April 2: Down to Earth

by Mackey Chandler

  He had a substantial breakfast of waffles, carefully brushed with butter, piled with fresh strawberries and blueberries and covered to excess with whipped cream, an eggs and bacon plate to the side with orange juice. But he paid attention to the waffles first. He wasn't in any hurry to talk either, patiently waiting on April after a brief greeting.

  "I do the same thing," April told him, nodding at the waffles. "If you don't eat them fairly quickly, they get all soggy and aren't very good."

  "Yes, the butter slows it down, but you really have just a few minutes before they are all limp. When I came up here I wondered what the food would be like, because I do enjoy eating so much. I was really getting tired of the pressure at the University, to put on a public display of limiting consumption. Skipping a decent meal doesn't really mean anything, if there is no mechanism in place, to let a starving person buy the food I just skipped. I knew having all the equipment and space to cook myself, would probably not be practical. I have to say, I am very pleased with the service available on the standard monthly contract. Do you have a private kitchen available to use Miss Lewis?"

  "Yes, not what an Earthie would consider a real kitchen, but we have a two burner stove top and a small combination oven, as well as a coffee maker."

  "Then your family must have been fairly well to do to have room for that, even before you gained notoriety last year for your part in the revolution."

  April blushed, because she was already uncommonly conscious of the fact her family had a much bigger apartment than usual, even before the war and the hostilities over the Rock had improved the family fortunes. Since then she had become much more publicly visible, as a crew member of the Happy Lewis. Now there was no way to conceal her interest in Lewis Couriers and Singh Industries. Her family's partnership in the captured asteroid trailing Home in orbit, the Rock, hidden behind a corporate name before, was too well known now. It had been easy to turn such comments aside before, by saying everybody on Mitsubishi 3 was relatively wealthy, because it is so expensive to live here you have to be well off. But now her finances were so public it was impossible to shrug them off.

  "My grandfather was among the riggers and beam dogs who constructed the station and he came from a family of working people, who were all shrewd investors and savers. He put all his money into buying cubic here, when it was speculative and undervalued. If he hadn't acted boldly the family wouldn't have had the financial base to buy into the Rock. We still own cubic outspin on the North end and we were one of only two families that didn't throw their zero G cubic away cheap, when the South hub cubic opened to the public for dockage. Everyone said, 'Who is going to dock up North where there are no facilities?' They didn't see the industrial value."

  "And unlike some Earth families I've observed, where the family fortune creates conservative caution in the second or third generation, yours seems bold still, Miss Lewis."

  "Thank you, I hope so," she agreed. "I haven't seen the world carefully taking care of the shy and tentative, I'm sorry to say. But if it doesn't offend, I wish you'd call me April. I've never felt like a Miss Lewis."

  "Well, I appreciate the offer. It sets my mind at ease." He heaved a big sigh of relief, from a tension she wasn't aware was there. "It would please me to call you April and honored if you would call me Jerry. Although if you eventually count me a friend, you'll find most call me Jelly."

  "How did you get such a name? You seem nicely trim and not Jelly-like at all."

  "Perhaps now, but when I was in school they didn't have the meds they have now and I constantly struggled to keep an acceptable weight. I'm one of those unfortunate people who when they carry extra weight, wear it as a soft disgusting spare tire, right around the middle were it squishes over the belt. Not one of those flat sided solid fellows who look like a fireplug," he illustrated with his hands, "On top of which I had a reputation for always having a pocket full of jelly beans and when I met friends I'd offer them a few, so the name was an easy choice."

  "And why," she asked genuinely puzzled, "would it be such a relief to be on a first name basis with me? A lot of people are very uncomfortable with such informality. I met a very nice Frenchman, a Msr. Broutin last year and he would agree to call me April, but he was more comfortable to be addressed formally himself. Using his given name made him feel as funny, as Miss Lewis did me. But usually older people like formality and the younger ones don't."

  "I was relieved, because I was concerned perhaps you or your family disapproved of my business and this meeting was to tell me so. When I saw you were gene mod yourself I thought surely that couldn't be, but then when you asked to be on a first name basis, I know you wouldn't extend that courtesy to someone you're going to ask to leave."

  "Leave? Jerry, I have no authority at all to ask anyone to leave anything. Not even this table, certainly not Home if that's what you meant. Banishment is the worst possible criminal punishment, the people voted for so far. It's reserved for those who we don't want to live with anymore."

  He took the chance while she was talking to polish off the waffles and placed the platter of eggs and bacon on top of the empty dish.

  "Well you may have no official authority," he agreed, dusting the eggs heavily with black pepper. "But I've been informed, that what the Lewis or Singh families want to happen generally does. When I came up here a few months ago, everybody from the agent who rented me my cubic, to the fellow who fibered up my data net, said what a great place the habitat was, how the future was here and a man could do anything he could dream and don't piss the Lewis or the Singh clans off, or they will flush you out the airlock in your boxer shorts and teach you to whistle without air," he said and went calmly back to his breakfast.

  "Why would anyone think such a thing?" she argued indignantly. "I can't think of one person these people have ever actually seen me harm. I mean, we did run down those troopers that invaded us from the Cincinnati, but they were invaders after all. Margaret had already blown half of them to hell and gone at the dock. She blew their shuttle folded over double. Now there's a lady with whom to be very polite," she advised him. "I helped Easy fry one outside the Holiday Inn, but Neil was the one who nailed the rest of them in the lobby with a homemade Claymore, when we chased them in there," she remembered.

  "Jon's crew and the Prentice family wiped out so many of them in the corridors, I don't even know if I ever did get a decent hit on anyone out there, blasting away in the smoke and confusion. North corridor was just horrible - bullet holes and fires, half way across the station and a trail of dead Earthies in breached armor. And it's true Easy and I toasted the Pretty As Jade when we ambushed those two ships, but I was sitting laser weapons board and had hardly even got a start on burning the James Kelly, just took their laser mast out, when Eddie put a missile in them and made ‘em confetti - made my contribution kinda moot."

  She stopped suddenly, stricken, realizing how counterproductive her testimony was and sank her face in her hands in understanding for the first time. "Oh crap, I never stopped and really thought out what it all looked like before," she admitted.

  "Indeed, by the most amazing coincidence, there does seem to be a history of expensive damage, death and destruction, strewn closely behind when you get rolling. If it isn't by your own hand, you can't blame people if they think you must at least be an inspiration, to this crew who seem to run with you. I might point out, when your people got through with North America, the best they could come up with for the Presidential succession was the Postmaster General. Most of us assumed the rest of them hadn't gone into hiding, to avoid taking the office. That took what? About a week? Speaking as one who has just recently come up and I still maintain contacts below, they are still trying to hide from the public, just how badly you pounded them. In military circles, I believe the term is decapitation."

  "Yeah, well, I heard on the news they stopped trying to dig into the bunker at Cheyenne Mountain and the Deepwell bunker, they're calling the Charleston bunker now. The mountains are so bro
ken up inside they shift and are too dangerous to open up. They'd have to work down from the top like a strip mine and what's the point anyway? Nobody is alive in there."

  "Hey," she said, thinking back on what he said. "Who says I'm gene mode anyway?" She managed to sound a little indignant for the privacy issue, but her heart really wasn't in it.

  Jerry just lifted his chin and looked down his nose at her basic four thousand calorie breakfast, with an expression that invited her to deny it.

  "Well, yeah," she admitted, defeated and changed the subject quickly. "So, I have a couple questions for you, but I really don't mean to coerce you to answer them because I'm a Lewis. Just for me, not anything to do with Home or the militia. If you want to tell me it's none of my business and to butt out, it's fine," she assured him.

  He took a sip of coffee and nodded his agreement for her to continue on those terms.

  "You're in the gene business, but I notice you don't try to pretty yourself up, so the customers are impressed with how you look. I mean, for most people it's a huge part of it. Maybe the most important part for some. They may want to live longer, but if you gave them the choice between living longer and looking good, I bet not a few would take the looks. So I'm wondering why? I saw you catch the lady's stuff off her tray yesterday morning and I know you have to have some alterations to be so fast. It has to be a real advantage to be that quick. Is that something you'd sell?"

  "Well, yes. I intend to offer a number of mods eventually, but I'm rather cautious, waiting to see how the political landscape settles out here, before I make myself too conspicuous. Eventually I'd like to attract business from off station, but if there is a sudden movement to restrict such things, I'll be in a very bad situation. I've cut myself off from North America and I'm not sure where else I'd be welcome. I'll do some gene business eventually, but I'm not so broke I will worry about buying lunch for some time. I have some other small sources of income. You however, make two who've noticed this mod," he said with a grimace, that briefly replaced his happy face.

  "After I made the mistake of moving too quickly, I went back up to get my bowl of oatmeal from your friend Ruby. She didn't say anything to me, but when she turned around she held it and the little pitcher of cream on a saucer well up off of the counter and just let go of both of both and turned away. I have to say she is very fast herself, for an unmodified person. She was turned fully, back to me, before they had fallen very far. By the time I caught it without spilling anything, she wasn't even watching. I thought at first she was testing me, but on thinking it over, she would have watched if it was a test. She was just telling me that she had noticed. I think that's just how her sense of humor works."

  "Not much gets past Ruby. Her husband was our primary command pilot on the Happy, when we rescued the Singhs. Among other things she is a Doctor and professor of Medieval European Music and has military experience."

  "She makes a wonderful Western omelet too," he added.

  "Sometime have her make you an asparagus and mushroom omelet, with Monterey Jack cheese," she suggested.

  Abruptly her expression altered and she changed the subject as a thought hit her. "I bet you would be one tough sucker to shoot wouldn't you?" she asked, looking at him real hard. "You'd see the person reach their aim point and start to squeeze the trigger and - zip - you'd not be there to be drilled. It would actually be harder to shoot you up close. Better to stand off down a corridor and hose the whole hall down with a continuous beam." She illustrated with a sweeping index finger.

  He looked down at the finger of death sweeping over his breakfast, with considerable apprehension. "April, believe me, I understand and appreciate the survival traits you have. The same as you can appreciate a leopard in a nature video. But it's harder to look up in a tree and admire one hanging off a branch, looking down on you like it's reading the luncheon menu. You are a lovely young woman and so dangerous you don't look at someone and say ‘Can I take him?' You progress directly to ‘How?' But when you think about it, you unconsciously shift your weight to the left and cup your hand, poised like you are thinking through the motions to draw and burn the life out of me. I really think you need to learn not to telegraph these things, so I can enjoy my breakfast and not be sitting here considering ‘Could I possibly reach the door if I jump up to run and zig - zag fast enough?' it does not aid one's digestion."

  "I'd think it would be more effective, as fast as you are, to close on me instead of run."

  "You flatter me," he assured her, looked pointedly at the pebble textured handle sticking forward from her wide belt. "Whatever the grip is connected to, I don't want a close up experience with it."

  "The aikuchi? It's a present from Genji Akira," April said, touching the hilt lightly. "He sent it as a gift after he won the Publishers and Editors award, with a piece which used some material about me. I suppose he was apologizing in a roundabout way, that he didn't ask permission to use his stringer's pix of me. He indicated this was a proper mate to a couple pieces my grandfather gave me. He thought it a bit easier to carry than a tanto."

  "The Japanese writer? I didn't even know he'd won something. Would you care for some more coffee?" he offered, getting up with his own empty cup.

  "Please."

  When he returned he commented on the coffee, "Smells good." He took the small pad he favored and passed it over the cups as he had done when he sat down. You couldn't see the laser.

  "You are checking for bacteria?" April inquired.

  "Actually this one checks now for bacteria, viruses, drugs, poisons and pollutants."

  "Nice. I didn't know they had gotten so much coverage in a pad plug-in. The coffee here is OK, but my friend Heather's mom Sylvia Anderson has me to dinner now and then and she has me appreciating a much better sort of coffee. She serves a very mild roast which isn't as bitter and it's the sort we buy now for our shipboard use. She's one of the few people here who really get serious about cooking. I'll introduce you if we get a chance. Now they have a real kitchen."

  "April. You mentioned a Msr. Broutin. You don't seem the sort to drop names, but I have to ask, are you speaking of the Foreign Minister of France?"

  "I don't think so. I thought he was some sort of art broker. I meet him at the lady's house I was speaking about, Sylvia, just before the war. From what he said over breakfast he was there to speak with my friend on behalf of the Treasurer of Lebanon. Nice, middle aged fellow - spoke English with almost no accent, just sort of softly inflected. A handsome fellow with a bit of a pointy nose and a little patch of gray at each temple and dressed like a million Euro. He had on one of those expensive handmade suits which hang just perfect around the collar," she demonstrated stroking both hand like she was smoothing lapels down, "even when he sat and the cuffs actually unbuttoned to fold back to wash. He had cuff links on I asked about and he made a present of them to me. I wear them all the time now. I should really get some more."

  "For the Treasurer of Lebanon?" He seemed perplexed, tapping his pad. "Is this him?" he turned the little pad around and she had to look close to see the small screen.

  "Well! I'll be," she was genuinely surprised, "it is him. He never mentioned he did any government work. But then why would he?" she shrugged. "He wasn't here for them; he was doing his friend a favor."

  Jerry refrained from explaining how much some people delight in flaunting their position and power, at every turn. He suspected she would be disdainful of such pettiness.

  Jerry stopped talking for a bit to do a search and kept pecking at the pad while stuffing his face. After a bit he admitted, "Ah, my mistake really. He was appointed after he was up here, but quite soon after the whole mess last year, when the previous Minister was sacked." His eyes narrowed slightly and he looked at her. "You wouldn't have had anything to do with that though, would you?" he asked suspiciously.

  "No not, uh, explicitly," she denied automatically and could see Jerry purse his lips at the qualifier. She wondered now, if Broutin had turned the knowledge
his visit gave him to some advantage. "He was nice. He warned me the North Americans would blockade us." She wanted desperately to get away from discussing politics and grasped for anything.

  "The French have this cute custom of kissing," she started to relate with a smile, remembering how he took her hand and brushed her knuckles with his lips, but when she looked at the expression on his face, she cut it off and said, "No, never mind. I can tell you think I'm making things up."

  "On the contrary, I don't think I've heard the half of it. How many other famous people do you know?" he asked directly.

  "The most famous person I will ever know, is Jeff Singh," she said without hesitation.

  He carefully considered how she phrased that and marked it as important to remember.

  "He has ideas faster than they can be developed. If he just stopped thinking right now, I'm sure he has years of work just doing the lists he has on his pad. He showed me a module he is working on, to split carbon dioxide and return the oxygen to a suit and extract water vapor. When you have this on a suit you could survive until you starve. You may not be comfortable, but you could go two or three weeks and not suffocate. I asked what he was working on one evening and he sat and read a list of projects like that to me, for about a half hour. I honestly didn't understand maybe half of them. But every one was something that would be a major business and is needed. Nothing that is just a fad idea, that will run its course and blow over."

  "A lot people have been trying to figure out if it is Heather Anderson, or you, who is Jeff's girl friend. Care to let me in on it, so I have the straight stuff instead of rumor and gossip?"

  "People shouldn't worry about such things. I don't understand why they're even interested. We're all three business associates. Jeff and Heather worked together before me. But I know for a fact they both take anti-bonding medication, so they don't get distracted with romantic complications. But we're all three bound together in a lot deeper way anyway."