Freelance On The Galactic Tunnel Network

by E. M. Foner

  Georgia entered the newly arrived capsule and instructed the lift tube, “Exhibition Hall.”

  “Please provide your payment method,” an artificial voice announced.

  “What? You charge for the lift tubes on this orbital?”

  “You could take the stairs if there were any. Residents use the infrastructure for free, guests are charged on a sliding scale. I don’t detect a resident transponder on your person.”

  “I’ve got a programmable cred but I’m not slotting it without knowing how much this is going to cost.”

  “Please state your profession and average income per cycle.”

  “I’m an investigative journalist with the Galactic Free Press,” Georgia said, brandishing her ID at the ceiling. “I’m here on a freelance assignment.”

  “Freelance? Never mind.”

  The lift tube capsule set off, and for a few seconds, the reporter felt her weight decrease, before it started going up again as they moved farther away from the core.

  “What did you mean by that?” she demanded when her brain caught up with the last comment. “I’m not a charity case.”

  “No, you’re freelance,” the AI running the lift tube said agreeably. “Been there, done that. Now I stick with paying gigs.”

  “Like running lift tubes?”

  “I got this job as an add-on when I negotiated the contract for traffic control. I could run this whole orbital on my spare capacity, and since I’ve got to be here to dock the ships anyway, it makes sense to bid on the smaller jobs as they come open.”

  “Could I ask who your creators are?”

  “I’m a twentieth generation mutt and I’ve got better uses for my memory,” the AI replied as the capsule halted and the doors slid open. “Exhibition hall is down the corridor on your left.”

  Georgia followed the AI’s instructions and quickly located the hall. Large display panels to either side of the main doors announced, “Colony One Seminar. All are welcome.” She frowned at the closed doors and checked the time on her heads-up display. Then one of the doors slid open and a couple of middle-aged women pushing a catering floater emerged.

  “Excuse me,” Georgia addressed them. “Are you here setting up for the Colony One seminar?”

  “Breaking down, honey,” the older woman replied. “Show was over almost an hour ago.”

  “But it’s early, and I know I got the date right,” the reporter protested, pointing at the information on the bottom of the display panel.

  “It’s past ten in the evening and we have to be going,” the caterer said. “Whose clock are you on?”

  “UHT – Universal Human Time.”

  “This is a Drazen orbital,” the younger woman told her. “Better luck next time.”

  Georgia remained staring at the display panel for a full minute, but then the training she had put herself through by reading autobiographies of famous investigative journalists kicked in, and she circled back to the strip of pubs she had passed on the way to the exhibition hall. She picked one that wasn’t blasting loud music and was rewarded immediately. More than half of the people sitting at the tables sported name tags and were perusing glossy pamphlets that were being shared around from swag bags with the distinctive Colony One logo. The reporter ordered a pitcher of beer at the bar and then carried it over to a table where there were two open chairs.

  “Is this seat taken?” Georgia asked nobody in particular after failing to draw the attention of any of the seminar goers.

  “Were you planning to drink all of that yourself?” a man across the table with an empty glass inquired.

  “I’m a sucker for quantity discounts,” she said, taking the seat since nobody objected. After pouring herself a short beer, she pushed the pitcher into the middle of the table where it didn’t remain for more than a second. “I take it you guys all went to the seminar?”

  “I’d reserve a place on the Colony One ship right now if I could, but they aren’t selling,” the woman seated directly to her right said. She appeared to be flushed, but Georgia couldn’t tell whether it was from alcohol or the excitement of the presentation. “That doesn’t look like a seminar nametag,” the woman added, pointing to the reporter’s ID, and then to her own, which identified her as Deborah.

  “No, these are my press credentials. I’m with the Galactic Free Press,” Georgia told them. “I came all the way here from Union Station to catch the seminar but I arrived too late.”

  “Tough break,” said the first man who had helped himself to her beer and whose nametag identified him as Tom. “I can tell you that they sold me.”

  “Sold you what, Tom?” Georgia asked eagerly.

  “On the importance of humanity acquiring a colony ship and finding our own world somewhere. I’d heard rumors that EarthCent is working with the Drazens on some project to help us develop an interstellar drive, but even if we had one tomorrow, building a colony ship would take generations.”

  “And don’t forget about all of the terraforming equipment, the gravity-drive shuttles, and all of the other scientific breakthroughs we haven’t made yet,” Deborah said. “I like the Dollnick colony ships,” she added, speaking directly to Georgia. “There’s already one hiring itself out to EarthCent, you know, but it’s some kind of special circumstance that doesn’t involve colonization. This booklet has pictures of all the colony ship types built by tunnel network members. You can keep it, I have two.”

  “Thank you,” Georgia said. “It looks like an expensive printing job. How much did they charge?”

  “These are all giveaways. There was a bag full of literature on every seat when we went in, but the kid next to me said that he only reads on tabs. Here, you can have the whole bag. I just didn’t want to see it go to waste.”

  “That’s very generous of you. Everything was included with the entry fee then?”

  “I only paid six creds to get in, and that included the meal at the end,” Tom said.

  “Yeah, the food itself had to cost that much. They must have gotten the hall for free or something,” another man joined in.

  “I waited in the corridor to talk with the last speaker,” said a slender woman whose nametag identified her as Isabel. “I wanted to make a contribution, but Farsight said they weren’t set up to accept cash.”

  “Farsight?” Georgia asked.

  “That’s his nom de guerre,” Isabell explained. “He wanted to take a name that meant something.”

  “I don’t really know much about them because they haven’t visited Union Station,” the reporter said. “I’m working on a story—”

  “That’s great,” Tom interrupted. “They need all the publicity they can get if we’re going to make this work. Colony One hasn’t even started fundraising yet, but when they do, it’s going to take trillions of creds. When you think about it, if every human worker in the galaxy just pledged a month or two of their earnings, we’d get there in no time.”

  “And you’re ready to do that?” Georgia asked, belatedly pulling out her tab and opening the story-builder screen.

  “You can quote me on it.”

  Seven

  The sprawling commercial center at the base of the North American continent’s space elevator was occupied primarily by wholesalers, exporters, and outfitters. A young boy showed Ellen how she could bring up an interactive map on the screen of the communications device she had purchased to contact journalists whose stories had been previously syndicated in the Galactic Free Press. She guessed that whoever was in charge of keeping the map up to date must have been on vacation because it still took her an hour to locate the fairgrounds set aside for small traders.

  “Now I know why they call you a sell phone,” she barked at the device, which for some reason showed her current location as a parking garage for floaters. “I’ll sell you the first chance I get.”

  “That’s cell phone, with a C,” a man sitting cross-legged on a blanket a few steps away informed her. “Are you lost?”

  “I was l
ooking for a place to spread my blanket and do a little trading, but this map function decided to give me a grand tour of the area instead,” Ellen replied. “So why do they call this thing a cell-phone-with-a-C?”

  “It’s short for cellular telephone, and the connectivity is supplied by antennas on cellular towers. The problem is that the space elevator interferes with the location signal for miles around. Your first time here?”

  “My first time on Earth. I’m meeting some people here today and I hope it’s not as hard for them to find the fairgrounds as it was for me.”

  “As long as they’ve been here before they’ll know about the map thing, and who hasn’t visited the space elevator? It’s also the main transportation hub on the East Coast.”

  “That’s why I picked it,” Ellen said. “I was told that all roads, rails, and sub-orbital flights lead to the space elevator. Is that spot next to you open?” she added, pointing at a patch of artificial grass. “I only brought what’s in my pack.”

  “Make yourself at home,” the trader said. “I’m Marshall, and the fairground charges six creds a day for a blanket rental.”

  “I have a blanket,” Ellen said, shrugging her way out of the bulky pack and then kneeling to undo the main flap. “Right on top here. See?”

  “I meant they charge six creds a day to spread your blanket. That’s why I called it a rental.”

  “What do we get for the six creds?”

  “Left alone. The collector bot wanders through every half-hour or so, and if you refuse to pay, it sprays you and your goods with water-based paint. Nobody messes with it.”

  “Are you sure the bot works for the elevator authority and not some bright kid who put it together to extort rent from traders?”

  “What difference does it make? Everybody has to pay somebody, and six creds a day is reasonable enough. Are you here with your ship?”

  “It’s in Lot K,” Ellen told him.

  “The ETA didn’t tell you about the long-term lot for traders?”

  “The who?”

  “Elevator Transit Authority. They handle all of the incoming traffic for the elevator.”

  “I spent a few days at some little town upstate and then flew here without returning to orbit.”

  “The long-term lot is sponsored by EarthCent, and in addition to being half the price, you get all of the hookups, like a campground. It’s a little farther out, but there’s a monorail.”

  “Thanks. I’ll move my ship there this evening.”

  Ellen spread her blanket and began setting out the goods from her pack. For the sake of maximizing value at a manageable weight, she had brought ten disposable Dollnick stunners in retail packaging, plus a half-dozen large tablecloths woven with a proprietary Frunge semi-metallic process.

  Marshall let out a long whistle and commented, “Pricey. The stunners might sell for twenty creds, but you won’t see many shoppers who can afford those tablecloths. That’s boutique stuff on Earth.”

  “I paid thirty creds cash for these stunners on Union Station, and that was direct from a wholesaler.”

  “They used to go for fifty around here, easy, but lots of traders started showing up with them a month or two back and the price collapsed. I stick with the basics when I come to Earth.”

  Ellen took a minute to go over and study her helpful neighbor’s offerings. She saw that he was selling alien drama series in a variety of storage formats, a selection of blank Horten holocubes which she suspected were factory seconds, and hundreds of bubble packs of pills labeled in Farling.

  “The local authorities don’t give you grief about selling meds?” she asked.

  “Nobody comes around to check, and besides, everybody knows the Farling stuff works as advertised. Anti-hangover pills are my biggest seller, and I traded for those green ones just before coming to Earth. They’re supposed to cure the common cold.”

  “How about anti-intoxication pills?”

  “You want to drink alcohol and not get drunk? Are you a card sharp?”

  “I just have a little trouble stopping once I get started,” Ellen admitted.

  “I’ve heard that the Gem sell nanobots that could do the job, but they probably cost a fortune and they can’t last that long in the body. A Farling doctor could probably fix you up, they’re supposedly the best in the galaxy, but I don’t know where you’d find one. In the meantime, take a pack of these anti-hangover pills, on the house.”

  “And they’re your biggest seller?”

  “Paid my blanket rental ten minutes after I got here,” Marshall asserted, tossing her a bubble pack. “Maybe I was wrong about those tablecloths, it looks like you have a prospect.”

  Ellen turned back to her own blanket and saw a couple of well-dressed women crouching on their heels to examine one of the tablecloths.

  “What lovely fabric,” the older woman remarked. “How much is it?”

  “Those are genuine Frunge-weave, from the colony on Tzeba Four,” Ellen launched into her pitch. “You can see that it’s woven from individually dyed threads, not a print, and the—”

  “Price?” the younger woman interrupted.

  “In a boutique on Union Station, these tablecloths sell for over a hundred creds.”

  “We aren’t on Union Station and there’s a trader with a whole load of them at the other end of the fairgrounds selling for forty-five creds.”

  “Forty-five? That doesn’t make any sense. Wholesale on these is forty-eight to fifty, depending on the pattern, and there’s only one source.”

  “So your usual mark-up is a hundred percent?”

  “I was going to offer one to you for eighty creds,” Ellen said. “Do you have any idea how much it costs to operate as a solo trader? My mortgage—”

  “Isn’t our problem,” the older woman cut her off. “Good luck finding some shoppers with more money than sense. Are those the new cold pills?” she continued, turning to Ellen’s neighbor.

  “Straight from Farling Pharmaceuticals,” Marshall confirmed. “Six creds per pack.”

  “That’s so reasonable,” the younger woman enthused. “I’ll take two.”

  “And I’ll take three,” her companion said.

  Ellen watched as the other trader handed over five bubble packs and collected thirty creds. He gave her a wink, and then she jumped like a startled rabbit when something began vibrating her right butt cheek.

  “Stupid cell phone,” she growled when she realized what it was, and then almost fumbled it to the ground. “Why can’t Earthers get implants like everybody else?”

  “There’s no infrastructure to support implant communication functions here,” Marshall answered, even though she had intended the question as rhetorical. The phone vibrated again as Ellen was trying to unlock the screen, and this time she did drop it. “You can change it to an audible ringtone, you know.”

  “Right after I take this,” she said, bending over and successfully tracing out her lock-code on the screen with the device still resting on the blanket. “Hello?”

  “This is Bryan Livingston. I’m at the fairgrounds. Can you push me your location?”

  “Do what?”

  “Here,” Marshall offered, stepping into the narrow green margin between their blankets. “I’ll enable it for you.”

  “Just a sec,” she told Bryan and handed over the phone. “I thought you said the elevator messed up the location signal.”

  “It’s the timing of the satellite signals that the elevator stalk alters,” the trader said, swiping and tapping at the screen. “Location push is a direct function, phone-to-phone. It will run your battery down in just a couple hours if you leave it on continuously, but it works anywhere because it’s based on signal strength. See the blinking blue dot on the screen?”

  “Is that him?”

  “Yup. You’re in the bottom right corner by default, don’t ask me why. You can monitor his progress if you want.”

  “He’ll get here when he gets here. Do I need to leave the call op
en?”

  “No, you can hang-up. It’s a completely different function.”

  Ellen watched enviously as Marshall sold a hundred seasons of an old Vergallian drama to another customer for five times what it would have cost her to buy a legitimate copy on any Stryx station. The same guy turned his nose up at her disposable stunners when she offered one at break even.

  “No thanks,” the drama addict rejected her offer. “There’s a woman selling them for twenty-five over by the exotic pets section and she’s throwing in free holsters.”

  “I don’t understand,” Ellen complained to Marshall. “How can the traders here be selling goods below cost?”

  “Maybe they got them in some sweet barter deals and now they’re just cashing out,” the other trader said. “I’m the old-fashioned type, so when I’m looking to acquire stock, I always go for the best value rather than gambling on hot sellers. I’ve noticed lately that quite a few of the younger Guild members are crowding into the same trades.”

  “Are you going to Rendezvous this year?”

  “Never missed one yet, and there’s the election this time around to boot. It’s about time we get representation with the Conference of Sovereign Human Communities. I’m always surprised when traders tell me they’re going to vote for anti-CoSHC candidates, and the same people are pushing giving the vote to non-owner operators.”

  “That I don’t get at all,” she agreed. “It would turn the Traders Guild into an organization of delivery pilots.”

  “Ellen?” inquired a tall man who was holding a cell phone level in front of himself like a compass.

  “Bryan? Pleased to meet you.”

  “Are you selling these?” Bryan asked, picking up one of the Dollnick retail packs. “I’ve been thinking about starting to carry a stunner on the job.”

  “I paid thirty creds wholesale, but there’s someone here selling them for twenty-five,” Ellen informed him reluctantly. “I can let you have one for that.”

  “How about two? My wife reports on local politics and things are getting a bit heated in our area.”