'd never had the accelerated treatments like this herself, or ever seen what they looked like in an older person.

The next morning April sent Diana off and then discovered the woman had raided the frig in the middle of the night. Anything that could be eaten without cooking was just gone. That included a stack of corn tortillas, a quarter kilo of butter and a half a chocolate creme pie. She hadn't said anything, and April wondered if she even remembered doing it.

When Diana came home that night she did remember, and tried to offer April payment for it. April declined and offered to order up anything she wanted. Diana was her house guest after all. She could get sandwiches and such from the cafeteria and have them on hand. It really wasn't any different than when Gunny was home. He had a habit of ignoring food for a day and then suddenly cleaning the frig out in an evening too.

The next morning Diana announced she'd be back mid-day, and the next day the same.

April had the door set to Diana's hand and voice, so she wasn't that aware when she returned, until she heard Diana say, "Damn...What does the other guy look like?"

April was sitting at the com console, running through her messages, but that apparently was directed at Gunny, now returned home, and enjoying a cup of coffee while standing chatting with April. He had on shorts and footies, hair wet from the shower, and he was a vision of layered muscle and scars.

April was so accustomed to him she forgot what a sight he could be. Diana apparently found him a vision, and in her usual forthright manner wasn't afraid to say so.

"The other guy, several actually, doesn't look like anything anymore," Gunny assured her. He flashed a predatory smile April rarely saw. It could be very intimidating if you weren't certain you were friends with him. Diana had apparently assumed that relationship already. She returned a similar grin.

"Ah, Diana...my bodyguard and friend, Gunny Mack Tindal," April introduced them.

"Earthie, on probationary status, here from Hawaii for gene mods," Diana described herself.

"Homie, former USNA Naval NCO, Presidential Detail, got a few minor mods myself," he said.

"Any of that coffee left?" Diana asked. "It's near as good as the single estate Kona, the sort the natives keep for themselves."

"April doesn't buy cheap coffee," Gunny confirmed. "Coming right up," he said, going to get Diana a mug, and top his off. That surprised April. Most folks he'd wave at the pot and let them serve themselves. April had an uneasy feeling there was an...affinity there. Most men she could tell if they found a lady attractive. They sucked their stomach in flat right away. The trouble with Gunny was he looked like an ad for a gym. He didn't have anything over that washboard to suck in...

"Listen here, Kiddo," Diana said. She wasn't really rude, just more assertive than most people April had to deal with. "I've been thinking about that crap the Norte Americans dumped on the news a couple days back. I can see what you are saying about them controlling their own media, but I thought of a good way to give them a little back if you are interested. Is that boyfriend of yours around?"

"He's at his office. He sent me some text a bit ago and declined lunch. Maybe if you ask him to come talk you can pry him out of his office when I couldn't. Why don't you sit on the couch there. I'll aim a camera at you and let you talk to him. Let me put him on the screen."

Diana parked herself on the sofa facing the big wall screen. Gunny followed her unasked, with his coffee, and sat at the other end. Jeff appeared with an intense look on his face Diana hadn't seen yet. There was a man in the background, and it struck her how small the room had to be.

"Diana," Jeff said, acknowledging her with nod. Something clicked and his face changed. He dropped out of work mode, but she didn't know him well enough to recognize that yet. "And Gunny," he added. "Welcome back." The camera angle was pretty wide apparently. April didn't show their window.

"I was laying back thinking while the doc was dripping God only knows what in my veins. I can't watch video or try to read while they fuss with stuff and come in and out. How would you like to poke a stick in North America's eye for that nasty propaganda you showed me?"

"Possibly," Jeff allowed. "If it's just a minor irritant to make me feel better, I'd rather not take much time or effort. It would take a lot to really make me feel much better about them. If it hurts them significantly without harming the innocent, even the stupid innocent, then it might be worth doing."

"You made a big deal the other night about getting landing rights in Australia and Japan, and it sounds like you have a couple more looking pretty solid. How about adding Hawaii? I'm not even sure what they are going to call it. Republic of Hawaii? Kingdom of Hawaii? But whatever it is, if you start landing there it lends them legitimacy. I have Nick's number, and you can call him up and ask if you can do a deal. No guarantees, I'm not sure he has the rank to negotiate it, but what can it hurt?"

"You know I can't recognize them as a country without putting it before the Assembly? And I'm loath to do that. I don't know enough about this rebellion to support it.  April and I discussed it at length, and agreed not to export rebellion," Jeff said. "I have no idea if I want to support them."

"That's fine. It gives your people deniability. But you can see from their own propaganda they can't separate Home and you in their little minds," Diana said, with a dismissive gesture. "You might as well take advantage of it. And it gives you another place to land. You aren't expected to support Australia or Japan because you are landing there are you? It's just business. You don't have to approve of their political theories to trade with them. However, if you start landing there and doing business with their little upstart nation, it will irritate the hell out of North America. Even with no formal recognition. I can just about guarantee it."

Jeff gave a snort of amusement and grinned. "Yeah, I think so too. After all, just about everything irritates them. Give me this Nick's number and I'll call him. That's April's house boy, right?"

"Yes, but if you call him a houseboy you might as well not call. That's classist and racist and a whole bunch of other 'ists...He's a caretaker or conservator," Diana instructed him.

"Right, until next month and those will be offensive too," Jeff said. "Thanks for the number. I'll call him right now and see what I can arrange," and he disconnected.

"Jeff is getting perceptive," Gunny said, surprised.

"I've been giving him people lessons, socializing him bit by bit," April admitted.

"That's fine," Gunny decided. "I don't think it will spoil him."

"How would you like to go to lunch?" Diana asked Gunny. "These treatments leave me ravenous."

"Sure. Just let me throw on something a little better for public," Gunny said, and went to his room.

April noticed she wasn't included...

Gunny returned with a grey silk shirt over black pants. He didn't usually dress that nice for a cafeteria 'lunch', but Diana seemed to appreciate it.

"Have fun," April called out, as they left. They at least waved goodbye.

Midafternoon Jeff called. "Is Diana there April? She doesn't answer her com."

She left for lunch with Gunny, several hours ago."

Jeff just raised his eyebrows. "Well..."

"You need her to deal with Nick?" April asked.

"No, that's a done deal. I just wanted to thank her."

"I tell you what. She really liked the Quiet Retreat because of the dancing. I'll get us a reservation for four, and text Gunny. I don't think he'll turn off his phone, not when his security guys have to be able to contact him. If they want to come along he'll text me back. If he says no I'll invite the Patsitsas'. They won't be offended by a last minute invitation. They've done it to us. It won't kill us to go there so soon. It was pretty nice, even the food."

"All right, I can do that," Jeff agreed. "We'll go even if nobody else wants too."

"Thank you. Just come on over when you want. I'll ask for 1900."

* * *

The reservations secretary for the maitre d' at the Quiet Retreat was surprised. She knew April had been there the evening before and that she was involved with their rival club.

"No Ms. Lewis, it isn't too late at all. We can have a banquette for four at 1900, and happy to have you," which she seemed to have added spontaneously. April made a note to do her some favor.

Gunny was much briefer. He returned her text with, "Yes."

Jeff had a delightful surprise for her when he came early. He'd replaced the jacket he'd lost in his duel, and was dressed in the full matching outfit again. Gunny and Diana didn't show until 1500, and he went to dress in something fresh and nicer for the club. He stuck his head out the door and let Diana know when the shower was open.

Gunny looked really nice when he came out. He had on grey trousers with side stripes and a short cropped jacket of the same color without a collar or buttons. It barely went below the waist and had big vents in the back and elastic gussets under the arms to allow freedom of movement. It had piping along the radiused hem and front opening to match the trousers. The shirt under it was a medium blue with tiny yellow diamonds that looked almost golden. It made his large shoulder look even bigger without any padding.

Diana when she came out had a dress on that was the essence of simplicity. A soft sheath of delicate fabric in a red like the brightest lipstick, which she wore to match, but little other makeup. April thought she looked really good, and some of it was the treatments showing already.

"I've never seen a jacket like that," Diana told Gunny. "Is it a style on Home?"

"It is now," Gunny quipped. "I was told to wear a jacket by my client for this last job. I had Frank make it for me and another in off white. I told him I wanted a short jacket like toreadors wear, but without all the silly bling and embroidery. It's thin and has a bonded satin lining. You can move like lightning in it. Since you said we'd dance I didn't think I should hobble myself."

"Well...I'll try to keep up," Diana said.

"April, I have to thank you for the loan of your drones," Gunny said. "They are tremendously intimidating. I felt uncomfortable returning to ISSII after they got the drop on me last time. I've started wearing spex with rear view cameras, but I'm still not comfortable using them. It feels weird looking forward and seeing everything on both edges going the other way, "He demonstrated with both hands fanning to the back on each side. "But I set them to do a little orbit, one side and then pause, and the other side a little further on. When they break away to make a little circle you can see the other guys security get all twitchy. They have no idea how autonomous they are, and don't want to find out."

"They were a little too intimidating to use every day on Home. But when I go visit other habs I'll take them along," April said. She thought Gunny was plenty intimidating all on his own. She'd have to show Diana the video of him exiting the North American's hospitality suite on ISSII...

"I have time to tell you before we leave," Jeff announced. "Dionysus' Chariot is going to land shortly after local sunrise at a small airfield on Maui called Hanna field. Nick assures me the landing area can be made much more secure than using a larger airport where North American sympathizers and agents may still be present. However he's going to have a TV news team to take video. They just aren't going to board an aircraft and fly there from Hawaii until a half hour before the Chariot arrives. And they will leave on a misleading heading. I've already posted to the public freight board that we will be loading cargo for delivery to the Hawaiian islands, specific landing site withheld for security reasons, but FedEx and UPS will have local agents. It's noted as return freight already sold out."

"Is that true, or is it a subterfuge to keep the site secret?" Gunny asked.

Jeff put a shocked, hurt face on and touched splayed fingers to his breast. "Do you think I'd falsify a public business document? We're contracted to lift three quarters of a metric ton of what I have been assured is excellent Hawaiian coffee to Home."

"You can get refueled at this airfield? I assume it's a little private field?" Gunny asked.

"It's actually public, and we'll set down on grass off to the side. I don't want to burn a hole in their pavement. We don't really need fuel of course, just reactive mass. They promise to have a tanker truck there with filtered water, and that will work just fine for that latitude and the cargo mass. It should be pumped up before we've done unloading and loading."

"They are going to have a fit," Diana predicted, but with joy.

"One may hope," Jeff agreed. "I also spoke with my contacts in Australia and shared Nick's number and suggested there are trade possibilities there, since North American will be declining to sell to them."

"OK, you must have the inside details on exactly where Nick fits in the revolutionary organization," Diana said. "Is he pretty high up, or did he have to pass you on in the organization?"

"I got some indications and assurances. We talked about his objectives, and discussed the direction Home took after leaving North America. He found some of our actions interesting, and I encouraged him to examine the records of the Assembly. But I don't really want to be seen as influencing them heavily in public. Still, our goals are similar enough to feel confident it is safe to risk landing the Chariot. Nor should it prove embarrassing later to have a business relationship with them.

"But I'm not allowed to discuss it with you or April yet," Jeff informed them. "He worries you may both be liable for the loss of your properties if things go badly for them, because their victory is by no means assured. You can both scan clean under veracity software as not having conspired on their rebellion. I may not be so clean, because I intend to privately and quietly encourage both Australia and Japan to support them. But I don't own property there for anyone to have a handle on me. Certainly I have no reputation to save in North America."

"That's outrageous," Diana objected. "They can't make you testify under that software anyway."

"So true, but April destroyed the effectiveness of that limitation when she visited Earth, by simply inviting them to run her statements through the software. That put them in the uncomfortable position of being unwilling to reciprocate. I know the same course is available to you, but in any case, I promised," Jeff said, as if that closed the matter. April hoped it did, because she knew Jeff wouldn't be budged.

"Uh oh..."April said. Her com console not only was flashing a yellow, but gave three sharp beeps. "Com display retrieval," she said, without asking if anyone minded.

BBC World News was the header. "General Kilpatrick, head of God's Warriors faction sharing the temporary government in North America is reported as having been assassinated," the anchor said, with just the slightest smirk at 'temporary'. Britain was still nominally allied to the USNA.

"Oh great. Well, just let me say I had nothing to do with that," Gunny announced. "I was on ISSII and I have witnesses. I have an alibi!"

Di was regarding him with a look that asked why he'd feel the need to say such a thing?

Jeff's hand pad beeped and he looked at it.

"Same news?" April guessed.

"And more. It seems there is general conflict again between the Sons and Warriors again. In particular on the west coast, although Chen says in just the last hour it seems to be spreading. They are in particular contesting the control of airfields."

"It's so crazy," April said. "For a whole couple weeks I thought things were going to be easier. We seemed to be in a stable standoff with North America. Their factions seemed to be in a stable standoff with each other. Some places were recognizing us, or at least letting us land. And then...boom, it all unwinds and somebody wants to kill Jeff and they get all riled up and start blaming us for things publicly again. Now this. They'll be fighting each other again full scale again, and somebody will probably try to blame it all on Home. It seems like it's always something, and it never ends."

"It never does, not for anybody," Jeff agreed. "Undoubtedly, they all feel put upon by events the same as we do. However, the whole mess will still be there in the morning, and there is little we can immediately do to quickly influence it. Meanwhile, we still have reservations for dinner and dancing. I see no reason to let it spoil our evening." Jeff paused, and changed his tone to speak to the house. "Com, close screen. Hold all priority traffic and record." Jeff smiled at the others. "It can be something tomorrow."

- END –

The Last Part

Other Kindle Books & 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.

A Different Perspective (fourth in April series)

http://www.amazon.com/Different-Perspective-April-ebook/dp/B00DFL42PU

Despite winning a war against one of the world's super powers and undertaking a mission to Earth to try to demonstrate their independence, April and her new nation still find their freedom tenuous. There are shortages and hostility and machinations against them behind the scenes. Their small technological lead on the Earthies is about the only advantage they have besides courage and sheer nerve. But they are attracting the right sort of people and if pressed, they still are capable of bold action. Home is growing physically and maturing. So is April.

A Depth of Understanding (Fifth in April series)

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00IJ02NK8

April's nation Home has removed itself from orbiting close to Earth, but problems continue. Their enemies try to use the United Nations to act against them, as if that isn't a transparent subterfuge. The new Lunar nation of Central acts to help them, but at considerable cost. Meanwhile Home is expanding their reach into the solar system and gaining new citizens who appreciate opportunity and freedom. The things Home citizens decide to do, both new and old are interesting. The trouble from Earth is contained, but the whole matter is far from over.

And What Goes Around (Sixth book in April series)

https://www.amazon.com/What-Goes-Around-April-Book-ebook/dp/B00UR2D6SE

The nation of Home and their ally Central seem to have bought some safety by moving Mitsubishi 3 from Low Earth Orbit to a halo orbit around L2 beyond the moon. It has added some expense to stay supplied, but it has unexpected advantages too. A little extra distance works just fine when Earth has its own problems. Like April and her close friends Heather and Jeff, Home is growing, developing its own character, and becoming more independent. They really have no choice.

They Said it would be Easy (Seventh book in the April series)

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01BCLPVSQ

The nation of Home seems to be safe beyond the moon, but life is hardly certain. Earth still is a huge influence and far too big for Home to affect to any degree. The Earthies have their own problems and Home can't be of much help. Sometimes when your neighbors are crazy and bent on ruin all you can do is watch in horror and protect yourself. Life goes on and things do get easier as adjustments are made. Of course when things return to normal not all those adjustments will just go away. April and her partners Jeff and Heather support Home, but not with a blank check. A lot of Earthies want to join them, but growth in business and actual places to put them can only happen so fast. Even in interesting times life goes on. People still get married, go to work, and want to have a good time.

It is suggested if you haven't read the earlier April series books the characters and events in the seventh book of the series will be much richer and meaningful if you read the others as a base first.

Paper or Plastic? (My first novel. A stand alone book.)

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

People love easily. Look at most of your relatives or coworkers. How lovable are they? Really? Yet most have mates and children. The vast majority are still invited to family gatherings and their relatives will speak to them.

Many have pets to which they are devoted. Some even call them their fur-babies. Is your dog or cat or parakeet property or family? Not in law but in your heart? Can a pet really love you back? Or is it a different affection? Are you not kind to those who feed and shelter you? But what if your dog could talk back? Would your cat speak to you kindly?

What if the furry fellow in question has his own law? And is quite articulate in explaining his choices. Can a Human adopt such an alien? Can such an intelligent alien adopt a human? Should they?

How much more complicated might it be if we meet really intelligent species not human? How would we treat these 'people' in feathers or fur? Perhaps a more difficult question is: How would they treat us? Are we that lovable?

When society and the law decide these sort of questions must be answered it is usually because someone disapproves of your choices. Today it may be a cat named in a will or a contest for custody of a dog. People are usually happy living the way they want until conflict is forced upon them.

Of course if the furry alien in question is smart enough to fly spaceships, and happens to be similar in size and disposition to a mature Grizzly bear, wisdom calls for a certain delicacy in telling him no...

The Long Voyage of the Little Fleet (sequel to Family Law)

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00KYA9WTQ

In the first book of this series "Family Law", Lee's parents and their business partner Gordon found a class A habitable planet. They thought their quest as explorers was over and they'd live a life of ease. But before they could return and register their claim Lee's parents died doing a survey of the surface. That left Lee two-thirds owner of the claim and their partner Gordon obligated by his word with her parents to raise Lee. She had grown up aboard ship with her uncle Gordon and he was the only family she'd ever known. Him adopting her was an obvious arrangement - to them. Other people didn't see it so clearly over the picky little fact Gordon wasn't human.

After finding prejudice and hostility on several worlds Lee was of the opinion planets might be nice to visit, but terrible places to live. She wanted back in space exploring. Fortunately Gordon was agreeable and the income from their discovery made outfitting an expedition possible. Lee wanted to go DEEP - out where it was entirely unknown and the potential prizes huge. After all, if they kept exploring tentatively they might run up against the border of some bold star faring race who had gobbled up all the best real estate. It wasn't hard to find others of a like mind for a really long voyage. This sequel to "Family Law" is the story of their incredible voyage.

Link to full list of current releases on Amazon:

http://www.amazon.com/-/e/B004RZUOS2

Mac's Writing Blog:

http://www.mackeychandler.com