"Thank you for believing me," Heather said and meant it.
"I'll get back to you," Wiggen said. "Oh and when you speak to your friend April, tell her I said thank you," and gave a big wink before she disconnected.
What was that all about? Heather wondered, mouth hanging open.
Chapter 17
April had a plate of pecan pancakes rolled around sliced bananas, surrounded by a ring of sliced strawberries and buried under a mound of cinnamon whipped cream. Wanda dusted the top of the whipped cream with nutmeg. She was getting to be almost as good a cook as Ruby.
Dr. Ames, A.K.A. Jelly, came off the serving line and lifted an inquiring eyebrow to test if he could join April. Gunny was running a business errand for her. She gave him a little wave and pushed the chair opposite her out with her foot. They hadn't spoken recently.
"Are you still whipping all the vacuum rats at handball and betting on it?" April asked.
Jelly had the good grace to blush at that. He hadn't known until now she was aware of his little money making side line.
"That well ran dry. It took awhile, but despite a deep reservoir of gigantic egos, the young fellows finally had to concede I'm the All-Home zero G handball champion," he boasted.
"Until you sell your reflex enhancing treatment to a better player," she predicted.
"In which case I shall play for just the love of the sport," he promised her.
"Are you able to support yourself now with the gene business?" she inquired, hopefully.
"Almost. I've been getting some clients from off Home. I'm well along on having some new services and I got your man Gunny to sell me some cheek swabs so I am trying to see what about his genome makes him naturally fast. It's very interesting," he avowed.
"What kind of new stuff are you pushing?" April asked.
"I have a modification that makes your body produce vitamin C," he informed her.
"A whole big bottle of it is pretty cheap," she reminded him. "And I like an orange juice most mornings anyway," she added.
"Yes, but Jeff and his minions are speaking of very long voyages. It simplifies nutritional requirements in a closed system. You'd be immune to scurvy and it would breed true."
"Still only attractive if the voyages are years," she insisted.
"They might be. Einstein might be right and slow is the only way to go to stars."
"I was supposed to ask you about that and never did. How about freezing us, or at least letting us hibernate, so we don't run out of food and go nuts of cabin fever on a trip?"
"I have not even started to look into hibernation," he admitted. "It is complex and highly variable. It's not the simple thing people draw in a cartoon, of a bear in a cave."
"So you have looked into freezing people?" April immediately pressed.
"A little. You might need a gene that flooded your system with a sort of antifreeze on some trigger, like some fish use. But there is no telling what it would do to a mammal. It might have very adverse, even lethal effects. It might make you stupid, or sterile, or susceptible to heatstroke, or for all I know even make you stink," he predicted. "Nobody has even tried it on a mouse."
"Are there any other routes worth trying?" April asked.
"Yes, actually. How about just not dying?" he asked.
"How does that work?" she asked dubiously.
"Well, people used to go off on sailing voyages that took years when their life expectancy as an adult was in the thirty-some-year range. If you lived long enough, even a few hundred years, you could do a sub-light voyage and not begrudge the years it took. Take a vessel the size of this habitat. There would be enough things to do and work to accomplish, you could stay sane and happy if it took twenty years to reach your destination. Time dilation is on your side at serious fractions of C," he pointed out.
"Maybe," she allowed. "You might have practical political problems separating yourself from the majority of mankind so long. What if they all figure out how to do some things that change the whole economy while you are gone? Next thing you know, your colony might as well be an Amish community when the next Earth ship comes in thirty years later and the crew all have imbedded cranial computers and flying belts?"
"But the ship crew might invent and perfect things after they leave Earth. Chances are the mob will have more inventors, granted, but starship crews would likely select for very smart people. They may have a colony and when the next Earth ship comes by the colonists are the ones swooping around in flying belts," he suggested. "Anyway, the Amish would probably tell you that flying belts are a very poor predictor of a rich happy life. Having a fresh world to explore and settle, without pollution and hostile neighbors might trump that."
"I agree about the hostile neighbors," April said. "It's starting to get tiresome not knowing which Earth faction will give us grief. I don't have a solution for that."
Jelly looked surprised. "Well move us," he said with a shrug. "We are so close to Earth it fills half the sky. It colors our perspective on everything. Everybody on Home wants to be away from Earth, but this close it still dominates us. I don't think how far would even matter to most of them, if you asked the Assembly for a vote. Move it out to where it takes them more effort to harass us, or even move it over circling the Moon," he said like it was obvious.
"I doubt Mitsubishi would object as long as it is commercially viable. We'd still have zero G manufacturing areas. We moved Home to duck behind the Rock so I know it is possible. It doesn't come apart if you nudge it over carefully," he insisted.
April had this stunned look on her face, that turned to sheepishness. "Somebody else told me the same thing and I ignored him, I mean just totally ignored him, because he was younger than me. I hate it when people do that to me. I'm so embarrassed."
"Who was this visionary?" Jelly asked, amused.
"Heather's little brother Barak. We were sitting talking and said how nasty Earth is and he said to ask Jeff about putting a drive on Home and moving it further away. He mentioned Mars I believe, but the principle was the same, even if the objective was perhaps too ambitious."
"So did you do as he requested and ask Jeff?"
"No, but I will," she promised. "I'll give him proper credit too."
Her plate, unlike Jelly's, was empty. She pulled her mug to the edge of the table and leaned back. So are any other mods near ready?" she asked.
"This is confidential at this point," he warned. "I have been exploring increasing strength. It's complex. Changing the muscle fiber itself is easy. Not impacting endurance in exchange for a burst of speed is more difficult. and there are factors like altering the attachment points and the connective tissues too. I don't think any of us want to change our proportions and look like a chimp," he explained.
"It's not something you can fully test with a mouse either. I did something that most of my North American colleges would find abhorrent," he admitted. "There was a young man in Pacifica, I'd rather not be more specific than that, a fisherman. He got a particularly nasty form of soft tissue cancer that they can delay, but not cure. He had no insurance and I offered him what was a fairly large sum of money for the financial environment in which he lived, to try a modification. He was aware there were risks, but it benefited both of us, fortunately without any harm in the end. The kid was a strong swimmer and worked heavy labor on the deck of a fishing boat. So he had very prominently developed musculature," he explained.
"Here he is before any modification," he said and turned his pad around to show a photo. The young man had bulky muscles, not like a weightlifter and bodybuilder, but prominent.
"This is four months after the modification, so it had significant time to propagate and be expressed." He split the screen and showed both.
April looked back and forth between the two frontal views. "Are you sure this is the before picture?" she asked of the left split. "The difference is small but he looks thinner to me in this one," she said tapping the right. "Look at how this line here is softer," she said drawing an
arch with her finger, where a crease defined the division between muscles. "I don't know what to call it. Bodybuilders must have a word for it," she guessed.
"Hmm, definition is the phenomena. I'm not sure there is there is a word," he took the com back and was obviously doing a search. "Cut," he finally said, distastefully. "That is too graphic for me, but it's what body builders use. I never looked at those sites before." He turned the screen back to her in its previous state. "The fellow got heavier because there was a bone density increase, but he lost muscle mass slightly although he tested half again as strong. Then his illness was presented more fully, so we discontinued any further testing and I let him enjoy his last days with his family without any more intrusion," he explained. "My money allowed him to leave his family something to cover the loss of his income. Due to his health we never really tested anything having to do with endurance."
"So it will be a while before this is marketable?" April asked.
"Yes, I wouldn't put it in my own body yet and you know that is my test for selling anything, it definitely needs further human trials."
"I think that is a moral marketing standard for you," April agreed. "For somebody else who was a real risk taker it might not work."
"I have no idea what they are doing in China," Jelly admitted. "Nothing would surprise me."
"They might do radical things, but just keep in mind, if you have a useful process they didn't already develop on their own, they won't show the slightest hesitation to steal it."
April started putting everything on her tray to leave. She didn't eat off the tray like some.
"That's what I'm seeing. But thanks for reminding me," he agreed. "I'm near having a suite of rooms available, so I can administer a modification that is propagated as an infection," he explained.
"A lot of my customers don't have a home environment that lends itself to isolation while they self infect and then progress to being non-contagious. Some live with extended family, some have servants who would be awkward to send off on vacation or dismiss and hire new. Some just have work that would demand intrusions even if they are sick, to sign documents and such. It will expand my customer base and improve my margins, when I can finally afford to offer an isolation suite. There are some things I want to do that can't be done with a viral vector. You need stem cells and they need a period of isolation too."
April remembered all the small businesses her brother kept feeding five percent of their gross to him for his support. Jelly was too smart to pay five percent. He could just be a little patient and keep it all. But if she offered to fund a suite, April bet he had plenty of other uses for the money.
"I'd fund your isolation suite for a three percent cut of your gross," she offered.
Jelly's eyebrows went up sharply, then settled back. "I think I'd rather wait and keep it all," he said firmly, but he had thought about it.
"Or maybe two percent and I get future mods when they come to market."
"Just you, not your family and friends like our last deal?"
"Well, me and anybody in my immediate household. I'm moving out of my parents' place pretty soon, I bought a place of my own, I have no idea what will happen in my life. Not the hired help like Gunny though," she made clear.
"A husband maybe?" he said grinning.
"Spouse or spouses," she agreed. "Have you ever read, 'The Moon is a Harsh Mistress,' by Heinlein? Home has no law on marriage, we might try polyandry, line marriages or just about anything you could write as a contract," she predicted. "And we might still have traditional religious marriages. Who needs the state for that?"
"But is there a preacher to be had on Home to do a religious ceremony?" he asked.
"Fred Folsom conducts some sort of religious service in his cubic every week. I'm not real sure exactly what his theology is, but he has a small crowd gather regularly to talk. He does charity work too. I'm betting if somebody wanted a public exchange of vows and a community blessing, he'd accommodate them."
"Well," he said surprised and standing to leave. "I'll consider that offer," he promised.
* * *
The USNA lunar freighter Pagosa Springs was not a combat shuttle, but what it lacked in amenities for Space Marines in armor, it made up for in immediate availability. It was commandeered and the flight crew having previous military service was subject to recall and taken too. President Wiggen was not interested in any reasons for delay. She wished her infuriatingly independent lunar colony to be brought to heel right now, not in a week or a month. The expected shipment of food, spare parts and an additional hydroponics unit was going to have to wait. Fortunately, little of it had been loaded.
The shuttle was going to land with no radio communications and their flight plan was classified and suppressed. The control tower was a fused depression anyway, but they did not wish to give anyone opportunity to cover up evidence, hide contraband, or at worst prepare to physically resist them.
The Marines were suited up when they left Low Earth Orbit. It was difficult to suit up in zero G without the usual racks and auxiliary equipment in a combat vessel. It would be a long time in a suit, perhaps two days, but some of them had worn suits for a week in exercises. This time might be a little easier, because they each had a small unauthorized device they'd bought privately that was supposed to absorb suit odors.
The military was funny about approving new equipment. They couldn't buy so much as a shoelace without altering it from civilian specifications. Special forces had their own culture about adapting non standard weapons and equipment. All they cared about was whether it worked.
They were pretty comfortable and able to use a zero-G toilet without taking the whole suit off, just some over armor and open the waist. The hold was able to mount eight acceleration couches, frames really, sized for space armor, on scaffolding dividing the hold into ten sections. The two extra sections held arms and ammo and a few suit spares and rations.
They were backup. The real trouble for the colony was one quiet middle-aged bureaucrat, with no armor or weapons. Brian Dean Hartug III reported directly to President Wiggen and was authorized to do anything needed to bring Armstrong into compliance with her orders. He carried his authorizations in a plain small folder and intended to finish his business without raising his voice.
They were in a hurry and wished to avoid provoking the Central people, so they did a tangent burn and were going straight to a descent from the transfer orbit. They had to take hold for a small corrective burn three hours out. Not long after that the pilot came on the intercom.
"Lieutenant Carlson, I was told to advise you the armed merchant Happy Lewis declared an emergency to local control at Home in order to jump queue. They filed a flight plan for lunar orbital insertion at a high inclination and left Home dock about five minutes ago. Apparently they were uncomfortable seeing there would be a deep space USNA vessel in the lunar proximity and no Home vessel."
"Well, they have decent deep radar coverage then, to have seen us leave. That's interesting. One can understand their attitude," Carlson said, knowing all about the recent unpleasantness. "Do you know if their orbit will have a ground track over Central or will it be over Armstrong?"
"Either would be practical at this point. Control has not said, but if I were flying her I'd likely be looking to establish a fairly circular orbit that passed over both of them. That would give you maximum flexibility."
"Can you give me some estimate how long after we land we'll have them in orbit over us?"
"Uh, they will be in orbit well ahead of us and come around the back side and overpass the Earth face within the hour after our arrival, or they may land of course. I can't get you exact numbers until we see their orbital insertion burn," the pilot explained.
"How can that be, when they left after us and had to leave from a random window instead of an optimum transfer?" Carlson asked, confused. He wasn't a navigator but it didn't make sense.
"The Happy Lewis left dock and they went straight to a fourteen G bu
rn about a hundred meters from the station. It was so spectacular they already have a video of it posted for the space nuts. I have to admit, it looks more like a missile launch than a manned ship."
"I see. Could you send that to my pad?" Carlson requested. "How long do you think you could function doing a fourteen G burn? How can they do that?"
"A couple minutes maybe? I've experienced a bit more than eight G, briefly and I wouldn't even want to try it without a dead man's switch. What is the point of finishing your burn if it kills you? You could suffocate on your own tongue, if you passed out under that much acceleration."
"You think they have some kind of anti-gravity?" the lieutenant speculated.
"My guys called it inertial compensation, when we were brain storming the question, but there's another possibility. I heard a couple of guys arguing that they may be gene altered to take high G. Those folks do genetic alterations as casually as you'd get a tetanus shot, or take an asthma blocker. We had no idea they could pull fourteen G, nobody has seen them do more than nine before today."
"Then you don't really know what their upper limit is still, do you?"
"No, unless we get some inside information, we just have what we've seen."
"I'm not too thrilled to have them in my sky while we are sitting, vulnerable, on Armstrong field," the lieutenant said.
"That doesn't seem all that ominous to me," the pilot said, surprised at his concern. "Now I'd have been really worried if he was doing a burn with an intercept solution for us."
Carlson hadn't thought of that possibility.
* * *
"I have someone I want you to meet," Gunny told her. "This is Otis Dugan, who just moved to Home. He's another one who won't be welcome back in North America. I've told him quite a bit about you, so he understands where you stand and that makes him feel free to tell you about himself. I think you'll find his story very interesting."
April sat and let him talk. She had just a few questions, mostly because she was not familiar with Earth. Despite visiting Earth a couple times she had never stayed in an Earth hotel. She had always stayed with friends or relatives. Neither had she ever ridden in a plain old jet airliner.
April 4: A Different Perspective Page 10