April 8: It's Always Something

by Mackey Chandler

  * * *

  April, Jeff and Heather were in conference on com. They'd have rather been all snuggled together and without pressing business except each other, but that was increasingly difficult to arrange.

  "Jan has mentioned that the North Americans have continued to pay their fees to occupy their portion of the ISSII, but made no effort to send a new crew up to occupy it," Jeff said.

  "He sees that as sinister?" April asked.

  "Maybe not directly malevolent," Jeff said, "but inexplicable."

  "For what are they using the resources instead?" April asked.

  "That seems to be more the focus of Jan's concern," Jeff agreed.

  "They have been acting strangely in Armstrong too," Heather revealed. "I've had a half dozen people seek residence here rather than accept being transferred back to Earth. The number of landings have increased too. But whatever they are bringing in it isn't people, rather they are taking people back to Earth before their full contract period is finished. They're taking anything they can grasp at, as an excuse to purge people from residence."

  "I'm deeply suspicious any time they change habits," Jeff said.

  "Of course," April agreed, "and so is Jan or he wouldn't have mentioned it. He may not have acted excited or upset, that's not Jan. The man doesn't engage in idle chit-chat."

  "Four of our new arrivals have been scientists, which reduces the number of actual researchers at Armstrong to only two, of which these guys are aware. They seemed to assume they would be gone or seeking asylum soon too," Heather said.

  "That's how they characterized themselves?" April asked. "Not just seeking to emigrate but asking asylum? On what basis?"

  "Two of them said they can't contact their families back home in North America, and fear the worst, that they have been purged." Heather said. "One said his scholastic mentor who sat for his doctoral thesis was arrested and anyone connected with him is suspect. They all said they were interrogated about their politics, and not having any politics was regarded as just as bad as having the wrong politics. The one fellow was informed his father attended a church where the pastor is a prominent God's Warriors supporter and was asked to denounce him in order to retain his position.

  "I'm letting them in, but it's going to be challenging integrating them into the community. I suspect I'm going to be founding a university much earlier than we'd planned. Not only is the one lunar geologist pretty useless for anything else but cafeteria work, but he really was doing good work we need and can use in his proper specialty. He can be turned loose with a rover and a minder to make sure he doesn't forget to put his suit helmet on, and be happy as can be doing the same research for us. Several have said they'd have rather gone to Home and worked with Jeff or his mom, but there simply isn't anywhere to live or sleep there, and no research university or company with facilities that would allow them to work at their specialties."

  "Yes, I had the fellow who developed our energy storage device ask me for a job," Jeff revealed. "I don't have the room or the funds to support what he's doing now. My mom had no place for him either, but I promised to work with him if he didn't go back to Earth. You currently have him doing survey work under Mo, if you didn't know who I meant."

  "Yes, I know...Dr. Holbrook. Neither do we have the resources to support more than a handful of researchers yet," Heather said. "I'd hate to see them go back to Earth where they'd have no choice but to use their knowledge to survive. Nothing good for us can come from them working for Earth. Obviously that wasn't their first choice either."

  "You don't have much else to offer them, but at least you could offer them a lunar property for sticking it out with you," April suggested. "It's not like you have a shortage yet, and you wouldn't be displacing cash paying customers. Owning land has a lot of emotional appeal to keep someone attached to a country. I don't think many of these sort are very political in the first place, to care if they live in a republic or a monarchy. They can see a land grant will eventually have cash value like a retirement account. It may make them feel more secure. But who are they bringing into Armstrong displacing these people?" April asked.

  "I don't know," Heather admitted. "However I've sent a half dozen bugs into their pressurized areas hidden in supplies they bought from us, and none of them have survived to return any data. The new people we are getting are, by their nature, not administrative insiders who might know something useful. The academics were no help in describing why they were having their contracts cut short. They were wrapped up in their work and it seems to have caught them by surprise to be pink-slipped."

  "They've gotten better at detecting the bugs then," Jeff said, unhappy.

  "And maybe better at making their own, if that was one of theirs in my place," April said.

  "Mmmm...Heather needs some of our little hunters," Jeff decided.

  "Oh please yes," Heather agreed. "The thought I might get any of those tiny screw head 'bots...creeps me out. You won't have any trouble deploying your hunters here. I will just decree it."

  "I'll have the first half dozen on the next supply shuttle," Jeff promised.

  "I suggest you ask the new people who they imagine, from among their friends and workmates, will be joining them seeking asylum. You should make every effort to recruit them to spy for you. Promise them entry and even a cash payment to get them started in their new life," April suggested.

  "We have com to Armstrong," Heather said, "but I have no doubt it's monitored closely. I could create trouble for the last couple researchers, without even meaning to."

  "Not those two necessarily. Recruit off the field workers and shipping and receiving people," April said. "You'd be amazed how much that level of worker knows about what's happening. Time a shipment for just before lunch, and have your driver ask where to eat and invite the Armstrong worker to a meal. Or have them show a romantic interest."

  "I'd have a hard time...No, I just couldn't ask any of my people to do that," Heather objected.

  "Provide the opportunity and you won't have to ask," April assured her. "People form attachments all on their own. Let it be known what sort of information you want and leave the how to them."

  "I'll do the same in Camelot," Jeff decided. "They do some trade direct with Armstrong. I don't think they see them as the threat Central poses for some reason. They're still Chinese in their minds. It's hard for people to drop long held stereotypes."

  "Annette hasn't said anything about getting any refugees from Armstrong?" April asked Jeff.

  "No, but the stereotype works there too. They see Camelot as having a much different culture than Central. Most probably think they'd have to learn Chinese and take up their dress and diet to live there. In reality I'm not sure if there's anybody at Camelot that doesn't speak English. China is so big they have a dozen regional languages or dialects represented. But everybody had English in school."

  * * *

  The object was very difficult to see. It absorbed radar and there were concerns painting it with too strong a radar pulse might provoke it to self-detonate. Lidar wasn't much better. It had a fuzzy coating of carbon fibers that reflected very few frequencies a laser could generate. The best way to locate it was to track it optically against the bright background of the Earth in full sunlight.

  It was hardly unique at the altitude and inclination of its orbit. Several countries had stealthy objects similarly positioned. They had already captured two, and found one was an abandoned Chinese satellite that was not a weapon, and one was an object owned by another agency of their own government. That was embarrassing. The tip off this was what they were looking for was that it was too stealthy. The Spacers had an edge on them in that tech they had observed on Home ships. They wouldn't try cracking this one open in orbit. They were confident now that it was what they wanted.

  They slowed down and approached carefully until a pair of stereo cameras could establish an accurate distance. The reentry sled was only about the size of a beer keg. On one side a darker opening tapered i
nto the interior. At the bottom of the black funnel was the glint of a tiny lens. Obscuring the lens view hadn't provoked an explosion, which was encouraging. There were no visible antennas. Hard to believe there could be so much potential destruction in such a compact package. It fit easily in the open hold and was cushioned in a bed of aerogel. The greatest danger would be if it self-destructed when undergoing the deceleration from orbit.

  When the acceleration pressing their backs into the shuttle couches peaked at a little over 3G. The best they could do braking back into the atmosphere as gently as possible. The two crew breathed a sigh of released anxiety. If they had triggered anything they didn't expect they would ever know, but they were still here. Their load would be somebody else's problem soon.

  Chapter 6

  "Hello Diana," April was happy at the unexpected call. She liked Di. "I haven't talked to you in a long time. How are things in paradise?"

  "Expensive," Di said, in her usual blunt fashion. Not hostile, but preliminary chit chat just wasn't her style. "The population has bled off a bit. Mainly people who felt trapped on an island or lost their jobs and could still afford to leave. The ones who had anywhere to go have returned to the mainland and other countries, but the price of food has gotten crazy. Just about everybody who can has a garden, and vegetable poaching is a hot topic on the news. They are concerned with over fishing too, and trying to control it."

  "I'd have thought you would be safe from any poachers way out on a dead end road on a ridge," April said.

  "We are, from that direction. Fuel is scarce and outrageous too, so we have no vehicles scouting up this far looking to steal anything. And nobody wants to climb a long winding dirt road on foot to cause trouble. But we've had way too much activity downhill on the other side, in the nature preserve. People collecting plants and I suspect hunting, you know? I've been able to curtail some of it just by flying a drone over them. I think they assume it's the rangers if they see a drone and avoid the area."

  "So you have a garden too?" April asked.

  "Even you have a garden, neighbor. And your caretaker comes over and helps with mine, for shares of course, since I have more open area. We also put some things over the property line in the preserve that won't go wild and become invasive exotics. Guerrilla gardening, Nick calls it. For example I have a ton of garlic thriving just on other side of my stone wall. Enough that Nick even takes some to town and sells it for me. Even Adzusa plays at tending the garden when she's in residence, but she's mostly off working," Di said. "I don't see her for a month at a time."

  "I know, I hear from her, but even less than you. She will drop me a text now and then, but seldom a live call. She visits some real nasty places I'd never want to go. Low bandwidth is the least of your problems those sort of places," April said, and made a face.

  "Yep, she's entertained me with a few stories," Diana admitted. "And I've taught her a few tricks from my experience visiting third world holes, like brushing your teeth with beer. Nick likes it when she's home because he feels freer to go into town. Even if he carries his phone to monitor the alarms it takes him a long time to get back up the hill, and you better not count on the Sheriffs at all, this far out, now."

  "I'm probably not paying Nick enough now," April worried. "I have him go to the neighbor on the other side, the old Japanese couple, the Gotos, and he does yard work and stuff for them too.

  "Not so much anymore. They informed us about six months back that they had some relative die back home in Japan and they would be gone for some time to attend to family obligations and settle legal matters. They hired a live in caretaker of their own. He seems like a nice young man and he has a big garden on their property too. We trade things a little. I never could get ginger to grow for me like he can. The damn stuff is delicate. You just look at it cross-eyed and it gets some exotic mold and dies."

  "I'm surprised they had money to hire help. I had Nick taking them food now and then because they wouldn't take a gift chit for the store after the first time."

  "April, you can get people to take care of a house for free now, just to have a place to stay, even in the city. Some who went back to the mainland have done that so their place doesn't sit empty, or worse, get squatters. Your man Nick is out of school now and doesn't seem to be in any hurry to find a different full time job. He's happy to have time to write. If he found something in town he'd probably be apartment sharing with five or six other young people, and in a nasty neighborhood. He's better off where he is, and it's safer out here. Crime has gone up with bad economic times."

  "Are you doing OK?" April finally thought to ask.

  "Oh Honey, I saw this coming a long time ago. I've been ready for it since about the time you were born. I'd rather not be too specific on open com, but I'm set pretty well. It's hard to time these things, but it's like watching a dead tree across the fence in the preserve. You can't predict which day it's going to fall over, but it's dead certain that's what is going to happen eventually."

  "OK, but if you need help don't be afraid to tell me," April offered.

  "There's one small thing," Diana admitted. "I might be gone for a few weeks. I'd like to be...more like you. You know? Can't do that in the islands here. So I'd like to shut things down and lock the storm shutters closed. I'd link my security system to yours and have Nick monitor it, do a walk through twice a day and feed Ele-'ele. Is that OK?"

  "That's fine, but if I get the drift, is it safe to be more like me? Not just the legal problem but the...illness side of it?" April asked.

  "I have friends who assure me they are almost certain it doesn't pose a future hazard, and it isn't going to be a legal problem much longer. At least not in the islands," Di said mysteriously. "The only other thing is...if Nick does have some problem he can't handle I have a security company on contract to respond. They can have four armed operatives here in five minutes, but I'd like Nick to be able to tell them to land on the aircar pad on your roof if it isn't smart to land in my yard. That would involve you with something that might otherwise be just my problem."

  "I trust your judgment. I'm already involved with you. Do what you need to do, and I'll share expenses if they do have to respond. I figure any threat to your house is a threat to mine too. Aircars burn a lot of fuel. That has to be an expensive service."

  "Yeah, I can't get groceries delivered anymore because of the fuel cost," Di said. "We're too far out. I have a little electric runabout besides the Jeep. I go to the bottom of the hill and meet the guy making city deliveries now. We transfer it and I bring it back up the mountain. If the power goes down I have enough panels to recharge it too. Of course it doesn't take any charge to get to the bottom of the hill, it actually self charges a bit on the way down, so it still has a full charge to climb back up. I bring Nick back up if he can time it right too. He goes into town a couple times a week and tries to time it to let me bring him back up. He puts his bicycle on the roof rack and it can lift both of us and my grocery boxes, but not super fast. It's a heck of a climb for him to do on a pedal bike."

  "Is it hard to feed Ele-'ele?" April worried. He was Diana's Newfoundland, and huge. It must take a lot to feed him, April guessed.

  "As I said, I saw this coming. I've got a three car garage with one and a half cars," Di joked. "Starting a couple years ago I filled the other space with a couple pallets of rice and stuff, and damn near a ton of kibble. I'm a real islander, so I like Spam and can make a can, or other supplies, last a long time bulking it out from the garden. Out past five years I might have problems, but I think things will have changed a lot in five years." Di added a delayed wink to that supposition. April really wanted to talk to her face to face with some privacy.

  "What does Nick do if he's not in school now?" April asked. "I don't pay him that much cash money, and he seemed the ambitious sort to me when I met him. Does he have part time work too?"

  Di raised an alarmed eyebrow and pursed her lips. Apparently that wasn't an easy thing to answer. "What you pay him is h
ard currency. It goes further. He meets people, friends, at a couple coffee houses," Diana said carefully. "He's active, and they talk a lot. Besides that he's writing an epic Hawaiian novel. He read Michener's "Hawaii" in school and it left him unsatisfied. He's determined to do it with better historical accuracy, and then take up where Michener left off mid-century, including what's happening right now. In fact he figures it will be maybe five volumes and the last one will be things that happened during his life, though he claims it won't be a dry history book. So he doesn't see finishing it until he's much older. He says the history part is already set, and he just has to be honest about it. The rest that is happening now, he vows he'll have the depth to write about when the time comes. It's a remarkably honest self appraisal for a young person."

  "Is it bad for him to be associated with me?" April worried, a new thought to her.

  That visibly amused Di. "I'm not sure which of you is the worse influence. You two are a lot alike despite the obvious differences."

  "OK. It sounds like things are stable enough for you right now. When things are going good I've learned not to mess with them. I have no idea when I'll get to come enjoy my home again, but things change. I'll just be patient and we'll have a good visit when I can," April promised.

  "That or I may visit you if you wait too long," Di warned. "I've had a hankering to see what things are like up there for a long time. Things will settle out and I'll get a chance eventually."

  "You're welcome to be my guest if the lift capacity ever catches up," April offered.

  "Thanks," Di said, reaching for her disconnect key. "You're a good kid."

  Coming from Diana April didn't take offense at that.