April 2: Down to Earth

by Mackey Chandler

  "OK," she agreed, not sure if he was pulling her leg. "One other thing I need if you have time, Heather. I want a small portable freezer. It should be powered so it stays cold on its own for months without refueling and maintains at least liquid nitrogen temperatures in a small compartment. I need removable containers for samples. Maybe a rack of them with caps like test tubes. And big enough to hold a couple cotton tipped swabs. I'll have a special corona virus to preserve soon."

  "April, you're not getting Home involved in bio-warfare are you?" Heather asked looking very uncomfortable. "I honestly don't want any part of that and I'd try to talk you out of it."

  "No, no." She explained about the gene mod she wanted to buy and the thought she'd like to preserve a sample of the active virus. "I have no idea if Jerry has taken precautions to preserve his legacy, if he was assassinated or had an accident, like we three have done with each other. He is a defector after all. Seems to me that makes him a bit of a target. It would be a shame to lose such a thing. He's here and I think he's so far ahead of the curve, it might not be available from someone else Earthside for a long time."

  "But has he told you it is being patented, or specifically told you it is proprietary? I'd consider getting treated with that myself, but I don't want to have him say later we stole his intellectual property," Heather explained firmly.

  "Let's put it this way. I'd like to preserve it and if he indicates it is not to be shared at any point, I can destroy the sample. If not we can talk about the ethics of it. If it's still available from him, we can pay for it for you two. But if anything happens we'd still have it. Is that acceptable?"

  "Yes and the equipment is easy. They make a perfect unit commercially already, that is for veterinary workers. All the big horse farms and breeders use them. They plug in the standard forty eight volt power for ground cars, so I can just mate it to one of our power units like we're using in hand lasers and it will be fine. I'll buy two and put one here at Home and send the other to be stored on another habitat, so we have redundancy."

  "How about you, Jeff? Think you'd be interested?"

  "I'm not sure," he considered it. "How long has it been since Dr. Ames administered it to himself? Do you know?"

  "Well before he came up, while he was still planning his defection. So I'd say somewhere between six months and a year."

  "Perhaps I'll consider it if he has taken a base line sample of his physical and mental condition and then tests everything again to see if there are any other changes. That's still just a sample of one, which doesn't mean much in medical trials, but it would be something to gauge the risk. I'd have to talk to him about it, if you wouldn't mind?"

  "Not at all. I'll ask him if he'll consult with you if you want." He nodded his thanks. She was surprised Jeff was so cautious. It made her have little pangs of doubt again for herself.

  "Is everything going well with Eddy's new ships?" She asked them.

  "We're all done with them actually. It's up to the shop now. The design is finalized and any minor details Dave's yard workers will be more than able to do. The fabbers are making parts already. We're going to start a design program for the next generation ship soon and that's going to be a long term project we want to get right. We're not going to use a scooter frame or components as a base. It's going to be a fresh design from the start, with every component that can be improved considered for a possible upgrade. It's going to be a load bearing skin instead of a frame. They will be much more modular, made for automated assembly and have greater redundancy on critical systems. I hope we make a lot more than two of this series. The design goal will be to do a Mars run under boost the whole way. After that Dr. Nam-Kha is going to have more of the quantum fluid for the Singh projectors and she promises me a larger quantity of the fluid to do an experiment."

  "Do you call her Doctor when it's just the family at home?" April teased him.

  He blushed and shook his head no. "You know I really do have a great deal of respect for her, so I tend to separate the professional lady from my step-mother. She's not comfortable in Hindi or Japanese and I'm pretty useless in Chinese, so we usually speak English at home. Step-mother seems so distancing and I'd never call her by name, so I've just fallen into calling her Mum. It feels right somehow."

  "I think that's sweet," April assured him. "I'm glad you get along. And I'm glad to see you don't resent your dad being happy. Some days I think he's going to bust his face smiling."

  "My dad deserves to be happy after all he's been through," Jeff told her all serious again. "And you'd shudder to hear all Nam-Kha has been through with the Chinese and growing up dirt poor in Tibet. She lost most of her family early on, to sickness and earthquake. Their own house didn't fall down, but there was no power, no food and no help for days, in the middle of winter. She deserves a chance to be happy, just like my dad. It's amazing she's so kind after all she's been through. Some people turn bitter but she's not. She's very distrustful, of the Chinese in particular, but I can't fault her for that. She worries so about keeping control of her discoveries. The Chinese do have a long history of intellectual property theft," he allowed.

  "But it was the USNA not China that broke into your apartment and tried to steal our things from the Holiday Inn last year," she reminded him. "The militia will keep your things as safe as we can, both yours and your Mums."

  "You I trust April and Heather too of course, but how many members are in the militia now?"

  "About forty and we try to have five or six off Home all the time now."

  "See, that makes me nervous. It's hard for forty people to agree on anything. What if a ship gets pirated and there are a few who want to use weapons to destroy it and a few others balk? Is there a real command tier, or is it a social club? Can someone like Jon override and hold, or force a weapons release?"

  "I'm not sure what would happen if there wasn’t a consensus. Some things like the kinetic weapons are so dumb, once they're released there is no recalling them. We were more concerned with making sure someone would retaliate if Home got nuked, than controlling them. There is no override to keep anyone from a weapons release either." April didn't look very happy with the idea.

  "I never complained about not being invited into the militia, but I'm thinking I want my own small basic systems, so I can defend our property."

  "It wasn't that nobody wanted you in the militia," April assured him. "It's just everybody knew we couldn't risk you in a combat situation. If we lost you and Nam-Kha right now, I still think we'd still lose everything to the Earthies within a few years. We're ahead of them technologically but we have to stay ahead and honestly, you two are the only ones making that happen right now. If you were a militiaman everybody would be scared to death you'd risk yourself. It would distract them when they don't need distracted."

  "I still feel like the lone man out. You know, they didn't used to let women in combat? It feels the same. They had all the loftiest motives to hear it, but in the end the women still seemed to be inferior for needing protection."

  "But that was stupid," April insisted. "Their premise of motherhood needing protected was false. There were never going to be enough women killed to endanger the birth rate. Most everybody can breed, but we don't have other people who can think like you and your mum do, so it's a valid concern. For that matter my dad isn't a militia member. He thought it would interfere with being director for Mitsubishi. Nobody thinks less of him for that. Look, if you want me to ask Jon to let you in I will. I don't think anybody will begrudge you, if you just assure them you don't want to rush to the front as soon as bullets start flying."

  "No," he said still looking stubborn. "I don't want to ask. It wouldn't be the same now, if I felt they were pressured to accept me. And I'd still have all my concerns about the command and control issues. I'd be happy to just let it all drop, if Heather and you don't mind me duplicating some of the militia's systems, but controlled by just we three. The Three Musketeers," he joked.

  "With the bulk mate
rials coming off the Rock now, we can do it fairly cheaply. It won't take any time because the designs are all done and we can farm it out to the same fabricators who already know the jobs. We're not hurting for money either, now that we are getting some license money flowing," he said modestly.

  He didn't mention he had always intended to have some weapons under their control, even last year when they were fighting and never got around to it, in the rush to support the militia. Maybe he had never made that clear enough to them, but why back up and make them defensive by trying to pin down what their thoughts were a year ago?

  April looked at Heather and could tell from her face the idea was not something he'd settled with Heather before talking to her. It wasn't a set up.

  "Hey, the people already voted to allow private weapons, even on ships, so they knew some would be pretty heavy duty," April pointed out. "You don't need our permission, but if you're asking will we help, it's fine with me if it's OK with Heather. She's the one that will probably have to help more, if there are any techie problems doing it. I'd be happy to position them when we are out on commercial runs. If it makes you feel safer go for it. Concentrate on the cheap ones, the kinetic weapons first. After all, if anyone every cracks the militia command system and negates it, a redundant assent is smart to have," April pointed out.

  Heather smiled. "We usually do triple redundant systems. I guess we've been way lax on this depending on the militia's solitary system. I'd be happy to help him set it up and I'll get the keys to all of us as soon as it comes on line. And if we order the same spec weapons, maybe the fabricators will assume they are for the militia and we can keep our system secret. Nothing keeps somebody from cracking a system like not knowing it exists."

  "Good, because I'm developing a different sort of warhead and I'd like us to retain control of it. A fusion weapon but still no fission kernel. Have you seen what they are doing to raise capital, to process the Rock?" Jeff asked, deciding not to say more about his project.

  "No, I probably have a hard copy message at home I haven't read." April said.

  "Look at this," he fished out a slim wallet and pulled out a engraved bank note. It had a scene of the surface of the Rock with Home in the background, a little closer than reality to give better detail. The arch of the Earth intruded from above. There was a serial number in a holographic taste tab and a scroll over the image said, "Asteroid Materials Association, will deliver the bearer, ten thousand kilograms of elemental iron on demand."

  "This is money," April said shocked.

  "Is it?" Jeff asked, with a twinkle in his eye. "That's a very long conversation, but even if it is, the assembly has not forbidden Home citizens from making their own money. It will be pretty hard to counterfeit too. You have to hold a finger on the tab for sixty seconds and you have to register ownership with the company in ninety days. It keeps a record of the succession of owners. The previous owner of record is notified and if it is cashed in for the metal, all the previous owners are notified and can challenge the transaction."

  "I don't have time to talk about it today, but what you just said convinced me, we three need to start a bank before anybody decides to start a central bank or regulate them. If we don't it may be too hard later," April advised them.

  "How long have you been thinking about that?" Jeff asked, surprised.

  "About thirty seconds, but you're not the only one who gets sudden insights."

  "Listen to her," Heather told him. "This idea just feels right."

  "Whatever you ladies say," Jeff allowed somewhat humbled. "We'll start researching it."

  Why just Home? - popped into his head for some reason. He made a note on his pad.

  April had absorbed about as much as she could in one conversation and wanted to get away. "Give me a call when you have the freezer," she reminded Heather.

  "OK, but I want to have breakfast with you day after tomorrow," Heather asked.

  "Fine, I'm going to talk to my grandpa again ‘fore I take off. She touched their shoulders because they had clean room gloves on and went back to the other end of the cubic. Her grandpa seemed done with the fittings, so maybe he wouldn't mind being distracted now.

  "Gramps I have a guy just moved in Home, that is starting a business here doing gene mods," - she proceeded to describe what she had seen of Jerry and his superior reflexes and how cautious he was about doing modifications to himself and also told him Jeff's cautious reaction - "I realize you don't seem to be in a big hurry yourself to do any life extension or modifications. So level with me. How do you feel about changing yourself? Do you plan to ever do it, or are you going to stay a natural?"

  "Stay a natural?" he smiled. "I like that turn of a phrase. I think I'll use that. Did you coin that yourself, or did you hear it somewhere?"

  "As far as I know I never heard it. It just kind of popped out. It seemed obvious."

  "Thought it was fresh," he complimented her. "Well, I've always been sort of private about medical things, but I don't mind telling family. I'm not very natural any more. I've had therapy to keep my circulatory system healthy and some mods that keep my vision young and a few therapies that keep the brain from starting to take the slow slide to dementia. It won't be long before I have to do something to keep my joints working good enough to keep me happy too." he said flexing his hand and grimacing at it.

  "I like this Jerry's attitude not to rush into anything, because that's exactly how I feel. Only trouble is I don't have twenty years like he does, to let the technology mature. I'm going to have to do some major therapy in the next six or seven years. I'd also advice you to avoid anything they aren't sure they can reverse. Since he has a counter virus already that sounds like he thinks the same too. I'd just make sure he's tried the reversing virus out and ask him for a copy of it to hold," he suggested.

  "When your folks decided to have you, the only thing I counseled them about your mods, was to not pick anything not very well tested and reversible. They're smart people; they already had already pretty much decided that by themselves. They avoided the German prodigy mod, thanks be, or you'd be needing meds to stay sane by now. This mod you're talking about, I have to say the way things look I'd give you better odds of survival if you have it. I don't think we're done with war in the inner system, during your lifetime, I'm very sorry to say."

  "Oh?" April asked, sorry to hear that, because she trusted his judgment.

  "I don't think we hurt North America hard enough to really make them feel defeated and the way some down there are complaining about the terms of surrender, I'm afraid we'll have to do it all over again and this time we may have to do it more than we would ever want to. In fact if he has any other mods to benefit a soldier, get ‘em."

  That really surprised April. She had no idea he felt so strongly.

  "Why don't you talk to him for us and see what you think? I already have Jeff going to ask him about the mod and that way I'll have the benefit of your opinion about him also. Not just for this one mod, but your gut feeling about him as a person and long term resource."

  "OK," he grinned at her. "As I said I'm going to need some work before he does and I wasn't very happy about going dirt side to Italy or wherever to have it done. I'd rather stay up here and work with him, if I like him. If he can help me with some of the standard work, maybe I'll get a good deal being his Guinea pig too. I'll let you know."

  "Thanks Gramps," she said getting loose of her perch and wiggling her toes ready to leave. "Love you," she reminded him. Then she turned back suddenly bashful. "I'm glad to find out you'll eventually do some life extension. I was worried you wouldn't for some reason, like Mom's folks. I want to have you around."

  "Love you too, April," he gave a little wave goodbye, nodding at what she said and looking pleased as he went back to work.

  At the other end of the cubic Jeff was already texting an order to Dave's shop, for dumb rods and some fancier reentry vehicles to carry the new weapons he was making.

  Chapter 4


  The dirtside news the next morning was very confusing to April. She tried to understand it as she walked along to the cafeteria. The newest controversy which had gained everyone's attention was a Chinese company offering a new pet modification. Whatever breed of dog you favored, they claimed to be able to greatly increase the intelligence of the pup. The immediate response in North America was a bill to ban the process, although nobody could even state clearly what the precise procedure was they were banning. Many experts were saying they didn't believe the claims, or believe intelligence could even be defined sufficiently to measure the claims. Others joked that you'd just get a dog that acted like a cat and some speculated using the procedure on an ape would endanger human's place on the top of life's pyramid. Others worried the technique would be applied to people, creating a new super race. The reporter interviewed those concerned that such a dog would have a soul and have to be given legal status as a person. Then he spoke with another activist indignant that anyone would doubt that the beloved friends of man didn't already have souls and a place in heaven with their masters.

  When the reporter finally asked - "What do you say boy?" and presented the mic for a deep "Woof!" from a Shepherd-Mix, April gave up and switched her spex off. The people down there were all absolutely mad she was certain and she wondered that they kept things organized enough to keep most of them fed. She considered briefly if perhaps they just manufactured these news articles to fill dead air. She had seen a few dogs visiting Australia and once petted the neighbors' terrier when her grandfather told her how. He explained to her, when the dog leaned against her leg and looked up at her out on the veranda, that it wanted petted. She still didn't understand why it acted like that, or why it seemed to like her at all and had gone in and washed her hands carefully when she was done.

  She didn't think dogs were very sanitary from what she had seen of that one and definitely felt you could boost their intelligence quite a bit, before you could notice much improvement. They just didn't generate the adoring fondness in her she had seen in others. Maybe you had to be raised with them to feel that bond. Now, Allison down in housekeeping had a ferret and even though it had a much smaller skull to hold brains, the little fellow seemed much smarter than a dog. It didn't slobber either.