by Laer Carroll
"It's going to make for some interesting patrol duties."
She grinned over at him. "Let's hope the drug smugglers don't make it too interesting."
The boat smoothly reversed and backed into it's slip. Apparently Coast Guard craft had to be ready for instant departure.
Lines were deployed to both sides of the boat. Sylvia noticed that the line-caps on the clips on the boat were of the radio-triggered quick-release type.
A short ramp was slid down to one of the dockside walkways and she was led to it by the petty officer. The lieutenant stayed on the slightly raised command deck part of the boat.
"Dr. Connelly, it was an honor to have you aboard." He saluted and held the salute. Every crewmember save the petty officer, who had one of her arm's in an escort's grasp, copied him.
She placed her free hand over her heart in what she hoped was the correct civilian response.
"It was an honor to be aboard."
As she turned away the scene went watery through the tears in her eyes and for a few moment's she actually needed the petty officer's escorting arm down to the dock.
Now off the ramp she turned and looked back at the still-saluting crew. A mischievous grin sprang to her face. She called out loudly.
"Here! This is for all of you!"
She grabbed the petty officer's lapels and kissed him full on his lips. Startled, he colored, then grinned. Catcalls erupted from boat as he turned, instantly stern-faced once more, and walked back aboard. Crew on the ship hurriedly got VERY busy.
Turning, Sylvia was met by three men in traditional white summer suits, one of them an older distinguished-looking man. They were escorted by four soldiers in the light-blue cloth with yellow accents that declared their Argentine allegiance. The soldiers carried assault rifles held at relaxed-arms.
"Dr. Connelly, welcome to Argentina. I'm Doctor Ambassador Felipe de Angelis." He introduced his two companions as his personal assistant and a representative of the public relations office.
"If you'll come with me please we have some refreshments for you out of the sun."
Sylvia looked around. "Shouldn't we wait around for the rest of the guests?"
He smiled austerely and held a hand out to his side in invitation to walk with him. She joined him and the others as they began to walk landward, two soldiers in abreast before and behind.
"If there's a person on the island who doesn't consider you the only celebrity visiting today I don't know them. It certainly isn't me. You see, one of my son's was born with juvenile Alzheimer's."
She nodded. The rotund PR officer spoke and she looked toward him. "We hope you don't mind a bit of an extensive tour, Doctor. Most of it is well-shaded and in air-conditioning. We're quite proud of what we've done here."
"It will be my great pleasure. I've watched the construction from a distance on and off and been curious." Actually in her shallow-water seaform she had occasionally watched from quite close up, in day from off-shore and walking around on the shore at night, her skin and hair turned midnight black.
The skinny assistant got into the act. "We've been working on this for thirteen years, when we decided to get decisively into space industry. In planning at first, of course."
Sylvia glanced at the Argentine ambassador. He watched the three of them calmly, obviously having planned to have his assistants do most of the presentation.
As they walked along the docks the two assistants took well-choreographed turns discussing the extensive area. Though he was tall, skinny, and very blond in contrast to the dark-skinned and -haired and round other man, the assistant and the PR man seemed for the moment interchangeable.
"We're prepared to handle ten times more than the boats you see docked and we have two phases of expansion planned for when it's needed. We expect Space Island to be a major distribution center for goods in this hemisphere."
The docks had inspection and oversight stations to meet incoming people and products. Beyond them was warehouse and transportation facilities, for the time brightly painted and mostly empty.
"This is the immigration facility." "This" was a large multistory building amidst the warehouses. The air felt near-frigid when they entered it but Sylvia's skin, able to handle the near-freezing temperatures far below the ocean's surface, instantly adapted.
The diplomat said, "You may notice signs that route Puerto Ricans into one channel. At first they'll be expected to show a passport, but soon any picture ID will do. Argentina and Puerto Rico have signed an agreement of inter-territoriality. Citizens will be able to pass freely back and forth."
That was an interesting development, since P'Rico had been a state of the USA since 1893. This meant that Argentina and the US also had inter-territoriality
Beyond the multistory building they entered a big plaza. A statue of a man on a horse centered it, some Argentine historical hero, no doubt.
The plaza had trees newly planted and more were being planted. They were also being planted on the two sides of a wide pedestrian avenue that stretched perhaps a half mile ahead of them further to the south.
The ambassador led them to the first building on one side of the street. She saw that it was a multiplex cinema. Inside workmen were busy. She was led to an enclosed area near the front with large picture windows onto the street. In it a table covered in a snowy cloth and surrounded by four chairs had been set up near a window. Refreshments waited on it and two waitresses stood by .
The distinguished man held a chair for Sylvia so that she could look out onto the street. Sylvia obligingly sat and pulled a delicate white china cup in a matching saucer an inch closer to her. A waitress leaned over her.
"We have chilled chocolate milk and iced tea and coffee if you'd like, miss."
Sylvia indicated the chocolate and, once filled, took up a cup and sipped. The sweet mildly sugared drink was perfect.
The others sat and accepted drinks. Sylvia waved away croissants and other snacks. The round PR man took a sample of each.
"I am enormously impressed, and pleased that you would honor me with such attention. But you, Sir, I know are a very busy man. You're the head Argentine ambassador to Puerto Rico, headquartered in San Juan, aren't you? Why would you honor me so?"
A tiny hint of satisfaction touched the skinny blond assistant's face. She'd bet there was going to be an I-told-you-so moment back at the office soon.
"I moved here from San Juan, so I didn't travel far. I'd have traveled far, however. We want you to work for us," said the older man.
She considered that. "Doing what?"
The PR man swallowed a bite of cucumber-filled croissant. "You'd be a God-send in public relations, no matter what you did. You could pretty much write your ticket. Do research, for instance. Do you have a project that you're planning? We could help. You'd only have to spend a little bit of time occasionally representing ArgenSpace."
He took another bite of the croissant and the assistant smoothly took over. "You could still promote more responsible use of the Everglades by competing in the enviro races. And you'd not need to curtail, ah, your nightlife. "
She smiled faintly. So her party-girl activities had gotten around. She'd known it had but not that it had gotten attention beyond the society pages and tabloids.
What a reaction she'd get if they knew she was not searching for lovers but for some men to kill them, probably quite horribly.
"This is so unexpected. I don't know what to say."
The ambassador nodded. "Of course we expected that. However your presence here was an opportunity we couldn't pass up to meet you and introduce the idea.
"Now, I'm going to let you continue the tour and enjoy yourself tonight. Don't feel rushed about answering us Yes or No. Take your time. And if you decide No then at some future time decide otherwise, we'd still be happy to discuss matters with you."
She rose as he did. "Thank you. I will give this some serious thought."
The ambassador leaned over to kiss the back of her hand lightly
, squeezed her hand, and left, accompanied by two of the guards.
Why, she wondered, were guards along on this? P'Rico was not over-run with bandits, nor was Argentina. This island especially was very safe, most of the people on it being hand-picked. She shrugged off the matter.
As Sylvia sat back down the PR man finished a drink of tea. "Your salary would be quite generous. You could almost name your price."
"That's...very persuasive."
Perhaps knowing—hoping—that the hook was set the two men were quiet for a few moments. The PR man munched, the assistant sipped. Then the latter put his cup down.
"What we'd like to do is to take you quickly through the offices and the residences then to see the spaceship. They're right on the way anyway."
"Sounds good to me." She grabbed a chocolate-filled croissant from the PR man's plate and stood, grinning down at him. He laughed and made wrapping motions to the waitresses who quickly and efficiently made him a package of his plate's contents. Each waitress filled take-out cups of the three's favored drinks and stood back as the three headed toward the door, preceded by the two remaining guards.
Sylvia waved back at the two women as she exited the door and they grinned and waved back, one of them calling "Bye, Doctor!"
The offices were extensive, very modern, and nearly empty. So were the residences further to the south, which were one-, two-, and three-stories tall. All the roofs were of dark-red, -blue, or -green tile and the walls a light beige faux-adobe. The houses intertwined with each other almost organically with enough separation not to be claustrophobic. There was a lot of greenery, and some of the trees in the first section they visited were quite mature and must have been imported from the mainland.
Each house had a garage barely big enough to hold an automobile. When Sylvia commented on that the PR man explained.
"There will be no private vehicles on the island, except for small electrically powered ones for those who need them. There will be taxis and emergency and service vehicles, of course, but most of those will be go-carts, too."
The assistant said, "You would have a permanent office and residence even though you might want to travel extensively."
"And they would be sized and furnished as you felt you needed, of course," said the PR man, still working the bribery angle.
All this time they'd been working their way southward. They came to a wide flat area sparsely covered with tough sea grass and knotty bushes. Quite a ways beyond loomed a large building, seemingly a barn for gigantotheres . Surrounding it were several other large buildings made small by comparison.
A long observation go-cart with a single driver and seats for a couple dozen people pulled up on the road leading to the spaceship hangar, as the barn must be. Sylvia smiled at the closest guard, receiving a miniscule nod, as she stepped up into the row of seats behind the driver, followed by the two men. The two guards got on the rearmost seats. The assistant sat beside her, the PR man behind and to the side. The cart started off smoothly.
The assistant said, "As you'll see when you get closer there's room for three ships even though normally we'll have only one at a time landing here for several years. But it's better to plan ahead with a facility like this rather than expand ad hoc."
They spoke no more as the cart whined along the service road. Wind off the Atlantic, unhindered for hundreds or thousands of miles, scoured their faces, making conversation difficult. The land seemed almost oppressively flat with its scrub grass and stubby bushes. She wondered if a tsunami jarred into being by one of the surrounding earthquake faults would inundate the island, and if the planners had guarded against that.
The sky had become a slightly faded blue. Very high cirrus clouds striated the sky with nearly invisible curdled white.
As they got nearer she saw that the entire spaceship dock area was surrounded by two high fences, one inside the other with a walkway between for dogs, topped with spikes and barbed wire.
Finally they pulled up at gates guarded by two soldiers with automatic rifles in a shack. All of them, the soldiers and driver included, had to show photo IDs. One guard carefully examined the IDs while the other watched balefully, gun slung across his chest with his hands on it.
At the end, however, the guards spoiled their ever-vigilant threatening air by asking her to autograph two copies of her "Life From the Jungle." They'd known she was coming at least a day early.
Chapter 7 - Space Ship
Approaching from the North they saw the front of the "barn" ahead of them. It was several stories high and its exterior made of some ripple-surface pale-blue painted metal. Its gargantuan body loomed over them from close up, where she saw that the entire front was made of a huge sliding metal door. Closer still, she saw the doors were actually several interlinked narrower ones.
A canal connected the barn to the ocean a half-mile to the west. Sidewalks with a canal-side railing were on both the northern and southern sides.
The skinny blond said, "We can actually remove or deliver three spaceships at once. More of the planning for a long history and many contingencies."
Near the doors they sheered off toward the side of the hangar where a large building abutted the hangar. Inside a large double-leaved glass door was a cool modern reception area. A young woman in a light-blue summer suit sat at a receptionist's desk. She was just putting down a phone and rising as they approached over a thick golden carpet.
"Dr. Connelly, the Director apologizes and asks if you could come up to his office. He wanted to meet you here but is finishing a long-distance call."
Sylvia smiled to herself. She had rarely met a high official who she didn't interrupt on a long-distance call.
"No, that's quite alright. We can meet at a more convenient time." She turned to go, not specifying "convenient" for whom.
"No! No! I know his call is just ending. Go on up."
Sylvia turned back, feeling a trifle ashamed for disturbing the blameless secretary over her boss's (likely) grandstanding.
The tall skinny blond assistant said to the guards, "We'll not need you for an hour. Why don't you wait in the cafeteria? "
The two guards nodded and walked back out the glass double doors. She saw them glance back at her with amusement as they pulled open the door. She gave them a wink out of the eye furthest from her other escorts. One of them grinned as he turned away and said something to his companion.
The ambassador's assistant led her and the PR man along a long hall, up stairs opening off the hall, and along another hall ending in another pair of glass double doors. The large waiting area beyond was carpeted in gold and had large photographs and paintings on all walls depicting scenes in space, air, and on the ground of space or air vehicles.
A female receptionist at a desk near the far wall said, "Director Roosevelt will see you now."
She remained seated and the assistant led Sylvia and the PR man into one of the offices opening off the waiting area. This was large and had a picture window facing toward the sunset and the ocean-way that led to the hangar. A floating spaceship would be visible as tugboats pulled it toward or away from the hangar. Bright sunlight was partly filtered by the smoked glass to give the man rising from his desk good light from behind.
"Director Roosevelt, this is Dr. Sylvia Connelly. Doctor, Sir Doctor Director Thaddeus Roosevelt." The assistant did the honors and stood to the side.
Sylvia advanced and shook hands with the stout sandy-haired fortyish man. He wore a monocle and a heavy mustache not unlike that affected by his famous ancestor Theodore Roosevelt, the Great Conciliator between the United States and Spain more than a century ago.
"An honor to meet you, sir. I hope you didn't curtail your phone call for my benefit. "
His handshake was appropriately firm and he motioned her and the others to chairs in front of his desk after it.
"No. No. Was at an end already. Gave me an excuse to politely end it. Did you have a good trip across the strait?" His Spanish had a distinctly British ac
cent but it was fluent. She stayed with P'Rican Spanish.
"Yes, sir. The guard boat was very smooth and fast and I got an interesting tour of it during the trip."
"Yes. Your Navy are very efficient, very efficient. I've had a tour, too, but of course it was an aircraft carrier. Bit different."
The boat she'd been on was a Coast Guard vessel, not Navy, but she let that go.
She looked around the room. "You seemed to be well-settled in here. Very comfortable. Very efficient." Damn. He had her beginning to chop up her sentences.
"Yes. I came here of course when this was just being dug up. Foundations poured. We lived in tents in those days."
She bet that, if true, his tent had been large and lavish. But he might not be all blow-hard. Not even politics could get someone appointed to a post this important, or let him keep it long if it did happen, if he didn't have something more than connections.
The receptionist came in and set a dining tray on the low table in front of the guests between their three chairs. It contained a frosted silver pitcher and four glasses near-filled with ice and lemon-flavored water. One glass she took to the director, who nodded at her.
"We have something a little more flavorful, if you'd like, Doctor."
"No, thank you, sir. I'm quite a fan of pure water."
She was indeed. Underwater she breathed it through an invisible filter that stretched between her lips, yet another of the many mysteries surrounding her strange physique. Thin as a soap bubble, appearing when she trying to drink or breathe water, it excluded everything from microscopic particles up to steel balls large enough to ingest. She could not see how such a technology could have evolved, and so concluded (but only every other day) that advanced aliens had reconstructed her upon death.
He steepled his hands before him. "I understand you are near finishing your tour of Space Island. What do you think? Are you going to be joining the team next Monday?"
She grinned. "You do get to the point, don't you, Director?"
He gave her a wintry smile. "My life is too busy to beat around it. What do you say? There's not a better outfit in the world—or off it."