April 6: And What Goes Around

by Mackey Chandler

  That winnowing left five messages to actually examine and possibly answer. The one that caught her eye was Mo Pennington. He owned a lot in Central and two lots in outlying plats that had few other owners. He had in fact proposed and laid out the boundaries and marked them on his off hours in exchange for the lots. It would probably prove be a very good trade for both of them in five or ten years. All it cost her was the rover hours and she established a solid claim on territory twice again the area of her initial development. He very rarely bothered her and was always succinct.

  Heather,

  I have some thoughts and a proposal for pursuing further food production in spite of limited shipment of organics from Earth. I believe the matter is too complex to address with a brief message and desire a face to face audience so there can be a give and take discussion. There is no short term urgency about the matter, but I'd like to see you within the week if it is convenient.

  Mo P.

  It was refreshing than somebody assigned a realistic urgency to what they wanted. It also pleased her that he used her name in ordinary business instead of awkward attempts at courtly language.

  Mo,

  If you would care to join me for supper at my residence this evening at 1900 we can discuss your proposal. If it can't be covered in the span of a meal and an additional hour or so then I will insist you distill it to a written proposal with a summary. If you have other obligations this evening please propose an alternate evening.

  Heather,

  The return message showed up less than a minute after she hit send.

  Heather,

  Confirming – Meeting your residence this evening at 1900 is excellent. Thank you.

  Mo P.

  Mo had been one of Jeff's better ideas. He was a mining engineer, a Canadian, and had proved inventive and adapted very well to the lunar environment. He'd been blackmailed by Earth agents into bringing location devices in to allow their facilities to be easily marked and ranged from lunar orbit. When Jeff discovered them, Mo had acted as a double agent for a time and then defected. His family was on Home until such a time as Central had more amenities, and now they could never return to North America as they had planned.

  One proof of Mo's expertise was the fact the deep tunnels he'd designed and helped bore had survived the Chinese nuclear attack. That was nearing two years ago and they were continuing to dig deeper all the time. When they got down where the natural temperature of the rock was a shirt sleeves environment they would slow their downward pace and spread out.

  Heather actually looked forward to talking with him.

  * * *

  "Tell me how screwed we are," Barak invited. At least they could speak freely now without resorting to helmet talk sign language or typing messages on their pads.

  "It's not that bad," Commander Deloris Wrigley said. Barak's face said he didn't believe it.

  "I've been talking to the owners. The lag time is long enough we decided to just keep talking from both ends. We number the topic blocks and when we stick a new statement in our end we reference which of their previous statements it is we are addressing. It works surprisingly well."

  She looked at his frown and had a sudden suspicion. "Are you having problems with me as commander?"

  That actually shocked Barak. At least it wiped the frown off his face. "Not at all! If they had asked me I'd have said you are the only logical choice. I'm not qualified and Alice here volunteered the same thing about you without me asking her at all. I'd just like a commander that can fly the damn thing."

  Alice just nodded to verify that.

  "We've agreed to a work-around," Deloris told them. "The first couple hours they spent telling me how to establish administrative authority over the computers and setting my own passwords. I had to be shown what I could do with those permissions. Then they offered me new contract terms. But then they gave me several choices. They laid it on me alone to accept or not. I will bear all the responsibility as master if I accept so they didn't ask you two. If we wanted to back the Yuki-onna off the snowball and come home they would help us as much as possible by offering advice and remote programming and navigation. That would pretty much bankrupt the operation and we'd get our straight pay with no bonuses."

  "And forever have our names attached to a failed project even if we survive," Alice said.

  "That, and we'd miss the better terms they offered. If I can get us back with the snowball and ship intact they offer a double bonus for all of us. They also spoke with the sanctioning body and they agreed that if I pass the deep space pilot's exam within two years of returning they will credit all our flight hours to my record."

  "All your flight hours? Not just the hours you stand watch on the bridge?" Barak asked.

  "All of them. Think about it... At this point we're always on call with no backup, so why shouldn't we have the credit for on call hours? I figured I have a little leverage here so I bargained for you two also. Barak, you have the opportunity if you wish to get a ticket for the number two seat with the same terms. With those hours and another couple jobs you can expect that they wouldn't deny you a test for master much sooner than usual. I'll expect you to be on the flight deck with me whenever we maneuver if you want that.

  "I knew Alice isn't interested in a command line career, so I got her a similar deal to be licensed as a Master Engineer full book – Earth to orbit, planetary landing, orbit to orbit and deep space. There are only about a dozen people with that licensing status. As they said, if you can bring it back you've shown you can do it under the worst of circumstances."

  "Sweeeet... " Barak said, drawing it out.

  "I want to sit in the control room with you guys when you do a burn," Alice said. "I don't want to be strapped in my bunk down here all alone."

  "Why not? It's not like you'd have duties when we maneuver," Deloris agreed readily.

  "Thanks," Alice said, relieved.

  "It's not at all like we're landing on a moon here and need to have inputs to the controls real time. You know, back when they went to the moon, first couple times, they didn't have enough computer capacity on the Apollo to navigate. They had to sent their data back to Earth and have them transmit the course corrections to them. They did similar delayed commands to unmanned deep-space probes early in the century. No reason at all they can't do it for us."

  "Just to be clear, Deloris. I take it you did accept it, from the way you are talking?" Alice asked.

  "You bet. It's going to take me about three days to get checked out, doing star sights. The system isn't fully automated. I have to sight at least one star and then let it run a self check. With Jupiter filling half the sky it may need a second or even a third star to establish orientation. I have to run it three times at regular intervals, but the second and third time it should run off the main star."

  "Then what happens?" Barak wondered.

  "After they process that data they send us a burn sequence," Deloris said. "It will point us up out of the plane of Jupiter's rotation where there isn't as much stuff floating we might run into. We'll do everything slower than we would have with a certified pilot. They'll keep teaching me stuff while we coast along slowly. The guy teaching me said we could be off line twenty degrees that burn and it wouldn't matter in the end. Then when we're clear of the Jupiter system we turn, do a new reading and start another slow burn towards Home in-system. We do a small correction, then again in a week. If we are aimed right on the third navigation check we do a longer burn and that's our last burn pointed in system. We'll roll her and then it gets boring then for a few months. That's the short version."

  "This is the easy end though isn't it?" Barak asked.

  "Yes," Deloris agreed, "but when we approach the Earth – Moon system we will have a lot less speed of light lag to deal with when they advise us, and they will be able to locate us by both our radio signals and we have a laser in stores that we could deploy. When we are really close they'll be able to see us on radar and guide us very exactly. When we
're pretty much at rest to them in a trans lunar orbit within a few days flight time from Home they can send a shuttle out with an experienced pilot and navigator team to nudge us into the final halo orbit on the L2 side."

  "I'd say you got us a pretty good deal," Alice said. "You could have just taken their sweetener for the command slot and not argued for us at all. Thank you."

  "Do you have any problems with the program?" Deloris asked, looking at Barak. "If you have any reservations or complaints - speak now before I talk to Home again."

  Barak smiled. "What are your orders, Commander?"

  Chapter 16

  "Good evening, Heather." Mo looked nervous. Why would he fall back into that mode? Was it a mistake to invite him to her private space? She hoped he wasn't going to start addressing her as Your Majesty or something. He wasn't sworn to her even though he owned property in her realm. He was Jeff's hired man and a citizen of Home now. She waved him to a chair in sight of the kitchen. He sat but stiff and tense.

  "I made spaghetti. It's a favorite in my family. I hope you like that OK?" Heather asked.

  "That will be a treat. I haven't had it in months. Different sorts of restaurants are one of the few things I occasionally miss about Earth," Mo said. "We had a Vietnamese and a Hungarian place we frequented in our old neighborhood."

  "I'm afraid you're getting bottled sauce with a few spices added and pouch meatballs," Heather said.

  "That's still a big step up from the self-heating meals I've been having sitting on the edge of my bunk," Mo said smiling a little. "I don't want to go to the cafeteria in my suit liner and I'm out of time and energy to get cleaned up and go back out by the time I get in."

  The cafeteria wasn't much, just six tables and a tiny kitchen. But it served better meals than out of a self-heating can. Between Heather's own employees and some lot owners still in temporary shelter, there were thirty four people living centrally in connected pressure. Two families were living at depth in tunnels under Heather's land because the modular housing they towed from Armstrong was destroyed or buried in the Chinese attack.

  A few others lived in connected pressure because their work didn't permit them to live on their own land and commute. Not only did they have no fast elevator system to the depth they were at now, but there still were not any small personal vehicles to be had. The traffic system and vehicles were designed, and the engineering standards issued by royal decree. They just never had opportunity to make them before the Chinese attack covered their roads with debris. They would be manufactured in time, when the roads were cleared. The hand built bus that had connected them to Armstrong briefly was now sitting waiting on their surface streets to be cleared.

  "That's awful," Heather said of eating canned meals. She was genuinely concerned. Mo was an asset and anything that wore his morale down was very bad. "We have kids living in pressure who would probably do courier work cheap if they just knew there was a market. They could run a hot meal to your room from the cafeteria. They probably don't think to ask because they lived under strict North American law in Armstrong. They didn't ignore it here like we did on M3 even before the revolution. I will drop a hint to some parents," she promised.

  "I never thought to ask either," Mo admitted. "I guess my brain is stuck on Earth-think a little bit too. My son has turned into quite the entrepreneur on Home, so you'd think I would have adjusted, but it didn't occur to me."

  "What does he do?" Heather asked Mo.

  "He buys old spex and com pads from folks. It seems like most people get new ones often, whenever there's a new feature they like. Most of the time they aren't worth the time to try to sell them. But if Eric's standing right there offering cash they'll dig it out of the drawer they tossed it in. People still find it hard to actually throw it away if it still works fine. The new people coming in are shocked at the prices for everything and happy to economize on something. He sells some to Earth because the down leg shipping is cheap."

  "I'm aware your daughter already has quite a reputation as an artist," Heather let him know.

  "That's one we didn't see coming," Mo admitted. "She always was sketching stuff. Pictures of fancy clothing mostly. But she was a discipline problem when we lived on Earth. The school never saw her as having any artistic talent. In fact she got poor grades in basic art and then couldn't get in the more advanced classes. My wife has shown me articles from Earth denouncing her work as simplistic and childish, but people sure seem to be willing to pay serious money for it."

  "On Earth that would be seen as a negative in academic society," Heather pointed out. "If the great unwashed masses like it then it can't have any value. Only the praise of their scholastic peers matters."

  "Well, she doesn't seem to be pining for their approval," Mo said.

  "Good. I'd be disappointed if she paid attention to such foolishness," Heather said.

  "I have to admit. I haven't been gone from Earth all that long. But I'm already looking at the news feeds and thinking I can't believe I used to accept what they said pretty much automatically. Now they sound like they are raving crazies most of the time," Mo said, making a twirl at his temple. "But if I said that to the people I used to work with down there I can just see the looks they'd give me."

  "So sad, now you are oppressed under my iron fist," Heather said.

  "Oddly enough I think you are capable of doing the iron fist thing," Mo said, actually making a fist. "It's just not scary because from everything I've seen you won't do it for some stupid reason that doesn't make any sense to anybody. Everybody from Armstrong is very happy you smashed their punitive force with an iron fist and didn't let them be dragged back to a North American jurisdiction. Even the ones in temporary shelter. They are certain things will get better. They had no such hope back at Armstrong. Things were so bad there some of them were near giving up and going back down to the Slum Ball."

  The tension Mo showed when he arrived seemed to have passed.

  "That's the nicest thing anybody has said in awhile," Heather said, "So, if you aren't scared of me why were you all nervous when you came in?"

  "Oh that. I guess because I'm just a mining engineer and I keep expecting someone to tell me I shouldn't be doing robotics and civil engineering. Now I'm going to advise you on something and I'm not even sure what discipline to label it. Environmental engineering? Process engineering?" Mo asked.

  "All we care is if it works, Mo. We'd take your advice for just about anything if you display general competence. We're not stupid and we're going to run any ideas past other on Home and Earth before we undertake any big commitment of time and money. I'd take your advice on making spaghetti if you can show me a better way to do it," Heather said, "and I'm pretty sure you aren't certified as a chef."

  "Good. I'm encouraged you'll get other advice. That takes some of the pressure off." Mo said.

  "Come sit here, it's ready and no pressure to talk business while we enjoy it," Heather said.

  "Oh my, you have wine," Mo was impressed. There was a plastic carafe of red. Glass was just too heavy to justify lifting it from Earth. Heather served the pasta separately, like her mother would, with a big blob of butter melting on it and the sauce and meatballs in the pan she used to heat it. Her serving dishes and table space were very limited. They had grated cheese and pepper flakes in little foil packs, but she wouldn't serve on plastic plates and had metal silverware. Given how she was raised she had limits to her practicality.

  "OK, you're right I'm not a chef," Mo admitted. "What did you add to make this so good?"

  "Commercial sauce," Heather reminded him. "but good stuff, Midi brand from North America. I added a little extra garlic, a tiny bit of anchovy paste, a tad of basil and tarragon, maybe a teaspoon of honey and five of those little dark chocolate chips like they put in cookies."

  "Amazing. Chocolate? Anchovies?" He repeated, disbelieving.

  "Those sort of things you add in moderation. You don't want them to stand out or take over, but they add to the complexity.
A lot of what we buy is intended for the sportsman and camping market. The quality tends to be much better than emergency food. Don't be shy, take seconds," Heather invited.

  He had another full plate serving and she had just a little more. Eventually he sighed and leaned back in his chair. That was the first she was sure he was over being uncomfortable.

  "Now, tell me what is so complicated you couldn't just send me a text," Heather said.

  "I'm aware you have plans to move steadily toward food independence. Jeff made me aware I should start talking with experts at inside cultivation on Earth to know how to lay out chambers and tunnels," Mo said. "Then later he told me to speak with the French who were interested in doing the same thing. We really have it easier than Earth in a lot of ways. We don't have to worry about pests and disease as long as we don't introduce them. On Earth it's a struggle to bring in air and water and have workmen in and out without introducing problems."

  "And if we do have contamination we can pump a tunnel back to vacuum," Heather said.

  "Yes, and we can make our own air, water is harder but we have some that can be mined in dark craters. At least enough until we have a regular supply from the outer system," Mo said.

  "But we don't have biomass," Heather said. "We're carbon poor and there is no extra lift capacity. Earth is so messed up right now nobody is even taking standby status freight. I wish I'd had a sack of charcoal on standby for every shuttle flight, but it's too late now. They're struggling to lift priority loads. So we have everything we need but enough carbon dioxide for the plants. Eventually we can recover most of it from sewage and mulching crop waste, but we lack the tons we need to start a large recycling system going. We can't do hydro or build soil without organics."