All in Good Time

by Mackey Chandler

The four all looked back and forth distressed. Nothing was said but Deloris spoke with obvious consent from the others.

  “Are you planning on breaking us up? We’re very content with our crew and confident in each other in life-threatening environments. Not that I have anything against this young girl, but I’d want to know more about her before trusting her with my life.”

  Alice gave a single slow nod that indicated she had reservations too.

  “Having four crewmembers makes sense when we are going into the unknown. You have redundancy and more opinions and experience to tap but I can’t see it being a permanent standard for scout ships,” Heather said. “We’ll be sending missions back to do follow up studies where you’ll need experts riding the back seats. We’ll probably send the Chariot to do some landing on larger bodies where the Hringhormi couldn’t land. If anything looks really promising we’ll want to do that before we get around to building a big dedicated survey ship. When we know more, I’d expect us to do some exploration with two person crews. Maybe both the Hringhormi and Dionysus' Chariot on separate missions, or both to a particularly promising star system with a split crew. You four are our reserve of experience to mix or match with others we recruit to make up those crews. Laja is just the first of many others we’ll need. You don’t expect us to send them out on their own when we have experienced people to train them, do you?”

  They all looked back and forth again, with various expressions of dismay but thoughtful expressions and acceptance too. Did they really read each other that well without a word?

  “None of us were thinking that far ahead. We consider ourselves family now,” Deloris said, and hesitated, unsure how to explain.

  “As I do, with April and Jeff, but we have all sorts of far flung projects and businesses that require us to go off and take care of them. Getting all three of us together and not tied up on the com or reading reports and proposals is a rare luxury now. I doubt your jobs will be as demanding for a long time to come. For that matter, if you want to eventually leave us and make a family business of it to work for yourselves as explorers, I think that is going to be a viable business model.”

  “We’d have to own our own ship,” Barak said, like that was insurmountable.

  “I don’t think you are visualizing how much a percent of an entire star system is going to be,” Heather said. “When you find some good mining sites or a planet with moderate surface conditions to allow walking around, even in a pressure suit, the money will be respectable. Even the French mills you dropped off in the outer system will be giving you a payday soon. That will be respectable too.”

  “I should have negotiated that better,” Barak complained. “We’ll have to market our cut of it and I don’t know where to start with a lot of it.”

  Heather was a little surprised at that. She hadn’t considered it. They didn’t even know yet what the soils of Ceres, Eris, Haumea, and Makemake would yield in time. Their initial expedition didn’t look that promising. To her and her partners, it would just be extra income, but for these four it was going to be their first substantial pay over the very minimal salary they were drawing. It wouldn’t do to treat her little brother and his family poorly.

  “I hadn’t considered how much of a problem that might be for you,” Heather admitted. “I don’t want to treat you shabbily. I’m sure April and Jeff wouldn’t want that either. We can renegotiate or expand the details of our agreement to be fair to you.”

  “You don’t have to give us more,” Deloris insisted. “Just handling some of it when you sell your own portion would be a big help. If we get a decent yield of gold or platinum metals that’s easy to market, but some of the other elements we won’t know who to sell them to.”

  So it wasn’t a sudden thought, Heather realized, but a matter that had seen previous discussion among them.

  “I’m sure Jeff can issue the precious metals as coinage,” Heather offered. “Some of the collections we are just going to stockpile as a strategic reserve. We can sell your shares at the same time as ours and some of the less valuable portions I can make you an offer to buy if you don’t want to just let them ride as an investment without claiming them.”

  “That sounds much better,” Barak agreed. Alice and Kurt didn’t say anything. Neither was given to saying a lot and let the other two speak for them, but the concerned looks on their faces eased hearing their partners negotiate.

  “If two of you at a time do these collection missions you can take Laja along for training,” Heather suggested. “That should be safe enough here in our home system. The other two can take some leave. You can even go to Home if you are sick of the Moon. It’s no break at all to come back to being assigned out to other work every day here.”

  “That would be much appreciated,” Kurt said. They all looked relieved.

  Heather suddenly realized they’d been pushing them harder than was reasonable. They weren’t that much younger than Heather and her partners, but there was a definite gap in not only age but attitude. They were after all employees, and that made a world of difference. Kurt looked so relieved it was almost comical. She’d have to explain that to April and Jeff.

  * * *

  The forest road around the backside of the ridge wasn’t much before The Day. Since then nobody had graded it or cleared it. There were several places it had wash-outs cut across it and two places the hillside came slumping down after a rain. A few wind-blown trees were across it too. The upside was that in this condition it appeared nobody lived along it now or used it regularly. There was little chance of someone trying to ambush them again.

  They stopped by a stream that was barely a trickle this late in the season. Vic had to search along it to find a place pooled enough to fill their canteens. Alice would have stuck her face right in the water to drink if they hadn’t stopped her. Watching Vic put purification tablets in the canteens and shake them vigorously she figured out the purpose.

  “We didn’t have anything that fancy at the Olsen’s,” she said with a shrug. “Even at the house, they were too lazy to use extra wood to boil water. They’d argue whose turn it was and if nobody agreed they just drank the creek water.”

  “Were they all as skinny as you though?” Eileen asked, thinking of worms and parasites.

  “Pretty much. They weren’t very good gardeners and not much better hunters. The father used to be fat. You could tell because he had loose skin.” She pinched at the back of her arm with thumb and finger by way of illustration, which was funny. She couldn’t find enough fat to make her point. “They had more volunteer tomatoes grow by the garbage pile from table scraps than where they tried to raise them on purpose. They’d eat stuff like raccoon,” she made a face. “I’m not very fond of raccoon.”

  Vic told her the water needed some time to work, and to be shaken again, but gave her some cornbread from Mr. O’Neil’s to eat, if she wasn’t too dry to chew it. He had to tell her to slow down and eat it slowly with little bites or she’d make herself sick. Eileen was embarrassed to see how hungry the girl was and that they’d waited so long to offer her anything. She marked it as something to remember that Alice might not feel free to tell them she needed something.

  After all the rock slides and downed branches, their luck held until they were back on the highway almost to Mr. Mast’s house before the front tire went flat with a loud pop. Vic eased them to a stop and inspected it. The jagged cut extended from the center up the sidewall and was way more than could be patched.

  “Have you ridden one of these before?” Vic asked Eileen.

  “A smaller one,” she said. “I think what you’d call a minibike. But how does that help?”

  “You’re so much lighter. If you can just idle it forward at a walk we’ll keep up and I think you can get it back to Mast’s place.”

  “You can’t carry everything else,” Eileen objected.

  “I can carry the heavy stuff and you can strap our clothing bags on the back,” Vic said.

  “Hello? I�
�m not helpless you know,” Alice said. “I can carry something.”

  Vic had his doubts but gave her Eileen’s clothes bag. It had a shoulder strap and Alice slung it with a determined look on her face.

  Eileen would ride ahead until almost out of sight and stop to let them catch up. She tried to stay to the side where sand and dirt were drifting across the pavement. The plug fouled up from going so slow and they thought it wouldn’t start again once, but Vic revved it when it finally caught and cleaned it off. They were only about a mile short of Mast’s when the rim finally cut through the flat tire. To go on would risk ruining the wheel.

  “Let’s move it off in the brush and hide it,” Vic said. “We’ll walk the rest of the way in and come back with that little hand wagon Mast uses. We can set the front wheel up in it and I can pull and you hold it upright by the handlebars and get it back.”

  “If you tell me what the house looks like and describe Mr. Mast I can run ahead and bring him back,” Alice offered. “You can stay here and guard the bike.”

  Vic considered it frowning.

  “I’ve been riding,” Eileen pointed out. “I can run ahead with Alice so she isn’t unguarded and you can stay here and guard the bike, but off the road as you said. Around Mast’s place has to be pretty safe. I think word has got around by now not to mess with him.”

  “OK,” Vic agreed, after he couldn’t think of any agreement against it that wasn’t insulting. “Give me a hand here and police the area so there’s no trail off the road. Look back when you get to the road and make sure you can’t see me. You are going to come to his neighbor’s house first, where that young fellow Ted lives. He never did tell me his family name, but Mast obviously trusts him. If it looks like people are at home stop there and ask if he’ll go with you to Mast’s to get the wagon and bring it back.”

  Vic hunkered down with the bike on its side. Eileen and Alice made their way back zig-zag to the road being careful not to trample a path through the weeds. Eileen used a broken-off branch of a bush to sweep out their footprints. Once she was satisfied she couldn’t see Vic she didn’t call out to him. He’d been specific that she shouldn’t do that. She went off down the road and tossed the branch away further along where it wouldn’t be visible.

  * * *

  “Take a look at Disney News,” Chen told April. “They claim to be showing Irwin.”

  “Let me look and keep your window open.” April requested. Chen nodded his OK.

  It surprised April none of her search programs alerted her first. She told the house to bring up Disney news on the split-screen and nothing about Irwin showed on their home screen. She asked it to show space news and got nothing. She had it search for Irwin Hall by name and it brought up the financial news.

  “Banking Fraudster Denounces Violence” was the banner. Chen saw April’s eyes narrow and she had to work her jaw to consciously not grind her teeth. There was video right away and her mouth fell back open in astonishment at the start image for the video.

  “A suit and tie? No way. Who are they kidding? Why in the world would they display Irwin that way? And why is the story hidden back in the financial stories? Why didn’t you warn me it was a weird fake?” she asked Chen.

  Chen shrugged. “It seemed like it would have taken longer to describe it than to just let you see for yourself. It’s all software generated of course. They didn’t even bother to do their best work. Honestly, my boy could do better. The suit and tie made me laugh out loud, but I thought about it. A lot of Earthies simply wouldn’t believe he was a businessman much less a banker if they showed him any other way. A few space nuts who view our public cameras would know it’s silly. But most people just believe whatever they are shown. In fact, displaying too much interest in us is considered antisocial and can go against your score.”

  “Like all doctors have to be in a white lab coat and soldiers in camo?” April asked.

  “Yes, it’s a formula,” Chen agreed. “A prison suit would devalue his message. The wall behind is too uniform and doesn’t match the lighting on his suit. Indeed, the lighting on his face and the suit are not a perfect match. To add insult to injury it’s not a very nice suit. You haven’t run the video, have you?”

  “No, I don’t let crap like this auto-start. Besides, I expect to get upset all over again. Hang on, I’ll watch it,” April said.

  They did have Irwin’s face down pat. They should, since they had hours and hours of video since he was arrested to work with. They even did little tricks like having him turn his head and rub over his ear to add realism.

  “Since when do jail cells have upholstered armchairs?” April said. “He isn’t sitting like Irwin. The trouble is I know he looks fake, but I can’t actually remember the details of how he does sit. I just know it isn’t like this.”

  “I got some video to compare of Irwin at Assemblies and some… private sources,” Chen said. “He never sits that ramrod straight and he never puts his arms out on the chair arms like that. Not even an elbow on the arm draped to the inside like the left arm is shown. His hands are always together in front of him like this,” Chen slouched a little and draped his arms in front holding his left wrist with his right hand.

  “If he’s thinking hard about something and waiting for a chance to speak he interlaces his fingers,” Chen did so, and it just looked wrong because it wasn’t Chen. Or if he’s really wound up he’ll interlace his fingers and tap the ends of his thumbs together.”

  “Yes!” April said, pointing. “You have that down perfectly. I swear you could do impersonations if you could do the voice right.”

  “That, is just what you want to think,” Chen said, emphasizing the first word with a tiny pause, enunciating precisely, and tilting his head forward a tiny nod at the end like Irwin. “Of course you exaggerate everything a little to do an impersonation.”

  “That’s scary,” April said. “Where did you learn to do that?”

  “Spies have to be very observant,” Chen said. “If you are meeting someone at a park bench and they are sitting all wrong you just walk straight past and don’t even make eye contact. You want to be somebody else as you walk past too.”

  “How can you be somebody else?” April demanded, fascinated.

  “You walk a different pace, balanced differently, with the opposite dominate foot and moving your arms differently,” Chen said. “If you look sufficiently different people won’t even look at your face. When you look directly at another person’s face it’s a huge signal to them to look back at you. In North America, it is almost as rude as in England, and there it is a challenge to be examining your betters.”

  “I need lessons on this, but let me listen to the audio,” April said.

  Irwin’s avatar looked right in the camera with an earnest expression.

  “I’m told some of my associates on Home have started a campaign to win my unconditional release. I do implore them not to use violence to try to force my release. First of all, I don’t think it will work. If anything, it is counter-productive and inflames public opinion against me. It reinforces an already low public image of Home and Spacers, in general, to see innocent people harmed. Also, it prejudices my case by implying that is the only way I can get a release instead of presenting a legal defense. I have legal counsel appointed to represent me and on their advice am going to make no further statements until this is resolved.”

  “Those aren’t his natural word choices either,” April said, “and where do they get this crap about innocent people harmed?”

  “They showed video supposedly taken by local affiliates of ambulances bringing casualties to area hospitals. The keyword they used was that you bombarded busy bridges.

  April took a deep breath. “It wouldn’t do a thing to refute it point by point, would it?”

  “It would never get shown,” Chen said, shaking his head. “Sad truth is they could let it be shown and it still wouldn’t make any difference. If you can’t make your point in fifteen or twenty seconds th
e majority of their audience won’t listen to the end. They just don’t have the attention span and the matter is too technical for them.”

  “What would you do then?” April asked. “Just ignore it and press ahead?”

  “That’s an option. After all, what do you care for what the mob thinks?” Chen asked. “Now, I come from a Chinese background, and they tend to take themselves very seriously. Most of you from a North American background see Chinese ideas about dignity and saving face as silly. But the USNA has become steadily more like the Chinese as they have shifted to being authoritarian. It is much worse to make fun of them than to simply oppose them. If you want to make any response at all, I’d do what the Greek or Italian opposition would do now. Nobody will risk breaking the law to download a prohibited but boringly monologue off foreign nets. However, if something is hilariously funny and nasty at the same time they’ll risk sharing it.”

  “Tell me more,” April said, intrigued.

  * * *

  Vic stood slowly to be less eye-catching. He checked for Eileen returning and looked back down the road the way they’d gone and then the other way that they’d just come. He’d forced himself to wait for a full half-hour and not expose himself to discovery by standing too early. This was the second time he’d checked and the shadows were getting long. It wasn’t really twilight yet but the colors were getting muted looking deeper into the woods. He was getting nervous about night approaching. He was more concerned about Eileen out in the dusk than needing to sit where he was overnight. He should have mentioned that as a possibility before they left. It would have been no hardship to have them return in the morning if there was any delay.

  When he finally saw Ted coming, he approved of his methods. Ted was on point with a pump shotgun held at ready. He had Eileen following along the edge of the road with her weapon slung in front. Alice was on the other edge of the road a little farther back pulling the wagon. Vic stayed standing, so they could see him, but checked the road the other way again to make sure they weren’t walking into anything.