Méridien (The Silver Ships Book 3)

by S. H. Jucha

Alex regarded his new Admiral, and not finding a ready answer, he just shrugged his shoulders.

  -36-

  It was a pivotal moment for the Harakens. The ships were in formation, orbiting the planet. The SADEs were training their telemetry on the surface and projecting wide and close views of the planet. In the sixty-two years since the Nua’ll had vacated the system, the planet had maintained its bio-health. The ecosystem had limped along, developing vast grasslands across its savannahs. The few trees were small and stunted. The upper winds and heat from the plains created a sufficient energy differential to pull moisture from the oceans and drive light rains across the lands, but the effect was minimal. The planet was in dire need of deep, abundant streams, rivers, and lakes of freshwater. More freshwater would mean more trees, eventually tracts of forests, which would mean more oxygen in the air, increasing the rain cycles.

  In the Harakens’ favor was a deep asteroid ring located between the next two and three planets outward. On the flotilla’s approach to the planet, the SADEs had focused their telemetry on the ring’s myriad bodies, analyzing the resources. The ring was a mix of asteroids—heavy metal, frozen gases over metal cores, and ice mixed with dust. As a resource, the Harakens couldn’t have asked for anything better. It would take some work to harvest the field, but they had the skills, equipment, and people.

  After reviewing the analysis of the asteroid field the evening before the flotilla made orbit, Alex decided to appoint a fifth Minister. Perhaps “Minister” was not the most appropriate title for this appointee, or for that matter his first four Ministers. In total, Alex had selected four men and one woman, people who he knew would be hands-on. Someday they would need administrators but not now.

  Alex had the SADEs model his plan for the environment, and when they pronounced it feasible, Alex asked for the best person to run the operations. The SADEs nominated a pioneer, Benjamin Diaz, a New Terran ex-ice asteroid hauler. Benjamin had been First Mate on his father’s ship for four years until his father died while on EVA for emergency repairs. The son had taken over as Captain of the Full Load.

  After the flotilla had made orbit, Alex chose to meet Benjamin without warning. Z directed Alex and Étienne to one of the Unsere Menschen’s bays. The young ex-Captain was head and shoulders deep in the aft end of an ore hauler with an engineer and several techs.

  When Alex sent the ex-Captain a greeting via implant, Benjamin jerked upright, banging his head into an engine cowl. His first word of “What” had been quickly followed by “Yikes” as he rubbed the back of his head. Rather than reply to Alex’s greeting through comm, Benjamin looked around for the person who had spoken to him.

  “Ser Diaz, over here,” Alex called out.

  Benjamin belatedly realized it was the President who had called and hurriedly lowered himself to the deck via the maintenance grav-lift.

  While Alex waited, he sent an urgent message to both Tatia and Terese.

  “Greetings, President Racine,” Ben Diaz said, extending a grimy, lubricant-laden hand before snatching it back. He pulled a refresher cloth from his ship suit pocket and wiped his hands down. “How may I help you?”

  Alex eyed the ex-Captain for several moments. It was rare to find a New Terran bigger than himself, but there stood Benjamin Diaz, about six centimeters taller and at least thirty to forty kilos heavier. It gave Alex a visual concept of how he appeared to the Méridiens—big.

  “Ser Diaz, I have a job for you, but first I have some questions,” Alex replied, noticing that the bay had gone silent. He ran a location app, identified all the personnel in the bay, and sent, Work sounds immediately filled the bay.

  Alex led Benjamin over to a vacant office, and Étienne sealed the plex-shield door behind them. “Ser Diaz, I would like to know two things. Why did you not renew your government contract for the Full Load? Second, why did you become a pioneer?”

  “Mr. President, Mr. Diaz was my father, always will be. I’m Benjamin—Ben or Little Ben to my friends.”

  A no-nonsense young man, Alex thought. A check of his full bio, which had been registered with Z, revealed he was a year younger than Alex.

  “A pleasure to meet you, Ben,” Alex said, extending a hand and watching a smile form on the young man’s face. Alex’s hand was gripped as if in a vise. “And the answer to my questions?” Alex reminded him.

  “The answer to both your questions, Mr. President, is you and the Méridiens. I looked at my aging ice hauler, compared it to the Rêveur, and was hooked. Unfortunately by the time I finished the Full Load’s contract, brought it home, and sold it, you had shipped out. I took a tech job at TS-1 to learn Méridien technology. Then you brought the flotilla back, and I signed on with a contractor to complete the repairs on this city-ship.”

  “What was your job on the Unsere Menschen?” asked Alex.

  “I handled a plate hauler for the EVA crew, Mr. President,” Ben replied.

  Piloting a plate hauler was a tricky job, and an EVA crew’s safety depended on the pilot’s excellence. The little vessel was part loader, its rear full of hull plating, part jet-powered craft, able to move quickly and precisely, and part crab, lifting a single plate off the stack with flexible arms and positioning it on the hull, guided by laser targeting. The EVA crew worked in close proximity to the tiny but powerful little ship, and they depended on the skill and steady nerves of the pilot.

  “Welcome to the government, Minister Diaz,” Alex said, extending his hand again.

  Benjamin eyed Alex’s hand as if it was stinging reptile. “Your pardon, President Racine. I’m a damn fine hauler Captain and a good tech, and I can pilot almost any work vessel you might have, but I’m no Minister.”

  With that, Alex knew he had found the right man for the job, which he spent the next half-hour outlining. The more Alex talked, the more he had Ben nodding his understanding and a smile replacing his frown. When Alex finished, he stared at Benjamin, waiting for an answer.

  “Well, yes, Mr. President,” Ben Diaz said, shaking Alex’s hand. “That’s a job I can handle. We’ll have Haraken pretty and green in no time and refined ore stacked up so deep in front of your fabrication facilities that the managers will be crying for me to slow down.”

  Before Alex could reply, Ben’s head had swiveled to the side. Alex followed his line of sight, expecting to see a disaster in progress, only to find a young Méridien woman carrying an oversized satchel and searching the bay. Alex regarded Ben, whose face was screwed up as if he was tasting something sour, and had to suppress a smile. Ben was attempting to contact the young woman via his implant comm and failing miserably. Alex sent her a greeting and her bio-ID was returned with her polite response. Alex sent.

  Simone Turin’s eyes searched out the meter-high numbers stenciled on the bay’s walls and swept the row of plex-shield-faced offices below the numbers, spotting the threesome. Simone’s youthful face lit up, as did Ben’s, and the two exchanged small furtive waves as Simone fairly skipped across the bay.

  Étienne signaled the office door open for the young woman. When Simone entered, she dropped her satchel and paid honor to Alex.

  “Greetings, Ser Turin,” Alex returned in Con-Fed to Simone, nodding his head to accept her honor.

  “Greetings, Ser President,” Simone returned in Sol-NAC though her ship suit’s harness. “I do not wish to interrupt your meeting, but Little Ben—I mean, Ser Diaz has need of nourishment before mealtime, so I ensure his needs are adequately met.”

  Alex eyed Ben, calculating that with his size and the effort he put forth, he probably required the intake of at least four Méridiens.

  it not?> Étienne sent privately to Alex.

  In contrast to Ben’s massive size, dark hair, and warm brown skin, Simone was ultra-pale, blonde, and blue-eyed, a slender, ghostly example of her people’s genetic templates. Standing together, the two were night and day, even more so than he and Renée.

  “We were finished, Ser Turin,” Alex said politely. “I was just about to congratulate Minister Diaz on his new position.”

  When Simone heard the announcement, she jumped up into Ben’s arms, hugging him fiercely around the neck, her feet dangling a half-meter off the ground. Ben wore a silly grin and was blushing. Alex gave him a smile and a nod, and left the two alone to enjoy a private moment of celebration. It would also give Little Ben the time he needed to refuel, judging from the size of Simone’s food satchel.

  Alex sent to Étienne, adding a view of Ben’s blushing face.

  When his shadow failed to respond, Alex turned to catch Étienne’s expression wriggling like a fish as the escort tried valiantly to prevent laughing.

  Alex sent as the two men gained the privacy of the bay’s airlock.

  That did it. Étienne burst out in a fit of laughter that had Alex vacillating between irritation and the urge to join him. Before the corridor-side airlock hatch slid open, Alex sent,

  The two very sober and earnest-looking men exited the bay’s airlock and made their way down the city-ship’s corridor.

  Alex sent,

  Simone returned. She smiled at the thought that the President had offered her the perfect excuse to visit Ben each evening in his cabin. This was much better than waiting for Ben to invite her.

  Simone was one of the more exotically designed Méridiens. Her crafted beauty gave her a choice of partners, but her dalliances had become boring, unfulfilling. One afternoon, exiting a meal room, Simone had literally walked into the wall that was Ben. Being a complete novice with his implant, Ben hadn’t exhibited the Méridien courtesy of employing his locale app, warning others of his proximity to a corner or doorway.

  Unable to exit around Ben since he filled the doorway, and finding his comm blocked, Simone had taken Ben’s arm and pulled him aside, guiding him to a table. With Z’s help, Ben’s implant was unblocked, and Simone spent the next half-hour helping Ben establish some basic control.

  In contrast to Simone’s many lovers who had wished to possess her beauty if only for a night, Ben had preferred to talk to her. In fact, that is all they had ever done for many days … talk. The more they talked, the more Simone was endeared to the huge New Terran’s gentle ways. She sought excuses to visit him, discovering that by mealtime, Ben was often ready to gnaw on his knuckles. Thereafter, twice a day, Simone brought Ben her satchel of food, and they talked while he ate.

  * * *

  While Mickey assembled the pool and Eric worked with engineers to discover a means of transporting thousands of kilos of seawater and catching the Swei Swee’s sampler plate, Alex met with Tatia and his Ministers to set priorities, outlining energy sources, fabrication facilities, atmospheric oxygen, city planning for a population of ten to fifteen million, infrastructure, shuttle ports and terminal, ore production, and an administration building.

  When Alex finished reviewing his list, he found himself surrounded by silence. “I would not expect you to complete this list in the first few days,” he deadpanned.

  “I, for one, Ser President,” Lazlo returned drily, “will appreciate an extra day or two.”

  “Sers, I do not wish to overwhelm you,” Alex said. “We’ll take it step by step, but I wish you always to keep the future in mind. When our traveler shuttles are in production, we will grow geometrically. Let’s not be caught squatting in fab-huts. Right now, we need a foothold on Haraken and in the right location.”

  “I have selected several that I favor, President Racine,” said Miriam Dubois, the new Minister responsible for the city’s design and infrastructure.

  Alex requested.

  Cordelia used the holo-vid in the Freedom’s conference room to project a view of Haraken, which rotated slowly, and indicated the four potential city locations.

  “Pros and cons, Minister Dubois,” Alex said.

  When Miriam paused, Julien interrupted,

  Miriam sent a private “Thank you” to Julien. She added “pros and cons” to her vocabulary app.

  Alex magnified the holo-vid view, examining the terrain around each site as everyone reviewed Miriam’s matrix. He was the first to veto a site.

  “Ser President, might I know why this site is inadequate?” Miriam inquired.

  “Rainfall will turn this area into a bog or swamp in ten or fifteen years, Alex explained.

  “But, Ser, those conditions would require an annual rainfall of one hundred centimeters or more. This planet is almost arid.”

  “Let me explain, Miriam,” Ben Diaz, the Minister of Mining, replied. “We are developing a plan to bombard the planet with ice asteroids. We’ll target the oceans, but as they shoot through the atmosphere, they will evaporate or explode from the heat expansion. Either way, we will begin producing weather patterns quite quickly, which will greatly increase the rainfall.”

  “Oh,” Miriam uttered and recovered quickly. She eliminated a second site, stating that runoff from the mountains would build a huge lake that could eventually encompass the valley she had chosen.

  Lazlo examined one site in detail and pronounced it unfit for shuttle terminal expansion. “Even with gravity ships taking off in an environmentally friendly manner, Ser President, they will be constantly passing over the city due to the height of the surrounding hills. I believe that is a risk we shouldn’t take.”

  In the end, no one could find a reason to dislike the fourth site. A fairly broad plain ended on its western edge at cliffs that fell into the sea. A small band of hills bordered the eastern edge and would direct water from rainfall back toward the city. There was expansive space for a metropolis, fabrication facilities, government buildings, and a shuttle terminal without crowding the plain.

  “Have we a name for our new city, Ser President?” asked Ernst Hummel, the Minister of Energy.

  Alex responded with a shrug and looked around the room. No one seemed to have an answer. When he caught Leo Tinto’s eyes, the Minister of Building, Housing, and Facilities glanced down at the table.

  “Minister Tinto, do you have a suggestion?” Alex prompted.

  “I do not mean to be presumptuous, Ser President,” Leo replied, “but I was reminded of the words my mother taught me of her forefathers’ Terran language. Originally my people were from an area on Earth called ‘Basque Country.’ Their word for ‘hope’ was ‘espero.’”

  “Espero,” Alex said. “I like it. Are there any objections or any other thoughts?”

  Hearing none, Alex pronounced their new city named. He took the opportunity to excuse himself for a moment, ostensibly to use the refresher. When Alex returned, he waited outside, leaning against a bulkhead. More than one Haraken who passed Alex and Étienne wondered at their President resting in the corridor. The people had become quite used to Alex’s frenetic pace. Several even queried Z, who seeing no other reason himself why Alex, with arms crossed, would spend time leaning against a bulkhead, would reply,

  “Take a peek, Étienne,” Alex requested, nodding at the plex-shield window set in the conference room door. “Tell me what you see.”

  Étienne crossed the corridor and joined a group of passing Harakens to blend in as he passed the doorway. His technique wa
s surreptitious, and Alex had to refrain from laughing. After Étienne returned past the door again, trailing another group of people, he reported, “Admiral Tachenko and the Ministers appear to be quite engaged. The holo-vid is ever changing, and they are earnest in their communication.”

  “Excellent,” Alex said. “We can go.”

  * * *

  In the Unsere Menschen conference room, Tatia and the Ministers had just begun their work. The concept of delivering ice asteroids to Haraken to accelerate the planet’s rainfall and oxygen levels had energized their imaginations.

  It would be three days before the Ministers would separate. In the meantime, they requested meals in the room, ordered various engineers, techs, and specialists to attend them in their sessions, and employed the SADEs around the chronometer.

  Julien became the SADEs’ central manager. In order to meet the enormous number and complexity of the Ministers’ requests and support the engineering efforts to develop the travelers, Julien began distributing the Ministers’ queries among the flotilla’s SADEs.

  To organize the information and responses, Z ordered the build-out of a secondary database to relieve any one SADE from managing the load. Julien designed an ultra-fast controller to manage the queries and storage, and Z ordered it installed next to him on the bridge. Enormous memory-crystals were added to store the databases. What fascinated Z was the expedient implementation of his request. Not a single objection was raised, not even a question. Next I walk, I run … I fly, Z thought.

  The tasks the Ministers envisioned themselves accomplishing became less and less gargantuan as information came to light. The SADEs knew the flotilla’s inventory. The Librans had been prepared to start an underground city on their original target planet. The bays of the Freedom and Unsere Menschen held mining equipment, ore haulers, repair vehicles, cargo carriers, and crates upon crates of tools, small equipment, power- and memory-crystals, and thousands more stored items. Espero, a city located above ground, would prove much easier to build.