They Said It Would Be Easy (April Book 7)

by Mackey Chandler

  "Then we wouldn't have control of it."

  "If you land on spaceports on Tonga or Japan you aren't going to have control of those either." April pointed out. "Seems like this has even less chance of becoming hostile to you, being purpose built."

  "You're persuasive. Maybe if we get two shuttles in service, and start using it, some others would build a landing shuttle and generate some landing fees," Jeff said.

  "An unmanned freighter would be a lot cheaper to make," April pointed out. "Or at least build one more manned shuttle for redundancy, and then a couple cheap robotic ones."

  "I'm prejudiced for the flexibility of manned," Jeff admitted. "But yeah, as a third or fourth vehicle I can see going for the cost savings."

  "Why don't you have Irwin or Eddie look at a startup for a floating shuttle base," April suggested. "Put a token investment in it to show you believe in it, and stop trying to do everything yourself."

  "I could foist it off on you to do in your spare time," Jeff suggested. "Just kidding!" he quickly amended, hands up in surrender, just from the look he got.

  April accepted his surrender.

  * * *

  "Jon, sorry to bother you so late. I'm having a judgment crisis here. I'm on a call and not sure what to do at all."

  Jensen was his newest officer, a calm quiet fellow, who impressed Jon when he hired on. He went by the nickname of Ace which was bestowed upon him at ISSII. He had experience in police work in Denmark first and then on ISSII. He had good reports from both places. If he was as perplexed as his voice and face indicated he had reason. Jon just needed to wake up.

  "Ace, is the situation stable enough I can used the bathroom and wake up a couple minutes before I help you? Is anyone in immediate danger?" Jon demanded.

  "No sir, nothing life-threatening, but it's a complicated situation. A social problem," Ace said. "And I have no idea what custom or policy is on it."

  "Where are you Ace?"

  "I was called to the cafeteria on a possible medical emergency or a drunk. Turns out it is neither."

  "That's close. Can you hold ten or fifteen minutes and I'll come down?" Jon asked.

  "Yes sir, that's a perfectly acceptable time frame," Ace agreed.

  Jon washed his face hastily and used the toilet, dressed in civilian clothes, but with a Taser, grabbed spex and headed to the cafeteria. It had been almost a week since he'd been roused in the middle of the night. In fairness this was the first time for Ace, so Jon was cutting him some slack until he found out what the problem was.

  When Jon arrived Ace was sitting across the table from a middle aged Earthie. Just from his posture Ace wasn't concerned about physical violence. He was talking quietly with the fellow and not keeping a safe distance. The man didn't appear to be armed, but he had a small bag between his feet and a computer on the table in front of him, closed.

  "Good evening. I'm Jon Davis, the head of Home Security," Jon said. "Has officer Jensen introduced himself?" Jon asked right away.

  "Yes, he's been uncommonly kind to me. I'm sorry to be a problem, but I don't know what to do and he doesn't have an easy solution either."

  "Might I have your name," Jon prodded him.

  "Oh, yeah. Sorry I'm kind of slow right now. It's the middle of my night. I'm Mel Feinberg. I came in on the last shuttle from New Las Vegas. I'm an electronics tech. I program sensor and chip building printers and integrate them in devices. But I can do other stuff. I heard you have a labor shortage and a lot of good things about living here from some guys who worked a couple tours as beam dogs. I had enough winnings I thought I could get established here, but it didn't matter how much cash I had, I just couldn't get a room, not even a bed for the night."

  "Ah...You had a big win at New Las Vegas?" Jon asked. "Oddly enough I have a friend who had the same experience."

  "Oh, no. I'm not explaining very well. I won The Big One, the North American Lotto. I just happened to come through New Las Vegas. I couldn't get a seat from North America, so I flew to France. Took the sub-orbital, which was a new experience too. I finally bought a lift from the Canary Islands, flew there and lifted to New Las Vegas. I slept there and got a seat on the shuttle to Home. I'd like to move here. I'm sure I can find work. I have enough cash to pay my way. I have a unrevokable business Visa with over twenty million USNA dollars on it, and nobody will rent me a room for the night."

  Between the absurdity of it and the fatigue he broke down laughing.

  "Mr. Feinberg was sleeping at the table, resting his head in his arms on his computer," Ace explained. "The cafeteria crew was concerned he was ill or intoxicated, and reluctant to approach him themselves, so they called our dispatch and I came to check on him. I'm not sure what policy is on this. We don't have vagrancy laws, right? And he has means, just nowhere to spend it. As safe as Home is I can't recommend sleeping in public places. I know you said to only interfere with violence and outright theft, But this seemed like a public safety issue to me. The man is putting himself at risk. And it's alarming to people even if he means no harm. But I checked, and just as he said, there isn't a single hotel room or hot slot to be had. We don't have any sort of public shelter do we? What should we do?"

  "If you want to throw me in jail that's fine too," Feinberg volunteered. "It would be a bed. Just don't force me to post bond until the morning," he pleaded.

  "I would, but we have no jail," Jon admitted.

  "Somehow, I'm not surprised," Feinberg admitted.

  "I have one possibility," Jon said, "The construction crew has a barracks. I might be able to get you in there." He called the Mitsubishi supervisor at the beam dog's barracks. He left his pad flat on the table with the speakers turned up for their benefit.

  "Phil? Jon. I have a traveler sleeping in the cafeteria, because there is not a single bed for hire at any price on Home. Do you have any bunks open?"

  "I do, but Mitsubishi's rules don't allow me to rent them out," Phil said.

  "Do they forbid you to give the use of one away free, at the request of Home Security?" Jon asked.

  "Now that's an interesting question. It's been a couple years since I read the operations manual. Let me check." He was gone some minutes before he returned.

  "There's nothing addressing that," Phil said. "I think it was just never imagined as an issue when the place was built. As long as he is an English speaker, for safety reasons, I'll put him up for the next twenty four hours. After that we need to talk about it. I don't want this talked around or I'll have people badgering me to do it every night."

  "Agreeable?" Jon asked Feinberg.

  "Oh yeah! I'm happy to keep my mouth shut too." A sudden alert look crossed Mel's face..."Could I inquire if the construction operation needs an electronics tech? I'm probably way over qualified, but very willing to work repair or even installation. I'm not too proud to be a cable monkey."

  "No, we need three," Phil said laughing, "and if you are over qualified maybe the supervisor's position, but talk to me about that tomorrow. Are you sending him over, Jon?"

  "Yes, my man Ace will walk him over right now. Thanks Phil."

  "You owe me one," Phil said. "Even if we do hire him."

  "I shall live in dread of you calling in your marker," Jon promised, and terminated the call.

  "What are you two still doing here?" Jon asked them. "I'm going back to bed."

  "Thank you!" Mel called to his back.

  * * *

  "Eduardo, you remember what you told me Larkin said to you about people sleeping in the public corridors? It's that bad already. Last night my new man on the back shift called me about a fellow sleeping in the cafeteria. He had plenty of funds and just couldn't find a slot to sleep."

  "Not even in private quarters? I've been seeing personal ads in the local net for people to sleep in people's private cubic. Even folks with single room efficiencies. A few have even offered to share a bed if you are clean and don't snore," Muños told him.

  "That's crazy," Jon said. "How much are they ask
ing?"

  "Three to four hundred dollars Australian a night, and a week minimum, or a Solar for six months, seems to be the average rate. Which is still cheaper than an official hot slot with a locker. The market changes rapidly however. For example, within the last week the last ads offering space for North American Dollars finally vanished," Muños said.

  "I didn't think to check personal ads," Jon admitted. "I got him a bunk, and maybe a job, with the construction crew. That's not for public knowledge by the way."

  "What do you want to do about it?" Muños asked. "We already decided we don't want to call an early Assembly. I don't want to go down the road to start setting petty regulations about how people can live. If you talked to Bob you might get him to impose occupancy limits from Mitsubishi, but I think everybody would know it was something forced on them locally, not from Japan. It might well back-fire on us and for sure would just drive it underground. That would actually make the practice riskier. If it goes black market the danger is locals could take advantage of immigrants too," he warned.

  "No, no. Better to go the other way, make it more open, Jon said. "I'll put out a low priority message to everybody that security is concerned about the safety of all these new people going into private homes. I'll offer to do a free check of Earth police data bases if they want to vet their new roomies. Either way – roomers or landlords. I'll even moderate it by noting that being on the political list in Earth databases is not necessarily a negative. And it will have the advantage of making any folks unaware about it, know what's going on. That will prime them to not be surprised when we bring up motions about young Singh's project."

  "Of course if Singh gets his little hostel functioning it may crimp the ability of some of these folks to pick up a little extra cash," Muños speculated.

  "Everything I am seeing says it's going to get worse before it gets better. Even with the auxiliary housing I suspect I'm going to have to ask authority to refuse entry to anyone without a return ticket, unless they can show a reservation for a place to sleep." Jon stopped and frowned thinking about it.

  "I'll talk to Jeff and make sure he understands about the market in sleeping room. I'll make sure he knows to price his quarters at least a little higher than the going rate in the personal ads, and he should make his intentions public early. They will be bigger and have better privacy, but some of the folks will need to commute from their rooms to Home. We want a balance between looking like he is going to kill the local market by being too cheap, or setting it so high we strongly encourage doubling up here to capacity before people even consider renting Singh's quarters. Otherwise these new landlords will vote against anything that will rob them of their new found income," Jon predicted.

  "I think you have a handle on it. Are you going to rent out your living room floor now?" Muños asked Jon with a devilish grin. "Mitsubishi was pretty generous with cubic for their personnel. Why not pick up a little help with the high price of things?"

  "If you have any attractive young ladies desperate for shelter I could probably find room for three or four," Jon offered. "I'd need to interview of course, but I'd be willing to set a low group rate. I can turn off my wall screen with the calming environmental scenes, and just let them provide the scenery," Jon offered. "Better me than some less noble ruffian who might take advantage of the poor waifs."

  "That's precisely the sort of thing I was worried about," Muños warned him, unamused.

  * * *

  "Vacationing USNA Officer murdered on Home!" the headline shouted. Several other news outlets used harsher terms. "Lieutenant Aaron Janowicz on leave visited the translunar habitat and was shot dead. His remains were returned to ISSII with little explanation and no information about any investigation or criminal charges. The break-away habitat is noted for its Wild West atmosphere, and public displays of personal weapons are common. Apparently they aren't just for display.

  "Lieutenant Janowicz was in civilian dress and unarmed when gunned down. State Department Spox said his remains were sent to the military sector of USNA portion of the satellite, so Home officials were aware of his nationality and military affiliation, but he arrived with no identification or explanation of his death. Preliminary reports say he suffered a single massive gunshot wound to the chest from the side, with a large caliber weapon firing a frangible projectile, typical of those used in spaceships and habitats. Bizarrely the wound was closed with a common cork. USNA officials are forwarding a formal protest of this as a violation of the mutual safe conduct provisions of the treaty between the USNA and Home. The Assembly of home has repeatedly failed to adapt any exiting legal code, or formulate their own, although their governing body has met formally a number of times. They are literally lawless. So unlike all other nation, no matter how backward, there is no way to charge anyone with murder. The only legal redress for such acts being expulsion by a vote of that Assembly. An explanation of the circumstances surrounding the young officer's death is demanded. State Department Officials said to expect a travel warning to be issued within days, recommending USNA citizens avoid the habitat as a dangerous destination without a functioning legal system."

  * * *

  "I thought we were doing them a favor to handle it quietly," Jon said. "I'm not sure what to do."

  "Are you sure you should do anything?" Muños asked. "To whom shall they send this letter of protest? Will it be addressed to you, or to the Assembly? If to the Assembly, they can then question you about the incident should they want, and make a reply if they wish, or direct you to do so."

  "I signed the shipping manifest to send the Lieutenant's body to ISSII. I did note I was Head of Security for Home. So it's not as if they received him anonymously," Jon said. "He didn't have any identification on him to send along. We weren't even sure he was a lieutenant. But apparently he had some way to reenter ISSII when he returned. That would be interesting to know, if he had somebody who would pass him back into USNA territory, or ID hidden somewhere he didn't want to carry to his meeting. Wiggen guessed his rank and he never really confirmed it or denied it. She just guessed it was appropriate to the mission. You'd think they'd be asking how a lieutenant could afford an orbital vacation, but no...In fact, he never offered proof he was USNA military. But if they'd got him at ISSII and couldn't make a match to their records, they'd have sent him on to civilian authorities."

  "I suspect somebody screwed up," Muños decided. "It may be that someone decided to grab an propaganda opportunity against us before carefully looking into the other consequences of making this public. I bet they checked to make sure he wasn't in intelligence, wasn't a spook, and never imagined he might be something else – an agent of an internal opposition faction."

  "Ouch...In that case I predict whoever his handler was is running for his life right now," Jon said.

  "And their conspiracy is either dissolving, or striking earlier than they planned," Muños predicted.

  "I'll mention that to those who might have an interest right now," Jon said, working his pad. He stopped and frowned, deep in thought. "I find your counsel excellent. I'm under no obligation to explain why I returned the body as I did. I don't work for them to care if they find fault with me. Let them address the entire Assembly if they wish to make an issue of it. I suspect they will find the Assembly even less caring of their feelings than me."

  "If they convince a few fearful Earthies not to come to Home that's a bonus, not a problem," Muños pointed out. "Home isn't a place for those who want to be sheltered. It just makes this entire problem of not having anywhere to put them easier if they weed out the timid ones for us."

  Chapter 20

  Margaret watched her recording. Two young boys with a small manual freight cart opened the storage locker and serviced some sort of machine. It didn't look like much, but it was poised on a platform inside the locker. Three black half-spheres supported a plate with another trio of offset black hemispheres isolating a second plate that held the actual machine. The supporting hemispheres had to be So
rbothane or some other vibration isolating polymer. On top of that there was a blanket of noise absorbing mat hung on the locker sides, and fastened across inside the door when it was closed. It was surprising she'd heard it.

  The boys switched out a surprisingly large battery; storage lockers didn't come with power outlets until they were big enough to be walk-ins. They removed what appeared to be a big stack of business cards. At this distance and angle Margaret couldn't see what was printed on them. They reloaded what must be blanks in the machine and tested it for function. Satisfied, they closed it back up and went away with their production.

  Margaret erased the camera's memory and didn't put it back on the corridor wall. She had no instructions to curtail clandestine printing operations. She'd seen much stranger things patrolling Home.

  * * *

  "Look at What's Happening for today," Muños told Jon. "Martha took the Your Say slot today. I suspect it's her board anyway, but she's never used it as her private bully pulpit before. I'm sending a heads up to a whole bunch of people, including Jeff Singh, so it should be widely known by the time you finish watching it."

  Jon navigated to the site. He wasn't unfamiliar with it. Ex-President Wiggen posted a short video. It was to the point and blunt. She looked irritated but stayed reasonable civil. She didn't appear to be speaking from notes.

  "There have been reports in Earth news agencies that a USNA lieutenant was murdered on Home. The general tone being that this innocent young man was casually slaughtered by the lawless armed crazies on Home.

  "Well, I'm the crazy who killed the poor fellow. Not that I pulled the trigger myself, but I gave a signal to my security to do so.

  "Don't expect an apology. You might stop and ask yourself how a lieutenant can afford to vacation on Home when travel here and accommodations add up to about ten years of a lieutenant's pay. But that would be asking for some thinking ability, something your so called journalists never allow to get in the way of a good story, or a mediocre lie.